, president a mortier of the parliament of Dijon, and a member of the French
, president a mortier of the parliament of Dijon, and a member of the French academy, was
born March 16, 1673. He began his studies under the
direction of his father (who was also president a mortier of the same parliament) at the Jesuits’ college of Dijon, and
finished them in 1638 with great approbation. Being as
yet too young for the law schools, he studied the elements
of that science in private, and perfected himself at the
same time in the Greek language. He also learned Italian, Spanish, and acquired some knowledge of the Hebrew. After two years thus usefully employed, he went
through a course of law at Paris and Orleans; and in 1692
he became counsellor of the parliament of Dijon. In 1704
he was appointed president, the duties of which office he
executed until 1727, and with an assiduity and ability not
very common. In this latter year he was elected into the
academy, on the condition that he would quit Dijon and
settle at Paris, to which condition he acceded, but was
unable to perform his promise, for want of health. Though
remote, however, from the capital, he could not remain in
obscurity; but from the variety and extent of his learning‘,
he was courted and consulted by the literati throughout
Europe: and many learned men, who had availed themselves of his advice, dedicated their works to him. At
length, his constitution being worn out with repeated attacks of the gout, he died March 17, 1746. A friend approaching his bed, within an hour of his death, found him
in a seemingly profound meditation. He made a sign that
he wished not to be disturbed, and with difficulty pronounced the words J’epie la mort “I am watching death.
”
Notwithstanding his business and high reputation as a
lawyer, he contrived to employ much of his time in the
cultivation of polite literature, and wrote many papers on
Critical and classical subjects in the literary journals. Separately he published, 1. A poetical translation, not inelegant, but somewhat careless, of Petronius on the Civil
War between Coesar and Pompey, with two epistles of
Ovid, &c. Amst. 1737, 4to. Alluding to the negligence
which sometimes appears in his poetry, his wife, a very
ingenious lady, used to say, “Confine yourself to thinking, and let me write.
” 2. “Remarques sur les Tusculanes de Ciceron, avec une dissertation sur Sardanapale,
dernier roi d'Asyrie,
” Paris, Des Lettres sur les Therapeutes,
” Dissertations sur
Herodote,
” with memoirs of the life of Bouhier, Dissertation sur le grand pontifical des
empereurs Remains,
” Explications de
quelques marbres antiques,
” in the collection of M. Le
Bret, Observations sur la Coutume de
Bourgogne,
” Dijon, 2 vols. fol. A complete edition of
his law works was published in 1787, fol. by M. de Bevy.
He wrote a very learned dissertation on the origin of the
Greek and Latin letters, which is printed in Montfaucon’s
Palaeography, Paris, 1708, p. 553 and his “Remarques
sur Ciceron
” were reprinted at Paris in