Charles Pierre Chapsal

Charles Pierre Chapsal (1787–1858) was a French grammarian, editor of the Classics and a founding member in 1821 of the Société de Géographie.

Portrait of Charles-Pierre Chapsal by Sophie Lemire

Chapsal was born in Paris and taught at the Collège Louis-le-Grand. His principal work was his Nouvelle Grammaire Française[1] in which he collaborated with François-Joseph-Michel Noël. The work was more complete and more logical than the previous standard grammar of Charles François Lhomond; it first appeared in 1823, and by the time of the author's death it had passed through more than forty editions, eighty by 1889.

On the proceeds of his early labour, Chapsal was able to retire to the Château de Polangis,[2] near Joinville-le-Pont, where he became a benefactor of the commune and mayor 1843-48, 1850-58. He died in Paris in 1858 and bequeathed a sum of 80,000 francs to be distributed in the banlieues of Paris.

Translations were printed in the United States, by Moss (Philadelphia, 1878) and an abridgment based on the authors' own, which had been published in 1826, by Lockwood (New York, 1869).

Notes
  1. Nouvelle Grammaire Française sur un plan très-méthodique, avec de nombreux exercices d'orthographe, de syntaxe et de ponctuation, tirés de nos meilleurs auteurs, et distribués dans l'ordre des règles.
  2. The Château de Polangis, on the site of a manor attested in 1207 was sold in 1623 by the monks of Vincennes to Charles Valdir (or Valliech), secretary to the duc d'Épernon, who rebuilt it; the park was embellished with a rockwork grotto in 1748. In 1790 Polangis belonged to the brother of Honoré de Mirabeau, André Riquetti, vicomte de Mirabeau (1754–1795), called "Mirabeau-Tonneau" a royalist deputy to the Constitutional Assembly, who died in exile at Baden. In 1801 the château was purchased by general Nicolas Oudinot (1767-1847), who organized the 5 floréal an X (2 April 1802) a dinner of officers hostile to Bonaparte: the generals Delmas and Marmont, and colonel Fournier. Chapsal bequeathed it to his adopted son, Auguste Courtin, whose heirs divided the property into house-lots and demolished the château. (French Wikipedia: "Polangis".

References
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