author
Jean de La Bruyère
1645–1696
A sharp-eyed observer of courtly life, this 17th-century French writer turned everyday vanity, hypocrisy, and ambition into brilliant miniature portraits. His best-known book still feels lively because it says so much about how people behave when status is on the line.
2 Audiobooks
Les caractères
by Jean de La Bruyère
The "Characters" of Jean de La Bruyère
by Jean de La Bruyère
About the author
Born in Paris in 1645, Jean de La Bruyère studied law before moving into literary and court life. He became tutor to the Duke of Bourbon, grandson of the celebrated Prince de Condé, a role that gave him a close view of the manners and rivalries of the French elite.
He is best known for Les Caractères, first published in 1688. The book begins from Theophrastus but quickly becomes something larger and more original: a series of short reflections and character sketches that satirize vanity, greed, pretension, and the endless performance of social life under Louis XIV.
La Bruyère was elected to the Académie française in 1693 and died in 1696. Though much of his world was highly formal and courtly, his writing remains strikingly readable because his insights into pride, fashion, ambition, and self-deception still feel familiar.