X-Nico

3 unusual facts about Mercure de France


Mercure de France

Jean-François de la Harpe was the editor in chief for 20 years; he also collaborated with Jacques Mallet du Pan.

Vallette was closely linked to a group of writers associated with Symbolism who regularly met at the café la Mère Clarisse in Paris (rue Jacob), and which included: Jean Moréas, Émile Raynaud, Pierre Arène, Remy de Gourmont, Alfred Jarry, Albert Samain and Charles Cros.

It is on the pages of the May 1734 issue of the Mercure de France that the term "Baroque" makes its first attested appearance – used (in pejorative way) in an anonymous, satirical review of Jean-Philippe Rameau’s Hippolyte et Aricie.


Jean-Jacques Boisard

As a member of the Royal Academy of Literature (Académie royale des Belles-lettres) of Caen, the first academy established in France after the "Académie française", he started publishing fables in 1764 in the Mercure de France.


see also

Jean Daive

His first book, Décimale blanche (Mercure de France, 1967) was translated into German by Paul Celan, and into English by Cid Corman.