Tallemant des Réaux, Gédéon (1619-92). French memorialist. He moved in précieux circles [see Preciosity] and wrote some light verse, but his major work, the Historiettes, only began to be published in 1834. It is a collection of over 300 ‘brief lives’, together with assorted salacious anecdotes. Most of his material dates from before 1660. Many famous names figure in Tallemant's gallery (Richelieu, Balzac, Corneille, La Fontaine, etc.); the stories he tells, in an entertaining and uninhibited style, are generally scandalous, but often borne out by other testimonies; they give a lively image of society life in the 17th c.

[Peter France]

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