Gilles Ménage

Gilles Ménage (August 15, 1613 ? July 23, 1692) was a French scholar.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

He was born at Angers, the son of Guillaume Ménage, king's advocate at Angers, where Gilles was born.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

A good memory and enthusiasm for learning carried him quickly through his literary and professional studies, and he practised at the bar at Angers before he was twenty. In 1632, he pleaded several causes before the parlement of Paris, but illness caused him to abandon the legal profession for the church. He became prior of Montdidier without taking holy orders, and lived for some years in the household of Cardinal de Retz (then coadjutor to the Archbishop of Paris), where he had leisure for literary pursuits.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Some time after 1648 he quarrelled with his patron and withdrew to a house in the cloister of Notre-Dame de Paris, where he gathered round him on Wednesday evenings those literary assemblies which he called "Mercuriales". Jean Chapelain, Paul Pellisson, Valentine Conrart, Jean François Sarrazin and Du Bos were among the habitués. He was tutor to Marie-Madeleine Pioche de la Vergne, comtesse de la Fayette, later the great writer, to whom he was very attached. He was admitted to the Accademia della Crusca of Florence, but his caustic sarcasm led to his exclusion from the Académie française. Ménage made many enemies and suffered under the satire of Boileau and of Molière. Molière immortalized him as the pedant Vadius in Les Femmes savantes, a portrait Ménage pretended to ignore.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

In 1664 he published at London an edition of the Lives of Eminent Philosophers by Diogenes Laertius that contains an unedited anonymous life of Aristotle; this life was known as 'Vita Menagiana' before the critical edition by Ingemar Düring, Aristotle in the ancient biographical tradition Stockholm: Almqvist & Wiksell 1957; reprinted New York, Garland, 1987, pp. 80-93) with the title 'Vita Hesychii' (the attribution to Hesychius of Miletus is controversial).

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Ménage died at Paris in 1692.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Angers: Angers is a city in France in the d?partement of Maine-et-Loire, 191 miles south-west of Paris. (The area surrounding Angers is more popularly known by its pre-revolutionary, provincial name, Anjou.)...

Parlement: Parlements (pronounced in French) in ancien r?gime France were political institutions that developed out of the older king's council. In the thirteenth century, judicial functions were added. Originally, there was only the Parlement of Paris, born out of the king's council (Latin: Curia Regis) in 1...

Paris: Paris is the capital city of France, as well as the capital of the ?le-de-France r?gion, whose territory encompasses Paris and its suburbs. The city of Paris proper is also a d?partement, called Paris d?partement (French: d?partement de Paris). It is a wonderful city for aimless wandering of which f...

Gilles Ménage related Images and Photos (experimental)

M.A.D.	M.A.S.H. 1970	M*A*S*H	M.A.S.H. - Red Cross
M.A.S.H. - Red Cross	Ma Mere	Women's: M.A.S.H. - Red Cross	Alan Alda - M*A*S*H
M.A.X. Stealth Jet Minimates Vehicle	Ma Rainey - Ma Rainey	Ma Rainey - Ma Rainey	Ma Coccinelle