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a French journalist, generally known for having been the constant

, a French journalist, generally known for having been the constant object of the satire of Voltaire, was born at Quimper, in 1719. His talents were considerable, and he cultivated them in the society of the Jesuits, under fathers Brumoy and Bougeant. In 1739, on some disgust, he quitted the Jesuits, and for a time assisted the abbé des Fontaines in his periodical publications. He then published several critical works on his own account, which were generally admired, but sometimes suppressed by authority. His “Letters on certain writings of the time” began to be published in 1749, and were extended, with some interruptions, to 13 volumes. In 1754 he began his “Anne Litie>aire,” and published in that year 7 volumes of it; and afterwards 8 volumes every year as long as he lived, which was till 1776. In this work, FreVon, who was a zealous enemy of the modern philosophy, attacked Voltaire with spirit. He represented him as a skilful plagiary; as a poet, brilliant indeed, but inferior to Corneille, Racine, and Boileau; as an elegant, but inaccurate historian; and rather the tyrant than the king of literature. A great part of this Voltaire could bear with fortitude; but a very skilful and victorious attack upon a bad comedy, “La Femme qui a raison,” drove him beyond all bounds of patience; and henceforward his pen was constantly in motion against Fre>on, whose very name at any time would put him in a rage, nor was Freron more a favourite with the encyclopedists, whose principles he exposed.