Fréron, Elie-Catherine

FRÉRON, ELIE-CATHERINE. - French critic and journalist, b. at Quimper on 18 (20) Jan. 1718 (1719), d. at Paris on 10 March 1776. Having entered the Jesuits, he laid aside the habit in 1739.

He collaborated at first with P. F. Des Fontaines on his review Observations sur quelques écrits modernes, later publishing on his own account Lettres de M.me le contesse de*** (1745), in which he took aim at the most prominent writers of the time. Once the paper was suppressed, he resumed the polemic in Lettres sur quelques écrits de ce temps (1749), which earned him the sympathies of the court. On 3 Feb. 1754 he founded the Aînée littéraire, which he continued until his death, a veritable "literary whip," in which he relentlessly lashed the impiety and subversiveness of the Encyclopedists, particularly of Voltaire, but at the same time also their literary merit. His adversaries took their revenge by obtaining, along with the suppression of the journal, his arrest as well. A caustic spirit and endowed with every resource of polemic, he was neither impartial nor profound; he had to struggle with adversaries too powerful, who, by their invectives, gave him perhaps more prominence than he deserved, but to the detriment of his fame. His immense output is said to exceed 250 volumes.

Vito Zollin