Nicolas Chamfort

Sébastien-Roch Nicolas, known as Nicolas de Chamfort, was a French moralist of the eighteenth century whose reputation rests mainly on his maxims and anecdotes. He belonged to the circle of Enlightenment writers who cultivated the aphorism and the satire of the manners of their day. His work matters for the sharpness with which it observed vanity, courtly corruption and the illusions of revolutionary politics.

He was born in Clermont-Ferrand in 1741, according to one of his birth certificates, and his family origins are uncertain: local tradition held that he was the illegitimate son of an aristocratic woman. He was sent to Paris on a scholarship to study at the Collège des Grassins, where he was a brilliant but dreamy pupil. On finishing his studies he took the name Chamfort to make himself known as a writer. For years he lived by teaching and hack work, until in 1769 the Académie française awarded him a prize for his eulogy of Molière, which opened the doors of Parisian salons to him. There he was prized for his conversation. He wrote comedies such as La Jeune Indienne and Le Marchand de Smyrne, and the tragedy Mustapha et Zéangir, performed before Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette in 1776.

He took a post as secretary to the Prince de Condé, but soon tired of court life and withdrew. He was elected to the Académie française in 1781, and later served as reader to Madame Élisabeth, the king's sister. A venereal disease contracted in his youth, which he never shook off, undermined his health and largely explains the melancholy tone of his later writings.

He welcomed the Revolution, though he soon criticised its excesses. He served as secretary of the Jacobin club until 1791, contributed to newspapers and wrote speeches for Mirabeau. In 1792 Jean-Marie Roland appointed him director of the National Library. His criticism of the Terror put him in danger: he was denounced and imprisoned, and in November 1793 he attempted suicide. He survived with grave wounds and died in April 1794.

His central ideas appear in his maxims, published posthumously in 1795 by Pierre Louis Ginguené from his handwritten notes. He distrusts social appearances, courtly honour and received prejudices, and holds that life in society hardens the heart. His pessimism is not a system but a keen observation of human vanity. According to scholars, his acidity anticipates writers such as Ambrose Bierce and George Bernard Shaw. John Stuart Mill also praised him, and he is often compared with La Rochefoucauld, though with more violence and less subtlety.