Chamfort, a French wit and littérateur, born in Auvergne; took to the Revolution, but offended the leaders, and being threatened with arrest committed suicide, “cutting and slashing with frantic, uncertain hand, gaining, not without difficulty, the refuge of death”; he was a born cynic, and was famous for his keen insight into human nature and his sharp criticisms of it, summed up in a collection of maxims he left, as well as for his anecdotes in incisive portraiture of character. “He was a man,” says Professor Saintsbury, “soured by his want of birth, health, and position, and spoilt by hanging on to the great persons of his time. But for a kind of tragi-comic satire, a soeva indignatio, taking the form of contempt for all that is exalted and noble, he has no equal in literature except Swift” (1741‒1794).
Definition taken from The Nuttall Encyclopædia, edited by the Reverend James Wood (1907)
Chambre Ardente * Chamillard