[122] Grimm notices Astruc’s Dissertations sur l’immortalité, l’immaterialité, et la liberté de l’âme, published in 1755 (Corr. i, 438), but not his Conjectures. At his death (1766) he pronounces him “un des hommes les plus decriés de Paris,” “Il passait pour fripon, fourbe, méchant, en un mot pour un très-malhonnête homme.” “Il était violent et emporté, et d’une avarice sordide.” Finally, he died “sans sacremens” after having “fait le dévot” and attached himself to the Jesuits in their day of power. Corr. v, 98. But Grimm was a man of many hates, and not the best of historians. [↑]
[123] Cp. Maury, L’ancienne Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres, 1864, pp. 55–56. [↑]
[124] Voltaire’s various stratagems to secure election are not to his credit. See Paul Mesnard, Histoire de l’académie française, 1857, pp. 68–74. But even Montesquieu is said to have resorted to some questionable devices for the same end. Id. p. 62. [↑]
[125] Maury, L’ancienne Académie des inscriptions, pp. 54–55, 94, 308. [↑]
[128] Where he was lieutenant-général, and died in 1750. [↑]
[129] Maury, pp. 53, 86–87. [↑]