Paul de Saint-Victor

Born in Paris in 1825, Paul de Saint-Victor was a French essayist and literary critic. He studied in Fribourg and Rome, returned to Paris, and worked for a time as Alphonse de Lamartine’s secretary before building a career in journalism.

He began writing criticism for Le Pays in 1851 and later succeeded Théophile Gautier as dramatic critic for La Presse in 1855. He also wrote for La Liberté and then Le Moniteur universel, and in 1870 he was appointed inspector general of fine arts. Contemporary readers admired his brilliance and energy, even when his opinions were strongly partisan.

Much of his work gathered literary and historical essays into books such as Hommes et dieux (1867). His ambitious later project, Les Deux Masques, was left incomplete at his death in Paris in 1881, but it remains closely tied to his reputation as an eloquent, deeply engaged interpreter of classical and modern drama.