François-René, vicomte de Chateaubriand was a French writer, politician, diplomat and historian who influenced French literature of the nineteenth century. Descended from an old aristocratic family from Brittany, Chateaubriand was a royalist by political disposition. In an age when large numbers of intellectuals turned against the Church, he authored the Génie du christianisme in defense of the Catholic faith. His works include the autobiography Mémoires d'Outre-Tombe, published posthumously in 1849–1850.
Jean-Jacques Lefranc, Marquis de Pompignan was a French man of letters and erudition, who published a considerable output of theatrical work, poems, literary criticism, and polemics; treatises on archeology, nature, travel and many other subjects; and a wide selection of highly regarded translations of the classics and other works from several European languages including English.
Jean-François de La Harpe was a French playwright, writer and literary critic.
Armand de Bourbon, Prince of Conti, was a French nobleman, the younger son of Henri II, Prince of Condé and Charlotte Marguerite de Montmorency, daughter of Henri I, Duke of Montmorency. He was the brother of le Grand Condé and Anne Geneviève, Duchess of Longueville. As a member of the reigning House of Bourbon, he was a Prince du Sang.
Florent Carton aka Dancourt, French dramatist and actor, was born at Fontainebleau. He belonged to a family of rank, and his parents entrusted his education to Pere de la Rue, a Jesuit, who made earnest efforts to induce him to join the order. But he had no religious vocation and proceeded to study law.
Jean Chardin, born Jean-Baptiste Chardin, and also known as Sir John Chardin, was a French jeweller and traveller whose ten-volume book The Travels of Sir John Chardin is regarded as one of the finest works of early Western scholarship on Safavid Iran and the Near East in general.
Pierre de Larivey was a French dramatist of Italian origin. He is credited with introducing the Italian "comedy of intrigue" into France.
The Château de Chantilly is a historic French château located in the town of Chantilly, Oise, about 50 kilometres north of Paris. The site comprises two attached buildings: the Petit Château, built around 1560 for Anne de Montmorency, and the Grand Château, which was destroyed during the French Revolution and rebuilt in the 1870s. The château is owned by the Institut de France, which received it from Henri d'Orléans, Duke of Aumale.
17th-century French literature was written throughout the Grand Siècle of France, spanning the reigns of Henry IV of France, the Regency of Marie de Medici, Louis XIII of France, the Regency of Anne of Austria and the reign of Louis XIV of France. The literature of this period is often equated with the Classicism of Louis XIV's long reign, during which France led Europe in political and cultural development; its authors expounded the classical ideals of order, clarity, proportion and good taste. In reality, 17th-century French literature encompasses far more than just the classicist masterpieces of Jean Racine and Madame de La Fayette.
18th-century French literature is French literature written between 1715, the year of the death of King Louis XIV of France, and 1798, the year of the coup d'État of Bonaparte which brought the Consulate to power, concluded the French Revolution, and began the modern era of French history. This century of enormous economic, social, intellectual and political transformation produced two important literary and philosophical movements: during what became known as the Age of Enlightenment, the Philosophes questioned all existing institutions, including the church and state, and applied rationalism and scientific analysis to society; and a very different movement, which emerged in reaction to the first movement; the beginnings of Romanticism, which exalted the role of emotion in art and life.
An overview of the theatre of France.
Pézenas is a commune in the Hérault department in the Occitanie region in southern France.
Abel-François Poisson de Vandières, marquis de Marigny and marquis de Menars, often referred to simply as marquis de Marigny, was a French nobleman who served as the director general of the King's Buildings. He was the brother of King Louis XV's influential mistress Madame de Pompadour.
Germain Boffrand was a French architect. A pupil of Jules Hardouin-Mansart, Germain Boffrand was one of the main creators of the precursor to Rococo called the style Régence, and in his interiors, of the Rococo itself. In his exteriors he held to a monumental Late Baroque classicism with some innovations in spatial planning that were exceptional in France His major commissions, culminating in his interiors at the Hôtel de Soubise, were memorialised in his treatise Livre d'architecture, published in 1745, which served to disseminate the French Louis XV style throughout Europe.
Samuel Chappuzeau was a French scholar, author, poet and playwright whose best-known work today is Le Théâtre François, a description of French Theatre in the seventeenth century.
Jean-Baptiste Lully was a French composer, dancer and instrumentalist of Italian birth, who is considered a master of the French Baroque music style. Best known for his operas, he spent most of his life working in the court of Louis XIV of France and became a French subject in 1661. He was a close friend of the playwright Molière, with whom he collaborated on numerous comédie-ballets, including L'Amour médecin, George Dandin ou le Mari confondu, Monsieur de Pourceaugnac, Psyché and his best known work, Le Bourgeois gentilhomme.
The Château d'Issy, at Issy-les-Moulineaux, in the Hauts-de-Seine department of France, was a small French Baroque château on the outskirts of Paris. It was destroyed during the Paris Commune of 1871.
Monsieur de Pourceaugnac is a three-act comédie-ballet—a ballet interrupted by spoken dialogue—by Molière, first presented on 6 October 1669 before the court of Louis XIV at the Château of Chambord by Molière's troupe of actors. Subsequent public performances were given at the theatre of the Palais-Royal beginning on 18 November 1669. The music was composed by Jean-Baptiste Lully, the choreography was by Pierre Beauchamp, the sets were by Carlo Vigarani, and the costumes were created by the chevalier d’Arvieux.
Sabine Chaouche is a scholar expert in the history of theatre, intellectual history and also social and economic history.
The Louis XIV style or Louis Quatorze, also called French classicism, was the style of architecture and decorative arts intended to glorify King Louis XIV and his reign. It featured majesty, harmony and regularity. It became the official style during the reign of Louis XIV (1643–1715), imposed upon artists by the newly established Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture and the Académie royale d'architecture. It had an important influence upon the architecture of other European monarchs, from Frederick the Great of Prussia to Peter the Great of Russia. Major architects of the period included François Mansart, Jules Hardouin Mansart, Robert de Cotte, Pierre Le Muet, Claude Perrault, and Louis Le Vau. Major monuments included the Palace of Versailles, the Grand Trianon at Versailles, and the Church of Les Invalides (1675–1691).
