prose received a considerable development during the eighteenth century.
Some of the forms which it had previously taken, the _Pensee_, the
maxim, and so forth, were less practised, though at the beginning and
end of our present period two remarkable men, Vauvenargues and Joubert,
distinguished themselves in them, and in the form of satirical aphorism
Chamfort and Rivarol, before and during the Revolution, brought them to
great perfection. But it was powerfully encouraged by the institution of
official _eloges_, pronounced in the French Academy on famous men of the
immediate or remoter past, and of prize essays, subjects for which, in
ever increasing numbers, were proposed, not merely by that body, but by
provincial societies of a similar but humbler kind. More than all this,
the growth of periodical literature, though not exactly rapid, was
steady, and gave opportunity for the cultivation of the two main
branches of occasional writing as it is understood in modern times,
namely, social or ethical essays of the Addisonian kind, and critical
studies, literary or other. A great impetus was given to this by the
novelist Prevost, who, after his return from England, edited, as has
been observed, more than one avowed imitation of the English _Spectator_
and _Tatler_. At the beginning of the century the chief place among
newspapers was occupied by the _Mercure Galant_, which had enjoyed the
contempt of La Bruyere, and the management of Vise and Thomas Corneille.
Towards the middle and end of the period, the _Gazette de France_, under
the management of Suard, held the principal place with a somewhat
higher aim; and of non-official publications the Jesuit _Journal de
Trevoux_ and the anti-_philosophe Annee Litteraire_ of Freron were
notable. It was not till after the beginning of the Revolution that
journalism proper spread and multiplied, and that journalists became a
power. A short notice of the chief of these will be found lower down in
this chapter, but a full history of French journalism is impossible
here.

[Sidenote: Fontenelle.]

The first place in point of time, and not the least in point of
importance, among the occasional writers of the eighteenth century, is
due to Fontenelle. The personal name of this curious writer, who is
perhaps the most striking example in literary history of multifarious
talent and unwearied industry just stopping short, despite their
combination, of genius, was Bernard le Bovier, and his moth