Étienne Noël Damilaville
| Étienne Noël Damilaville | |
|---|---|
 Buste présumé d'Étienne Noël Damilaville, Marie-Anne Collot ; Musée du Louvre. | |
| Born |
21 November 1723 Bordeaux |
| Died |
13 December 1768 (aged 45) Paris |
| Occupation | Encyclopédiste |
Étienne Noël Damilaville 21 November 1723 – 13 December 1768) was an 18th-century French man of letters, friend of Voltaire, Diderot and d'Alembert.[1] He served in various military and administrative functions of the Ancien Régime.[2] He was a member of the bodyguard of King Louis XV, and then a senior civil servant in the tax office responsible for supervising the Vingtième. His official roles meant that his correspondence was unexamined by censors, enabling him to circulate letters between leading thinkers of the day,[3] most particularly during the Sirven affair.
The Encyclopédie
Damilaville authored three articles in the Encyclopédie - Population, Peace and The Vingtième.
Friendship with Voltaire
Voltaire regarded him as a very close friend, and wrote him at least 539 letters over eight years.[4] They only actually met, for the first time, after they had been corresponding for five years, on 20 August 1765, when Damilaville visited Ferney.[5]
Opinion of Damilaville was not universally positive: Melchior Grimm said of him
' He had neither grace, nor mental wit, and he lacked the worldly savoir-faire which makes up for it. He was sad and heavy, and his lack of basic education always showed through. '[6]
References
- ↑ Davidson, Ian: Voltaire-A Life, Profile Books, 2010 pp.304-5
- ↑ Biography in French
- ↑ Davidson, Ian: Voltaire-A Life, Profile Books, 2010 pp.328-9
- ↑ Davidson, Ian: Voltaire-A Life, Profile Books, 2010 p.305
- ↑ Davidson, Ian: Voltaire-A Life, Profile Books, 2010 p.344
- ↑ Davidson, Ian: Voltaire-A Life, Profile Books, 2010 p.304
Bibliography
- Emmanuel Boussuge et Françoise Launay, « L’ami D’Amilaville », Recherches sur Diderot et sur l'Encyclopédie, 2014, n° 49, (p. 25–41).
- Emmanuel Boussuge et Françoise Launay, "Étienne Noël D'Amilaville (1723–1768)", Les collaborateurs de l'Encyclopédie, projet d'Edition Numérique Collaborative et Critique de l'Encyclopédie' (6 January 2015)
External links
- Étienne-Noël Damilaville on data.bnf.fr
- SUDOC 028972244
- Damilaville on Wikisource
- Généalogie des Damilaville.
- Autre publication: article "Paix" de l'Encyclopédie.