Jean-Baptiste Willart de Grécourt

Jean-Baptiste - Joseph Willart de Grécourt was a French ecclesiastic and poet born on February 7, 1684, in Vallières (currently Fondettes) and died at Tours on April 2, 1743.

Biography

Grécourt comes from a family of Scottish origin, noble but without fortune, son of Jean Baptiste Vuillart, lord of Grécourt, advisor to the king, grenetier of the salt granary of Tours and the Anne Orceau. His mother had to take a job as a post office manager in Tours to provide for her family. Grécourt himself, as a cadet, was destined for the Church. He studied in Paris under the direction of an ecclesiastical uncle whose credit obtained for him the title of canon of Saint-Martin de Tours in 1697, when he was only fourteen years old.

Once ordained a priest, Grécourt had great success through his talents as a preacher, but his preaching had to be put an end to after the scandal caused by a sermon in which he had made many serious allusions to several ladies of the city. His temperament led him more towards poetry and pleasures. Brilliant positions were offered to him, which he always refused, declining for example the offers of John Law, who wanted to attach him and to whom he responded with an apologue in verse, Le Solitaire et la fortune.

While remaining a canon, he renounced ecclesiastical life and spent a lot of time in Paris, where he became friends with Marshal d'Estrées and other young libertines. He ends up settling completely in the capital where he is a regular among the freest and most gallant companies. Epicurean, lover of pretty women and good food, he composed many licentious tales and poems, often libertine, among which there is a long poem against the Jesuits titled Philotanus, burlesque pieces, epistles, fables, tales, epigrams, madrigals. He refrained from having them printed but circulated them secretly, giving extracts in selected circles, because he read, it seems, in an incomparable manner. He is one of the main authors of Recueil de poésies choisies rassemblées par un cosmopolite, printed in 1735 in only 62 copies for the Duke of Aiguillon.

He died in 1743, leaving a pleasant epitaph for himself:

Il est mort, le pauvre chrétien!

Molina perd un adversaire

Et l'amour un historien.

Si je consulte son bréviaire

La religion n'y perd rien.

Works

• Philotanus, ou l'Histoire de la constitution Unigenitus, poem, 1720
• Les Appellants de l'autre monde, 1731–1732
• Les Nouveaux appellants; ou la Bibliothèque des damnés. Nouvelles de l'autre monde, 1732
• L'Enfer révolté, ou les Nouveaux appellants de l'autre monde, confondus Lucifer, 1732
• L'Enfer en déroute par la doctrine des jésuites. Nouvelles de l'autre monde, 1733
• Maranzakiniana, 1733
• Recueil de pièces choisies rassemblées par les soins du cosmopolite, 1735
• Histoire véritable et divertissante de la naissance de Mlle Margo, et de ses aventures jusqu'à présent, 1735