Background
He was born in Paris, France August 16, 1645. The son of a bourgeois family.
He was born in Paris, France August 16, 1645. The son of a bourgeois family.
He was educated by the Oratorians and at the University of Orléans.
He was called to the bar, and in 1673 bought a post in the revenue department at Caen, which gave him status and an income.
Bruyere came to Paris in 1684 and accepted a position with the Prince de Condé, first as tutor to the young Duc de Bourgogne, then as secretary to Condé himself. Introspective and retiring by nature, La Bruyère contented himself with observing social types and writing their portraits as preserved in his one great work, Les Caractères (1688). Although fictitious names tended to disguise the identity of La Bruyère's subjects, most of them strongly resented the manner of their depiction, and the ensuing contention may have been responsible for La Bruyère's failure to be elected to the French Academy in 1691. Two years later, despite the opposition of the Moderns whom he had opposed in the Quarrel of the Ancients and Moderns, La Bruyère was elected to the Academy. Taking his idea from the Characters of Theophrastus, La Bruyère set out to make his masterpiece a work that would indeed reflect, as the subtitle states, "the mores of this age. " The portraits, at first evenly balanced by maxims in the manner of La Rochefoucauld and by paragraphs on literature and morality, came to predominate. La Bruyère showed an increasing awareness of the existence, alongside the brilliant courtly world, of an exploited and miserable peasantry who shared little in the wealth they drew from the land. His style is rich and forceful, and through his pages parades an unforgettable series of conceited wits, hypocrites, bombastic nobles, cruel women, and social parasites.
La Bruyère rebelled against the injustices and stupidities of society, and he stated at the outset his wish to help correct them.