About: Joseph Omer Joly de Fleury

Joseph Omer Joly de Fleury (1715-1810) was a member of the distinguished Joly de Fleury family, originally from Burgundy, from which came a number of leading French magistrates and officials under the ancien regime. He is notable for four principal things: his strong opposition to the philosophes and the publication of the Encyclopedie in 1759; his role in the expulsion of the Jesuits; his involvement in the Lally Tollendal Affair; and his ban on inoculation against smallpox in June 1763. In a pun on his name, Voltaire described him as ‘ni Homère, ni joli, ni fleuri' ( = neither Homer, nor pretty, nor flowery, a sarcastic comment on his apparently dreary oratory). In one of his private letters, Voltaire described him as a ‘little black balloon puffed up with stinking vapours’