FOOTNOTES:

FOOTNOTES:[283]Lettres choisies, ii. p. 770.[284]Reprinted in Locke'sWorks, x. pp. 161 ff.[285]See ourInfluence politique de Locke, p. 346.[286]Locke,Works, x. p. 162. The most amusing detail in this literary quarrel is that fifteen years before Desmaizeaux had actually offered Bernard, the editor of theNouvelles de la République des Lettres, a paper vehemently criticizing Locke. But La Motte interfered, and the offer was declined. However, La Motte kept Desmaizeaux' letter and threatened to publish it.Add. MSS., 4281, fol. 144, and 4286, fol. 242.[287]Mémoires pour l'histoire des Sciences et des Beaux-Arts(1707), ii. pp. 934-945.[288]Letter dated 30th October 1708.[289]Letter dated 7th January 1735.[290]Clarke and Foxcroft,Life of Burnet, p. 429.[291]Letter of 29th July 1743.[292]The MSS. letters are preserved in the library of theSociété pour l'histoire du Protestantisme Français.[293]Married women, unless of noble birth, were styled before 1789Mademoiselle.[294]Written September 1697. In this, as in the following letters, the passages left out are merely of a complimentary nature.[295]The touch of nature is wholly unexpected at this date.[296]She was a contemporary writer of insipid pastorals.[297]i.e.Locke and Mrs. Masham.[298]Mrs. Blomer, then Rebecca Collier the quakeress.[299]Mrs. Wharton.

[283]Lettres choisies, ii. p. 770.

[284]Reprinted in Locke'sWorks, x. pp. 161 ff.

[285]See ourInfluence politique de Locke, p. 346.

[286]Locke,Works, x. p. 162. The most amusing detail in this literary quarrel is that fifteen years before Desmaizeaux had actually offered Bernard, the editor of theNouvelles de la République des Lettres, a paper vehemently criticizing Locke. But La Motte interfered, and the offer was declined. However, La Motte kept Desmaizeaux' letter and threatened to publish it.Add. MSS., 4281, fol. 144, and 4286, fol. 242.

[287]Mémoires pour l'histoire des Sciences et des Beaux-Arts(1707), ii. pp. 934-945.

[288]Letter dated 30th October 1708.

[289]Letter dated 7th January 1735.

[290]Clarke and Foxcroft,Life of Burnet, p. 429.

[291]Letter of 29th July 1743.

[292]The MSS. letters are preserved in the library of theSociété pour l'histoire du Protestantisme Français.

[293]Married women, unless of noble birth, were styled before 1789Mademoiselle.

[294]Written September 1697. In this, as in the following letters, the passages left out are merely of a complimentary nature.

[295]The touch of nature is wholly unexpected at this date.

[296]She was a contemporary writer of insipid pastorals.

[297]i.e.Locke and Mrs. Masham.

[298]Mrs. Blomer, then Rebecca Collier the quakeress.

[299]Mrs. Wharton.

If, in December 1715, a Frenchman had been asked what important events had happened in the year, he would certainly have replied the death of Louis the Great and the publication of theChef d'œuvre d'un inconnu. In a few weeks that amusing lampoon on the scholars and commentators of the time had run through four editions. People who knew whispered the name of the man who sought to hide under the pseudonym of Doctor Matanasius; he was a cavalry officer, of mysterious birth, the Chevalier de Thémiseul. Hitherto the life of the author had been an extraordinary web of adventures diversified by scandals,lettres de cachet, imprisonment and exile. After wandering through Holland, Sweden, and Germany, the young officer had come back, adorned with a halo of bravery, learning, daring speculation, and bitter humour. He flaunted notions that the Regency was about to popularise: deism, the cult of experimental science, contempt of authority, alack of reverence for the classics. A man of culture, moreover, he knew just enough of Latin and Greek to impose upon an average reader. By an extraordinary stroke of good luck, his success, which was rapid, lasted long enough for Abbé Sabatier de Castres to exclaim fifty years later, under the impression of the witty fireworks of theChef d'œuvre: "Irony reigns therein from beginning to end; pleasantry is handled with as much spirit as judgment, and produces effects which eloquence aiming straight at the point would have been unable to produce."

To say the truth, we know hardly more about the Chevalier de Thémiseul than the men who lived under Louisxiv.He apparently never contradicted the idle story that gave him Bossuet for father and Mademoiselle de Mauléon for mother. As fond of blague as a Parisgamin, he must have enjoyed the idea of mystifying his friends while throwing dirt on a respected prelate's character. Abbé Sabatier de Castres, wishing to unravel the mystery, went to Orléans, searched the registers of the Parish of Saint-Victor and found therein recorded, on 27th September 1684, the christening of the Chevalier, son to Hyacinthe de Saint-Gelais, master bootmaker, and Anne Mathé, his wife. Others have read the record in a different manner;Cordonnier, they say, is not the father's trade, but his name, the Chevalier is not even entitled to ade, his name is plebeian Hyacinthe Cordonnier; Paul Cordonnier, assert the brothersHaag in theirDictionary, born on 24th September, the son not of a master-bootmaker, but of an officer in the army.

Now this is what one finds to-day in the register, if one takes the trouble to read it:

"To-day, Tuesday, September 26th, 1684, Hyacinthe, born on Sunday last, 24th said month, son of Jean Jacques Cordonnier, lord of Belleair, and demoiselle Anne Mathé, his wife, was christened by me Pierre Fraisy; and had for godfather Anthoine de Rouët, son to the late Antoine de Rouët and demoiselle Anthoinette Cordonnier and for godmother Marie Cordonnier, spinster."

And Saint-Hyacinthe's father signed "De Belair." The title thus added to his father's name must have given rise to the Chevalier's dreams of a noble birth.

The mystery of the birth extends to the life. In 1701, the Chevalier's mother resided at Troyes in Champagne, giving her son, thanks to the bishop's patronage, a gentleman's education that qualified him for an officer's commission in therégiment-royal. Among the noblemen living on their estates in Chalons and Reims he numbered acquaintances, and they treated him with due respect. Letters are extant which prove that he was on terms of friendship with the Pouillys and the Burignys, no mean men in their province. There is nothing to object to his conduct as a soldier. He fought bravely in Germany, and, if taken prisoner at Blenheim, it was togetherwith Marshal de Tallart and many others whose courage no one dared to question.

His captivity in Holland acted somewhat in the same manner as exile in England did later on upon Voltaire. The ideas upon which his youth had been nursed were shattered to pieces. Eventually he got free and came back to Troyes. In 1709, he turned up in Stockholm, with the intention of fighting the Moscovites under the Swedish flag, but it was too late: Charlesxii.had just suffered a crushing reverse at Pultava.

Back the Chevalier went to Holland, learning meantime English, Spanish, and Italian, reading Bayle, Le Clerc, and Locke, and many other books forbidden in France. At the Utrecht congress he caused a scandal by courting the Duchess of Ossuna, wife to the Spanish plenipotentiary. The jealous husband promptly obtained an order of expulsion, and poor Thémiseul needs must take refuge once more at his mother's in Troyes.

A new scandal soon drove him thence. Being entrusted by an austere abbess with the task of teaching her young niece Italian, he fell in love with his fair pupil while they read Dante together, trying maybe to live up to the story of Francesca da Rimini. To avoid thelettre de cachet, he fled to Holland, and for prudence' sake, exchanged his name of Chevalier de Thémiseul for the less warlike one of Saint-Hyacinthe.

Under that name his literary career began. Together with the mathematician S'Gravesande,De Sallengre, and Prosper Marchand the bookseller, he wrote for the HagueJournal littéraire(1713). Two years later, the sudden success of theChef d'œuvre d'un inconnuacted upon his brain like a potent liquor, and caused all his subsequent misfortunes.

To one who reads the pamphlet to-day, the wit seems rather thin. It is difficult to realise the enjoyment that our great-grandfathers could take in laughing in that exaggerated fashion at a German commentator. An indecent French song beginningL'autre jour Colin maladeis supposed to have been discovered by Doctor Matanasius, a scholar of European renown. He proclaims it a masterpiece, the work of an unknown poet of genius, and, with the help of a few hundred notes and comments, strives to gain his point. Now Doctor Matanasius is no more the laughing-stock of the literary world. His name is Renan, Gaston Paris, or Skeat. TheChef d'œuvregives us the impression of a man loading a blunderbuss to shoot at a shadow. The productions of Swift and Voltaire, in the same vein, are infinitely better. Poor Matanasius, with his elaborate reminiscences of barrack-room raillery, seems sadly out of date; being of the earth, earthy, his song and his commentary have both crumbled to dust.

Yet he sought to build up a career of glory and wealth on the flimsy foundation. Fighting in the cause of modern learning with the headlong rashness of a dragoon charging up to the enemy'sguns, he wrote theLettres to Madame Dacier, he undertook to rival the Dutch literary papers with hisMémoires littéraires; but the public who had appreciated theChef d'œuvre, were slow in subscribing to the new paper. Unlucky Matanasius was doomed to write only one masterpiece, for all his subsequent productions fell dead from the press.

Once more in France, with brain teeming with schemes and but little money in his pocket, the man, who was now nearing forty, fell back upon his last resource, a new love-affair. The victim this time was Suzanne, Colonel de Marconnay's daughter, with whom he eloped to England (1722).

The duly-married couple remained in England twelve years. What their life and that of their children must have been, a few scattered letters help us to understand. The father-in-law declining to help the wanderers, Saint-Hyacinthe, who decidedly had renounced the Catholic faith, turned to the Huguenot community. The poorer among them eked out a scant livelihood by teaching French, writing for Dutch booksellers, translating English books; the most needy received relief—money and clothing. The brilliant dragoon, who had been feasted in Paris, did not blush to hold out his hand and accept the mite doled out by the trustees of the "Fund for the poor Protestants."

There was still in the man an inexhaustible fund of illusion. He could rail and boast and dream.He seems never to have given up the hope of attaining to reputation and competence. In the blackest year of his life, he began translatingRobinson Crusoe(1720), but, wearying of the task, left the Dutchman Justus van Effen to finish it. A letter of his to M. de Burigny, dated 6th September 1727, is sweetly optimistic. "Cross the Channel," he says, to his friend, "but, for Heaven's sake, come alone; don't bring your man along with you. I can manage to accommodate you with rooms in my house, and receive you at my table. What you will eat," he adds, with a flourish of liberality, "with what I am obliged to have for my own family, will not cost me more than two sous a day."[300]

In London, most probably at the Rainbow Coffee-House, then the resort of the refugees, Saint-Hyacinthe one day came upon Voltaire. The two men had met once before in Paris, when Voltaire'sŒdipewas being acted. It is said that, during a performance, the Chevalier de Thémiseul, pointing out to the full house, exclaimed: "That is the completest praise of your tragedy." To which Voltaire replied with a bow: "Your opinion, Monsieur, flatters me more than that of all that audience." But times had changed. Needy Saint-Hyacinthe was no longer the successful author that a younger man is naturally anxious not to wound. "M. de Voltaire," Saint-Hyacinthe repeated later, "led a very irregular life in England;he made many enemies by proceedings not in accordance with the principles of strict morality." "Saint-Hyacinthe," Voltaire retorted, "lived in London principally on my alms and his lampoons. He cheated me and dared to insult me."

It must be acknowledged that Saint-Hyacinthe struck the first blow. In 1728, having a mind to correct the mistakes that he had noticed in theHenriade, he did the work in the most thoroughly impertinent manner. Thus, to the following line:

"Aux remparts de Paris les deux rois s'avancèrent,"

he added the comment: "It is not good grammar to says'avancer, buts'avancer vers; so the author should write:

"Vers les murs de Paris les deux rois s'avancèrent."

And further on, in a note on the expression "allés dans Albion," "it is surprising that a poet who has written tragedies, and an epic, without mentioning those miscellaneous pieces where an agreeable politeness must prevail, should not know the use of the prepositionsdansanden." Then there was captiousness in some of the remarks; thus Voltaire had written

"Et fait aimer son joug à l'Anglois indompté,Qui ne peut ni servir, ni vivre en liberté."

"M. de Voltaire," slyly added his enemy, "should not have tried in a vague and sorry antithesis togive an idea of the English character that is both insulting and erroneous."

A more striking example of perfidiousness was effectually to stir Voltaire's resentment a little later. To one of the numerous editions of theChef d'œuvre, Saint-Hyacinthe added a postscript entitledThe Deification of Doctor Aristarchus Masso, in which he related the well-known anecdote of Voltaire being set upon by an officer: "'Fight,' exclaims the officer, 'or take care of your shoulders.' The poet not being bold enough to fight, the officer handsomely cudgelled him, in the hope that the sore insult might lend him courage; but the poet's caution rose as the blows showered down upon him," etc. Though not mentioned by name, Voltaire was pretty clearly pointed out. Soon after, malicious Abbé Desfontaines inserted the anecdote in his libellousVoltairomanie(1739), and all Paris began to make merry over the poet's cowardice. In spite of the provocation, Voltaire acted with characteristic forbearance, begging mutual friends to adjust the difficulty, and saying that he should feel quite satisfied if Saint-Hyacinthe would retract and solemnly declare that he had taken no part in the abbé's libel. But Saint-Hyacinthe's stubbornness drove Voltaire to retaliate, and so he threw all his venom in the following paragraph:—

"Teach the public, for example, he wrote in hisAdvice to a Journalist(1741), that theChef d'œuvre d'un inconnuorMatanasiusis by the late M. de Sallengre and an illustrious mathematician of aconsummate talent who adds wit to scholarship, lastly by all those who contributed in The Hague to theJournal Littéraire, and that M. de Saint-Hyacinthe provided the song with many remarks. But if to that skit be added an infamous pamphlet worthy of the dirtiest rogue, and written no doubt by one of those sorry Frenchmen who wander about foreign lands to the disgrace of literature and their own country, give due emphasis to the horror and ridicule of that monstrous alliance."

To that crushing blow Saint-Hyacinthe replied without delay. "Though yourTemple du goût," he wrote, "has convinced me that your taste is often depraved, I cannot believe you can go the length of confounding what is the work of one with what is the work of many.... I am not so fortunate as to do honour either to my country or to literature; but I may say that if it suffices to love them to do them honour, no one surely would do so more than I.... I have never been vile enough to praise foreign countries at the expense of my own, and heap eulogies upon their great men, while undervaluing those that do honour to France."

Bitter as the reply was, it did not appease Saint-Hyacinthe's anger. Hearing that Voltaire had just been elected a member of the French Academy, "The Academy," he wrote to a friend, "will be honoured to receive among the forty a man devoid of either morals or principles, and who does not know his own tongue unless he has begun learningit these few years past" (17th February 1743). HisRecherches philosophiqueshe had inscribed to the King of Prussia and, the latter taking no notice of the work, "Voltaire," he complained, "has indisposed the king against me" (10th October 1745).[301]

The latter part of his life Saint-Hyacinthe spent at Geneken, near Breda. Thence he had launched his indignant reply to theAdvice to a Journalist. His literary activity was still great. The two letters, now published for the first time, show him trying to induce Dutch booksellers to publish the manuscripts of which he possesses "two chests full." As usual, he is in dire straits, persecuted by duns and lawyers, yet none the less full of hopes. The schemes he thinks about are excellent till he is cheated by some "great rogue." One pictures to oneself an eighteenth-century Mr. Micawber, buoyant and impecunious. Nor are there missing in the background the wife and family, whose protest is brought home to us in a startling manner by the "seduction" of the eldest daughter. Here Saint-Hyacinthe refers to Mlle de Marconnay, for so she was called, who, under the patronage of the Duchesse d'Antin, retired to Troyes.[302]The fates of the two other children are unknown.

Sluys,27th June 1742.

Monsieur,—It was with the utmost joy that I heard from M. Mortier that you were in good health and thought kindly about me. I should have had the honour to tell you sooner how pleased I was at the news had I not suddenly fallen very ill just as I was intending to do so. The attack of illness in which I battled long with death, had seized me for the second time since last September and it was thought I should not recover, as I suffered in the meantime from ague, and this has weakened me so that, though out of danger for the last two months, I can hardly walk from my room to the door of my house and am unable to attend continuously to anything however trifling. My state is the cruellest possible. Not only have I been ill ten months, but my wife and two children are ailing. I left Paris two years ago and came here to settle some money-affairs, which should have turned out well I thought, as I was allowing the income to accumulate in order to pay off a few debts. Those entrusted with the administration of the estate have contrived to settle matters to their own advantage and are appropriating all. Besides, the co-heir has brought an action against me and his attorney here—the greatest rascal I haveever known—will raise quibbles on the plainest things in the world, evidently to fish in troubled waters, and have the pleasure of making me detest this country, wherein he has but too well succeeded. The judges have at last submitted the matter to arbitration and, though still unable to stand, I had myself carried here to end it. I shall see how all will turn out in a few days, after which, if my strength comes back, I shall try to spare a week or ten days to journey to Holland, especially with a view to meeting you, Monsieur, and two other persons. I shall tell you all that has befallen me since I left England. I shall tell how my eldest daughter was perverted, how the old duchess Dantin and two other ladies coming one day when her mother was dining out, carried her off to the convent of the New Catholics where the perversion still goes on. That is why I wrote to her mother to leave Paris promptly with her two other children, and am debarred from returning there. You shall see in the tale of my adventures a series of unfortunate occurrences at which one would wonder if one might wonder at what the malice of men can do.

I have spent much money here, and I can hardly receive any until after September. I have by me two chests full of MSS. by the best men; a kind favour you could do me, Monsieur, would be to find me some bookseller willing to print them. I shall tell you in confidence that I have found M. Mortier so honest a man that I should verymuch like him to take them, and this is what I had purposed to do: to give them to him to clear an account standing between him and M. de Bavi and for which it is just he should be requited. I had even thought of proposing that after agreeing on the price of an MS. he should pay me half in money and keep the other half in deduction from what is owing to him until entire receipt of the sum, which is not considerable.

But besides his being busy printing many good books, my present situation is too pressing to allow me to make the proposal, so I have told him nothing about it. I shall always have occasion to provide him whenever he chooses. Thus, Monsieur, you may, if you think fit, offer any bookseller you like without mentioning my name the select MSS., the list of which I am taking the liberty of sending you.

I do not know whether a small volume that I printed in Paris under the title ofDivers Writings on Love and Friendship, onVoluptuousness and Politeness, theTheory of Pleasant Feelingsand someMiscellaneous Thoughtsof the late Marquis de Charost,[303]has reached you. The book appeared, and Maréchal de Noailles and Duc de Villars complaining that they thought they had found their characters portrayed in theMiscellaneous Thoughts, the Cardinal[304]tried to stop the sale. Nevertheless,two editions came out within four months. The book, in fact, has been found charming—I may well praise it since there are but two pieces of mine, all the rest being by the best authors. I am told that the book has not been reprinted in Holland. You might ask some bookseller to do so. I shall send a revised copy, and the author of theTheory of Feelingshaving rewritten the work, I shall write to get what I know is now a very considerable piece. The bookseller will pay only for what he prints, and I shall send him wherewith to make up a second and even a third volume of Miscellanies no less interesting; for instance:

The pamphlet by M. de la Rivierre on his marriage with Mme la Marquise de Coligny, daughter of Bussi Rabutin, which is admirably written.

The Letters of that Marquise to M. de la Rivierre.

Other Letters of M. de la Rivierre to Mme la Marquise de Lambert and others, both in verse and prose, which are quite unknown or at least known only to a few.

Essays by M. de la Rivierre on love.

A Letter of Heloise to Abelard by the same.

Sundry short Treatises and Letters by the late Mme la Marquise de Lambert.

Also:

The complete Translations and Poems of Marquis de la Fare.

The Complete Works of M. de Charlerat.

Poems by M. le Marquis de Saint-Aulaire. Heit was who gave them to me, but, if he is still living, I may not print them, as I am allowed to do so only after his death.

The Revolutions of the Roman Republic, by M. Subtil.

A Life of Julius Cæsar, by the same. The work is unfinished, but the fragment is valuable on the score of composition and style. I am alone to possess it, excepting the family who hold the original.

Several very curious Pieces suppressed in Paris and intended for the Remarks to the Mémoires of Amelot de la Houssaye. But they have perhaps found their way into Holland and been printed there, together with the said Mémoires, which I must find out.

Critical Researches on the vanity of Nations regarding their origins.

The Story of the Loves of Euryalus and Lucrece, translated from Æneas Sylvius, and compared with the story of Comtesse de Tende, together with a letter regarding the Latin letters of the Countess de Degenfeldt and Louis Charles Elector Palatine.

A supposed Letter from Heloise to Abelard by the late M. Raymond Descours, the translator of the former that caused so much stir.

And many other slighter pieces. If the title does not seem right, the bookseller may choose another, but as all those pieces are by well-known authors who wrote admirably, the politeness and variety of the work guarantee the sale.

JEAN BAPTISTE COLBERT After MignardJEAN BAPTISTE COLBERTAfter Mignard

Should a bookseller want something more serious, I have a precious collection of letters, proclamations, mémoires, edicts, lists of troops, etc., illustrating the reigns of Francisi., Henriii., Henriiii., Charlesix., the whole copied from the original letters of those princes, Queen Catherine, constables, Secretaries of State, generals of armies. Among the papers are also to be found documents instructing the ambassadors and the letters wherein they render account of their negotiations, what France then did at the Court of Rome, and what she did in England regarding the trial of the Queen of Scotland under Queen Elizabeth. There is also such a fine series of letters from Duc de Guise that they might be entitled Mémoires. Two members of the Academy of Belles-lettres in Paris have urged me to print all this with two quarto volumes that they are publishing on the history of France, but as there are some pieces that they allege may prevent them from obtaining the privilege, and must therefore be suppressed, I have declined the proposal.

I have besides a manuscript entitledAn Abridgment of Civil, Criminal, and Ecclesiastical Law and of the Principles of Government,[305]written in 1710 by a minister for M. the Dauphin Duc de Bourgogne. The treatise is extremely lucid, instructive, and it is the original work, the sole possessor of which I am.

I have other manuscripts. But it is enoughto begin with. I shall send them to you with all my heart, and you will be master, Monsieur, to dispose of them. The long experience I have made of your kindness, gives me the assurance that I cannot trust anything to better hands.

If you honour me with an answer, I beg of you to give me news of M. des Maizeaux, whom I love and honour, and from whom, however, I have not heard for the last ten years. Content to love one another, we do not trouble to tell each other so, and I do not like to make him pay postage. I shall receive your commands at M. Neungheer, at Sluys in Flanders. I am, Monsieur, and shall ever be respectfully and gratefully your most humble and obedient servant,

Saint-Hyacinthe.

I cannot have an opportunity to write to Amsterdam, Monsieur, without availing myself of it to remind you of a man that neither time nor distance will cause to forget the gratitude he owes you nor impair the friendship he has vowed to you. Tell me the state of your health and of your eyes, about which you used to complain, and add news of M. des Maizeaux and M. Le Courayer if you have any. I dwell in a wilderness where I have intercourse only with men that died many centuries ago, and, to tell you the truth, it would suit me verywell if those I can do without did not study to ruin rather than serve me. That disadvantage will drive me from my refuge, and maybe I shall remove to some place nearer you.

You must have received myPhilosophical Researches[306]as soon as they began to be issued. It is not a book I sent you to read. It is too badly printed and too full of mistakes. It is only a tribute that I wished to pay to friendship and esteem. I should like to have the opportunity, Monsieur, to give you further proofs of this. Hardly affected by the things of this life, I should feel that keenly. I am and shall always be, Monsieur, with inviolable devotedness your most humble and obedient servant,

Saint-Hyacinthe.[307]

Two years after writing the above letter, Saint-Hyacinthe died. We can guess what the end was. While the duns were crowding at the door, the dying man dreamed that his latest scheme would infallibly make him wealthy. A few friends stood firm, however, and honoured the memory of the dashing officer to whom fortune and Paris had once smiled. Thirty years after his death, a person of rank, one night in a drawing-room, began speaking ill of him. "Sir," exclaimed M. de Burigny, who was standing by, "please spare my feelings; you arehurting me to the quick. M. de Saint-Hyacinthe is one of the men I loved the most dearly."

His biographers have questioned whether he ever abandoned the Catholic faith. The former of the two letters published above settles the doubt. But a few extracts from a very scarce posthumous publication show that the English Deists had made a lasting impression upon him:

"Diverse opinions, uncertainty of knowledge; diverse religions, uncertainty of the true one."

"The true religion is entirely contained in the duties prescribed by the law of Nature, which are within reach of every one."

"Because Jesus Christ called Himself the Son of God, we infer that He is God as His Father, and, if it be so, all men are gods, since in the strict meaning of the word we are all children of God, drawing our life from Him and being created after His likeness."

"Pure Deism is the only religion that truly exists."[308]

Strip him of the glamour of adventures and extravagant opinions, he is after all a mere journalist. Take away theChef d'œuvre, whose success was due to an accident, and Saint-Hyacinthe falls to the level of a Coste or a Desmaizeaux. Yet he deserved better than he got. In his lust for vulgar notoriety, he twice lost sight of fame. With his journalist's insight, he had foreseen the wonderful fortune ofRobinson Crusoe, and he allowed a far inferior manto complete the translation. As early as 1715, in hisMémoires littéraires, he had guessed that the time had come for men of letters to make England known in France, and Voltaire his enemy reaped all the benefit of the idea. He might well have asked in later years why he had not signed theLettres philosophiques. And so in the portrait gallery of Frenchmen who made English literature familiar to their countrymen in the eighteenth century, Saint-Hyacinthe is only a miniature, while Voltaire shines forth in all the glory of a full-length picture.

FOOTNOTES:[300]Lettre de M. de Saint-Hyacinthe.Imprimée par la Société des Bibliophiles. Paris, 1826.[301]The story of the quarrel between Voltaire and Saint-Hyacinthe is set forth in two contemporary books:Tableau philosophique de l'esprit de M. de Voltaire, 1771 andLettre de M. de Burigny à M. l'abbé Mercier sur les démêlés de M. de Voltaire avec M. de Saint-Hyacinthe, 1780.[302]See Haag,France Protestante, art. "Cordonnier."[303]Recueil de divers écrits sur l'amour et l'amitié, la politesse, la volupté, les sentimens agréables, l'esprit et le cœur.Paris, 1736.[304]Cardinal Fleury.[305]Abrégé des matières civiles, criminelles, ecclésiastiques, et des principes du gouvernement.[306]Recherches philosophiques sur la nécessité de s'assurer soi-même de la vérité; sur la certitude de nos connaissances; et sur la nature des êtres.Par un membre de la Société royale de Londres. Londres, 1743[307]The two above letters are preserved in the Library of the "Société de l'histoire du protestantisme français" in Paris.[308]Pensées secrettes et observations critiques attribuées à feu M. de Saint-Hyacinthe, Londres, 1749.

[300]Lettre de M. de Saint-Hyacinthe.Imprimée par la Société des Bibliophiles. Paris, 1826.

[301]The story of the quarrel between Voltaire and Saint-Hyacinthe is set forth in two contemporary books:Tableau philosophique de l'esprit de M. de Voltaire, 1771 andLettre de M. de Burigny à M. l'abbé Mercier sur les démêlés de M. de Voltaire avec M. de Saint-Hyacinthe, 1780.

[302]See Haag,France Protestante, art. "Cordonnier."

[303]Recueil de divers écrits sur l'amour et l'amitié, la politesse, la volupté, les sentimens agréables, l'esprit et le cœur.Paris, 1736.

[304]Cardinal Fleury.

[305]Abrégé des matières civiles, criminelles, ecclésiastiques, et des principes du gouvernement.

[306]Recherches philosophiques sur la nécessité de s'assurer soi-même de la vérité; sur la certitude de nos connaissances; et sur la nature des êtres.Par un membre de la Société royale de Londres. Londres, 1743

[307]The two above letters are preserved in the Library of the "Société de l'histoire du protestantisme français" in Paris.

[308]Pensées secrettes et observations critiques attribuées à feu M. de Saint-Hyacinthe, Londres, 1749.

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