NICOLAS ( 741-94). A French epigrammatist, the best talker of his generation in France. He was born in Auvergne, an illegitimate child, was educated on a scholarship in Paris. and achieved a distinction in classic studies that led him in after-years to write. "What I learned I have forgotten. The little that I do know I have guessed." He left school to become an ah10, costume, not a profession." he said. adding when offered a benefice that lie "preferred honor to For the moment, however, he got neither. Booksellers declined his books, and for a year he lived by writing other people's sermons and on chance journalistic crumbs. Then he won an academic prize and became the fashion in the literary salons, where lie led a life of gallantry from which lie had presently to seek rest and re cuperation at Spa and elsewhere. Returning, lie wrote a successful drama, La jrune Indienne (17G4). He made a living, scanty to be sure, more by his tongue than by his pen, paying for his entertainment by the entertainment that lie gave to his host', r.peeinlly Aladame and C'habanon, who resigned to him a pension of 1200 livres on the 11(Trure de Prance. Occasion ally lie won academie prizes, as by his eulogies on :\lolii%re and Lafontaine. But with every epi gram his reputation The King added 1200 livres to his pension and the Prince de Combe made him his secretary, a post that he found uncongenial to his bohemian ism. Ile withdrew to Auteuil. and married a clever woman of forty eight, who died six months after. Then lie went to Holland. but returned to accept a seat in the Academy in 17til. An unfortunate and mysterious love affair soon made him quit the Court forever, but lie gathered him at the house of 1\1. de Vandreuil a congenial circle,
which included INlirabeau, whom Chainfort help ed with his orations. Ile worked actively for the Revolution with tongue and pen, for a time as secretary of the Jacobin Club and as street ora tor. He was with the stormers of the Bastille. lint with the fall of the Girondists his political life ended and his criticisms of the Terrorists soon made them anxious to silence his hitter tongue with the guillotine. This lie escaped by suicide with dagger and pistol. Ile did not die immediately. however, but lived to bequeath to the world two final epigrams. ''I declare," he dictated to the police who came to arrest him and signed with his blood, "that I wished to (lie free rather than be led slave to prison." To Abb(1 Sii•yes, who owed his political fortune to Chainfoft's epigram on the Third Estate, "It is everything and has nothing," he said, as his last word, "I am going at last from a world where the heart must either break or turn to bronze." No writing of Chamfort's is worth recalling save his aphorisms ( lfaximes et pensees), which, after those of La Roehefoucauld, are the keenest and most incisive, the most pregnantly cynical of modern literature. They are restrained in ut terance, violent in implication, subtle in manner, iconoclastic in effect. Chamfort's Works form five volumes (1S24-25) his select Works (1852.) have a critical preface by Houssaye. Consult: Sainte - Beuve, Causeries du lundi, Vol. IT. (Paris, IS57-62.) and Pelisson, Chamfort, Etude sir sa rie, son earaetcrc et ses ecrits (Paris, IS95).