An illegitimate child raised by a grocer's wife, Chamfort was educated as a free scholar and then supported by a worldly Parisian society that appreciated his conversational genius. His comedies La Jeune Indienne (produced 1764; “The Young Indian Girl”) and Le Marchand de Smyrne (produced 1770; “The Merchant of Smyrna”) and a tragedy, Mustapha et Zéangir (produced 1776), established his reputation. Eloge de Molière (1769) won him entry into the French Academy, but he later attacked academies with his Discours sur les Académies (1791).

Disillusioned with the society that sponsored him, he turned antiroyalist and wrote the revolutionary Pensées, maximes et anecdotes (1795); Chamfort collaborated with the count de Mirabeau on the newspaper Mercure de France and became secretary to the radical Jacobin Club. Many of his sayings, such as “War to the châteaux, peace to the cottages,” became famous. Later, shocked by the excesses of the Reign of Terror, Chamfort joined the Moderates and was denounced in the Committee of General Safety.

Threatened with prison, he attempted suicide, eventually dying of the wounds. “Be my brother or I'll kill you,” one of his later sayings, summed up the Terror's concept of the Revolutionary principle of fraternity.