Quotes:Fabre d’Olivet, Antoine

Zirkoff, Boris

Fabre d’Olivet, Antoine. French writer, mystic, philosopher and scholar, b. at Ganges (Hérault), Dec. 8, 1767; d. in Paris, March 27, 1825. Descendant of the Protestant family of Jean Fabre, he was raised in that religion and intended to take up commerce. After his first stay in Paris, 1779-84, showed more aptitudes for music and poetry than commerce. Travelled in Germany and Switzerland, 1787. For a while active in the field of politics, 1789, when he took the name of d’Olivet, the maiden name of 369 his mother. Interested in the study of theatrical business, he wrote two revolutionary plays: Génie de la nation and Le 14 de juillet 1789, which received some acclaim. For a time he identified himself with the Jacobins, but renounced politics, 1791. He stayed in Paris during the Terreur, 1793, and wrote a few more plays. Met, 1796, Delisle de Sales, who was to influence greatly his literary career. The financial catastrophe of 1796-97 ruined his father’s business, and he attempted to live by his pen. After starting two short-lived journals, he became employed by the Ministry of War, 1799. Published a novel: Azalaïs et le gentil Aimar, 1799, and collaborated with the Journal des Hommes Libres. Compromised in the affair of the “infernal machine,” he was saved by Lenoir-Laroche; entered upon a period of fruitful literary activity, 1801-1805, during which he published several works, such as the Troubadour, a collection of poems, and several musical pieces.

During the years 1800-1805, Fabre d’Olivet passed through a serious religious and intellectual crisis, discovering his true vocation as philologist, and becoming a student of mystical and occult subjects. It is likely that a love affair for someone whom he called later by the fictitious name of Égérie Théophanie played considerable role in this crisis. He married someone else, however, in 1805. During the years 1805-10, he labored on his important work, La langue hébraïque restituée et le véritable sens des mots hébreux rétabli et prouvé par leur analyse radicale, attempting to have it published at the expense of the State. He retired from office, 1810. Endowed with a certain degree of magnetic power, he healed several deaf-mutes, but was enjoined by the Government to cease doing so. Published, 1813, Les Vers dorés de Pythagore (Paris: Treuttel & Würtz, 1813. 8vo; also Paris: Niclaus, 1946; English transi, by Nayân Louise Redfield. New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. 1917). The restoration of the Bourbons made possible the publication of La langue hébraïque (Paris, 1816. 2 prts., 4to; also Paris: Dorbon, 1931; Engl, transl. by N. L. Redfield, as above, 1921), in which he shows that every letter of the Hebrew alphabet represented symbolically an idea. During the years 1816-17, he labored on a work dealing with the Langue d’Oc. After several years of troubled married life, a divorce took place, March 22, 1823. In 1822 appeared his work, De l'état social de l'homme (Paris, 1822, 2 vols. 8vo), which was re-published, 1824, as Histoire philosophique du genre humain (also Paris: Dorbon, 1931; Engl, transi, by N. L. Redfield under the title of Hermeneutic Interpretation of the Origin of the Social Status of Man, etc.; New York and London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1915). In 1824, Fabre d’Olivet showed again some brief political aspirations, but soon returned to his literary pursuits, writing several tragedies and operas.

370 About 1824, Fabre d’Olivet founded some sort of mystical cult based upon precepts and teachings which he tried to embody in his work, Théodoxie universelle (facs. of MSS., Paris: Dorbon, 1931). It would appear from various passages in his unpublished Memoirs, which he had started to edit in 1820-24 as Mes Souvenirs, that this cult was intimately connected with the figure of the woman called by him Égérie, and who had died some years before. The cult and its sanctuary were dedicated to the renovation of the ancient initiatory ceremonies, in the spirit of Pythagorean discipline. However, from the meagre material at hand, and from the allusions of Fabre d’Olivet himself, one is led to believe that his cult was associated with “sensitives” of one sort or another, and was bordering on quasi-spiritualistic lines, where mediumship of one or another type played a role. The cult did not survive the death of its originator, which took place, as the result of a stroke, March 27, 1825.

For further biographical data of this very remarkable man, vide Léon Cellier, Fabre d’ Olivet. Contribution à l’étude des aspects religieux du romantisme. Paris: Nizet, 1953; and his introduction and notes to an heretofore unpublished text of Fabre d’Olivet entitled La vraie maçonnerie et la celeste culture (Presses Universitaires de France, Paris, 1952); also the essays by G. Monod-Herzen in the Lotus Bleu, March, 1925, and the Revue Theosophique, December, 1927.

Source: Boris de Zirkoff, «H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings», vol. 7, pp. 368-370

Fabre d’Olivet, Antoine (1768-1825). Vide Volume VII, pp. 368-70, for biographical data.

Source: Boris de Zirkoff, «H. P. Blavatsky Collected Writings», vol. 9, p. 414