n 1668, and died in 1751. He early received considerable
preferment in the law, and held the seals at intervals for the greater
part of the last thirty years of his life. He was a defender of
Gallicanism--indeed, he was suspected of Jansenist leanings--and a man
of great benevolence in private life. His legal and historical learning
was immense, and he was not without some tincture of science. He
deserves a place here chiefly for his speeches on public occasions,
which were in effect elaborate moral essays. An important part of them
consists of what were called _Mercuriales_ (that is to say, discourses
pronounced on certain Wednesdays (Die Mercurii) by the first president
of the Parliament of Paris) on the abuses of the day, the duties of
judges, the nature of justice, and similar subjects.

[Sidenote: Duclos.]

Another writer, who has been mentioned more than once before, held
somewhat aloof from the Encyclopaedists, though he was not, like
D'Aguesseau, definitely orthodox, or, like Vauvenargues, severely moral.
Charles Pinaud Duclos was one of the most miscellaneous of the
miscellaneous writers of the time. He held the office of historiographer
royal, and produced some remarkable works of the historical kind, one of
which has been noticed. He composed novels in a fanciful style midway
between Crebillon and Marivaux. He also wrote on grammar, but some of
his best work consists of short academic essays, and of a moral study
called _Considerations sur les Moeurs de Notre Temps_, which is both
well written and shows discernment. Duclos' character has been somewhat
variously represented, but the unfavourable reports (which are in the
minority) may probably be traced to the studied brusqueness of his
manners, and to his unwillingness to make common cause with the
_philosophe_ coterie, though, if some stories are to be believed, he
often conversed and argued quite in their style.

[Sidenote: Marmontel.]

Yet another typical figure of the same numerous class is Jean Francois
Marmontel, one of the most eminent professional men of letters of the
second class. Marmontel's moral tales, his _Belisaire_, and his plays
have already been noticed, but his main place in literature is that of a
journalist and critic. He was born at Bort, in the district of Limoges,
in 1723, and obtained some provincial reputation in letters. Introduced
to Voltaire in 1746, he began as a dramatist, and, after some failures,
acquired the protection of