important fact (which he has recorded elsewhere) that he received a thorough grounding in his own language from the man, of all others, the best qualified to impart it. This was the Abbé d'Olivet, to whose praise he devoted a paragraph of his 'Age of Louis XIV.' He was a member of the French Academy, and its historian. "We owe him," says Voltaire, "the most elegant and faithful translations of Cicero's works, enriched with judicious remarks. He spoke his own tongue with the same purity as Cicero spoke his, and did good service to French grammar by the most refined and accurate comments." François's own tastes in composition at this time led him to make verses, some of which, written at about the age of twelve, were notable enough to be talked of in the drawing-room of the famous Ninon de Lenclos, whose perennial charms had then been worshipped by many generations of lovers. François's godfather was the Abbé de Chateauneuf, who had long been the intimate friend of Ninon: it was he who brought the youthful poet to make his bow to the venerable fair one, then ninety, and her charms, presumably, a little on the wane. She was so pleased with the boy (who possibly made love to her), that, dying soon after, she left him two thousand francs to buy books.
He remained altogether seven years at the college, and in the later period of his residence came under another instructor, Father Porée, whom he considered worthy of a niche in history. "He was," says the notice of him in the 'Age of Louis XIV.,' "one of the few professors who have had repute amongst men of the world—eloquent in the style of Seneca, a poet, and of a very fine intellect. His greatest merit was that he made
