Knight of the Empire
Pronunciation:
Jean-Anthelme Brillat was born at Belley, Bugey, on April 2nd, 1755.
Having become a lawyer and Mayor of Belley, he was sent as deputy of the Third Estate for the bailiwick of Bugey to the Estates General, participated in the French Constituent Assembly, then in the National Assembly in 1789.
In April 1800, he was appointed advisor to the Court of Cassation.
During the followihng years, he wrote the book that made him famous: "La physiologie du goût" (The Physiology of Taste), a code of gastronomy and a treatise on culinary science as much as a testimony to the mores of the rather greedy society of the Empire. Thus this epicurean and hedonistic legislator becomes the poet of gluttony.
The book, published in December 1825; was an immediate success.
He died of pleurisy on February 1st, 1826 and was buried in the 28th division of the Père-Lachaise Cemetery, in Paris.
"Jean-Anthelme Brillat-Savarin". Nineteenth Century engraving.
