Menard, Leo

, a counsellor in the presidial court at Nismes, was born at Tarascon, in 1706, and died in 1767. He lived chiefly at Paris, and employed himself in the study of history and antiquities, and in writing books, which, though approved for their learning, did not rescue him from the inconveniences of poverty. They are these: 1. “The civil, ecclesiastical, and literary History of the city of Nismes,” 7 vols. 4to, published in 1750, and the following years. This work has no fault but that of prolixity. 2. “Mceurs et Usages cles Grecs,” 1743, 12mo, a small and useful compilation. 3. “The Amours of Calisthenes and Aristoclea,” 1766, 12mo, a novel, in which the author has skilfully painted the manners of Greece. 4. “A collection of fugitive pieces, illustrative of French history,” 3 vols. 4to, published in 1748. The materials were | communicated to him by the marquis d’Aubais. There was also a chronologer, named Peter Menard, who died the first year of the last century a James Menard, a lawyer of the sixteenth century and one or two more of interior note. ¹