François de Neufchâteau

Nicolas-Louis François de Neufchâteau (French pronunciation: ​[fʁɑ̃swa də nœfʃato]; 17 April 1750 – 10 January 1828) was a French statesman, poet, and scientist.

Born at Saffais, in Meurthe-et-Moselle, the son of a schoolteacher, he studied at the Jesuit college of Neufchâteau in the Vosges, and at the age of fourteen published a volume of poetry which obtained the interest of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and of Voltaire. Neufchâteau conferred on him its name, and he was elected member of some of the main academies of France. In 1783 he was named procureur-général to the council of Saint Domingue.

He had previously been engaged on a translation of Ariosto, which he finished before his return to France five years afterwards, but it was destroyed during the shipwreck which occurred during his voyage home.

After the French Revolution, Neufchâteau was elected deputy supplant to the National Assembly, charged with the organization of the département of the Vosges, and elected later to the Legislative Assembly, of which he first became secretary and then president.

In 1793 he was imprisoned on account of his supposed political sentiments - as they were deduced from his drama Paméla ou la vertu récompensée (Théâtre de la Nation, 1 August 1793), but was set free a few days afterwards with the start of the Thermidorian Reaction.

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