With the rise of the various French academies, this ancient branch of oratory established itself as a literary genre. It can be seen as the lay equivalent of the funeral oration as practised by Bossuet or Fléchier. Normally an éloge was read out after the death of an academician, and published shortly afterwards as an obituary. In some cases éloges were composed for those long dead (Cicero, Henri IV, etc.) in competitions for academic prizes. There were also discourses in favour of professions, virtues, etc.—and these gave rise to mock encomia, ranging from Erasmus's Praise of Folly (echoed by Rabelais) to the trivial Éloge du pet (1799) of Mercier de Compiègne.

In the 18th c. the acknowledged master of the genre was A.-L Thomas, who left an Essai sur les éloges (1773). More important are the series of éloges composed for the Académie des Sciences by Fontenelle and Condorcet, and for the Académie Française by d' Alembert. For all their solemnity, these pieces (and those of the 19th c. which follow in the same tradition) offer not only biographical information, but also an embryonic history of science and literature, enhancing the corporate (male) self-image by the praise of great predecessors.

[Peter France]

The New Oxford Companion to Literature in French. Copyright © 1995, 2005 by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved.