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22-454: He was born at Hesdin , Artois , and first appears with the full name of Prévost d'Exiles, in a letter to the booksellers of Amsterdam in 1731. His father, Lievin Prévost, was a lawyer , and several members of the family had embraced the ecclesiastical estate. His happy childhood ended abruptly, when he lost his mother and his younger favorite sister at the age of 14. Prévost was educated at

44-447: A large sundial surrounded by lions and leopards, and a bellows-operated organ. Over the years additional automata were added, including creations such as a mechanical king and an indoor fountain with mechanical birds. Guillaume de Machaut , in his poem Le Remede de Fortune , characterized them as "the marvels, the delights, the inventions, the engines, the contrivances, the water courses, the strange things that were enclosed there." By

66-515: A memorial plaque and a small museum was established at the site of the subcamp. In 2014 Hesdin elected a 22-year-old law student, Stéphane Sieczkowski-Samier, as Mayor. Sieczkowski-Samier became the youngest mayor in France and is nicknamed "Petit Sarko" (little Sarkozy) in the French press as a reference to the previous French President Nicolas Sarkozy who is from the same political party. Hesdin

88-516: A transfer to the easier rule of Cluny; but he left the abbey without leave (1728), and, learning that his superiors had obtained a lettre de cachet against him, fled to England. In London he acquired a wide knowledge of English history and literature, as can be seen in his writings. Before leaving the Benedictines Prévost had begun perhaps his most famous novel, Mémoires et aventures d'un homme de qualité qui s'est retiré du monde ,

110-465: Is a commune in the Pas-de-Calais department in northern France . The N39, from Arras to Montreuil , used to be the main thoroughfare of the town. In the 1950s, a circular route was created to help traffic flow. A second bypass was built in the 1980s, taking all through traffic well away from the town centre. The Canche river flows through the centre of Hesdin. Hesdin was a fief of

132-619: Is dominated by the central square, the Place d'Armes overlooked by the 16th-17th-century town hall. The town hall, with its large belfry, was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in 2005 as part of the Belfries of Belgium and France site, because of its historical importance as the center of municipal power within the region. The contemporary Church of Notre Dame was begun in 1565 and completed in 1685. Thursday

154-554: Is market day in Hesdin, when a large range of local produce and more typical inexpensive market items can be purchased from the stalls in the surrounding streets. In the first two weeks of August the town has the fete of the Cochon Rose (Pink Piglet) which includes a variety of events including a Sunday Brocante (flea market) which is the biggest in the region. Princes of Conti Prince of Conti (French: prince de Conti )

176-529: Is nothing left of the medieval town. During World War II , the town was occupied by Germany . The SS operated a subcamp of the V SS construction brigade , in which mostly Soviet and Polish prisoners were subjected to slave labour . In August 1944, due to Allied advance, the Germans dissolved the subcamp and deported its prisoners to subcamps of the Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp . In 1975,

198-694: The Jesuit school of Hesdin, and in 1713 became a novice of the order in Paris , pursuing his studies at the same time at the college in La Flèche . At the end of 1716 he left the Jesuits to join the army, but soon tired of military life, and returned to Paris in 1719, apparently with the idea of resuming his novitiate. He is said to have travelled in the Netherlands about this time; in any case he returned to

220-578: The Prince de Conti , and in 1754 obtained the priory of St Georges de Gesnes  [ fr ] . He continued to produce novels and translations from the English, and, with the exception of a brief exile (1741–1742) spent in Brussels and Frankfurt , he resided for the most part at Chantilly until his death, which took place suddenly while he was walking in the neighbouring woods. The cause of his death,

242-645: The counts of Artois , vassals of the Counts of Flanders until 1180. When Philip, count of Flanders gave Artois as dowry to his niece Isabella of Hainault when she married Philip Augustus of France in 1180, Hesdin and the other seigneuries passed to France. At the end of the 11th century, Hesdin gained renown for the park and chateau of Robert II, Count of Artois , which featured the earliest examples of early medieval automata in Europe. These included mechanical monkeys covered in badger fur, mechanized fountains,

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264-564: The 1380s, the automata had fallen into disrepair, until Philip the Good renovated them again in the 1430s. A 1433 bill of account recounts numerous mechanical amusements, including machines that played pranks on the guests as well as angels and figures that spoke and directed visitors. Though subsequently the territory passed to the Dukes of Burgundy , Hesdin remained one of a handful of French strongholds, until in 1553 Emperor Charles V ordered

286-453: The Jesuits; an English translation the same year ends with this volume. Meanwhile, during his residence at the Hague , he engaged on a translation of De Thou 's Historia , and, relying on the popularity of his first book, published at Amsterdam a Suite in three volumes, forming volumes v, vi, and vii of the original Mémoires et aventures d'un homme de qualité . The seventh volume contained

308-545: The army, this time with a commission. Some biographers have assumed that he suffered some of the misfortunes assigned to his hero Des Grieux. Whatever the truth, he joined the learned community of the Benedictines of St Maur , with whom he found refuge, he himself says, after the unlucky termination of a love affair. He took his vows at Jumièges in 1721 after a year's novitiate, and in 1726 took priest's orders at St Germer de Flaix. He spent seven years in various houses of

330-538: The famous Manon Lescaut , separately published in Paris in 1731 as Histoire du Chevalier des Grieux et de Manon Lescaut . The book was eagerly read, chiefly in pirated copies, being forbidden in France. In 1733 he left the Hague for London in company of a lady whose character, according to Prévost's enemies, was doubtful. In London he edited a weekly gazette on the model of Joseph Addison 's Spectator , Le Pour et contre , which he continued to produce in collaboration with

352-593: The first four volumes of which were published in Paris in 1728, and two years later at Amsterdam. In 1729 he left England for the Netherlands, where he began to publish (Utrecht, 1731) a novel, the material of which, at least, had been gathered in London, Le Philosophe anglais, ou Histoire de Monsieur Cleveland, fils naturel de Cromwell, écrite par lui-même, et traduite de l'anglais par l'auteur des Mémoires d'un homme de qualité (1731–1739, 8 vols., Amsterdam and Paris). A spurious fifth volume (Utrecht, 1734) contained attacks on

374-573: The order, teaching, preaching and studying. In 1728 he was sent to the Abbey of Saint-Germain-des-Prés , Paris, where he contributed to the Gallia Christiana , a work of historiographic documentation undertaken communally by the monks in continuation of the works of Denys de Sainte-Marthe  [ fr ] , who had been a member of their order. His restless spirit made him seek from the Pope

396-530: The playwright Charles-Hugues Le Febvre de Saint-Marc , with short intervals, until 1740. In the autumn of 1734 Prévost was reconciled with the Benedictines, and, returning to France, was received in the Benedictine monastery of La Croix-Saint-Leufroy in the diocese of Évreux to pass through a new, though brief, novitiate. In 1735 he was dispensed from residence in a monastery by becoming almoner to

418-624: The rupture of an aneurysm , is all that is definitely known. Stories of crime and disaster were related of Prévost by his enemies, and diligently repeated, but appear to be apocryphal. Prévost's other works include: In Hubert Monteilhet 's novel Murder at the Frankfurt Book Fair , the protagonist plagiarizes Histoire d'une Grecque moderne as a practical joke on his obnoxious publisher. Hesdin Hesdin ( French pronunciation: [edɛ̃] ; West Flemish : Heusdin )

440-504: The utter destruction of the old fortified town on a rise of ground and built the present town the following year, some 6 kilometres (3.7 mi) from the original site, on the banks of the Canche. The unfortified village of Vieil-Hesdin was later built on the original site. In 1639 the French laid siege to Hesdin and under Louis XIII , it was recaptured for France. Thus, though Hesdin has an ancient name and 16th century structures, there

462-481: Was a French noble title, assumed by a cadet branch of the princely house of Bourbon-Condé . The title derives its name from Conty , a small town in northern France , c. 35 km southwest of Amiens , which came into the Bourbon-Condé family by the marriage of Louis de Bourbon , first Prince of Condé, with Eleanor de Roye in 1551. François de Bourbon (1558–1614), the third son of this marriage,

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484-547: Was given the title of marquis de Conti and was later elevated to the rank of prince de Conti . He died in 1614 and the title lapsed, since his only child had predeceased him in 1610. In 1629, the title of Prince of Conti was revived in favor of Armand de Bourbon (1629–1666), second son of Henry II, Prince of Condé , and brother of Louis, the Grand Condé . During the time that the House of Bourbon ruled France, from

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