Nicolas de Malézieu (or Malézieux) (or Malesieu) (7 September 1650, in

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

– 4 March 1727, in Paris) was a French intellectual, Greek scholar and

mathematician A mathematician is someone who uses an extensive knowledge of mathematics in their work, typically to solve mathematical problems. Mathematicians are concerned with numbers, data, quantity, structure, space, models, and change. History On ...

Life and career

Nicolas de Malézieu was a

squire In the Middle Ages, a squire was the shield- or armour-bearer of a knight. Use of the term evolved over time. Initially, a squire served as a knight's apprentice. Later, a village leader or a lord of the manor might come to be known as a ...

and lord of Chatenay. He later became chancellor of

Dombes The Dombes (; Arpitan: Domba) is an area in eastern France, once an independent municipality, formerly part of the province of Burgundy, and now a district comprised in the department of Ain, and bounded on the west by the Saône River, on th ...

and secretary-general to the Swiss and Grisons of France. He was the tutor of

Louis Auguste, Duke of Maine Louis-Auguste de Bourbon, duc du Maine (31 March 1670 – 14 May 1736) was an illegitimate son of Louis XIV and his official mistress, Madame de Montespan. The king's favourite son, he was the founder of the semi-royal House of Bourbon-Maine name ...

(to whom he introduced

Bossuet Bossuet is a French surname. Notable people with the surname include: * Jacques-Bénigne Bossuet (1627–1704), French bishop and theologian, uncle of Louis * Louis Bossuet Louis Bossuet (22 February 1663 – 15 January 1742) was a French parle ...

) and he declaimed the plays of

Euripides Euripides (; grc, Εὐριπίδης, Eurīpídēs, ; ) was a tragedian of classical Athens. Along with Aeschylus and Sophocles, he is one of the three ancient Greek tragedians for whom any plays have survived in full. Some ancient scholars a ...

and

Sophocles Sophocles (; grc, Σοφοκλῆς, , Sophoklễs; 497/6 – winter 406/5 BC)Sommerstein (2002), p. 41. is one of three ancient Greek tragedians, at least one of whose plays has survived in full. His first plays were written later than, or c ...

to the

duchess Duke is a male title either of a monarch ruling over a duchy, or of a member of royalty, or nobility. As rulers, dukes are ranked below emperors, kings, grand princes, grand dukes, and sovereign princes. As royalty or nobility, they are ranke ...

who had made her chateau of Sceaux into a literary salon. Here he became a member of the light-hearted fraternity she founded, the (fr) :fr:Ordre de la Mouche à Miel, Knights of the Bee, and organised the festivals she loved, the :fr:Grandes Nuits de Sceaux. Later tutor to Louis, Duke of Burgundy, duc de Bourgogne, he was appointed to the Académie des sciences (France), Académie royale des sciences in 1699 and to the Académie française in 1701. Malézieu collected and published the lessons in mathematics that he gave to the duc de Bourgogne over four years in 1705 as ''Élémens de géométrie de Mgr le duc de Bourgogne''. Le ''Journal des savants'' reported in detail the observations he made in this work on geometry and infinitely small numbers. In 1713, this work was translated into Latin as ''Serenissimi Burgundiae Ducis Elementa Geometrica, ex Gallico Semone in Latinum translata ad Usum Seminarii Patavini''. A third (posthumous) edition, with corrections and a supplemental treatise on logarithms, appeared 1729. Nicolas de Malézieu also translated

’ ''Iphigenia in Tauris'' as well as poems, songs and sketches, which were published in 1712 in ''Les Divertissements de Sceaux'' and in 1725 in the ''Suite des Divertissements''. Among these pieces are ''Philémon et Baucis'', ''Le Prince de Cathay'', ''Les Importuns de Chatenay'', ''La Grande Nuit de l'éclipse'', ''L'Hôte de Lemnos'', ''La Tarentole'' and ''L'Heautontimorumenos''. Often written in a single day, these pieces were set to music and staged for the amusement of the duchess, to whom Malézieu also gave courses in astronomy. A four-volume work, a ''Histoire des fermes du roi'' (''History of Royal Farms'') survives only a manuscript version dating from 1746. Pierre-Édouard Lémontey said of Malézieu "Knowing a bit about everything, he gathered in his servile person all the advantages of universal mediocrity."

Family

Malézieu was the son of Nicolas de Malézieu (1612-1652) and Marie des Forges (d.1680). His brother Michel Louis de Malézieu married Marie Jérônime Mac Carthy (d.1714) In 1672 Malézieu married Françoise Faudel de Fauveresse (1650-1741) by whom he had the following children: * Nicolas de Malézieu (1674-1748), bishop of Lavaur en 1713. * Pierre de Malézieu (1680-1756), married Louise Marthe Stoppa in 1717 (d.1720), under-secretary to the duc de Maine, secretary-general of the Swiss and Grisons in 1727, brigadier of the infantry, ifnanterie, maréchal de camp in 1734, lieutenant general of the artillery and commander of the Order of Saint-Louis in 1756. * Charles-François de Malézieu (d.1763), lieutenant-colonel of a brigade of carabiniers, cavalry brigadier in 1745, governor of the harbour and defences of La Rochelle. * Élisabeth de Malézieu (b.1676), married (1699) Antoine des Rioux de Missimy, first president of the parlement and intendant of Dombes * Marie de Malézieu (b.1682), married (1705) Louis de Guiry, seigneur de Noncourt and la Roncière, mestre de camp of the cavalry, lieutenant general of Aunis and la Rochelle

External links

''Les Divertissements de Sceaux'', Trévoux, Étienne Ganeau, 1712

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Malezieu, Nicolas de 1650 births 1727 deaths Translators to French Translators from Greek French classical scholars French mathematicians Members of the Académie Française Members of the French Academy of Sciences