They Deal Chiefly
With Roman History, And Especially With Points Suggested By The Author's
Profound Study Of Sallust.
Gibbon pays De Brosses the compliment of
quoting two of his works, and commends his "SINGULAR diligence," with
emphasis on the adjective.
(See Gibbon's Decline and Fall of the Roman
Empire, Bury's edition 4 37 and 7 168.) He was also Voltaire's landlord
at Tournay, and had a quarrel with him about a matter of firewood; but De
Brosses was a lawyer, whilst Voltaire was only a philosopher and a poet,
so that of course the result was "qu'il enrage d'avoir enfin a payer."*
(* Lanson's Voltaire page 139.)
The discussion at Dijon was more fruitful in results than such colloquies
usually are. De Brosses was especially struck with the utility of
exploration in southern seas, and considered that the French nation
should take the lead in such an endeavour. He spoke for a full hour in
support of this particular suggestion of Maupertuis, and when he had
finished his fellow-members assured him that what he had advanced was so
novel and interesting that he would do well to expand his ideas into an
essay, to be read at the next meeting. De Brosses did more: for he wrote
two solid quarto volumes, published at Paris in 1756 - "avec approbation
et privilege du Roy," as the title page says - in which he related all
that he could learn about previous voyages to the south, and pointed out,
with generous amplitude, in limpid, fluent French, the desirableness of
pursuing further discoveries there.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 141 of 299
Words from 39081 to 39339
of 83218
