Jean-Baptiste de Boyer Marquis d'Argens | |
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 Portrait byJakob van der Schley, 1738 | |
| Born | (1704-06-24)24 June 1704 Aix-en-Provence, France |
| Died | 11 January 1771(1771-01-11) (aged 66) Château de La Garde,Toulon, France |
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| Philosophical work | |
| Era | Age of Enlightenment |
| Region | French philosophy |
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Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens (24 June 1704 – 11 January 1771) was a Frenchrationalist, author and critic of theCatholic Church, who was a close friend ofVoltaire and spent much of his life in exile at the court ofFrederick the Great.
Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, later Marquis d’Argens, was born on 24 June 1704 in the southern French town ofAix-en-Provence.[2] He was the eldest of seven children of Pierre-Jean de Boyer and Angélique de L'Enfant, daughter of Luc de L'Enfant (1656–1729), President of theRegional Parliament.[3]
Pierre-Jean de Boyer wasProcureur général or Attorney-General for theRegional Parliament ofProvence and a member of theSecond Estate, theNoblesse de robe orNobles of the robe. Their rank derived from the possession of judicial or administrative posts and unlike the aristocraticNoblesse d'épée orNobles of the Sword, they were often hard-working middle-class professionals.[4]
By the mid-18th century, many of these positions had become hereditary, with eldest sons expected to succeed their fathers, marry and have children. Jean-Baptiste rejected a legal career and while the rest of his family were devout Catholics, became a rationalist author and critic of the Church; he later wrote 'I was not my father's favourite child.'[5]
To prevent the division of family estates amongst multiple heirs, younger sons were often required to remain unmarried; of his four younger brothers, three includingAlexandre, later Marquis D'Éguilles were enrolled in theKnights of Malta religious order and the other became a priest.[5] His refusal to conform meant he was disinherited in favour of his younger brother Alexandre in 1734 but despite their philosophical differences, the two remained close friends throughout their lives.[4]
In 1749, he married French ballerina and writerBabette Cochois (1725–1780), with whom he had a daughter, Barbe (1754–1814).[6] After many years living inBerlin, he returned to France in 1769, where he died at the Château de La Garde on 11 January 1771; originally buried inToulon Cathedral, his remains were later moved into the family vault atLe Couvent des Minimes.[7]
While several generations of the de Boyer family held the position ofProcureur général, they also had a background in the arts. Jean-Baptiste's great-uncle was the poet and dramatist Abbe Claude de Boyer (1618–1698), while his grandfather, Jean-Baptiste de Boyer (1640–1709), owned a famous art collection, with works byTitian,Caravaggio,Michelangelo,Van Dyck,Poussin,Rubens andCorregio.[8]
In 1719, his father reluctantly purchased Jean-Baptiste a commission in the Régiment de Toulouse, based inStrasbourg. Pierre-Jean de Boyer was made 'Marquis d'Argens' in 1722 and since eldest sons were permitted to use the same title, Jean-Baptiste was also known as Marquis d'Argens.[9] In 1722, he eloped with an actress and fled to Spain, before being taken back to France under military escort. One of his warders was Vicomte d'Andrezel, shortly to become French ambassador inConstantinople; he persuaded Pierre-Jean de Boyer to allow his son to accompany him and they leftToulon at the end of 1723.[10]
D'Argens returned to France in 1724, where he spent the next few years obediently studying law and even acting in a number of legal cases. The 1731Cadière witchcraft trial appears to have been the point at which he rejected a legal career, while confirming his opposition to the Catholic Church and theJesuits in particular. He rejoined the army in 1733 during theWar of the Polish Succession, serving in the same regiment as his younger brother Luc de Boyer (1713–1772). Wounded atKehl, he was badly injured in a fall from his horse in 1734, which ended his military career.[7]
He was now formally disinherited and moved to theNetherlands, where he began his career as a writer, publishingMémoires de Monsieur le Marquis d'Argens in 1735. This was followed byLettres juives, issued in six volumes between 1736 and 1740; employing the format used byMontesquieu in his 1721 workPersian Letters, this was an immediate success but provoked criticism from Catholic writers such asde La Martinière. After spells inPort Mahón, Menorca andStuttgart, in 1742 he accepted an offer fromFrederick the Great asRoyal Chamberlain inBerlin, where he spent most of his career. He was also appointed Director of theBelles-Lettres section of thePrussian Academy of Arts and of theBerlin State Opera; it was while visiting Paris to recruit performers that he metBabette Cochois, whom he married in 1749.[7]
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After his brothers Luc and Alexandre intervened with their father, d'Argens was reconciled with his family in 1738 and thereafter paid an allowance of £5,000 per annum, a considerable sum at the time; he was also allowed to use the family home in Provence, where he often spent the winter months. In 1763, Alexandre, who succeeded their father as Marquis d'Éguilles in 1757, was banished from France and joined his brother in Berlin; asVoltaire observed, one brother was exiled for opposing the Jesuits, the other for supporting them.[4] After returning to France in 1768, Alexandre offered to reverse the 1734 legal order disinheriting his brother, an offer that was refused. D'Argens left Berlin for the last time in 1769 and returned to Provence; he died on 11 January 1771 while visiting his sister at the Château de La Garde nearToulon.[7]
D'Argens was part of the mid-18th-centuryEnlightenment movement in France, led by Voltaire,Jean-Jacques Rousseau andMontesquieu, who argued for a society based on reason, rather than faith, and theseparation of church and state. However, they were not revolutionaries; many were members of the nobility who opposedabsolute monarchy, not monarchy itself, a major divergence between the Marquis d'Argens and liberal Protestants likeProsper Marchand.[11]
BesidesLettres juives, his major works includeLettres chinoises,Lettres cabalistiques andMémoires secrets de la république des lettres, later revised and augmented asHistoire de l'esprit humain. He also wrote six novels, the best known beingThérèse philosophe, which was based on the events of the Cadière trial. However, the book was published anonymously, D'Argens himself denied being the author and there is some argument as to whether it should be attributed to him.[12]
Thérèse Philosophe (1748) (Thérèse Finds Happiness, Black Scat Books, 2020.ISBN 1734816635;Theresa the Philosopher, Grove Press, 1970.ASIN B000VRJX50)
