10 Facts About Maurice Joly

Maurice Joly was born in the small town of Lons-le-Saunier, in the departement of Jura, to a French father and an Italian mother.

Maurice Joly studied law in Dijon, but stopped in 1849 in order to go to Paris, where he worked as a clerk at various governmental institutions for about 10 years.

Maurice Joly successfully completed his legal studies and was finally admitted to the Paris bar in 1859.

Maurice Joly started writing in 1862, supplying literary portraits of his fellow lawyers to a small magazine, Gorgias, and later published these sketches as a stand-alone book, Le Barreau de Paris, followed by Les Principes de 89 and Supplement a la geographie politique du Jura.

In 1864, Maurice Joly wrote his best-known book, The Dialogue in Hell, a satirical attack on Bonaparte's authoritarianism, and a defense of republicanism.

Maurice Joly relates, in his 1870 autobiography, that one evening thinking of Abbe Galiani's treatise Dialogues sur le commerce des bleds and walking by the Pont Royal, he was inspired to write a dialogue between Montesquieu and Machiavelli.

Maurice Joly established a new journal, Le Palais, that ended after a confrontation with the principal collaborator in the enterprise.

Maurice Joly's name was completely forgotten, and in life he did not attain the glory he so obsessively craved.

Maurice Joly was found dead on 15 July 1878 in his 5 Quai Voltaire apartment in Paris.

Maurice Joly is a character in Eco's novel, The Prague Cemetery.