Paul Heinrich Dietrich

Paul Heinrich Dietrich, Baron d'Holbach
Era	18th-century philosophy
Region	Western Philosophy
School	French materialism
Main interests	Atheism, Determinism, Materialism
Influenced by Hobbes
Influenced Marx

Paul-Henri Thiry, Baron d'Holbach (8 December 1723 – 21 January 1789^[1]) was a French-German author, philosopher, encyclopedist and a prominent figure in the French Enlightenment. He was born Paul Heinrich Dietrich in Edesheim, near Landau in the Rhenish Palatinate, but lived and worked mainly in Paris, where he kept a salon. He is best known for his atheism and for his voluminous writings against religion, the most famous of them being the System of Nature (1770).

Segment of his baptism certificate.

Biography[link]

Background[link]

Franz Adam Holbach's, or Adam François d’Holbach's house in Edesheim, Schloss Kupperwolf

D’Holbach's mother Catherine Jacobina née Holbach (1684–1743) was the daughter of Johannes Jacobus Holbach († 1723) the Prince-Bishop's tax collector, or better for the Roman Catholic Diocese of Speyer. His father, Johann Jakob Dietrich, (with other notations: ger.: Johann Jakob Dirre; fr.: Jean Jacques Thiry) (1672–1756) was a wine-grower.

He was raised in Paris by his uncle Franz Adam Holbach, (or Adam François d’Holbach or Messire François-Adam, Baron d’Holbach, Seigneur de Heeze, Leende et autres Lieux)^[2] (approx. 1675–1753), who had become a millionaire by speculating on the Paris stock-exchange. With his financial support, d’Holbach attended the University of Leiden from 1744 to 1748 and went on to marry his second cousin, Basile-Geneviève d'Aine (1728–1754), on 11 December 1750. In 1753 both his uncle and his father died, leaving the 30-year-old d'Holbach with an enormous inheritance, such as Heeze Castle, Kasteel Heeze te Heeze.

Kasteel Heeze te Heeze, since the year 1733 in possession of François Adam d’Holbach. In 1735 additional buildings were erected. Paul Henri Thiry Holbach inherited this estate in 1750.

D’Holbach would remain wealthy throughout his life.^[3] In 1754, his wife died from an unknown disease. The distraught d’Holbach moved to the provinces for a brief period with his friend Baron Grimm and in the following year received a special dispensation from the Pope to marry his deceased wife's sister, Charlotte-Suzanne d’Aine (1733–1814).^[4] They had a son Charles-Marius (1757–1832) and his daughters Amélie-Suzanne (* 13 Jan 1759) and Louise-Pauline (19 Dec 1759–1830).^[5]

Baron d’Holbach

D'Holbach's salon[link]

Although he spent much of his time at his country estate at Grandval, d'Holbach used his wealth to maintain one of the more notable and lavish Parisian salons, which soon became an important meeting place for the contributors to the Encyclopédie. Le Château de Grand-Val^[6] (Sucy-en-Brie today N° 27 rue du Grand-Val on the outskirts of Paris (Département Val-de-Marne).^[7][8] Meetings were held regularly twice a week, on Sundays and Thursdays, in d'Holbach's home in rue Royale, but Saint-Roche between approximately 1750 - 1780. Visitors to the salon were exclusively males, and the tone of discussion highbrow, often extending to topics more extensive than those of other salons.^[9] This, along with the excellent food, expensive wine, and a library of over 3000 volumes, attracted many notable visitors. Among the regulars in attendance at the salon—the coterie holbachique—were the following: Diderot, Grimm, Condillac, Condorcet, D'Alembert, Marmontel, Turgot, La Condamine, Raynal, Helvétius, Galiani, Morellet, Naigeon and, for a time, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The salon was also visited by prominent British intellectuals, amongst them Adam Smith, David Hume, John Wilkes, Horace Walpole, Edward Gibbon, David Garrick, Laurence Sterne, and one American—Benjamin Franklin.^[10]

D'Holbach was known for his generosity, often providing financial support discreetly or anonymously to his friends, amongst them Diderot. It is thought that the virtuous atheist Wolmar in Jean-Jacques Rousseau's Julie, ou la nouvelle Héloïse is based on d'Holbach.^[3]

Holbach died in Paris on 21 January 1789, a few months before the French Revolution.^[1] The authorship of his various anti-religious works did not become widely known until the early 19th century. Ironically, he was buried in the Church of Saint Roch in Paris. The exact location of the grave is unknown.^[11]

Writings[link]

[edit] Contributions to the Encyclopédie

D'Holbach by Louis Carmontelle

For the Encyclopédie d'Holbach authored and translated a large number of articles on topics ranging from politics and religion to chemistry and mineralogy. As a German who had become a naturalised Frenchman, he undertook the translation of many contemporary German works of natural philosophy into French. All in all, between 1751 and 1765 he contributed some four hundred articles to the project, mostly on scientific subjects, in addition to serving as the editor of several volumes on natural philosophy. D'Holbach may also have written several disparaging entries on non-Christian religions, intended as veiled criticisms of Christianity itself.^[12]

Church of Saint-Roch, front view of the church in which he and his friend Denis Diderot were buried.

Anti-religious works[link]

Despite his extensive contributions to the Encyclopédie, d'Holbach is better known today for his philosophical writings, all of which were published anonymously or under pseudonyms and printed outside of France, usually in Amsterdam by Marc-Michel Rey. His philosophy was expressly materialistic and atheistic and is today categorised into the philosophical movement called French materialism. In 1761 Christianisme dévoilé ("Christianity Unveiled") appeared, in which he attacked Christianity and religion in general as an impediment to the moral advancement of humanity. The deistic Voltaire, denying authorship of the work, made known his aversion to d'Holbach's philosophy, writing that "[the work] is entirely opposed to my principles. This book leads to an atheistic philosophy that I detest."^[13] Christianity Unveiled was followed by others, notably La Contagion sacrée (1768 - "The Sacred Contagion"), Théologie portative (1768 - "Portable Theology") and Essai sur les préjugés (1770 - "Essay on prejudice"). D'Holbach was helped in these endeavours by Jacques-André Naigeon, who would later become his literary executor.

The System of Nature[link]

In 1770, d'Holbach published his most famous book, The System of Nature (Le Système de la nature), under the name of Jean-Baptiste de Mirabaud, the secretary of the Academie Francaise who had died ten years previously. Denying the existence of a deity, and refusing to admit as evidence all a priori arguments, d'Holbach saw in the universe nothing save matter in motion, bound by inexorable natural laws of cause and effect. There is, he wrote "no necessity to have recourse to supernatural powers to account for the formation of things."^[14]

The System of Nature is a long and extensive work presenting a thoroughly naturalistic view of the world. Some d'Holbach scholars have pointed out that Denis Diderot was a close personal friend of d'Holbach's, and that it is unclear to what extent d'Holbach was influenced by him. Indeed, Diderot may possibly have been the author of parts of the System of Nature.^[15] Regardless, however, of the extent of Diderot's contribution to the System of Nature, it is on the basis of this work that d'Holbach's philosophy has been called "the culmination of French materialism and atheism."^[16]

D'Holbach's objectives in challenging religion were primarily moral: He saw the institutions of Christianity as a major obstacle to the improvement of society. For him, the foundation of morality was to be sought not in Scripture but in happiness: "It would be useless and almost unjust to insist upon a man's being virtuous if he cannot be so without being unhappy. So long as vice renders him happy, he should love vice."^[17] D'Holbach's radicalism posited that humans were fundamentally motivated by the pursuit of enlightened self-interest, which is what he meant by "society," rather than by empty and selfish gratification of purely individual needs. Chapter 15 of Part I of System of Nature is titled "Of Man's true Interest, or of the Ideas he forms to himself of Happiness.--Man cannot be happy without Virtue."^[18]

It is quite natural in man, it is extremely reasonable, it is absolutely necessary, to desire those things which can contribute to augment the sum of his felicity. Pleasure, riches, power, are objects worthy his ambition, deserving his most strenuous efforts, when he has learned how to employ them; when he has acquired the faculty of making them render his existence really more agreeable. It is impossible to censure him who desires them, to despise him who commands them, but when to obtain them he employs odious means; or when after he has obtained them he makes a pernicious use of them, injurious to himself, prejudicial to others; let him wish for power, let him seek after grandeur, let him be ambitious of reputation, when he can show just pretensions to them; when he can obtain them, without making the purchase at the expense of his own repose, or that of the beings with whom he lives: let him desire riches, when he knows how to make a use of them that is truly advantageous for himself, really beneficial for others; but never let him employ those means to procure them of which he may be ashamed; with which he may be obliged to reproach himself; which may draw upon him the hatred of his associates; or which may render him obnoxious to the castigation of society: let him always recollect, that his solid happiness should rest its foundations upon its own esteem,--upon the advantages he procures for others; above all, never let him for a moment forget, that of all the objects to which his ambition may point, the most impracticable for a being who lives in society, is that of attempting to render himself exclusively happy. From System of Nature, Chapter 15, Part I.

The explicitly atheistic and materialistic The System of Nature presented a core of radical ideas which many contemporaries, both churchmen and philosophes found disturbing, and thus prompted a strong reaction. The Catholic Church in France threatened the crown with withdrawal of financial support unless it effectively suppressed the circulation of the book. The list of people writing refutations of the work was long. The Roman Catholic Church had its pre-eminent theologian Nicolas-Sylvestre Bergier write a refutation of the Système titled Examen du matérialisme (Materialism examined). Voltaire hastily seized his pen to refute the philosophy of the Système in the article "Dieu" in his Dictionnaire philosophique, while Frederick the Great also drew up an answer to it. Its principles are summed up in a more popular form in d'Holbach's Common Sense, or Natural Ideas Opposed to Supernatural (Bon Sens, on idées naturelles opposees aux idées surnaturelles) (Amsterdam, 1772).

Politics and morals[link]

In his last works, d'Holbach's attention largely shifts away from religious metaphysics towards moral and political questions. In the Système social (1773), the Politique naturelle (1773–1774) and the Morale universelle (1776) he attempts to describe a system of morality in place of the Christian one he had so fiercely attacked, but these later writings were not as popular or influential as his earlier work.^{[citation needed]} D'Holbach was strongly critical of abuses of power in France and abroad. Contrary to the revolutionary spirit of the time however, he called for the educated classes to reform the corrupt system of government and warned against revolution, democracy, and mob rule.

His political and ethical views were influenced by British materialist Thomas Hobbes. D'Holbach had personally translated Hobbes' work De Homine ("The Man") into French.^[19]

Influences[link]

The materialistic philosophy of Baron d'Holbach had an influence in the historical materialism of Karl Marx, who studied the ideas of d'Holbach and his fellow French thinker Helvetius in Paris.^[20]

See also[link]

• Atheism
• List of atheists
• The System of Nature

References[link]

• Philipp Blom: Böse Philosophen: Ein Salon in Paris und das vergessene Erbe der Aufklärung. Hanser, München 2011, ISBN 978-3-446-23648-6

Bibliography[link]

Works[link]

• Le Christianisme dévoilé, ou Examen des principes et des effets de la religion chrétienne (Christianity unveiled: being an examination of the principles and effects of the Christian religion) published in Nancy, 1761
• La Contagion sacrée, ou Histoire naturelle de la superstition, 1768
• Lettres à Eugénie, ou Préservatif contre les préjugés, 1768
• Théologie Portative, ou Dictionnaire abrégé de la religion chrétienne, 1768
• Essai sur les préjugés, ou De l'influence des opinions sur les mœurs & le bonheur des hommes, 1770
• Système de la nature ou des loix du monde physique & du monde moral (The System of Nature, or Laws of the Moral and Physical World), published 1770 in 2 volumes in French under the pseudonym of Mirabaud. vol.1 text, vol.2 text at Project Gutenberg, en français.
• Histoire critique de Jésus-Christ, ou Analyse raisonnée des évangiles, 1770
• Tableau des Saints, ou Examen de l'esprit, de la conduite, des maximes & du mérite des personages que le christiannisme révère & propose pour modèles, 1770
• Le Bon Sens, published 1772 (Good Sense: or, Natural Ideas Opposed to Supernatural). This was an abridged version of The System of Nature. It was published anonymously in Amsterdam.
• Politique Naturelle, ou Discours sur les vrais principes du Gouvernement, 1773
• Système Social, ou Principes naturels de la morale et de la Politique, avec un examen de l'influence du gouvernement sur les mœurs 1773
• Ethocratie, ou Le gouvernement fondé sur la morale (Ethocracy or Government Founded on Ethics) (Amsterdam, 1776)
• La Morale Universelle, ou Les devoirs de l'homme fondés sur la Nature, 1776 en français, PDF file.
• Eléments de morale universelle, ou Catéchisme de la Nature, 1790
• Lettre à une dame d'un certain âge
• Essai sur l'art de ramper, à l'usage des courtisans

Secondary literature[link]

English[link]

• Jonathan Israel, A Revolution of the Mind: Radical Enlightenment and the Intellectual Origins of Modern Democracy (Princeton University Press 2010).
• David Holohan (Translator), Christianity Unveiled by Baron d'Holbach: A Controversy in Documents, (Hodgson Press, 2008).
• Max Pearson Cushing, Baron d'Holbach: a study of eighteenth-century radicalism in France (New York, 1914).
• Alan Charles Kors, D'Holbach's Coterie: An Enlightenment in Paris (Princeton University Press, 1976).
• Alan Charles Kors, "The Atheism of D'Holbach and Naigeon", Atheism from the Reformation to the Enlightenment (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1992).
• John Lough, "Helvétius and d'Holbach", Modern Language Review, Vol. 33, No. 3. (Jul., 1938).
• T. C. Newland, "D'Holbach, Religion, and the 'Encyclopédie'", Modern Language Review, Vol. 69, No. 3, (Jul., 1974), pp. 523–533.
• Virgil W. Topazio, D'Holbach's Moral Philosophy: Its Background and Development (Geneva: Institut et Musée Voltaire, 1956).
• Everett C. Ladd, Jr., "Helvétius and d'Holbach", Journal of the History of Ideas (1962) 23(2): 221-238.
• Virgil V. Topazio, "Diderot's Supposed Contribution to D'Holbach's Works", in Publications of the Modern Language Association of America, LXIX, 1, 1954, pp. 173–188.
• S. G. Tallentyre (pseud. for Evelyn Beatrice Hall), The Friends of Voltaire (1907).
• W. H. Wickwar, Baron d'Holbach: A Prelude to the French Revolution (1935)
• G. V. Plekhanov, Essays in the History of Materialism (trans. 1934)
• John Lough, Essays on the Encyclopédie of Diderot and D'Alembert (London : Oxford University Press, 1968)

German[link]

• Philipp Blom: Böse Philosophen: Ein Salon in Paris und das vergessene Erbe der Aufklärung. Hanser, München 2011, ISBN 978-3-446-23648-6

French[link]

• René Hubert, D'Holbach et ses amis (Paris: André Delpeuch, 1928).
• Paul Naville, D'Holbach et la philosophie scientifique au XVIIIe siècle. Rev. ed. Paris, 1967
• J. Vercruysse, Bibliographie descriptive des écrits du baron d'Holbach (Paris, 1971).
• A. Sandrier, Le style philosophique du baron d'Holbach, Honoré Champion (Paris, 2004).

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Baron d'Holbach

• Works by Baron d'Holbach at Project Gutenberg
• The Sytem of Nature--English translation
• Baron D'Holbach: A Study of Eighteenth Century Radicalism in France by Max Pearson Cushing (1914)
• Stanford Encyclopedia Entry
• Find-a-grave biography

v t e D'Holbach's Coterie Baron d'Holbach Denis Diderot Baron von Grimm Jean-François Marmontel Charles-Georges Le Roy Guillaume Thomas François Raynal Jean-François de Saint-Lambert Jean-Baptiste-Antoine Suard François-Jean de Chastellux Augustin Roux André Morellet Jacques-André Naigeon

Audrey Tautou
Audrey Tautou at the 2006 Cannes Film Festival
Born	Audrey Justine Tautou (1976-08-09) 9 August 1976 (age 35) or (1978-08-09) 9 August 1978 (age 33) Beaumont, Puy-de-Dôme, France
Occupation	Actress[1]
Years active	1996–present

Audrey Justine Tautou (French: [odʁɛ totu]; born 9 August 1976^[2][3][4][5] or 1978)^[1][6] is a French film actress,^[1] best known for her roles in Amélie (2001), The Da Vinci Code (2006), Priceless (2006) and Coco Before Chanel (2009). She won the César Award for Most Promising Actress in Venus Beauty Institute (1999).

Early life[link]

Tautou was born in Beaumont, in the Puy-de-Dôme département of Auvergne, and was raised in Montluçon^[3] in nearby Allier. Her father, Bernard, is an oral surgeon, and her mother, Evelyne, is a teacher.^[7][8] Tautou showed an interest in acting at an early age and started her acting lessons at the Cours Florent.^[9]

Career[link]

In 1998, Tautou participated in a Star Search-like competition sponsored by Canal+ called "Jeunes Premiers" (The Young Debut) and won Best Young Actress at the 9th Béziers Festival of Young Actors. Tonie Marshall gave her a role in the César-winning Venus Beauty Institute (1999, aka Vénus beauté (institut)). In 2000, she won the Prix Suzanne Bianchetti as her country's most promising young film actress.

In 2001, Tautou rose to international fame for her performance as the eccentric lead in the romantic comedy Le Fabuleux Destin d'Amélie Poulain (Amélie). In June 2004, she was invited to join the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences (AMPAS).^[10]

In 2005, Tautou worked in her first full Hollywood production, opposite Tom Hanks, in the film version of Dan Brown's best-selling novel The Da Vinci Code, directed by Ron Howard and released in May 2006. She acted alongside Gad Elmaleh in Pierre Salvadori's Hors de prix (Priceless), released 13 December 2006. The film has been compared to Breakfast at Tiffany's.^[11]

Tautou starred with Guillaume Canet in Claude Berri's Ensemble, c'est tout in 2007, an adaptation of the eponymous novel by Anna Gavalda.

Tautou played the lead role in the biopic of fashion designer Coco Chanel, titled Coco avant Chanel, and directed by Anne Fontaine.^{[12][13][14][15]} Filming began in Paris in September 2008, and released in France on 22 April 2009. The script is partially based on Edmonde Charles-Roux’s book “L’Irrégulière” (”The Non-Conformist”). As part of promoting the film, Tautou was named as the next spokesmodel for Chanel No. 5, replacing Nicole Kidman. She was directed in the advertisement by Jean-Pierre Jeunet, with whom she worked on Amélie and A Very Long Engagement. The advertisement was released in 2009 to coincide with the film's release.^[16][17]

She appeared in the video of "I Love Your Smile", a song by British singer-songwriter Charlie Winston.^[18]

Personal life[link]

She has studied at the Institut Catholique de Paris.^[19] She was brought up attending church, though she has now stated that she is "not officially" a Catholic.^[20]

Tautou says she still considers France her base, and plans to pursue a career predominantly there rather than crossing over to the United States. As she told Stevie Wong of The Straits Times:

"I am, at the end of the day, a French actress. I am not saying I will never shoot an English-language movie again, but my home, my community, my career is rooted in France. I would never move to Los Angeles."^[21]

Filmography[link]

Audrey Tautou at the 1999 Cannes Film Festival.

Awards[link]

Wins[link]

1999 

Cabourg Romantic Film Festival Award, for Venus Beauty Institute

2000 

César Award, for Venus Beauty Institute

Lumiere Award, for Venus Beauty Institute

SACD Award

2002 

CFCA Award

Lumiere Award, for Amélie

Sant Jordi, for Amélie

2007 

NRJ Ciné Award, for Priceless (shared with Gad Elmaleh)

Nominations[link]

2001 

European Film Award, for Amélie

2002 

Satellite Award, for Amélie

PFCS Award, for Amélie

OFCS Award, for Amélie

BAFTA, for Amélie

Empire Award, for Amélie

César Award, for Amélie

2003 

European Film Award, for Dirty Pretty Things

2005 

European Film Award, for A Very Long Engagement

César Award, for A Very Long Engagement

2010 

César Award, for Coco Before Chanel

BAFTA, for Coco Before Chanel

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Audrey Tautou

• Audrey Tautou at the Internet Movie Database
• Audrey Tautou at AllRovi
• Audrey Tautou at Yahoo! Movies
• NY Daily News Interview 21 November 2004
• MSNBC Interview 23 November 2004
• UK Story & Interview 16 January 2005
• Interview: This is London 19 January 2005
• Jon Henley, "It doesn't take much to catch a man" The Guardian, 13 June 2008, interview about Priceless (film)

v t e Chanel Designers Coco Chanel · Karl Lagerfeld Owners Alain Wertheimer · Gerard Wertheimer · Jacques Wertheimer · Pierre Wertheimer Garments Little black dress · Pink Chanel suit of Jacqueline Bouvier Kennedy Perfumes Bois des Îles · Chanel No. 5 · Chanel No. 19 · Chanel No. 22 · Coco Mademoiselle · Cuir de Russie Perfumers Ernest Beaux · Jacques Polge · Henri Robert Handbags Chanel 2.55 Watches Chanel J12 Spokesmodels Carole Bouquet · Catherine Deneuve · Inès de La Fressange · Nicole Kidman · Keira Knightley · Kate Moss · Vanessa Paradis · Audrey Tautou  · Gaspard Ulliel Films Chanel Solitaire · Coco Before Chanel · Coco Chanel · Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky

Vahina Giocante
Vahina Giocante, 2009
Born	(1981-06-30) 30 June 1981 (age 30) Orléans, France
Nationality	French
Occupation	Actress
Height	5'4" (163 cm)

Vahina Giocante (born 30 June 1981) is a French actress.

Movie roles[link]

As Marie in Marie Baie des Anges (1998), she is among a group of young wanderers who become enmeshed in love, hate, and violence on the French Riviera.

In Lila Says (2005 in film) Giocante portrays a teenager who resides with her aunt in a rough neighborhood in Marseilles. A New York Times reviewer compares her to Brigitte Bardot in And God Created Woman, being a femme more vitale than fatale.

Critic A.O. Scott says that Giocante's combination of innocence and womanly awareness is somewhat overwhelming. However, her charisma and Doueiri's style lend Lila Says an earthiness and romantic quality. The motion picture was adapted from a 1996 novel whose authorship is uncertain.

Personal life[link]

Born in Orléans, France, she went to school at the Lycée Paul-Cézanne in Aix-en-Provence and previously danced with the Marseille Opera. According to Vahina, her name means "Welcome" in Malagasy^{[clarification needed]}. When she was 20 she had a son, Nino. His father is musician Martin Gamet.

Selected filmography[link]

• 30 Beats (2011) Kim
• La blonde aux seins nus (2010)
• Le Premier Cercle (2009) — Elodie
• Bellamy (2009) — Nadia Sancho
• Secret Défense (2008) — (Diane / Lisa)
• 99 Francs (2007) — (Sophie)
• A Curtain Raiser (2006) Rosette
• U (2006) — (voice)
• Riviera (2005) — Stella
• Nuit noire, 17 octobre 1961 (2005) (TV) — Marie-Hélène
• Lila dit ça ("Lila Says") (2004) — Lila
• Cadeau d'Éléna, Le ("Elena's Gift") (2004) — Marie
• Maigret: Les petits cochons sans queue (2004) (TV) — Germaine Leblanc
• Blueberry: L'expérience secrète ("Renegade") (2004) — Madeleine
• Intermittenze del cuore, Le (2003) — young Fiametta
• Soldats de Salamine ("Soldiers of Salamina") (2003) — assistante sociale à Dijon
• Vivante ("Alive") (2002) — Claire
• "Algérie des chimères, L'" (2001) (mini) TV Series — Jeanne 20 ans
• Bella ciao (2001) — Bianca
• Fantômes de Louba, Les (2001) — Jeannie as a teenager
• Libertin, Le ("The Libertine") (2000) — Angélique Diderot
• Pas de scandale ("Keep It Quiet" / "No Scandal") (1999) — Stéphanie
• Voleur de vie ("Stolen Life") (1998) — Sigga
• Marie Baie des Anges ("Angel Sharks" / "Marie from the Bay of Angels") (1997) — Marie

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Vahina Giocante

• Vahina Giocante at the Internet Movie Database
• Unofficial site on Vahina Giocante (French)

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