SIEUR DE SOUVIGNY

CHARLES

See also:

• SOREL
• SOREL, AGNES (c. 1422-1450)
• SOREL, ALBERT (1842-1906)
• SIEUR DE SOUVIGNY CHARLES SOREL (1597-1674)

SOREL (1597-1674)  , French novelist and miscellaneous writer, was born in Paris about 1597 . Very little is known of his life except that in 1635 he was historiographer of France . He wrote on science, history and religion, but is only remembered by his novels . He tried to destroy the vogue of the pastoral romance by writing a novel of adventure, the Histoire comique de Francion (1622) . The episodical adventures of Francion found many readers, who nevertheless reserved their admiration for the Astree it was intended to ridicule . Sorel decided to make his intention unmistakable, and in Le Berger extravagant (3 vols., 1627) he wrote a burlesque, in which a Parisian shop-boy, his head turned by sentiment, chooses an unprepossessing mistress and starts life as a shepherd with a dozen sheep on the banks of the Seine . Sorel did not succeed in founding the novel of character, and what he accomplished was more in the direction of farce, but he struck a shrewd blow at romance . Among his other works are Polyandre (1648) and La Connaissance des bons livres (1673) . He died in Paris on the 8th of March 1674 .