BALZAC, JEAN-LOUIS GUEZ de. - French writer b. in 1597 and d. in 1654, and one of the most brilliant writers of the French literary world of the first half of the 17th century. A disciple of the Jesuits, later an agent of Card. de la Vallette in Rome, on his return to Paris he was appointed by Card. Richelieu councillor of state, academician and historiographer of France. His fame is linked to the Lettres (the first collection of which appeared in 1624) exchanged with the leading figures of the time, and for whose oratorical and sonorous form he has been considered the reformer of French prose: but too often emphatic and precious, he was soon forgotten. Nevertheless, a very fine taste makes up for his scant imagination, and this has allowed him lucid intuitions: he revealed nothing new or profound, but, taking up again the tradition of the Renaissance, in the effort to popularize culture, he strove to «civiliscer la doctrine en la dépayant des collèges et la délivrant des mains des pédants».
B. wisely discoursed on politics and morals in the 67 dissertations of the Entretiens: Le Prince (1631) is a panegyric of Louis XIII and a confutation of Machiavelli; in Aristippe ou la Cour (1658) he speaks of the customs of the court and of politics, while in the Socrate Chrétien he exalts, as a fervent believer, the Catholic religion and liturgy, exhorting to the reading of the Gospels. He also wrote Latin verses collected in Tres libri carminum.
His complete works were printed for the first time in Paris in 1665. A recent edition (Paris 1933-36) of the Premières lettres (1618-27) was edited by H. Bibas and K. T. Butler.