Home > Jean-Louis Guez de Balzac

1 Life

He was born at Angoulême. At the age of eighteen he travelled in the United Provinces with Théophile de Viaud , with whom he later exchanged bitter recriminations. His letters to his acquaintances and to important courtiers gained him a great reputation. Compliments were showered on him, and he became an habitué of the Hotel de Rambouillet. In 1624 a collection of his Lettres was published, and was received with great favour. From the chateau of Balzac , where he had retired, he continued to correspond with Jean Chapelain, Valentin Conrart and others.

In 1634 Balzac was elected to the Académie française. He died at Angoulême twenty years later.

2 Works

His fame rests chiefly upon the Lettres, a second collection of which appeared in 1636. Recueil de nouvelles lettres was printed in the next year. His letters, though empty and affected in matter, show a real mastery of style, introducing a new clearness and precision into French prose and encouraging the development of the language on national lines by emphasizing its most idiomatic elements. Baizac has thus the credit of executing in French prose a reform parallel to Francois de Malherbe's in verse. In 1631Events February 5 Roger Williams emigrates to Boston. May 10 During the Thirty Years' War imperial troops storm the German city of Magdeburg and commit a massacre. About 20,000 inhabitants are killed. May 18 In Dorchester, Massachusetts, John Winthrop tak he published an eulogyA eulogy is a funeral oration given in tribute to a person or people who have recently died. Eulogies should not be confused with elegies, which are poems written in tribute to the dead; nor with obituaries, which are published biographies recounting the of King Louis XIII of FranceLouis XIII ( September 27 1601 May 14 1643) was King of France from 1610 to 1643. Born at the Chateau de Fontainebleau, Louis was the first child of Henri IV and Marie de Medicis. He ascended to the throne at age nine after the assassination of his father entitled Le Prince; in 1652Events April 6 Dutch sailor Jan van Riebeeck establishes a resupply camp for the Dutch East India Company at the Cape of Good Hope, and founded Cape Town. May 18 Rhode Island passes the first law in North America making slavery illegal. May 29 First Anglo the Socrate chrétien, and Aristippe ou de la Cour in 1658Events January 13 Edward Sexby, who has plotted against Oliver Cromwell, dies in Tower of London February 6 Swedish troops of Charles X Gustav of Sweden cross from Sweden to Denmark over frozen sea May 1 Publication of Hydriotaphia, Urn Burial and The Gar.