Charles-Jean-François Hénault
| Charles-Jean-François Hénault | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
8 February 1685 Paris, France |
| Died | 24 November 1770 (aged 85) Paris |
| Nationality | French |
| Occupation | Writer and historian |
Charles-Jean-François Hénault (8 February 1685 – 24 November 1770) was a French writer and historian.
Hénault was born in Paris. His father, René Jean Rémy Hénault de Cantobre (1648–1737) a farmer-general of taxes, Ferme générale, was a man of literary tastes, and young Hénault obtained a good education at the Jesuit college, Lycée Louis-le-Grand. His mother was the Françoise de Ponthon († 1738).
Captivated by the eloquence of Massillon, in his fifteenth year he entered the Oratory with the view of becoming a preacher but after two-year's residence he changed his intention, and, inheriting a position which secured him access to the most select society of Paris, he achieved distinction at an early period by his gay, witty and graceful manners.
Hénault's literary talent, manifested in the composition of various light poetical pieces, an opera, a tragedy (Cornélie, vestale, 1713), etc., obtained his entrance to the Academy (1723). Petit-maître as he was, he had also serious capacity, for he became councillor of the parlement of Paris (1705), and in 1710 he was chosen president of the court of enquites. He also hosted the Club de l'Entresol (1724–1731) in his house on the Place Vendôme. After the death of the count de Rieux (son of the famous financier, Samuel Bernard) he became (1753) superintendent of the household of Queen Marie Leszczynska, whose intimate friendship he had previously enjoyed.
On Hénault'srecovery in his eightieth year from a dangerous malady (1765) he professed to have undergone religious conversion and retired into private life, devoting the remainder of his days to study and devotion. His religion was, however, according to the marquis d'Argenson, exempt from fanaticism, persecution, bitterness and intrigue; and it did not prevent him from continuing his friendship with Voltaire, to whom it is said he had formerly rendered the service of saving the manuscript of La Henriade, when its author was about to commit it to the flames.
The literary work on which Hénault bestowed his chief attention was the Abrégé chronologique de l'histoire de France, first published in 1744 without the author's name. In the compass of two volumes he comprised the whole history of France from the earliest times to the death of Louis XIV. The work has no originality. Hénault had kept his note-books of the history lectures at the Jesuit college, of which the substance was taken from Mézeray and P Daniel. He revised them first in 1723, and later put them in the form of question and answer on the model of P le Ragois, and by following Dubos and Boulainvilliers and with the aid of the abbé Boudot he compiled his Abrégé.
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