Charron, Pierre

CHARRON, PIERRE. - French moralist writer, b. in Paris in 1541 and d. there in 1603; after taking a degree in jurisprudence he became a priest, was a celebrated preacher, secretary of the General Assembly of the Clergy in 1595, a favorite of Henry IV.

He wrote Les trois vérités (Bordeaux 1594), Le traité de la sagesse (ibid. 1601), Discours chrétiens (ibid. 1600, Paris 1604); the most celebrated is the second, many times translated, also placed on the Index, which made it more appreciated among the "libertines" of the 17th century and the Enlightenment thinkers of the 18th, who saw in it a proclamation of skepticism and naturalism, which was certainly not the author's intention. Charron, on the other hand, polemicized harshly against medieval scholasticism and sought to detach morality from religion, dreaming of a type of "honnête homme," who was indeed to be religious and even Christian, but who was the opposite of the traditional model. The book of Sagesse is an encyclopedia of 16th-century knowledge, written with great clarity even though it has almost nothing truly original, and seeks above all to combat formalism and pedantry, animated by a spirit of optimism with regard to human nature, to the point of making one forget that it is wounded by original sin. His moral model is aristocratic and individualistic.

Paolo Brezzi