Quote of the Day

"Action makes more fortune than caution."

Luc De Clapiers, 1715-1747, Essayist was born in Aix-en-Provence. His family was poor though noble; he was educated at the college of Aix, where he learned little—neither Latin nor Greek—but by means of a translation acquired a great admiration for Plutarch.

He entered the army as sub-lieutenant in the king's regiment, and served for more than ten years, taking part during the War of the Polish Succession in the Italian campaign of Marshal Villars in 1733, and in the disastrous expedition to Bohemia in support of Frederick II of Prussia's designs on Silesia, in which the French were abandoned by their ally.
There, in 1740, he met and fell in love with an aristocratic eighteen year old soldier eight years his junior, Paul Hippolyte Emmanuel de Seytres. De Seytres died shortly thereafter, during the Siege of Prague in 1742. De Clapiers addressed his philosophical work Conseil à un jeune homme (Advice to a young Man) to his young beloved. He also wrote a funeral eulogy for him, a work which he considered to be among the most important of his life, and which he continued to polish until his death. Vauvenargues discusses in his writings his hate of women and his love of young men, which he defends as having nothing against nature, and blames "malicious spirits" for criminalizing his tastes in love. (Michel Lariviere, "Homosexuels et bisexuels celebres" p.329)

Vauvenargues took part in Marshal Belleisle's winter retreat from Prague. On this occasion his legs were frozen, and though he spent a long time in hospital at Nancy he never completely recovered. He was present at the battle of Dettingen, and on his return to France was garrisoned at Arras. His military career was now at an end.

He had long been desired by the marquis of Mirabeau, author of L'Ami des Hommes, and father of the statesman, to turn to literature, but poverty prevented him from going to Paris as his friend wished. He wished to enter the diplomatic service, and made applications to the ministers and to king Louis XV himself. These efforts were unsuccessful, but Vauvenargues was on the point of securing his appointment through the intervention of Voltaire when an attack of smallpox completed the ruin of his health and rendered diplomatic employment out of the question. Voltaire then asked him to submit to him his ideas of the difference between Jean Racine and Pierre Corneille. The acquaintance thus begun ripened into real and lasting friendship.

Vauvenargues moved to Paris in 1745, and lived there in the closest retirement, seeing but few friends, of whom Jean-François Marmontel and Voltaire were the chief. Among his correspondents was the archaeologist Fauris de Saint-Vincens. Vauvenargues published in 1746 an Introduction à la connaissance de l'esprit humain, with certain Reflexions and Maximes appended.

He died in Paris on May 28, 1747.