Claude Yvon

The Abbé Claude Yvon (15 April 1714 – November 1789) was a French encyclopédiste, a savant who contributed to the Encyclopédie edited by Denis Diderot and Jean le Rond d'Alembert.

Yvon was born in Mamers, Maine on the border with Normandy on 15 April 1714. Nothing is known about his early life, except that he received holy orders before moving to Paris. There he made a poor living as a teacher at the Sorbonne, preparing students for their exams, and wrote several anonymous works.

His first work published under his own name were articles in the Encyclopédie on Ame (Soul), Atheé (Atheism), Dieu (God) and several others. In these articles, Yvon gives many arguments in favour of the soul and of God, but proposes that the best arguments are the natural or philosophical ones.

The apparently harmless articles attracted the attention of the official controllers of the philosophical press, who notified the advocate-general, Omer Joly de Fleury. Joly de Fleury wrote a violent indictment of the articles, particularly that on the Soul, which he said was infected with atheism. Voltaire responded by saying the article was one of the worst in the book, but that contrary to the accusation it was far from supporting materialism but in fact made every effort to oppose materialism. However, in the eyes of the church Yvon, by appealing to rationalist arguments, was in effect an atheist.

Yvon was suspected of contributing to a controversial thesis published in 1752 by Jean-Martin de Prades, and fled to Holland to avoid the storm. While there, he was employed by the publisher Marc-Michel Rey as a corrector. The records of an Amsterdam masonic lodge record him speaking on the virtues of the philosopher. From the Dutch Republic he moved on to Berlin. The third volume of the Encyclopédie noted that "M. l'abbé Yvon ... est absent". However, his unsigned articles continued to appear in the Encyclopédie.

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