Louis de Beaufront

Marquis Louis de Beaufront (3 October 1855 – 8 January 1935) was a major influence in the development of Ido, an international auxiliary language. Beaufront was initially an advocate of Esperanto and was largely responsible for its early diffusion in western Europe as well as one of its first French proponents.

Much of Beaufront's life is shrouded in mystery. He pretended to be the descendant of a french king and a doctor of theology. Only after his death, it was determined that he was not really a marquis and that his real name was "Louis Eugène Albert Chevreux". But his biographists admit that he played his role as an aristocratic in an absolutely convincing way.

Beaufront first discovered Esperanto in 1888 and in 1889 founded "Société Pour la Propagation de l'Espéranto" (SPPE). In 1900, he wrote the "Commentaire sur la grammaire espéranto".

He was chosen to represent unmodified Esperanto before the Committee of the Delegation for the Adoption of an International Auxiliary Language, attending the meetings of the Delegation Committee in October, 1907. While ostensibly representing Esperanto before the Committee, he was secretly secondary author after Louis Couturat of the original Ido project which impressed the Delegation Committee and led to the reform of Esperanto by the Committee's Permanent Commission. Letters, that are kept in the Department of Planned Languages and Esperanto Museum in Vienna, show that he denied any co-authorship of Ido. Beaufront remained a proponent of Ido thereafter, and wrote the influential Ido grammar "Kompleta Gramatiko Detaloza", published in 1925.

External links

* [http://www.onb.ac.at/ev/collections/esperanto/index.htm Department of Planned Languages and Esperantomuseum in Vienna]
* [http://www.onb.ac.at/sammlungen/plansprachen/fruehdrucke.htm Online readable works of Louis de Beaufront]