Jean-Pons-Guillaume Viennet

Who was Jean-Pons-Guillaume Viennet?

Jean-Pons-Guillaume Viennet was a French politician, playwright and poet. He was also a member of the Académie française and a prominent Freemason.

His long career as a soldier then a politician, playwright and poet lasted through political revolutions and literary wars, and is full of incident and travels. He had a talent for self-promotion within many regimes and got to know all political and literary dignitaries, all the while verging on impopularity - he said "I have counted up to 500 epigrams a year against me; anyone who escapes college to join a soap-opera thinks I should have his first kick". His name was like a red rag to a bull to Republicans and Romantics, but he avenged himself on his worst enemies by fables or epithets against them.