Abel François VILLEMAIN
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Writer and Perpetual Secretary of the Académie française.
Abel François Villemain, born in Paris in 1790, was a professor, writer and literary critic, at the time when judging books was becoming a discipline that was taught. The Académie française then entrusted him with its highest office, the perpetual secretaryship, the only one held until death. The sculptor Lequien had set a bronze medallion on his monument: it is gone.
The story
To see the face of Abel François Villemain you must go to the Louvre: Ary Scheffer painted him there in 1855, fifteen years before his death. Few academicians of his century have their portrait in that museum.
Born in Paris on 9 June 1790, Abel François Villemain was a writer, a professor and a literary critic — at a time when judging books was becoming a discipline that could be taught. The Académie française entrusted him in 1834 with its perpetual secretaryship, the highest office and the only one held for life: he exercised it for thirty-six years.
He died on 8 May 1870, at seventy-nine, a few months before the fall of the Second Empire. His epitaph in Division 60 lines up his titles, from the perpetual secretaryship of the Académie to the ministry of Public Instruction, and states that he died “à l'Institut de France.” The stele once carried a bronze medallion by the sculptor Lequien: it has gone.
On site, do not miss
To see his face you must go to the Louvre: Ary Scheffer painted him in 1855.
Visitors' questions
Where is Abel François Villemain's grave?
In Division 60 of Père-Lachaise, that of the Haüy brothers and of Théodore-Casimir Delamarre. He died in 1870, at seventy-nine.
Théodore-Casimir DelamarreWhat is a perpetual secretary?
The highest office of the Académie française, and the only one held for life: the perpetual secretary directs the work of the institution. Villemain held it until his death.
Marc FumaroliIs his portrait in the Louvre?
It is: Ary Scheffer painted him in 1855, fifteen years before he died, and the canvas hangs today in the Louvre. Few academicians of his century could say the same.
Alain DecauxWhat was his profession?
A writer, a professor and a literary critic — in the years when criticism was becoming a scholarly discipline and was taught as one. He died the year the Second Empire fell.
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