Claude-Carloman de Rulhière (or Rulhières) (12 June 173530 January 1791) was a French

poet A poet is a person who studies and creates poetry. Poets may describe themselves as such or be described as such by others. A poet may simply be the creator (thought, thinker, songwriter, writer, or author) who creates (composes) poems (oral t ...

and

historian A historian is a person who studies and writes about the past and is regarded as an authority on it. Historians are concerned with the continuous, methodical narrative and research of past events as relating to the human species; as well as the ...

Biography

He was born at Bondy, Seine-Saint-Denis. He became '' aide-de-camp'' to Marshal Richelieu, whom he followed through the

Hanover Hanover ( ; ; ) is the capital and largest city of the States of Germany, German state of Lower Saxony. Its population of 535,932 (2021) makes it the List of cities in Germany by population, 13th-largest city in Germany as well as the fourth-l ...

ian campaign of 1757 to his government at

Bordeaux Bordeaux ( ; ; Gascon language, Gascon ; ) is a city on the river Garonne in the Gironde Departments of France, department, southwestern France. A port city, it is the capital of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, as well as the Prefectures in F ...

in 1758; and at the age of twenty-five he was sent to St Petersburg as secretary of legation. Here he witnessed the coup d'état which seated Catherine II of Russia on the throne, and thus obtained the facts noted in ''Anecdotes sur la révolution de Russie en 1762''. Catherine made repeated efforts to secure the destruction of the manuscript, which remained unpublished until after the empress's death. Rulhière became secretary to the comte de Provence (afterwards Louis XVIII) in 1773, and he was admitted to the Académie Française in 1787. The later years of his life were spent chiefly in Paris, where he held an appointment in the Foreign Office and went much into society; but he visited

Germany Germany, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It lies between the Baltic Sea and the North Sea to the north and the Alps to the south. Its sixteen States of Germany, constituent states have a total popu ...

and

Poland Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It extends from the Baltic Sea in the north to the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains in the south, bordered by Lithuania and Russia to the northeast, Belarus and Ukrai ...

in 1776. His unfinished ''Histoire de l'anarchie de Pologne'' (4 vols., 1807) was published posthumously under the editorship of PCF Daunou. The only important historical work which he published during his lifetime was his ''Eclaircissements historiques sur les causes de la révocation de l'édit de Nantes ...'' (2 vols., 1788), undertaken in view of the restoration to the Protestants of their

civil rights Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals' political freedom, freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure one's entitlement to participate in the civil and ...

. Rulhière died at Bondy. His short sketch of the Russian coup d'état of 1762 is justly ranked among the masterpieces of the kind in French. Of the larger ''Poland'' Thomas Carlyle, as justly, complains that its allowance of fact is too small in proportion to its bulk. The author was also a fertile writer of ''vers de société'' (" olitesociety verses"), short satires, epigrams, etc., and he had a considerable reputation among the witty and ill-natured group also containing Nicolas Chamfort, Antoine de Rivarol, Louis René de Champcenetz, etc. On the other hand, he has the credit of caring for

Jean-Jacques Rousseau Jean-Jacques Rousseau (, ; ; 28 June 1712 – 2 July 1778) was a Republic of Geneva, Genevan philosopher (''philosophes, philosophe''), writer, and composer. His political philosophy influenced the progress of the Age of Enlightenment through ...

in his morose old age, until Rousseau as usual quarrelled with him. Rulhière's works were edited, with a notice by Pierre-René Auguis, in 1819 (Paris, 6 vols. in-8). ''The Russian Revolution'' may be found in the ''Chefs-d'œuvre historiques'' of the '' Collection Didot'', and the Poland, with title altered to ''Révolutions de Pologne'', in the same collection. See also a notice by Eugène Asse prefixed to an edition (1890) of Rulhière's ''Anecdotes sur le Maréchal de Richelieu''; Sainte-Beuve, ''Causeries du lundi'' (vol. iv.).

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Rulhiere, Claude-Carloman de 1735 births 1791 deaths People from Bondy 18th-century French historians French poets Members of the Académie Française French male poets French male non-fiction writers