Courier, Paul-Louis

▪ French scholar

born Jan. 4, 1772, Paris

died April 10, 1825, Véretz, Fr.

      French classical scholar and pamphleteer, remembered for his brilliant style and antimonarchist writings following the Second Restoration of the Bourbons after the defeat of Napoleon (1815).

      Courier joined the army in 1792 and had a successful career in the artillery, though he was ill-suited to military discipline. In 1798 he joined the army in Italy. After a long illness, he returned to Italy in 1804–09 for a further adventurous campaign.

      His stay in Italy allowed him to pursue his classical studies, and he published translations from Latin and Greek. He discovered an unknown fragmentary manuscript of the Greek novelist Longus in a Florentine library, and in 1810 he published a pamphlet defending himself against a charge that he had deliberately defaced it.

      Under the Restoration, Courier settled in his estate in France and published a stream of pamphlets defending the rights of the peasantry and attacking reactionary politicians and the clergy. His reputation was enhanced by his trial and imprisonment in 1821. He had a genius for invective, and his style, although somewhat overworked, has been compared to that of the greatest French writers.

      Courier's marriage to a girl of 19 was unhappy. When he dismissed a servant with whom his wife had been unfaithful, the man murdered him.

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