Charles, marquis de Villette

Charles Michel, Marquis de Villette (4 December 1736 – 7 July 1793) was a French writer and politician.

Life

Voltaire's protégé Charles was born in Paris as the heir of a financier who left him a large fortune and the nobility title of Marquis. After taking part in the Seven Years' War, Villette returned in 1763 to his native city, where he owned an estate in Clermont. The Marquis made many enemies by his perceived lack of manners. Nonetheless, he succeeded in gaining the intimacy of Voltaire, who had known his mother and who wished to turn him into a poet; the aging philosophe is even recorded to have viewed his protégé Villette as "the French Tibullus".

In 1765, Voltaire invited the Marquis to his estate at Ferney. Although Voltaire joked quite freely about the Marquis' illegal attractions to men, he convinced the Marquis to marry Reine Philiberte de Varicourt in 1777. The marriage was unhappy, and his wife was subsequently adopted by Voltaire's niece, Marie Louise Mignot.

Revolution During the French Revolution, Villette publicly burned his , wrote revolutionary articles in the Chronique de Paris,

Works In 1784 he published his Œuvres, and in 1792 his articles in the Chronique de Paris appeared in book form under the title Lettres choisies sur les principaux événements de la Révolution.