author
comte de Armand Pontmartin
1811–1890
A sharp-tongued 19th-century French critic and journalist, he built his reputation on lively literary attacks and weekly essays that stirred debate in Parisian reading circles. His work offers a vivid window into the political and cultural arguments of his time.
1 Audiobook
Les Jeudis de Madame Charbonneau
by comte de Armand Pontmartin
About the author
Born in Avignon on July 16, 1811, Armand Augustin Joseph Marie Ferrard, comte de Pontmartin, became known as a French journalist, literary critic, and man of letters. He wrote from a Legitimist point of view, and his early criticism took aim at the Encyclopedists and the writers he saw as their heirs.
He contributed literary essays to the newspaper L'Assemblée nationale, where his Causeries littéraires helped make his name. He was known for a combative style and for polemics against major contemporary writers, including Sainte-Beuve, George Sand, and others in the literary world of 19th-century France.
Pontmartin also published many of his journalistic pieces in book form, including Causeries du samedi and Nouveaux samedis. He died in Avignon on March 29, 1890, leaving behind the work of a critic remembered as energetic, partisan, and deeply engaged with the literary battles of his age.