The New International Encyclopædia/Balzac, Jean Louis Guez de

BALZAC, Jean Louis Guez de (1597-1654). A noted French essayist, and stylist. He was born at Angoulême of wealthy parents, and having received a good education was taken by Cardinal de la Valette to Rome, and wrote thence letters to persons prominent at court that made him recognized on his return as master of composition and style in a generation that regarded such abilities excessively. His letters, collected in 1624, are empty, bombastic, and affected, but they entitle Balzac to rank as a reformer of prose, as his contemporary, Malherbe (q.v.), is of verse. He underwent bitter accusations of plagiarism in 1G25, and withdrew to Angoulême, where he produced his uninspired and laborious lucubration, Le Prince (1631); Discours (1644): Le Barbon (1648); Aristippe. He was elected to the Academy in 1634. Balzac's Works were collected in 2 vols. (Paris, 1665, 1854). The Letters are well edited by Larroque (Paris, 1874).