French Literature Reviews - 2026

C. Arnaud, Chamfort: Biography, followed by 70 unpublished or long-out-of-print maxims, anecdotes, witticisms, and dialogues
Writers: Biography, Letters and Memoirs

Chamfort - Biography, followed by seventy unpublished or long-out-of-print maxims, anecdotes, witticisms, and dialogues

Claude Arnaud

Publication date: 06/10/2016 Publisher: Perrin Series: Tempus ISBN: 978-2-262-06811-0 EAN: 9782262068110 Format: Paperback Presentation: Softcover No. of pages: 479 p.

How can one retrace the "concentrated existence" of a complex and contradictory personality who proudly waved the banner of independence? Or how can one explain the impossible coexistence between a hypersensitive soul and a man who sought nothing more than to be loved? Such is the ambition of this superb biography, which brings back to life the illustrious unknown that was Sébastien-Roch Nicolas de Chamfort (1740–1794), regarded alongside Rivarol as the finest writer of the final generation of the Enlightenment.

It is a successful ambition, as it brilliantly illuminates both the writer and the man: torn between two worlds, a friend of the elite yet a revolutionary, a misanthrope and an idealist, he rubbed shoulders with Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, Talleyrand, and Mirabeau… The appendix also features 70 anecdotes, witticisms, and maxims that established his renown.

Claude Arnaud is a writer, essayist, biographer, and columnist for Le Point. He is notably the author of an autobiographical trilogy, several novels, and a critically acclaimed biography of Cocteau.

Sebastien-Roch Nicolas de Chamfort stands alongside figures like Rivarol as a prominent representative of the witty, polished conversational style that flourished in the aristocratic salons of the late French Enlightenment. As a genre, the literary biography in French studies often seeks to reconcile the private sensibilities of a writer with the turbulent public events of their era, particularly the transition from the Ancien Regime to the Revolution. This work examines a complex figure who navigated the highest intellectual circles of his time while maintaining a famously independent and critical stance toward society and power.

The volume includes seventy unpublished or long-out-of-print maxims, anecdotes, witticisms, and dialogues that illustrate the sharp observational style for which the author became renowned. Readers interested in eighteenth-century French literature, the history of the moralist tradition, or the biographical study of Enlightenment figures may find this paperback edition relevant to their pursuits.