Nicolas François de Neufchâteau
French statesman, poet, politician, agronomist and scientist (1750-1828)
Nicolas François, known as François de Neufchâteau (French pronunciation: [fʁɑ̃swa d(ə) nœfʃɑto, - nøʃɑto]; 17 April 1750 – 10 January 1828), was a French statesman, poet, and agricultural scientist.
Biography
Early years
Born on 17 April 1750 in Saffais, in Meurthe-et-Moselle, the son of a schoolteacher, he studied at the College of Neufchâteau in the Vosges. At the age of fourteen, he published a volume of poetry which obtained the interest of Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Voltaire. When only sixteen, he was elected member of some of the main academies of France. In 1783 he was named procureur-général to the council of Saint Domingue.
He had previously been engaged on a translation of Ariosto, which he finished before his return to France five years afterwards, but it was destroyed in a shipwreck during his voyage home.
Revolution
During the French Revolution, Neufchâteau was elected deputy supplant to the National Assembly, charged with the organization of the département of the Vosges, and elected later to the Legislative Assembly, of which he first became secretary and then president.
In 1793 he was imprisoned on account of his play Paméla ou la vertu récompensée (Théâtre de la Nation, 1 August 1793). His play had been denounced by Collot d'Herbois because lines spoken about persecution could easily be interpreted as criticism of the ruling faction and the entire cast was arrested along with him on 2 September. He was released the following year with the start of the Thermidorian Reaction.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Nicolas François de Neufchâteau” is french statesman, poet, politician, agronomist and scientist (1750-1828). The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Nicolas, François and Neufchâteau, not as a finished interpretation.
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Biographical claims are most persuasive when dates, appointments and relationships can be traced to records created close to the events described. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 16, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1397972. The first chronological checks are 1750, 1828, 1783 and 1793.
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This entry incorporates text from “Nicolas François de Neufchâteau” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.