Abel-François Villemain (9 June 17908 May 1870) was a French politician and writer.

Biography

Villemain was born in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

and educated at the

Lycée Louis-le-Grand The Lycée Louis-le-Grand (), also referred to simply as Louis-le-Grand or by its acronym LLG, is a public Lycée (French secondary school, also known as sixth form college) located on rue Saint-Jacques in central Paris. It was founded in the ...

. He became assistant master at the

Lycée Charlemagne The Lycée Charlemagne is located in the Marais quarter of the 4th arrondissement of Paris, the capital city of France. Constructed many centuries before it became a lycée, the building originally served as the home of the Order of the Jesui ...

, and subsequently at the

École Normale École may refer to: * an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by secondary education establishments (collège and lycée) * École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing in région Île-de-France * École, Savoi ...

. In 1812 he gained a prize from the academy with an essay on Michel de Montaigne. Under the restoration he was appointed, first, assistant professor of modern history, and then professor of French eloquence at the

Sorbonne Sorbonne may refer to: * Sorbonne (building), historic building in Paris, which housed the University of Paris and is now shared among multiple universities. *the University of Paris (c. 1150 – 1970) *one of its components or linked institution, ...

. Here he delivered a series of literary lectures which had an extraordinary effect on his younger contemporaries. Villemain had the great advantage of coming just before the

Romantic movement Romanticism (also known as the Romantic movement or Romantic era) was an artistic, literary, musical, and intellectual movement that originated in Europe towards the end of the 18th century, and in most areas was at its peak in the approximate ...

, of having a wide love of literature without being an extremist. Most of the clever young men of the brilliant generation of 1830 passed under his influence; and, while he pleased the Romanticists by his frank appreciation of the beauties of English, German, Italian, and Spanish poetry, he did not decry the classics—either the classics proper of

Greece Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders ...

and Rome or the so-called classics of France. In 1819 he published a book on

Oliver Cromwell Oliver Cromwell (25 April 15993 September 1658) was an English politician and military officer who is widely regarded as one of the most important statesmen in English history. He came to prominence during the 1639 to 1651 Wars of the Three K ...

, and two years later he was elected to the academy. Villemain was appointed by the restoration government ''Chef de l'imprimerie et de la librairie'', a post involving a kind of irregular censorship of the press, and afterwards to the office of master of requests. Before the revolution of July he had been deprived of his office for his liberal tendencies, and was elected deputy for

Évreux Évreux () is a commune in and the capital of the department of Eure, in the French region of Normandy. Geography The city is on the Iton river. Climate History In late Antiquity, the town, attested in the fourth century CE, was named ...

in July 1830. Under

Louis-Philippe Louis Philippe (6 October 1773 – 26 August 1850) was King of the French from 1830 to 1848, and the penultimate monarch of France. As Louis Philippe, Duke of Chartres, he distinguished himself commanding troops during the Revolutionary Wa ...

he was made a Peer of France in 1832. He was a member of the council of public instruction, and was twice minister of that department, and he also became secretary of the academy. During the whole of the

July monarchy The July Monarchy (french: Monarchie de Juillet), officially the Kingdom of France (french: Royaume de France), was a liberal constitutional monarchy in France under , starting on 26 July 1830, with the July Revolution of 1830, and ending 23 F ...

he was one of the chief dispensers of literary patronage in France, but in his later years his reputation declined. He died in Paris. His wit was legendary; an anecdote has a fellow professor saying to him "I have discovered a

gallicism A Gallicism can be: * a mode of speech peculiar to the French; * a French idiom; * in general, a French mode or custom. * a loanword, word or phrase borrowed from French. See also * Francization * Franglais * Gallic (disambiguation) * Gallican R ...

Cicero Marcus Tullius Cicero ( ; ; 3 January 106 BC – 7 December 43 BC) was a Roman statesman, lawyer, scholar, philosopher, and academic skeptic, who tried to uphold optimate principles during the political crises that led to the esta ...

." The professor had been a revolutionary during the revolution, a follower of Napoleon during the Empire and a royalist during the restauration. Villemain answered quickly to him: "I found one too: «Quantae infidelitates! Quot amicorum fugae!»" Villemain's chief work is his ''Cours de la littérature française'' (5 vols., 1828–1829). Among his other works are: ''Tableau de la littérature au Moyen Âge'' (2 vols., 1846); ''Tableau de la littérature au XVIII siècle'' (4 vols., 1864); ''Souvenirs contemporains'' (2 vols., 1856); ''Histoire de Grégoire VII'' (2 vols., 1873; Engl. trans., 1874). Lautréamont assessed him thus: "Villemain is thirty-four times more intelligent than

Eugène Sue Marie-Joseph "Eugène" Sue (; 26 January 18043 August 1857) was a French novelist. He was one of several authors who popularized the genre of the serial novel in France with his very popular and widely imitated ''The Mysteries of Paris'', whic ...

and Frédéric Soulié. His preface to the ''Dictionary of the Academy'' will outlive the novels of

Walter Scott Sir Walter Scott, 1st Baronet (15 August 1771 – 21 September 1832), was a Scottish novelist, poet, playwright and historian. Many of his works remain classics of European and Scottish literature, notably the novels '' Ivanhoe'', '' Rob Roy ...

and

Fenimore Cooper James Fenimore Cooper (September 15, 1789 – September 14, 1851) was an American writer of the first half of the 19th century, whose historical romances depicting colonist and Indigenous characters from the 17th to the 19th centuries brought ...

, and all the novels conceivable and imaginable." Among notices on Villemain may be cited that of Louis de Loménie (1841), E. Mirecourt (1858), J.L. Dubut (1875). See also Sainte-Beuve, ''Portraits'' (1841, vol. iii), and ''Causeries du lundi'' (vol. xi, "Notes et pensées").

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Villemain, Abel-Francois 1790 births 1870 deaths Writers from Paris Politicians from Paris Doctrinaires Orléanists French Ministers of National Education Members of the 1st Chamber of Deputies of the July Monarchy Members of the Chamber of Peers of the July Monarchy Philhellenes French male writers Lycée Louis-le-Grand alumni Academic staff of the University of Paris Members of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres Members of the Académie Française