Henri Louis Habert de Montmor
Encyclopedia
Paris
Paris is the capital and largest city in France, situated on the river Seine, in northern France, at the heart of the Île-de-France region...
- 21 January 1679, Paris) was a French scholar and man of letters.
Life
Cousin to Philippe HabertPhilippe Habert (1605-1637)
Philippe Habert was a French poet. Brother to Germain Habert and cousin of Henri Louis Habert de Montmor, he was a friend of Conrart. Philippe was also one of the first members of the Académie française, and contributed to editing its statutes...
and Germain Habert
Germain Habert
Germain Habert de Cérisy was a French churchman and poet. He was abbot of Saint-Vigor.Germain Habert was born in Paris...
, he became conseiller du roi aged 25, then in 1632 rose to become maître des requêtes, a post he gained thanks to the fortune of his father, treasurer extraordinary for war and treasurer of savings.
He married Henriette-Marie de Buade, sister of Louis de Buade de Frontenac
Louis de Buade de Frontenac
Louis de Buade, Comte de Frontenac et de Palluau was a French soldier, courtier, and Governor General of New France from 1672 to 1682 and from 1689 to his death in 1698...
, future governor of New France
New France
New France was the area colonized by France in North America during a period beginning with the exploration of the Saint Lawrence River by Jacques Cartier in 1534 and ending with the cession of New France to Spain and Great Britain in 1763...
. He attended on Marie de Gournay
Marie de Gournay
Marie de Gournay was a French writer, who wrote a novel and a number of other literary compositions, including two proto-feminist works, The Equality of Men and Women and The Ladies' Grievance . In her novel Le Promenoir de M...
and wrote Latin epigrams. In 1634, he was elected an inaugural member of the Académie française
Académie française
L'Académie française , also called the French Academy, is the pre-eminent French learned body on matters pertaining to the French language. The Académie was officially established in 1635 by Cardinal Richelieu, the chief minister to King Louis XIII. Suppressed in 1793 during the French Revolution,...
, pronouncing its fifth discourse but soon becoming a dissenting member as well as its last inaugural member to die.
An avid supporter of Descartes
René Descartes
René Descartes ; was a French philosopher and writer who spent most of his adult life in the Dutch Republic. He has been dubbed the 'Father of Modern Philosophy', and much subsequent Western philosophy is a response to his writings, which are studied closely to this day...
, he wrote a poem on Cartesian physics entitled De rerum naturae and collected scientific instruments. He was a friend of Mersenne
Marin Mersenne
Marin Mersenne, Marin Mersennus or le Père Mersenne was a French theologian, philosopher, mathematician and music theorist, often referred to as the "father of acoustics"...
, who dedicated his Harmonie Universelle to Montmor, and a great friend of Pierre Gassendi
Pierre Gassendi
Pierre Gassendi was a French philosopher, priest, scientist, astronomer, and mathematician. With a church position in south-east France, he also spent much time in Paris, where he was a leader of a group of free-thinking intellectuals. He was also an active observational scientist, publishing the...
, who dedicated his Life of Tycho Brahe
Tycho Brahe
Tycho Brahe , born Tyge Ottesen Brahe, was a Danish nobleman known for his accurate and comprehensive astronomical and planetary observations...
to Montmor. Gassendi also left him an astronomical telescope he had been left himself by Galileo. Three years after Gassendi's death, Habert edited his complete works in 6 volumes, writing its Latin preface.
Besides Gassendi, he gathered a salon
Salon (gathering)
A salon is a gathering of people under the roof of an inspiring host, held partly to amuse one another and partly to refine taste and increase their knowledge of the participants through conversation. These gatherings often consciously followed Horace's definition of the aims of poetry, "either to...
of savants and philosophers, known as the Montmor Academy. It included, among others: Pierre Daniel Huet
Pierre Daniel Huet
Pierre Daniel Huet was a French churchman and scholar, editor of the Delphin Classics, founder of the Academie du Physique in Caen and Bishop of Soissons from 1685 to 1689 and afterwards of Avranches.-Life:...
, Jean Chapelain
Jean Chapelain
Jean Chapelain was a French poet and writer.-Biography:Chapelain was born in Paris. His father wanted him to become a notary; but his mother, who had known Pierre de Ronsard, had decided otherwise...
, Adrien Auzout
Adrien Auzout
Adrien Auzout was a French astronomer.He was born in Rouen, France, the son of a clerk in the court of Rouen. His educational background is unknown. In 1664–1665 he made observations of comets, and argued in favor of their following elliptical or parabolic orbits...
, Girard Desargues, Samuel Sorbière, Claude Clerselier
Claude Clerselier
Claude Clerselier was a French editor. He edited and translated several works by René Descartes, especially his letters , L'Homme, et un Traité de la formation du fœtus du mesme auteur avec les remarques de Louys de La Forge, 1664, L'Homme...et...Le Monde, 1667 et de ses Principes, 1681...
, Jacques Rohault
Jacques Rohault
Jacques Rohault was a French philosopher, physicist and mathematician, and a follower of Cartesianism.Rohault was born in Amiens, the son of a wealthy wine merchant, and educated in Paris. Having grown up with the conventional scholastic philosophy of his day, he adopted and popularised the new...
, Guy Patin
Guy Patin
Guy Patin was a French doctor and man of letters.Guy Patin was headmaster of the School of Medicine in Paris and professor in the Collège de France starting in 1655...
, Frénicle de Bessy
Bernard Frénicle de Bessy
Bernard Frénicle de Bessy , was a French mathematician born in Paris, who wrote numerous mathematical papers, mainly in number theory and combinatorics. He is best remembered for Des quarrez ou tables magiques, a treatise on magic squares published posthumously in 1693, in which he described all...
, Melchisédech Thévenot
Melchisédech Thévenot
Melchisédech Thévenot was a French author, scientist, traveler, cartographer, orientalist, inventor, and diplomat...
, Roberval and Huygens. They were all passionate about scientific experiments and formed what was later called the "Académie Monmor", one of the scholarly societies which in 1666 gave rise to the Académie des sciences.