Antoine de Rivarol

Antoine de Rivarol (June 26, 1753, Bagnols, Languedoc, France – April 11, 1801 Berlin), was a French writer and epigrammatist.

It appears that Rivarol's father, an innkeeper, was a cultivated man. The son assumed the title of comte de Rivarol, asserting a connection with a noble Italian family, but his enemies said his name was really Riverot and that he was not of a noble family. After various vicissitudes, he went to Paris in 1777 and won some academic prizes. In 1784, his treatise "Sur l'universalité de la langue française" and his translation of Dante's "Inferno" were favourably noted. The year before the French Revolution broke out, he and a certain Champcenetz published a lampoon, titled "Petit Almanach de nos grands hommes pour 1788", that ridiculed without pity a number of writers of proven or future talent, along with a great many nobodies. [“Antoine de Rivarol,” "Nation" 32.834 (6/23/1881): 438-439.]

When the press proved crucial for the fate of the French Revolution, Rivarol took up the cudgels on the Royalist side, writing in the "Journal politique" of Antoine Sabatier de Castres and the "Actes des Apotres" of Jean Gabriel Peltier. He left France in 1792, first settling in Brussels, then moving successively to London, Hamburg, and Berlin.

Rivarol's rivals in France -in sharp conversational sayings- included Alexis Piron and Nicolas Chamfort. Many of Rivarol's "maximes" were ill-natured and hold only for their place and time. Nevertheless, their brilliance is incontrovertible, such as this timeless comment: "The most civilized people are as near to barbarism as the most polished steel is to rust. Nations, like metals, have only a superficial brilliancy."

The complete works of Antoine de Rivarol, in 5 volumes, were published in 1805. Selections from these works were published by Sainte-Beuve in 1858, and by M. de Lescure in 1862 (2nd ed., 1880).

His brother, Claude François (1762-1848), was also an author. His works include "Isman, ou le fatalisme" (1795), a novel; "Le Véridique" (1827), comedy; "Essai sur les causes de la révolution française" (1827).

References

*De Lescure, M., 1882. "Rivarol et la société française pendant la révolution et l'émigration" .
*Le Breton, 1895. "Rivarol, sa vie, ses idées".