Claude Brossette

Who was Claude Brossette?

Claude Brossette, seigneur de Varennes d'Appetour was a French lawyer and writer. He was educated at the Collège de la Trinité in Lyon and joined the Jesuits before turning to law.

In 1700 he founded the Académie des Sciences, Arts et Belles-Lettres de Lyon, where he remained a bibliothecarian until 1743, and whose secretary he was appointed in 1724.

Brossette was a man of far-reaching connections, exchanging letters with Academy President Bouhier, Abbot Olivet and Father Vanière from Toulouse. Between 1699 and 1710 he was a regular correspondent of Paris poet and satirist Boileau, whose works he edited with commentaries. Their correspondence was published in 1770 by François Louis Cizeron Rival. He was acquainted with François de Lamoignon and Bernard de La Monnoye from the Académie Française, and with Jean-Baptiste Rousseau. Later his reach widened; he exchanged point of views with Voltaire, Louis Racine, Abbot Lenglet-Dufresnoy, Déon, and Father Brumoy.