funeral oration over Michael Le Tellier, “that man so faithful to individuals, so formidable to the state, of a character so high that he could not be esteemed, or feared, or hated by halves, that steady genius whom, the while he shook the universe, we saw attracting to himself a dignity which in the end he determined to relinquish as having been too dearly bought, as he had the courage to recognize in the place that is the most eminent in Christendom, and as being, after all, quite incapable of satisfying his desires, so conscious was he of his mistake and of the emptiness of human greatness?  But, so long as he was bent upon obtaining what he was one day to despise, he kept everything moving by means of powerful and secret springs, and, after that all parties were overthrown, he seemed still to uphold himself alone, and alone to still threaten the victorious favorite with his sad but fearless gaze.”  When Bossuet sketched this magnificent portrait of Mazarin’s rival, Cardinal de Retz had been six years dead, in 1679.

Mesdames de Sevigne and de La Fayette were of the court, as were the Duke of La Rochefoucauld and Cardinal de Retz.  La Bruyere lived all his life rubbing shoulders with the court; he knew it, he described it, but he was not of it, and could not be of it.  Nothing is known of his family.  He was born at Dourdan in 1639, and had just bought a post in the Treasury (tresorier de France) at Caen, when Bossuet, who knew him, induced him to remove to Paris as teacher of history to the duke, grandson of the great Conde.  He remained forever attached to the person of the prince, who gave him a thousand crowns a year, and he lived to the day of his death at Conde’s house.  “He was a philosopher,” says Abbe d’Olivet in his Histoire de l’Academie Francaise; “all he dreamt of was a quiet life, with his friends and his books, making a good choice of both; not courting or avoiding pleasure; ever inclined for moderate fun, and with a talent for setting it going; polished in manners, and discreet in conversation; dreading every sort of ambition, even that of displaying wit.”  This was not quite the opinion formed by Boileau of La Bruyere.  “Maximilian came to see me at Auteuil,” writes Boileau to Racine on the 19th of May, 1687, the very year in which the Caracteres was published; “he read me some of his Theophrastus.  He is a very worthy (honnete) man, and one who would lack nothing, if nature had created him as agreeable as he is anxious to be.  However, he has wit, learning, and merit.”  Amidst his many and various portraits, La Bruyere has drawn his own with an amiable pride.  “I go to your door, Ctesiphon; the need I have of you hurries me from my bed and from my room.  Would to Heaven I were neither your client nor your bore.  Your slaves tell me that you are engaged and cannot see me for a full hour yet; I return before the time they appointed, and they tell me that you have gone out.