CHARRON, PIERRE

CHARRON, Pierre. - French moralist writer, born in Paris in 1541 and died there in 1603; after obtaining a degree in law he became a priest, was a celebrated preacher, secretary of the General Assembly of the Clergy in 1595, and 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 famous is the second, often discussed and even placed on the Index, which made it more appreciated among 17th-century "libertines" and 18th-century Enlightenment thinkers, who saw in it a manifesto of skepticism and naturalism—certainly not the author’s intention. Charron instead vigorously polemicized against medieval scholasticism and sought to detach morality from religion, envisaging a type of "honest man" who ought to be religious and even Christian, yet stood in opposition to the traditional model. The *Book of Wisdom* is an encyclopedia of 16th-century knowledge, written with great clarity though almost devoid of truly original content, and aims chiefly to combat formalism and pedantry, animated by an optimistic spirit toward human nature to the point of overlooking its wound from original sin. His moral ideal is aristocratic and individualistic.