Background

Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix was born on October 24, 1682 at Saint-Quentin, France. He was the son of François de Charlevoix and his wife Antoinette, née Forestier.

Education

The Charlevoix were an ancient family of Picardy of noble stock, and Pierre was well educated, early showing a vocation for the religious life. When not quite sixteen years of age he began at Paris his novitiate in the Jesuit order, and he was a student at the Collège Louis le Grand from 1701 to 1704.

Career

Then he was ordained to the diaconate, and the next year was sent to Canada as professor of rhetoric in the Jesuit college at Quebec. On his outward passage he was on the same ship with the Sieurs de Raudot and the Marquis de Vaudreuil, Canadian officials, and young Charlevoix by his good manners and pleasing address secured their friendship; thus during his stay at Quebec he was a member of the highest social circle in that place. Recalled to France in 1709 he taught at his Alma Mater, and there had for a pupil the boy Voltaire. Later he became prefect of his college, and when in 1719 the Regent of France desired to send a messenger to New France for the double purpose of ascertaining the boundaries of Acadia and of finding a new route to the West, Father Charlevoix was chosen for the mission. As the Regent did not wish that the world should know the objects of Charlevoix's visit, the latter disguised his journey as one to examine the Jesuit missions of the New World. He set out late in 1720, and arrived in Canada in time to prepare for his expedition the succeeding spring. In a single canoe he made the voyage up the St. Lawrence, through the Great Lakes, visiting Detroit, Mackinac, and Green Bay en route; he then entered Illinois River by way of the St. Joseph-Kankakee portage, spent some time at the Illinois settlements, and finally reached New Orleans and Biloxi early in 1722. He was wrecked in the Gulf of Mexico, and then returned to France after an absence of two years and a half. The journal in which Charlevoix recorded his American experiences consists of a series of letters to a noble patroness, the Duchess de Lesdiguièrres. This form of writing was, however, a fiction; the letters were never sent, and were compiled to afford information not only about the country through which he passed, but also about the customs and manners of the Indians. The importance of this Journal historique, as it was called, lies in the dispassionate and accurate observation of the writer, and in the fact that he was the only traveler of the first part of the eighteenth century who describes interior America. After his return from his voyage of inspection, Charlevoix never traveled more; he was offered but declined the position of missionary at a new post to be built on the upper Mississippi, having no desire for the hardship or possible martyrdom consequent upon a Jesuit's residence at a frontier post. He continued to teach until about the age of fifty, when he withdrew from active work and devoted himself to authorship, dying at the Jesuit convent of La Flèche. He was essentially a scholar, never a zealot; a man of the world, received at court and in good society. His histories were popular and had large sales. He was careful and accurate according to the standards of his time, and in his Histoire et description de la Nouvelle France he wrote of what he knew and had learned from documents and contemporaries. He edited for twenty-two years (1733 - 55) Le Journal de Trevoux, a publication of his order, begun in 1701.

Achievements

• He wrote one of the earliest descriptive accounts of North America.

Works

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  • History and General Description of New France. Translated From the Original Edition and Edited, With Notes Volume 1

    (Unlike some other reproductions of classic texts (1) We h...)

  • A voyage to North-America : undertaken by command of the present king of France ; containing the geographical description and natural history of ... of the inhabitants ; a description of the

    (This book was originally published prior to 1923, and rep...)

  • Memorie per la Storia Delle Scienze, e Buone Arti (Classic Reprint) (Italian Edition)

    (Excerpt from Memorie per la Storia Delle Scienze, e Buone...)

  • Histoire de l'établissement des Progrès et de la Décadence Dy Christianisme Dans l'empire du Japon: V.1 (French Edition)

Connections

Father:

François de Charlevoix

Mother:

Antoinette, née Forestier