Louis-Marcelin de Fontanes

Born in Niort (Deux-Sèvres), he belonged to a noble Protestant family of Languedoc which had been reduced to poverty by the revocation of the edict of Nantes.

His parents died in 1774–1775, and in 1777 Fontanes went to Paris, where he found a friend in the dramatist Jean-François Ducis.

[1] On the fall of Robespierre he was made professor of literature in the École Centrale des Quatre-Nations, and he was one of the original members of the Institute.

In the Memorial, a journal edited by Jean-François de la Harpe, he discreetly advocated reaction to the monarchical principle.

He died on March 17, 1821, in Paris, leaving eight cantos of an unfinished epic poem entitled La Grèce sauvée.