Jean de La Bruyère
| Jean de La Bruyère | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
August 16, 1645 Paris, Kingdom of France |
| Died |
May 11, 1696 (aged 50) Versailles, Kingdom of France |
| Language | French |
| Period | 17th-century French literature |
| Literary movement | French moralists |
| Notable awards |
Académie française (Seat 36) |
Jean de La Bruyère (French: [ʒɑ̃ də la bʁyjɛʁ]; 16 August 1645 – 11 May 1696) was a French philosopher and moralist.
La Bruyère was born in Paris, (not, as was once thought, in Dourdan (in today's Essonne département)) in 1645. His family was middle class, and his reference to a certain Geoffroy de La Bruyère, a crusader, is only a satirical illustration of a method of self-ennoblement common in France as in some other countries. Indeed, he himself always signed the name Delabruyère in one word, as evidence of this. La Bruyère could trace his family back on his father's side at least as far as his great-grandfather who along with his grandfather had been a dedicated member of the Catholic League and had been exiled from France when Henri IV came to the throne.
La Bruyère's own father had also been active in the League under the Duke of Guise in 1584. His father was also controller general of finance to the Hôtel de Ville, and despite the country's turmoil was able to pay for La Bruyère's education and leave him a considerable sum.
The son was educated by the Oratorians and at the University of Orléans; he was called to the bar, and in 1673 bought a post in the revenue department at Caen, which gave him status and an income. His predecessor in the post was a relation of Jacques Benigne Bossuet, and it is thought that the transaction was the cause of La Bruyère's introduction to the great orator Bossuet, who from the date of his own preceptorship of the Dauphin, was a kind of agent-general for tutorships in the royal family, introduced him in 1684 to the household of the Louis, Prince of Condé (1621–1686), to whose grandson Louis as well as to that prince's girl-bride Mlle de Nantes, one of Louis XIV's natural children, La Bruyère became tutor. The rest of his life was passed in the household of the prince or else at court, and he seems to have profited by the inclination which all the Condé family had for the society of men of letters.
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