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Constantin François de Chassebœuf, comte de Volney
Constantin-François Chassebœuf de La Giraudais (French: [kɔ̃stɑ̃tɛ̃ fʁɑ̃sua ʃasəbœf də la ʒiʁodɛ]), comte de Volney (February 3, 1757 – April 25, 1820), was a French philosopher, historian, orientalist, abolitionist and politician.
In his youth, he attended Madame Helvétius's salon in Paris, where he met Benjamin Franklin during the American War of Independence. He became famous in 1787 with a book about his journey to Ottoman Egypt and Syria. At the beginning of the French Revolution, Volney represented commoners of Anjou in the Estates General and took part in the National Constituent Assembly. His best-known book, The Ruins (1791), was among the first to defend the Christ myth theory.
He was imprisoned during the Reign of Terror and left for the United States of America in 1795. A friend of Thomas Jefferson, he was suspected of espionage by President John Adams, who had him expelled from the country in 1798. On his return to France, he contributed to the Coup of 18 Brumaire and became a Senator. He was a close advisor to Bonaparte at the start of the Consulate, until the Concordat with the Catholic Church in 1801. Napoleon granted him the title of Imperial Count in 1808. When the House of Bourbon reclaimed its throne in 1814, Louis XVIII made him a Peer of France.
A member of the Académie Française, the American Philosophical Society, the Asiatic Society and the Celtic Academy, he wrote on ancient history and created a “universal alphabet”.
Volney was born at Craon, Anjou (today in Mayenne), of a noble family. His great-grandfather, son of a royal bailiff, was himself a notary and had a surgeon brother. His grandfather, François Chasseboeuf, lawyer, public prosecutor of the inhabitants acted as mayor; he took the title in 1741 . He lost his mother, Jeanne Gigault, daughter of the Sieur de la Giraudaie ( Candé ) at the age of two and was brought up far from his father, Jacques-René Chasseboeuf, seneschal of the priory of Saint-Clément de Craon – who died as a judge - district president, on April 25, 1796 at 68 years old, with whom he never got along. His father remarried to Marie-Renée Humfray, who took care of the orphan. Initially interested in law and medicine, he went on to study classical languages at the University of Paris, and his Mémoire sur la Chronologie d'Hérodote (on Herodotus) rose to the attention of the Académie des Inscriptions and of the group around Claude Adrien Helvétius. Soon after, he befriended Pierre Jean George Cabanis, the Marquis de Condorcet, the Baron d'Holbach, and Benjamin Franklin.
He embarked on a journey to the East in late 1782 and reached Egypt, where he spent nearly seven months. He then lived for nearly two years in Greater Syria, in what today is Lebanon and Israel/Palestine, in order to learn Arabic. In 1785 he returned to France, where he spent the next two years compiling his notes and writing his Voyage en Egypte et en Syrie (1787) and Considérations sur la guerre des Turcs et de la Russie (1788).
He was heavily influenced by the ideas of Helvetius and Holbach but had little regard for Rousseau. During 1788 he was scathing on the British constitutional set up calling on the French to ignore existing models. He was a member both of the Estates-General and of the National Constituent Assembly after the outbreak of the French Revolution. In 1791 his essay on the philosophy of history appeared, Les Ruines, ou méditations sur les révolutions des empires. It conveys a vision predicting the union of all religions through the recognition of the common truths underlying them all.
Volney tried to put his politico-economic theories into practice in Corsica, where in 1792 he bought an estate and made an attempt to cultivate colonial produce. He was imprisoned during the Jacobin Club triumph. He escaped the guillotine because just before officials were sent to fetch him he had been transferred to another prison. He spent some time as a professor of history at the newly founded École Normale.
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Constantin François de Chassebœuf, comte de Volney
Constantin-François Chassebœuf de La Giraudais (French: [kɔ̃stɑ̃tɛ̃ fʁɑ̃sua ʃasəbœf də la ʒiʁodɛ]), comte de Volney (February 3, 1757 – April 25, 1820), was a French philosopher, historian, orientalist, abolitionist and politician.
In his youth, he attended Madame Helvétius's salon in Paris, where he met Benjamin Franklin during the American War of Independence. He became famous in 1787 with a book about his journey to Ottoman Egypt and Syria. At the beginning of the French Revolution, Volney represented commoners of Anjou in the Estates General and took part in the National Constituent Assembly. His best-known book, The Ruins (1791), was among the first to defend the Christ myth theory.
He was imprisoned during the Reign of Terror and left for the United States of America in 1795. A friend of Thomas Jefferson, he was suspected of espionage by President John Adams, who had him expelled from the country in 1798. On his return to France, he contributed to the Coup of 18 Brumaire and became a Senator. He was a close advisor to Bonaparte at the start of the Consulate, until the Concordat with the Catholic Church in 1801. Napoleon granted him the title of Imperial Count in 1808. When the House of Bourbon reclaimed its throne in 1814, Louis XVIII made him a Peer of France.
A member of the Académie Française, the American Philosophical Society, the Asiatic Society and the Celtic Academy, he wrote on ancient history and created a “universal alphabet”.
Volney was born at Craon, Anjou (today in Mayenne), of a noble family. His great-grandfather, son of a royal bailiff, was himself a notary and had a surgeon brother. His grandfather, François Chasseboeuf, lawyer, public prosecutor of the inhabitants acted as mayor; he took the title in 1741 . He lost his mother, Jeanne Gigault, daughter of the Sieur de la Giraudaie ( Candé ) at the age of two and was brought up far from his father, Jacques-René Chasseboeuf, seneschal of the priory of Saint-Clément de Craon – who died as a judge - district president, on April 25, 1796 at 68 years old, with whom he never got along. His father remarried to Marie-Renée Humfray, who took care of the orphan. Initially interested in law and medicine, he went on to study classical languages at the University of Paris, and his Mémoire sur la Chronologie d'Hérodote (on Herodotus) rose to the attention of the Académie des Inscriptions and of the group around Claude Adrien Helvétius. Soon after, he befriended Pierre Jean George Cabanis, the Marquis de Condorcet, the Baron d'Holbach, and Benjamin Franklin.
He embarked on a journey to the East in late 1782 and reached Egypt, where he spent nearly seven months. He then lived for nearly two years in Greater Syria, in what today is Lebanon and Israel/Palestine, in order to learn Arabic. In 1785 he returned to France, where he spent the next two years compiling his notes and writing his Voyage en Egypte et en Syrie (1787) and Considérations sur la guerre des Turcs et de la Russie (1788).
He was heavily influenced by the ideas of Helvetius and Holbach but had little regard for Rousseau. During 1788 he was scathing on the British constitutional set up calling on the French to ignore existing models. He was a member both of the Estates-General and of the National Constituent Assembly after the outbreak of the French Revolution. In 1791 his essay on the philosophy of history appeared, Les Ruines, ou méditations sur les révolutions des empires. It conveys a vision predicting the union of all religions through the recognition of the common truths underlying them all.
Volney tried to put his politico-economic theories into practice in Corsica, where in 1792 he bought an estate and made an attempt to cultivate colonial produce. He was imprisoned during the Jacobin Club triumph. He escaped the guillotine because just before officials were sent to fetch him he had been transferred to another prison. He spent some time as a professor of history at the newly founded École Normale.