Claude Brossette

File:Claude Brossette.jpg

Portrait of Claude Brossette

Claude Brossette, seigneur de Varennes d'Appetour (7 November 1671 – 18 June 1743) was a French lawyer and writer.

Biography

Claude Brossette was born in Theizé, Lyonnais. He was educated at the Collège de la Trinité in Lyon and joined the Jesuits before turning to law. Brossette was a lawyer at the Parliament of Paris and then a general lawyer at the courts of Lyon; administrator of the Hôtel-Dieu (1722–1724), rector of the Hôpital de la Charité of Lyon in 1727, then alderman of the city of Lyon (1730-1731).

In 1700 he founded the Académie des Sciences, Arts et Belles-Lettres de Lyon, where he remained a librarian until 1743, and whose secretary he was appointed in 1724. In 1706, at the age of 35, he married Marguerite Chavagny. They had two sons and two daughters but his wife died in 1716. They did not live in Rapetour but mainly in the village house called Beauvallon. We have works of law from him, editions of Paris poet and satirist Nicolas Boileau (1716–1717) and Mathurin Régnier (1729). Between 1699 and 1710, he was a regular correspondent of Boileau, whose works he edited with commentaries. Their correspondence was published in 1770 by François-Louis Cizeron-Rival.

Brossette was a man of far-reaching connections, exchanging letters with Academy President Bouhier, Abbot Olivet and Father Vanière from Toulouse. He was acquainted with François de Lamoignon and Bernard de la Monnoye from the Académie Française, and with Jean-Baptiste Rousseau. Later his reach widened; he exchanged point of views with Voltaire, Louis Racine, Abbot Lenglet-Dufresnoy, Déon, and Father Brumoy.

Works

• Les titres du droit civil et du droit canonique (1705)
• Histoire abrégée ou éloge historique de la ville de Lyon (1711)

Correspondence

• Correspondance entre Boileau Despréaux et Brossette (1858; edited by Auguste Laverdet)
• Correspondance de Jean-Baptiste Rousseau et de Brossette (1910–1911; 2 volumes; edited by Paul Bonnefon)
• Trente lettres inédites de Claude Brossette à Monsieur de Saint-Fonds (1930; edited by L. de Longevialle)

References

• Bayard, Françoise (1997). Vivre à Lyon sous l’Ancien Régime. Paris: Perrin.
• Galland, Louis (1897). Claude Brossette, Avocat en la Cour des Monnaies, le Siège Présidial et la Sénéchaussée de Lyon, ses rapports avec Boileau-Despréaux. Lyon: Imp. Mougin-Rusan.
• Messaoud, Samy Ben (2001). "Une Nouvelle Source d’Étude de Boileau, les Papiers Brossette," Studi Francesi, No. 134, pp. 581–96.
• Van Damme, Stéphane (2005). Le Temple de la Sagesse, Savoirs, Écriture et Sociabilité Urbaine (Lyon, XVIIe et XVIIIe siècles). Paris: Éd. de l’EHESS.

External links

• Works by Claude Brossette at Gallica