Louis Jouard de La Nauze

Louis Jouard de La Nauze SJ (27 March 1696 – 2 May 1773), was a French Roman Catholic priest and historian of antiquity.

Biography

Born in Villeneuve-sur-Lot, La Nauze was educated by the Jesuits at their college in Agen. He joined the Society of Jesus at Bordeaux, against the wishes of his family. Later, La Nauze would abandoned the order and work as a tutor to the Duke of Antin for the rest of his life.

Jouard de La Nauze was the author of memoirs and dissertations published by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres on subjects such as the songs of ancient Greece, the antiquity and origin of the Kabbalah, the history of the Egyptian calendar, and the weight of the ancient Roman pound.

He translated from Latin the Histoire de l'église de Sarlat, based on the Gallia christiana by Denis de Sainte-Marthe. In 1726, he also translated the Speculum Religiosorum ("Le Directeur des âmes religieuses") of Blosius.

He was an early defender of Isaac Newton against contemporary criticism made by the Jesuit priest Étienne Souciet. His works were quoted by Louis de Jaucourt in the Encyclopédie (articles "Painting of the Romans" and "Zodiac"), by Jean-Jacques Rousseau in his Dictionary of Music (article "Song"), by Edward Gibbon in his Decadence and Fall of the Roman Empire, and by Georges Cuvier in his Discourse on the Revolutions of the Surface of the Globe.

Louis Jouard de La Nauze was elected a member of the Royal Society in 1732 and a member of the Académie royale des inscriptions et belles-lettres in 1754.

Works

• "Lettres au R. P. Souciet, sur ses Dissertations contre le Nouveau Système de M. Newton." In: Pierre Nicolas Desmolets, ed., Continuation des Mémoires de Litterature et d'Histoire, Vol. V (1749), pp. 332–463.
• "Troisieme Lettre au R. P. Souciet, sur sa Troisieme Dissertation, qui a pour Titre: Preuves Tirées des Médailles contre le Système de M. Newton." In: Pierre Nicolas Desmolets, ed., Continuation des Mémoires de Litterature et d'Histoire, Vol. VI (1749), pp. 3–72.
• "Cinquieme Lettre au R. P. Souciet. Où l'on Examine su Cinquiéme Dissertation, qui Roule, comme la Premiere , sur les Preuves Astronomiques de l'Epoque de Chiron des Argonautes." In: Pierre Nicolas Desmolets, ed., Continuation des Mémoires de Litterature et d'Histoire, Vol. VI (1749), pp. 373–464.

References

• Friedrich August Eckstein, Nomenclator Philogorum. Leipzig: Teubner (1871).
• Paul B. Fenton, "Qabbalah and Academia: The Critical Study of Jewish Mysticism in France," Shofar, Vol. 18, No. 2 (2000), pp. 45–69.

External links

• Works by Louis Jouard de La Nauze at Gallica