Nicholas Bonneville
French writer, printer and bookseller
Nicholas Bonneville (French pronunciation: [nikɔla bɔnvil]; born Nicolas de Bonneville; 13 March 1760 – 9 November 1828) was a French bookseller, printer, journalist, and writer. He was also a political figure of some relevance at the time of the French Revolution and into the early years of the next century.
Youth
De Bonneville was born at Évreux in Upper Normandy. A son of the prosecutor, Jean-Pierre Bonneville, Nicolas de Bonneville was expelled from the university during the first year of his philosophy studies after he created a scandal by refusing to support his contention that Jean-Jacques Rousseau was an atheist. Before taking up philosophy, he began, like his compatriot, Pierre-Louis Siret, as a student of languages with an interest in philology. He was also a follower, though without sharing all of his ideas, of Jacques Le Brigant. As a young man, he produced German and English translations of the works of Jean le Rond d'Alembert, which financially supported him until his death. In particular, he was known for reproducing the essay on the origins of freemasonry by Thomas Paine, who became his close friend.
Freemasonry
Initiated into freemasonry in 1786 during a stay in England, he wrote two books on the subject, the "Jesuits Expelled from Masonry", and "Dagger Shattered by the Masons", both in 1788, in which he accuses the Jesuits of having introduced into the symbolic degrees of freemasonry, the myths of the Templars and their doctrine of revenge, based on the "crime" of their destruction, and the four vows of the Templars included in their higher degrees. Earlier, in 1787, the leading Bavarian illuminist and freemason, Johann Joachim Christoph Bode, is said to have converted the German-speaking Bonneville to a faith that combined esoteric symbolism with radical ideas of popular sovereignty bordering on direct democracy.
Begin with the source’s own compact description: “Nicholas Bonneville” is french writer, printer and bookseller. The dossier treats that line as a proposition to test through Nicholas, Bonneville and French, not as a finished interpretation.
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The phrase “french writer, printer and bookseller” supplies a clear boundary for inquiry. It also exposes the unanswered questions: who defined that boundary, when it became stable and which sources sit outside it.
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 2, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q972144. VIAF identifies the subject as 46757702. The Library of Congress control number is n82044607. 2 of 3 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1760, 1828, 1786 and 1788.
A concise life account rarely captures disputed attribution, private networks or the changing language used to describe a career. The lead is largely declarative, so disagreement and counter-evidence require a deliberate search beyond the opening account. Authority statements aid reconciliation but still require their own references, qualifiers and ranks to be checked.
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This entry incorporates text from “Nicholas Bonneville” 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.