Bernard-Joseph Saurin

Saurin was the son of Joseph Saurin, a converted Protestant minister and mathematician who had been accused in 1712 by Jean-Baptiste Rousseau of being the actual author of defamatory verses that gossip had attributed to Rousseau.

[1] Attracted to literature, and frequenting the Society of the Caveau, he became a lawyer at Parliament, a career which he did not like, but endured for fifteen years in order to support his family.

Neither his comedy Les Trois rivaux (The Three Rivals), nor his tragedy Aménophis met with success, which came in 1760 with the tragedy Spartacus and the comedy Les Mœurs du temps (The Manners of the Time), which were applauded at the Comédie-Française.

Friend of Voltaire, Saint-Lambert, Montesquieu, Turgot and Helvétius, he could be regarded as one of the philosophers.

Works are listed chronologically and include links to the text in Gallica at the Bibliothèque nationale de France when available :

Bernard-Joseph Saurin. Portrait by Louis Carrogis dit Carmontelle , 1761. Chantilly , Musée Condé .