author
Édouard Pilastre
1838–1910
A Paris lawyer with a deep love of literary history, he wrote books that guide readers through the language, religion, and personalities of France’s classical age. His work moves between scholarship and storytelling, making figures like Saint-Simon and Madame de Sévigné feel closer and more readable.
1 Audiobook
Petit Glossaire des lettres de Madame de Sévigné
by Édouard Pilastre
About the author
Born in Amiens on March 11, 1838, and died in Paris on June 23, 1910, Édouard Pilastre was a French man of letters as well as a trained lawyer. Sources describe him as a licentiate and doctor of law, and as an avoué at the Tribunal of the Seine. He was also a member of the Société historique du VIe arrondissement de Paris.
Pilastre wrote on both legal and historical subjects, but his lasting interest seems to have been the literature and culture of early modern France. Bibliographic records connect him with works on the Duc de Saint-Simon, Madame de Sévigné, the Marquis de Dangeau, and Achille III de Harlay. His books include Lexique sommaire de la langue du duc de Saint-Simon and La religion au temps du duc de Saint-Simon, along with studies and glossaries meant to help readers enter older French texts more easily.
He also wrote a 1905 study of the surgeon François-Joseph Malgaigne, his father-in-law, drawing on writings, family papers, and personal memories. That mix of research and lived connection gives a good sense of Pilastre’s style: careful, curious, and committed to preserving the people and language of an earlier France.