Editing Abel-François Villemain (section)

==Biography==
Villemain was born in [[Paris]] and educated at the [[Lycée Louis-le-Grand]]. He became assistant master at the [[Lycée Charlemagne]], and subsequently at the [[École Normale]]. In 1812 he gained a prize from the academy with an essay on [[Michel de Montaigne]]. Under the restoration he was appointed, first, assistant professor of modern history, and then professor of French eloquence at the [[University of Paris|Sorbonne]]. Here he delivered a series of literary lectures which had an extraordinary effect on his younger contemporaries.<ref name="EB1911">{{EB1911|inline=1|wstitle=Villemain, Abel François|volume=28|page=80}}</ref>

Villemain had the great advantage of coming just before the [[Romanticism|Romantic movement]], of having a wide love of literature without being an extremist. Most of the clever young men of the brilliant generation of 1830 passed under his influence; and, while he pleased the Romanticists by his frank appreciation of the beauties of English, German, Italian, and Spanish poetry, he did not decry the classics—either the classics proper of [[Greece]] and Rome or the so-called classics of France.<ref name="EB1911"/>

In 1819 he published a book on [[Oliver Cromwell]],<ref>{{cite journal|title=Review of ''Histoire de Cromwell, d'après les Mémoires du Temps, et les Recueils Parlementaires'' par M. Villemain ...|journal=The Quarterly Review|date=July 1821|volume=25|pages=279–347|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=y2I-Zwu1sb4C&pg=PA279}}</ref> and two years later he was elected to the academy. Villemain was appointed by the restoration government ''Chef de l'imprimerie et de la librairie'', a post involving a kind of irregular censorship of the press, and afterwards to the office of master of requests. Before the [[July Revolution]] he had been deprived of his office for his liberal tendencies, and was elected deputy for [[Évreux]] in [[1830 French legislative election|July 1830]]. Under [[Louis Philippe I|Louis-Philippe]] he was made a [[Peer of France]] in 1832. He was a member of the council of public instruction, and was twice minister of that department, and he also became secretary of the academy. During the whole of the [[July Monarchy]] he was one of the chief dispensers of literary patronage in France, but in his later years his reputation declined. He died in Paris.<ref name="EB1911"/>

His wit was legendary; an anecdote has a fellow professor saying to him "I have discovered a [[gallicism]] in [[Cicero]]." The professor had been a revolutionary during the revolution, a follower of Napoleon during the Empire and a royalist during the restauration. Villemain answered quickly to him: "I found one too: «Quantae infidelitates! Quot amicorum fugae!»"{{Citation needed|date=April 2016}}

Villemain's chief work is his ''Cours de la littérature française'' (5 vols., 1828–1829). Among his other works are: ''Tableau de la littérature au Moyen Âge'' (2 vols., 1846); ''Tableau de la littérature au XVIII siècle'' (4 vols., 1864); ''Souvenirs contemporains'' (2 vols., 1856); ''Histoire de Grégoire VII'' (2 vols., 1873; Engl. trans., 1874).<ref name="EB1911"/>

[[Lautréamont]] assessed him thus: "Villemain is thirty-four times more intelligent than [[Eugène Sue]] and [[Frédéric Soulié]]. His preface to the ''Dictionary of the Academy'' will outlive the novels of [[Walter Scott]] and [[James Fenimore Cooper|Fenimore Cooper]], and all the novels conceivable and imaginable."<ref>{{cite book |last1=Raitt |first1=Alan William |title=The Process of Art: Essays on Nineteenth-century French Literature, Music and Painting in Honour of Alan Raitt |date=1998 |publisher=Clarendon Press |page=34}}</ref>

Among notices on Villemain may be cited that of [[Louis de Loménie]] (1841), E. Mirecourt (1858), J.L. Dubut (1875). See also [[Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve|Sainte-Beuve]], ''Portraits'' (1841, vol. iii), and ''Causeries du lundi'' (vol. xi, "Notes et pensées").<ref name="EB1911"/>