Abel-François Villemain - Wikipedia Abel-François Villemain From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia Jump to navigation Jump to search Abel-François Villemain Abel-François Villemain (9 June 1790 – 8 May 1870) was a French politician and writer. Biography[edit] Villemain was born in Paris and educated at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand. He became assistant master at the Lycée Charlemagne, and subsequently at the École Normale. 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. Here he delivered a series of literary lectures which had an extraordinary effect on his younger contemporaries.[1] Villemain had the great advantage of coming just before the Romantic movement, 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 and Rome or the so-called classics of France.[1] In 1819 he published a book on Oliver Cromwell,[2] 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 in July 1830. Under Louis-Philippe 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 he was one of the chief dispensers of literary patronage in France, but in his later years his reputation declined. He died in Paris.[1] His wit was legendary; an anecdote has a fellow professor saying to him "I have discovered a gallicism in Cicero." 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!»"[citation needed] 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).[1] Lautréamont assessed him thus: "Villemain is thirty-four times more intelligent than Eugène Sue and Frédéric Soulié. His preface to the Dictionary of the Academy will outlive the novels of Walter Scott and Fenimore Cooper, and all the novels conceivable and imaginable."[3] 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").[1] References[edit] ^ a b c d e  One or more of the preceding sentences incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Villemain, Abel François". Encyclopædia Britannica. 28 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 80. ^ "Review of Histoire de Cromwell, d'après les Mémoires du Temps, et les Recueils Parlementaires par M. Villemain ..." The Quarterly Review. 25: 279–347. July 1821. ^ Raitt, Alan William (1998). The Process of Art: Essays on Nineteenth-century French Literature, Music and Painting in Honour of Alan Raitt. Clarendon Press. p. 34. v t e Second cabinet of Nicolas Jean-de-Dieu Soult (12 May 1839 to 1 March 1840) Head of state: King Louis Philippe I President of the council Nicolas Soult Nicolas Soult Foreign Affairs Nicolas Soult Interior Tanneguy Duchâtel Justice and Religious Affairs Jean-Baptiste Teste War Antoine Virgile Schneider Finance Hippolyte Passy Navy and Colonies Guy-Victor Duperré Public Education Abel-François Villemain Public Works Jules Armand Dufaure Agriculture and Commerce Laurent Cunin-Gridaine v t e Third cabinet of Nicolas Jean-de-Dieu Soult (29 October 1840 to 19 September 1847) Head of state: King Louis Philippe I President of the council Nicolas Soult Nicolas Soult War Nicolas Soult Alexandre Moline de Saint-Yon Camille Trézel François Martineau des Chenez (Undersecretary of State) Interior Tanneguy Duchâtel Antoine François Passy (Undersecretary of State) Justice and Religious Affairs Nicolas Martin du Nord Michel Pierre Alexis Hébert Foreign Affairs François Guizot Finance Georges Humann Jean Lacave-Laplagne Pierre Sylvain Dumon Navy and Colonies Guy-Victor Duperré Albin Roussin Ange de Mackau Louis Napoléon Lannes Jean Jubelin (Undersecretary of State) Public Education Abel-François Villemain Narcisse-Achille de Salvandy Public Works Jean-Baptiste Teste Pierre Sylvain Dumon Hippolyte Paul Jayr Agriculture and Commerce Laurent Cunin-Gridaine v t e Académie française seat 17 François de Cauvigny de Colomby (1634) François Tristan l'Hermite (1649) Hippolyte-Jules Pilet de La Mesnardière (1655) François de Beauvilliers, 1st duc de Saint-Aignan (1663) François-Timoléon de Choisy (1687) Antoine Portail (1724) Pierre-Claude Nivelle de La Chaussée (1736) Jean-Pierre de Bougainville (1754) Jean-François Marmontel (1763) Louis-Marcelin de Fontanes (1803) Abel-François Villemain (1821) Émile Littré (1871) Louis Pasteur (1881) Gaston Paris (1896) Frédéric Masson (1903) Georges Lecomte (1924) Jean Delay (1959) Jacques Cousteau (1988) Érik Orsenna (1998) Authority control BNE: XX4580451 BNF: cb11928384w (data) CANTIC: a10465558 GND: 118804634 ICCU: IT\ICCU\RAVV\057719 ISNI: 0000 0001 2279 6677 LCCN: n84051583 NKC: jn19990008791 NLA: 36002692 NLG: 137993 NLI: 000460398 NTA: 069812632 PLWABN: 9810676969205606 RERO: 02-A003943324 SELIBR: 280632 SNAC: w6jh6jg4 SUDOC: 027186164 Trove: 322596 VcBA: 495/92605 VIAF: 49232712 WorldCat Identities: lccn-n84051583 Retrieved from "https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Abel-François_Villemain&oldid=965296755" Categories: 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 University of Paris faculty Members of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres Members of the Académie Française Hidden categories: Wikipedia articles incorporating a citation from the 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica with Wikisource reference Wikipedia articles incorporating text from the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica Use dmy dates from December 2013 All articles with unsourced statements Articles with unsourced statements from April 2016 Wikipedia articles with BNE identifiers Wikipedia articles with BNF identifiers Wikipedia articles with CANTIC identifiers Wikipedia articles with GND identifiers Wikipedia articles with ICCU identifiers Wikipedia articles with ISNI identifiers Wikipedia articles with LCCN identifiers Wikipedia articles with NKC identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLA identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLG identifiers Wikipedia articles with NLI identifiers Wikipedia articles with NTA identifiers Wikipedia articles with PLWABN identifiers Wikipedia articles with RERO identifiers Wikipedia articles with SELIBR identifiers Wikipedia articles with SNAC-ID identifiers Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers Wikipedia articles with Trove identifiers Wikipedia articles with VcBA identifiers Wikipedia articles with VIAF identifiers Wikipedia articles with WORLDCATID identifiers 1911 Encyclopaedia Britannica articles with no significant updates Navigation menu Personal tools Not logged in Talk Contributions Create account Log in Namespaces Article Talk Variants Views Read Edit View history More Search Navigation Main page Contents Current events Random article About Wikipedia Contact us Donate Contribute Help Learn to edit Community portal Recent changes Upload file Tools What links here Related changes Upload file Special pages Permanent link Page information Cite this page Wikidata item Print/export Download as PDF Printable version In other projects Wikimedia Commons Languages Deutsch Español Français Italiano Latina Magyar مصرى Português Русский Suomi Svenska Edit links This page was last edited on 30 June 2020, at 14:30 (UTC). 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