Joseph Fiévée (9 April 1767 - 9 May 1839) was a French
journalist
A journalist is a person who gathers information in the form of text, audio or pictures, processes it into a newsworthy form and disseminates it to the public. This is called journalism.
Roles
Journalists can work in broadcast, print, advertis ...
, novelist, essayist, playwright,
civil servant
The civil service is a collective term for a sector of government composed mainly of career civil service personnel hired rather than elected, whose institutional tenure typically survives transitions of political leadership. A civil service offic ...
(''haut fonctionnaire'') and secret agent. He also lived in an openly
gay
''Gay'' is a term that primarily refers to a homosexual person or the trait of being homosexual. The term originally meant 'carefree', 'cheerful', or 'bright and showy'.
While scant usage referring to male homosexuality dates to the late ...
relationship with the writer Théodore Leclercq (1777-1851), with whom he was buried after his death.
Career
Fiévée was born and died in Paris. The son of a restaurant owner, he became a publisher during the
French Revolution, most notably editing ''La Chronique de Paris'', a newspaper; it was here that he started his career as journalist, but unfortunately incurred the suspicion of authorities who had him imprisoned during the
Reign of Terror
The Reign of Terror (French: ''La Terreur'', literally "The Terror") was a period of the French Revolution when, following the creation of the French First Republic, First Republic, a series of massacres and Capital punishment in France, nu ...
. He was a member of the royalist network around the Abbey de Montesquiou, and was forced to go into hiding during the
Directoire
The Directory (also called Directorate; ) was the system of government established by the French Constitution of 1795. It takes its name from the committee of 5 men vested with executive power. The Directory governed the French First Republ ...
. While in hiding, he wrote his novel on changing times and ''mores'', ''La Dot de Suzette'', which was a great literary success.
From 1800 to 1803, he wrote a column for the ''Gazette de France''. He was again imprisoned in the
Temple (Paris)
The Square du Temple is a garden in Paris, France in the 3rd arrondissement, established in 1857. It is one of 24 city squares planned and created by Georges-Eugène Haussmann and Jean-Charles Adolphe Alphand. The Square occupies the site o ...
by order of
Joseph Fouché
Joseph Fouché, 1st Duc d'Otrante, 1st Comte Fouché (; 21 May 1759 – 26 December 1820) was a French statesman, revolutionary, and Minister of Police under First Consul Napoleon Bonaparte, who later became a subordinate of Emperor Napoleon. H ...
, but he was freed at the request of
Bonaparte. He became a kind of secret agent for Napoleon, informing him of political affairs in France and England.
From 1804 to 1807, he was editor in chief of the ''Journal des débats'', which became ''Journal de l'Empire''. He was ennobled by the Emperor; was named "maître des requêtes" to the Conseil d'État in 1810; then "Préfet" of the
Nièvre
Nièvre () is a department in the Bourgogne-Franche-Comté region, central-east France. Named after the river Nièvre, it had a population of 204,452 in 2019.[Louis XVIII of France
Louis XVIII (Louis Stanislas Xavier; 17 November 1755 – 16 September 1824), known as the Desired (), was King of France from 1814 to 1824, except for a brief interruption during the Hundred Days in 1815. Before his reign, he spent 23 ...]
during the initial
Restoration, he was banished during the
Hundred Days
The Hundred Days ( ), also known as the War of the Seventh Coalition (), marked the period between Napoleon's return from eleven months of exile on the island of Elba to Paris on20 March 1815 and the second restoration of King Louis XVIII o ...
. Having become one of the intellectuals of the "ultra" party and writer for the papers ''La Quotidienne'' and the ''Conservateur'', he eventually became more politically liberal after 1818. A strong supporter of the freedom of the press, he was sentenced to three months of prison in the
Conciergerie
The Conciergerie () () is a former courthouse and prison in Paris, France, located on the west of the Île de la Cité, below the Palais de Justice. It was originally part of the former royal palace, the Palais de la Cité, which also included ...
where
Casimir Perier
Casimir is a Latin version of the Polish male name Kazimierz (). The original Polish feminine form is Kazimiera, in Latin and other languages rendered as Casimira. It has two possible meanings: "preacher of peace" or alternatively "destroyer of p ...
visited him.
He became a contributor to the journals ''Temps'' in 1829 and ''National'' in 1831.
Private life
Joseph Fiévée married in 1790 (his brother-in-law was Charles Frédéric Perlet), but his wife died giving birth, leaving him one child. At the end of the 1790s, he met the writer
Théodore Leclercq who became his life companion, and the two would live and raise Fiévée's son together. When becoming Préfet, Fiévée and Leclercq moved to the Nièvre department, and their open relationship greatly shocked some locals. The two men were received together in the
salons of the Restoration.
Both men are buried in the same tomb at
Père Lachaise Cemetery
Père Lachaise Cemetery (, , formerly , ) is the largest cemetery in Paris, France, at . With more than 3.5 million visitors annually, it is the most visited necropolis in the world.
Buried at Père Lachaise are many famous figures in the ...
.
Works
Novels :
*''La Dot de Suzette'' (1798)
BNF 1
*''Frédéric'' (1799)
BNF 2
Letters :
*''Lettres sur l'Angleterre'' (1803)
*', Ed. Le Normant (1816)
*''Lettres sur le projet d'organisation municipale'' (présentées à la Chambre des Députés le 21 février 1821), Le Normant (1821)
*', en 3 volumes, Ed. Desrez et Beauvais (1836)
*'
Essays :
*''De la religion considérée dans ses rapports avec le but de toute législation'' (1795)
*''Du dix-huit brumaire opposé au système de la Terreur'' (1802)
BNF 3
*''Réflexions sur la philosophie du XVIIIe siècle'', Ed. Perlet-Desenne (1802)
*''Conseils à Napoléon 1802-1803''
*''Des opinions et des intérêts pendant la Révolution'' (1809)
*''Histoire de la session de 1815'', Ed. L'Huillier-Delaunay (1816)
*''Histoire de la session de 1816'', Le Normant (1817)
*''Histoire de la session de 1817'', Le Normant (1818)
*''Examen des discussions relatives à la loi des élections pendant la session de 1819'', Le Normant (1820)
*''Histoire de la session de 1820'', Le Normant (1821)
*''Ce que tout le monde pense, ce que personne ne dit'', Le Normant (1821)
*''De l'Espagne et des conséquences de l'intervention armée'' (1823)
*''Causes et conséquences du mois de juillet 1830'' (1830)
Short Stories:
*''Le divorce, le faux révolutionnaire et l'héroïsme des femmes'', Ed. A. Duleau (1802)
Theatre :
*''La maison à vendre'' (1789)
*''Le badinage dangereux'' (1789)
*''Les rigueurs du cloître'' (1790)
Honors
Chevalier de la Légion d'honneur
The National Order of the Legion of Honour ( ), formerly the Imperial Order of the Legion of Honour (), is the highest and most prestigious French national order of merit, both military and Civil society, civil. Currently consisting of five cl ...
(1812)
References
* Cavalier, Auguste. ' 1902.
* Martin, Jean-Clément. ''Conservatisme, journalisme, et opinion publique sous la Restauration : le paradoxe du succès de Joseph Fiévée.'' Rennes: Presses universitaires de Rennes, 2001.
* Popkin, Jeremy D. ''Joseph Fiévée, imprimeur, écrivain, journaliste: une carrière dans le monde du livre pendant la Révolution.'' 1988.
* Tulard, Jean. ''Joseph Fiévée, conseiller secret de Napoléon.'' Collection: Les Inconnus de l'histoire. Paris: Fayard, 1985. Contains the "Petit dictionnaire fiévéien".
* Thuillier, Guy. ''Témoins de l'administration (Joseph Fiévée et l'administration impériale).'' Ed. Berger-Levrault, 1967.
External links
*
*
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fievee, Joseph
1767 births
1839 deaths
18th-century French dramatists and playwrights
French journalists
18th-century French novelists
19th-century French novelists
18th-century French LGBTQ people
19th-century French LGBTQ people
French gay writers
French LGBTQ journalists
Writers from Paris
French LGBTQ dramatists and playwrights
French LGBTQ novelists
French male essayists
French male dramatists and playwrights
French male novelists
19th-century French male writers
18th-century French essayists
19th-century French essayists
18th-century French male writers