Louis de Jaucourt

Louis de Jaucourt ( born September 16, 1704 Paris, † February 3, 1779 in Compiègne ) was a French physician, writer and scholar of the Enlightenment. With more than 15,000 items, this reconnaissance was instrumental in the edited by Diderot and d' Alembert Encyclopédie ou Dictionnaire raisonné des sciences, des arts et des métiers. Following the resignation of d'Alembert, he became his successor.

Life and work

The de Jaucourt family belonged to the old Burgundian gentry, pleaded to the Reformed Christianity of the Huguenots and was therefore observed suspicious in Catholic France by the authorities. His father was Pierre Antoine I de Jaucourt baron d' Hubans (1658-1736), his mother was Marie de Mouginot, both married since September 14, 1684. He had two siblings, Isabelle de Jaucourt and Pierre Antoine II baron d' Hubans de Jaucourt, Marquis de Chantome ( 1687-1780 ).

The young Louis went under a false name, Louis de Neufville, in Geneva to school and then studied medicine at Cambridge until eight years later after suffering to switch over. There his teachers, inter alia, Théodore Tronchin and Hermann Boerhaave were. In Holland he also began his literary activities. The topic of his written in 1730 and published in Paris dissertation was: Dissertatio medica inauguralis, De humana quam allantoic.

Although he received his degree in medicine in 1730, he did not practice as a doctor, but visited from 1733 to again Courses in Boerhaave, but also wrote several essays on the German philosopher and polymath Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz.

Returned to France, he documented the acquired knowledge in an anatomically - medical lexicon. When, after twenty years of work, his work was completed in 1751, he wanted to leave it in Amsterdam print, so it was not subjected to state censorship. The manuscript was lost in a shipwreck - there was not a copy.

Around the year 1751 offered de Jaucourt his work on the Encyclopédie just begun. Denis Diderot was agreed and from the second volume of the Encyclopédie de Jaucourt delivered henceforth many contributions. The Encyclopédie should disseminate knowledge, ideas and world view of the Enlightenment, so had many enemies among the nobility and clergy, and was finally banned in 1757. Many former employees did not dare to resist the ban, and after the seventh band (until the entry Gythium ) extradition for eight years was interrupted.

The ratio of Denis Diderot de Jaucourt can be described as ambivalent, who appreciated his contributions, their personal relationship would be more likely to be characterized as cool. De Jaucourt was involved in the project of the Encyclopédie with a large number of articles with personal effort and financial commitment. So he wrote up to four articles a day. In support, he undertook several secretaries and paid them out of pocket. The group of publishers to André Le Breton, Antoine- Claude Briasson, Michel -Antoine David and Laurent Durand refused him payment for his activities (see installation Generic and economic aspects of the Encyclopédie ), it is clear from the account books that they it though the required literature for writing his articles free of charge set, this resulted in the nine years of its activities, an amount of 2749.69 livres, but any other expenses as wages for its employees, which deals with the researching, excerpting and copies of the texts were de Jaucourt were left. Ultimately, sold de Jaucourt even his house to the publisher André Le Breton in order to pay the running costs. With that money, inter alia, the de Jaucourt generated for the publisher.

Diderot was able, through the involvement of de Jaucourt, contact its energy on other projects. When, after eight years of prohibition, both the pressure and the delivery was continued contributions were ready enough so that the last ten text books all appeared in the same year 1765. This comes almost every second contribution of de Jaucourt. At the end Jaucourt had written 17 266 articles to the Encyclopédie.

With so diligent production it was inevitable that not all products reached the same quality:

Diderot praised de Jaucourt indeed public, but described him privately as pedantic prolific writer. This disdain de Jaucourts prevailed later. The merits of the Chevalier Louis de Jaucourt to the Encyclopédie are almost never mentioned, although the work would have remained a fragment without him.

He was a member of the Académie de Bordeaux and the Kungliga Academy of Engineering in 1755 and from the Royal Society of London from 1756th

Works (selection)

• Dissertatio medica inauguralis, De humana quam allantoic.
• Essais de theodicy: sur la bonté de Dieu, la liberté de l' homme et l' origine de times. F. Changuion, Amsterdam ( 1734)