André Morellet

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André Morellet (March 7, 1727 - January 12, 1819) was a French economist and writer. He was one of the last of the philosophes, and in this character he figures in many memoirs, such as those of Madame de Rémusat.

He was born at Lyon, and educated by the Jesuits there, and later at the Sorbonne. He took holy orders, but without much conviction. Voltaire called him "L'Abbé Mords-les" ("Father Bite-them"), because of his ready and biting wit. His most notable works were a smart pamphlet in answer to Charles Palissot's scurrilous play Les Philosophes (which procured him a short stay in the Bastille for an alleged libel on Palissot's patroness, the princesse de Robeck), and a reply to Ferdinando Galiani's Commerce des blés (1770).

Later, he made himself useful in quasi-diplomatic communications with English statesmen, and was pensioned and also elected a member of the Académie française in 1785. A year before his death in Paris, he brought out four volumes of Mélanges de littérature et de philosophie du XVIIIe siècle, composed chiefly of selections from his former publications, and after his death appeared his valuable Mémoires sur le XVIIIe siècle et la Révolution (2 vols., 1821).

His semi-satirical translation of Nicolau Aymerich's Directorium Inquisitorum was an influencing factor in the cessation of some of the Roman Catholic Church's more inquisitorial practices.

[edit] References

The Britannica in turn cites:

  • A bibliography of his numerous works is given in Quérard's La France littéraire, vol. vi.; see also Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi, vol. i.


Preceded by
Claude-François-Xavier Millot		 Seat 5
Académie française
1785–1819		 Succeeded by
Pierre-Édouard Lémontey