biography
| name: |
Rivarol, Antoine Rivaroli, comte de (Count of)
|
pronunciation:
[reevarol]
| sex:
| male
|
| lived:
| (1753–1801)
|
| biography:
| Man of letters, born in Bagnols-sur-Cèze, S France. He assumed the title of comte de Rivarol, claiming descent from a noble Italian family, but is said to have been an innkeeper's son. At first a private tutor in Lyon, he then went to Paris, where his reputation as a brilliant conversationalist opened the salons to him. Under his own name he wrote Discours sur l'universalité de la langue française (1784), in response to a competition for the Academy of Berlin which he won. His gift for satire is displayed in Le Petit Almanach de nos grands-hommes (1788), in which he lampooned all the writers of the day. On the outbreak of the Revolution, he joined the Royalist cause, and fled to Brussels where he published a pamplet against Lafayette. He went to England and then to Hamburg, where he undertook a dictionary for which he would write only the Discours préliminaire (1797). His Maximes et Pensées appeared in 1808. |
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