Börne

Börne, LUDWIG, a noted German writer, was born 18th May 1786 at Frankfort, where his father, Jakob Baruch, was a Jewish money-changer. He first studied medicine at Berlin under the guidance of the Jewish physician Marcus Herz, to whose wife he addressed the letters published in 1861. From 1807 he studied law and political economy at Heidelberg and Giessen, and in 1809 he returned to Frankfort, where he was for two years (1811 to 1813) registrar of the police board. After this he devoted himself wholly to politics, and in 1818 he had himself baptised, changing his name from Löb Baruch to Ludwig Börne. In various journals started or edited by him (1812-21), he established his reputation as a vigorous opponent of the government. The French Revolution of July 1830 drew him to Paris, where he finally settled in 1832, and died of consumption 12th February 1837. His disappointment with the results of the Revolution drove him from the Liberal to the Radical camp. His views are fully developed in his Briefe aus Paris and Neue Briefe aus Paris (1832-38), which, while reproaching the German people with every kind of vice and folly, labour to incite the nation to revolution. He and Heine became bitterly hostile to each other; it was the mutual antipathy of a practical enthusiast and an æsthetic indifferentist. Börne's bright and polished style was for many years the favourite model of German journalists; his strength lay in witty satire, but the restlessness of his mind made all his productions fragmentary. The first edition of Börne's Gesammelte Schriften (1829-31) was followed by a more complete edition in 12 vols. in 1862-63 (new ed. 1868). In 1840 his biography was published by Gutzkow, and Heine gave vent to his hatred in Heine über Börne. See Gervinus, Ueber Börne's Briefe aus Paris (1838), and Beumann's Börne (1841).