La Rochefoucauld, François VI, duke de

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François VI, duke de La Rochefoucauld

born Sept. 15, 1613, Paris, France

died March 16/17, 1680, Paris

French writer.

Of a noble family, he joined the army at an early age and was wounded several times. He later played a leading part in the Fronde but gradually won his way back into royal favour. He turned his energies to intellectual pursuits and became the leading exponent of the maxime, a French form of epigram that concisely expresses a harsh or paradoxical truth. Maximes (five eds., 1665–78), his principal achievement, consists of 500 reflections on human behaviour. His Mémoires (1664) recount the plots and campaigns of mutinous nobles during the Fronde.

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More on "Francois VI, duke de La Rochefoucauld" from Britannica Concise:

epigram - Short poem treating concisely, pointedly, and often satirically a single thought or event and often ending with a witticism or ingenious turn of thought.

More on "Francois VI, duke de La Rochefoucauld" from the 32 Volume Encyclopædia Britannica:

La Rochefoucauld, Francois VI, Duke (duc) de - French classical author who had been one of the most active rebels of the Fronde before he became the leading exponent of the maxime, a French literary form of epigram that expresses a harsh or paradoxical truth with brevity.

La Rochefoucauld - one of France's noblest families, traceable in Angoumois to the year 1019. Ducal titles belonging to it are: duke (duc) de La Rochefoucauld (1622); duke de La Roche-Guyon (1679); duke d'Anville (1732); duke d'Estissac; duke de Liancourt (1747); duke de Doudeauville (1780); duke (duca) di Bisaccia (Neapolitan title; 1851); and duke (duque) de Estrees (Spanish title; 1892). Its two best-known ...

epigram - originally an inscription suitable for carving on a monument, but since the time of the Greek Anthology (q.v.) applied to any brief and pithy verse, particularly if astringent and purporting to point a moral. By extension the term is also applied to any striking sentence in a novel, play, poem, or conversation that appears to express a succinct truth, usually in the form of a generalization. ...

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