Charles-Pierre Colardeau (12 October 1732 in Janville – 7 April 1776 in Paris ) was a French poet. His most notable works are an imitation of Eloisa to Abelard by Alexander Pope and a translation of the first two sections of Night-Thoughts by Edward Young . They witness to the pre- Romantic sensibility of the 18th century, as also seen in the works of Rousseau , Diderot and Prévost . He also naturalized Ovid 's term. Heroides , as ' héroïdes ', imaginary poetic letters by famous people. The relatively small size of his œuvre is attributed by some to his fragile health (he died aged only 43) and by others to proverbial laziness.
43-561: Charles-Pierre Colardeau was the son of Charles Colardeau, collector of salt warehouse of Janville and his wife Jeanne Regnard. Orphaned at age 13, he was raised by his maternal uncle, pastor of Pithiviers who sent him to the college of Meung-sur-Loire to complete the humanities that he had begun with the Jesuits of Orléans . Then he came to his philosophy at College of Beauvais in Paris and then returned to Pithiviers. His uncle had got him
86-461: A Temple de Gnide composed a decade earlier, adapted from Montesquieu , as the poem by Nicolas-Germain Léonard appeared shortly before. In 1774 he published his Epître à M. Duhamel de Denainvilliers ( Letter to Mr. Duhamel Denainvilliers ) on the charms of the countryside and a descriptive poem Les Hommes de Prométhée ( The Men of Prometheus ) which describes the awakening of romantic love in
129-410: A cinema, a theatre and a preserved steam railway . During World War II , Pithiviers was the location of the infamous Pithiviers internment camp . The pithivier , a kind of pie, is said to originate here in the middle ages. The traditional Pithivier was a small scalloped-edge sweet tartlet. Savoury versions can be filled with peacock, heron, swan or pork. This Loiret geographical article
172-672: A figurehead for the company. The Ferme générale held guarantee for the contractor. The number of partners was fixed at 40, after having reached nearly 90 earlier. The contractor committed himself to paying the Royal Treasury the amount of the lease and received in return any surplus. In 1780 an upper limit was set for this remuneration. The Ferme générale had its headquarters in Paris. In its central offices it employed nearly 700 people, including two chaplains . Its local operations included up to 42 provincial offices and nearly 25,000 agents distributed in two branches of activity; that of
215-500: A number of gentlemen among whom there is the enduring presence of Denis Joseph Lalive d'Epinay, from a family of fermiers généraux , husband of Louise d'Epinay (who was a lover of Louis Dupin Francueil Aurore, future husband and grandfather of George Sand). The romance of Marie with Colardeau—a penniless poet—was an all too brief interlude, and poor Charles-Pierre was first requested "to leave for two years" to make way for
258-507: A position as a secretary to a lawyer at the Parliament of Paris, with the intention to prepare for the study of law and the legal profession. Colardeau then returned to the capital in 1753 but remained there for only a short time as his health faltered and he had to return to Pithiviers where he indulged his penchant for poetry, translated into verse fragments of holy scripture, undertook the writing of his tragedies Nicephore and Astarbé ,
301-468: A richer protector and then finally returned to his desk. The chronicle of Mémoires ... for the year of his death informs us that, once convinced of his disgrace, Charles-Pierre circulated in Paris a "bloody satire" in which Marie was cruelly treated. Colardeau lived for several years up to his death—as did many penniless writers of his time—in the house of an aristocrat, the Marquise de Viéville, of whom
344-420: A significant political and social role. Their greed and excesses shocked the public and were often turned into objects of ridicule in literature, for example by playwright Alain-René Lesage in his 1709 comedy Turcaret , which was inspired by financier Paul Poisson de Bourvallais . In 1726, all the existing farms were gathered in a single lease. The forty farmers-general, who held guarantees as contractors of
387-463: A welcoming house at Auteuil and provided a beautiful theatre. A liaison with Maurice de Saxe produced a girl born in 1748, Aurore, who became the grandmother of George Sand . Marie was unable to make provisions for her education and the Dauphine took Aurore from her mother to be educated in a convent: after the death of Marshal Saxe (1750) Marie's name is associated in the chronicles of the time with
430-546: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Ferme g%C3%A9n%C3%A9rale The ferme générale ( French pronunciation: [fɛʁm ʒeneʁal] , "general farm") was, in ancien régime France , essentially an outsourced customs, excise and indirect tax operation. It collected duties on behalf of the King (plus hefty bonus fees for themselves), under renewable six-year contracts. The major tax collectors in that highly unpopular tax farming system were known as
473-563: The Ancien Régime which was most criticised during the 1789 French Revolution . It was depicted as a group of predatory tyrants; the Girondist politician Antoine Français de Nantes , made an early reputation for himself attacking this prominent target. The Ferme générale was then suppressed in 1790, with farmers-general paying the price at the scaffold: 28 former members of the consortium were guillotined on 8 May 1794. Among them
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#1732790813240516-454: The fermiers généraux (singular fermier général ), which would be tax farmers-general in English. In the 17th and 18th centuries the fermiers généraux became immensely rich and figure prominently in the history of cultural patronage, as supporters of French music, major collectors of paintings and sculpture, patrons of the marchands-merciers and consumers of the luxury arts in
559-474: The marchands-mercier , a type of merchants who dealt with decorative art objects. As consumers of luxurious art the farmers-general were at the vanguard of Parisian fashion, like Ange Laurent Lalive de Jully , a patron of arts who embraced the early form of neoclassicist style in decorative arts called the goût grec (lit. "Greek taste"). Others merely made themselves notorious for their squander, like Ange Laurent's brother Denis Joseph de La Live d'Épinay,
602-654: The Canal du Midi that links the Mediterranean coast of France to Toulouse and then on to the system of canals and rivers that ran across to the Bay of Biscay on the Atlantic coast, considered to be one of the great engineering feats of the 17th century. The process was further developed under the aegis of Jean-Baptiste Colbert , Minister of Finance to King Louis XIV . To reduce the number of these farmers and to increase
645-565: The Ferme générale (for customs duties), the Ligue générale (for taxes on alcohol) and the Administration générale des domaines et des droits domaniaux (for land taxes and fees for land registration). By the end of the 18th century, the Ferme générale system became a symbol of an unequal society. The Ferme générale , and the great wealth of its proprietors, was seen as encapsulating all
688-654: The Mémoires ... say "she was a woman of wit and philosophy, adding that "the rumor was that she had married or would marry him (Colardeau)". It seems that the marquise fought hard to get her poet made a member of the Académie française but bear in mind that—again according to the authors of Mémoires ... —Colardeau had a reputation in the world of letters for writing very little but to be the best versifier in France. In January 1776, Colardeau succeeded Duc de Saint-Aignan in
731-689: The Superintendent of Finances , the Duke of Sully , entrusted tax collection to one farm instead of five separate ones, and subjected the collection of duties raised in the provinces to the rights of the King. The single tax farm was called the Cinq Grosses Fermes (five large farms). In 1607, he issued new rules ( Règlement Général sur les Traites ) on the collection of duties in an attempt to harmonize procedures. He also attempted to constitute
774-506: The fermiers généraux in order to restore the wealth they had prior to their ruin. This was called in popular French redorer son blason (literally "to re-gild one's coat of arms"). Before the French Revolution in 1789, the public revenue was based largely on the following taxes: The Ferme générale developed at a time when the monarchy suffered from chronic financial difficulties. The Affermage (leasing, outsourcing ) of
817-447: The traite ). They were obliged to pay to the Royal Treasury the sum stipulated in their lease, and they received a share of the income and a share of any "unexpected" surplus. Each right was leased separately, which caused great administrative complexity: the taking of goods out of bond could involve several tax farms. Prior to 1598, this system had developed so that the tax farms were allocated among five pays (parts of France). In 1598
860-459: The 1770s. In 1770, hundreds of watchmakers fled the political ructions in Geneva and went to make a new life at Ferney. Voltaire helped them to set up a new watchmaking business. He negotiated a tax exemption for the watchmakers with the duc de Choiseul , Prime Minister of France. But by 1774, the business was prospering and the tax farmers started to take an interest. Three-way negotiations between
903-744: The Académie française. But he did not even have time to deliver his acceptance speech as he died April 7, 1776, aged only 43 years. His works form 2 volumes in-8, 1779. Pithiviers Pithiviers ( French pronunciation: [pitivje] ) is a commune in the Loiret department , north central France . It is one of the subprefectures of Loiret. It is twinned with Ashby-de-la-Zouch in Leicestershire, England and Burglengenfeld in Bavaria, Germany. Its attractions include
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#1732790813240946-477: The attention of the Duc de Choiseul and earned him a biting satire to which he responded in his Epître à Minette ( Letter to Minette ). Returned to Pithiviers in 1766, he wrote a comedy in five acts and in verse, Les perfidies à la mode , which was not performed. In 1770, he put into verse the first two parts of Edward Young 's Night-Thoughts , whose French translation had just been published. In 1772 he published
989-462: The collection of the traite (customs duties and taxes) had the advantage of guaranteeing the Treasury foreseeable and regular receipts, while reducing the perception of its role in tax-collection. The rights were initially contracted separately to various tax farmers, who were named traitants (who had the right to collect the traite ) or partisans (who had a share ( partie ) in the collection of
1032-467: The estranged husband of the writer and saloniste Louise d'Épinay . The gourmand Alexandre Balthazar Laurent Grimod de La Reynière was the son of the farmer-general Laurent Grimod de La Reynière . Sons or grandsons of farmer-generals often purchased patents of nobility, with their daughters marrying into aristocracy. In his Voltaire, A Life (pp. 427–31), Ian Davidson describes events on Voltaire's estate at Ferney , north of Geneva, in
1075-670: The expense of the state, the secrecy of the terms of its contracts, and the violence of its armed agents. Criticism of the Ferme générale also include: Therefore, at the end of the 18th century, the French state had become involved in considerable debt, which factored among the causes of the French Revolution . The farmers-general of the Ancien Régime figure prominently in the history of cultural patronage in France. The enlightened farmer-general Le Normant de Tournehem
1118-429: The first two human beings. The Mémoires Secrets pour servir à l'histoire de la République des Lettres en France attributed the death of the writer to a venereal disease contracted during a fleeting relationship with a "courtesan ungrateful and treacherous". The siren that Mémoires ... designate as Demoiselle Verrières would be Marie Rinteau (1730–1775) called Marie Verrières or De Verrières . Marie and her sister had
1161-404: The guards' brigades had the right to bear weapons. The managing of the company was handled collectively by the Ferme générale . They met as committees of experts and had control of the company's external services. The day before the French Revolution in 1789, almost all the rights of indirect drafts and rights (like the gabelle , the tax on tobacco, and a number of local taxes) were awarded. On
1204-417: The lease, became powerful and fabulously rich. Examples of the first generation of these tax farmers include Antoine Crozat , the first private owner of French Louisiana , the four Pâris brothers, and Alexandre Le Riche de La Poupelinière . Increased criticism of the Ferme générale system led the government to introduce new regulations in 1769, which turned the collection of taxes and the administration of
1247-408: The offices which checked, liquidated and charged the fees and that of the guards' brigades which sought and suppressed smuggling with very severe punishments (such as hard labour or hanging). The employees of the Ferme générale were not royal civil servants but they acted in the name of the king, and therefore benefited from particular privileges and the protection of the law. In addition, members of
1290-473: The other hand, the Royal Treasury's income from the Ferme générale represented more than half of the total public revenue. The company had also built the 24-kilometre Wall of the Farmers-General between 1784 and 1791 in Paris to ensure the payment of taxes on goods entering the city. The Ferme générale was one of the most hated components of the Ancien Régime because of the profits it took at
1333-400: The perversions of the political and social system. People blamed the injustices and annoyances – which actually arose from the complexity of the tax system – on the company itself, including the brutality of tax collecting troops and the brutal repression of smuggling. The gabelle (tax on salt) was the most unpopular of all the taxes. The Ferme générale was thus one of the institutions of
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1376-427: The service to which taxation was entrusted to public organisations, with their managers receiving a fixed remuneration. The public career of the reforming economist Anne-Robert-Jacques Turgot began with his appointment in 1761 as intendant of the généralité of Limoges . In 1780, at the initiative of Jacques Necker , finance minister to Louis XVI , indirect taxes were distributed between three tax farm companies:
1419-417: The share of the collection transferred to the Royal Treasury, Colbert sought to gather a great number of rights together in fermes générales (general farms). The first fermes générales was instituted in 1680 to collect gabelles , aides , taille and douane . Although sometimes of obscure origin, the financiers which took these rights often quickly accumulated immense fortunes which enabled them to play
1462-763: The subject of the first having been taken from the Bible and that of the second from the Aventures de Télémaque ( Adventures of Telemachus ) of Fénelon . In 1755, with the recall of the Parliaments, Colardeau was able to return to Paris where he finished his tragedy Astarbé which he read to the Comédiens-Français in July 1756. Before the welcome given to his work, he decided to abandon the law to devote himself entirely to his literary career. Astarbé however,
1505-469: The talent of Mademoiselle Clairon but provoked critical comments, particularly because of its scabrous subject (rape). Colardeau undertook a translation into French of Torquato Tasso 's Jerusalem Delivered , but he destroyed the manuscript before his death. He then tried his hand at a translation of Virgil 's Aeneid which he abandoned when he heard that Father Delille was working on an identical project. In 1762, his poem Patriotism brought him to
1548-499: The tax farmers, Voltaire and Turgot ensued. In December 1775, Turgot confirmed the watchmakers' exemption from the salt tax ( gabelle ) and from road maintenance duties ( corvée ) and a figure was agreed to compensate the tax farmers for loss of revenue. Voltaire addressed a public meeting on 12 December and the watchmakers accepted the settlement. Two days later, Voltaire wrote to his friend Mme de Saint-Julien: ... while we were gently passing our time in thanking M. Turgot, and while
1591-503: The tocsin against them in all the villages, and why they were not exterminated. It is very strange that the ferme générale , with only another fortnight left for them to keep their troops here in winter quarters, should have permitted or even encouraged them in such criminal excesses. The decent people were very wise and held back the ordinary folk, who wanted to throw themselves on these brigands, as if on mad wolves. According to Davidson, good sense prevailed despite this violence, Voltaire
1634-424: The vanguard of Parisian fashions. In his 1833 novel Ferragus , writer Honoré de Balzac attributes the sad air that hangs about the Île Saint-Louis in central Paris to the many houses there owned by fermiers généraux. Their sons or grandsons purchased patents of nobility and their daughters often married into the aristocracy. Especially members of impoverished aristocratic families were eager to marry daughters of
1677-699: The whole of France into a single customs area, but was without success, as the provinces "considered foreign" (i.e. which became part of France after the foundation of the Kingdom; especially the south and Brittany) refused to merge with the zone covered by the Cinq Grosses Fermes . By the middle of the 17th century, France was divided for tax purposes into three principal zones: Not all fermiers-généraux constrained their viewpoint to their own enrichment: Pierre-Paul Riquet , appointed collector in Languedoc-Roussillon in 1630, used his fortune to build
1720-414: The whole province was busy drinking, the gendarmes of the tax farmers, whose time runs out on 1 January, had orders to sabotage us. They marched about in groups of fifty, stopped all the vehicles, searched all the pockets, forced their way into all the houses and made every kind of damage there in the name of the king, and made the peasants buy them off with money. I cannot conceive why the people did not ring
1763-422: Was Antoine Lavoisier , the father of modern chemistry , whose laboratory had been supported by income from his administration of the Ferme générale . His wife, the chemist Marie-Anne Pierrette Paulze , who escaped the guillotine, was herself the daughter of another farmer-general, Jacques Paulze. The lease of the Ferme générale was regulated by six-year contracts between the King and an individual who acted as
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1806-541: Was not performed immediately, and the assassination of Damiens led Colardeau to withdraw it, however, he composed an imitation of Pope's Eloisa to Abelard , which was a great success and made him immediately famous. Astarbé was eventually performed in April 1758 and was well received. The same year, continuing in the vein of verse epistles, Colardeau produced an héroïde entitled Armide à Renaud . His second tragedy, Calista , represented in 1760, had some success through
1849-768: Was the legal guardian of Madame de Pompadour , responsible for her education - in turn, thanks to her influence, he was made director-general of the Bâtiments du Roi in December 1745, and held the post, overseeing royal building works at the King's residences in and around Paris, until his death in 1751. As American architect Fiske Kimball observed, “Without artistic prejudices, he was a man of ability, honesty and simplicity, who devoted himself to efficient administration". Farmers-general also figured among prominent supporters of French music and collectors of paintings and sculpture, such as Pierre Grimod du Fort , and as patrons of
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