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JEAN ANTOINE ROUCHER (1745-1794)

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Originally appearing in Volume V23, Page 768 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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JEAN See also:ANTOINE See also:ROUCHER (1745-1794)  , See also:French poet, the son of a tailor of See also:Montpellier, was See also:born on the 22nd of See also:February 1745 . By an See also:epithalamium on See also:Louis XVI. and See also:Marie Antoinette he gained the favour of See also:Turgot, and obtained a See also:salt-tax collectorship . His poem was entitled See also:Les Mois; it appeared in 1779, was praised in MS., damned in See also:print and restored to a just appreciation by the students of literature of the 19th See also:century . It has the drawbacks of merely didactic-descriptive See also:poetry on the See also:great See also:scale, but occasionally displays much See also:grace and spirit . The malicious wit of See also:Rivarol's mot on the See also:ill-success of the poem, " C'est le plus beau naufrage du siecle," is not intelligible unless it is said that one of the most elaborate passages describes a shipwreck . See also:Roucher was a See also:disciple of . See also:Voltaire, and therefore a friend of the Revolution, but he remained moderate in his opinions . He frequently presided over an See also:anti-Jacobin See also:club, and denounced the tyranny of the popular demagogues in supplements published with the See also:Journal de See also:Paris in 1792 . He was arrested on the 4th of See also:October 1793, and, accused of being the See also:leader of a See also:conspiracy among the prisoners at See also:Saint Lazare, was sent to the See also:guillotine on the same tumbril with his friend See also:Andre See also:Chenier on the 25th of See also:July 1794 . Roucher translated in 1790 See also:Adam See also:Smith's See also:Wealth of Nations . His letters from See also:prison were edited by his son-in-See also:law under the See also:title of Consolations de ma captivite (1797), and his See also:death was made the subject of a tragedy in 1834 by his See also:brother See also:Claude Roucher-Deratte, a voluminous writer . See A .

Guillois, See also:

Pendant la terreur, la poete Roucher, 1745–1794 (189o), founded on the poet's papers by one of his descendants . ROU$, a dissipated debauchee . The word is French, and its See also:original meaning was " broken on the See also:wheel." Breaking on the wheel was a See also:form of See also:execution reserved in See also:France, and some other countries, for crimes of See also:peculiar atrocity . A roue, therefore, came by a natural See also:process to be understood to mean a See also:man morally worse than a pendard or gallows-See also:bird, who only deserved See also:hanging for See also:common crimes . He was also a leader in wickedness, since the See also:chief of a gang of brigands (for instance) would be broken on the wheel, while his obscure followers were merely hanged . See also:Philip, See also:duke of See also:Orleans, who was See also:regent of France from 1715 to 1723, gave the See also:term the sense of impious and callous debauchee, which it has See also:borne since his See also:time, by habitually applying it to the very See also:bad male See also:company who amused his privacy and his leisure . The See also:locus classicus for the origin of this use of the epithet is in the See also:Memoirs of Saint-See also:Simon (vol. xii. pp . 441–46, ed . See also:Cheruel .and See also:Regnier, Paris, 1873–86) .

End of Article: JEAN ANTOINE ROUCHER (1745-1794)
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