'522 Memoirs of 



and circulated in her states. But tlie 

 pedants of the Sorbonne, devoted to 

 bigotry and tiie ardent passions of into- 

 lerance, denounced Belisarius in terms 

 of reproach, censurinj? and declaring it 

 heretical, deistical, impious, and inimi- 

 cal to the tluonc and altar. The author 

 appealed to the Scriptures, and to the 

 authoiity of Lactantius, Tertullian, &c. 

 but the doctors insisted on his ex- 

 punging tiie twelfth chapter, which 

 treated of toleration. Marmontel had 

 happily lighted on times wherein eccle- 

 siastical power was no longer absolute ; 

 and the hand lifted up, w ilh the intention 

 of sli iking him hy the force of public 

 opinion, was withheld from him. He 

 never would submit lo this ultimatum, 

 and his book was only the more in re- 

 quest; 40,000 copies having been sold 

 soon after. The court took no part in 

 the dispute, — the tribunals winked at it, 

 — and the author's friends, Voltaire, 

 Turgot, d'Alembert, and others, in a 

 strong and imperious voice, remon- 

 strated and animadverled on the angry 

 censure pronounced by those academi- 

 cal su{icriors. 'Jhey extracted amuse- 

 ment enough from it to form a rich sub- 

 jcct for ridicule. Somewhat later, the 

 Sorbonne would retract their Iiidiculus ; 

 the epithet ridiculus had been added lo 

 it, and the ringleaders, who looked on 

 the whole scene as diversion, grafted 

 another source of gratification, on the 

 happy junction of adjective and sub- 

 stantive, as words in the construction of 

 due concordance. 



After this, Slarmontel published his 

 " Incas, or llie Destruction of the Em- 

 pire of Peru," iin historical romance, 

 which went through several editions. 

 Herein the talents of this writer were 

 most energetically exerted to put some 

 check on the infuriate passions of into- 

 lerance, considering with abiiorrencc, 

 and bringing into contempt, the mis- 

 chievous nolioiis that had disgraced 

 society, in its furmer depraved state. 

 Here was no interference by the Sor- 

 bonne. 



It was late ere IMarmontel was ad- 

 mitted into the French Academy. Un- 

 lawful means were practised by some 

 powerful men, who preferred abject 

 adulation and flattery to merited praise, 

 to procure his exclusion. At the age 

 of forty he received with complacency 

 the entrance which was offered to him. 

 On the death of d'Alembert, he became 

 perpetual secretary. 



Every thing now relative lo the admi- 

 nistration cf his fortune was so arranged 



Marmontel. [J"^y '« 



and superintended, that, in a compara- 

 tive sense, he might pass for supremely 

 happy. He led a life of tran<|uillity, iu 

 the bosom of his young family. In his 

 Memoirs he tells us, that his heart was 

 calm, and his time was varied by stur 

 dies, compositions of dillcrent kinds, 

 generally well received by the public, 

 and in a society of well-informed per- 

 sons and able characters, ever cherish- 

 ing his friendship with solicitude, — ever 

 performing the tenderest duties of affec- 

 tion. He had married, at the age of 

 fifty-four, a young and accomplished 

 Lyonese ; by whom he had four children, 

 and lived in a beautiful country-seat 

 near Paris. 



In this world, great good is often 

 attended with evils; and the revolution, 

 — like a torrent, which first desolates, 

 and then fertilizes, — had almost reduced 

 this worthy man to beggary. The 

 l-'rench Academy was suppressed ; he 

 lost his places and appointments; and 

 the fortune he had acquired was nearly 

 wasted by the payments in assignats. 

 From a superabundance of all the neces- 

 saries and conveniences of life, iu conse- 

 quence of these pacrifices he left Paris, 

 and retiring, first to E\reux, settled in 

 a country cottage, with a garden of 

 about two acres, which he purchased, at 

 Gaillon, a little hamlet near Abbeville. 

 He «as averse to that large portion of 

 power which the democrats exercised 

 over the other orders, and to their irre- 

 gularities, which, separately considered, 

 were not perhaps material, but, when 

 combined, formed a powerful opposition 

 to the empire of reason. 



In April 1797 he repaired to Evreux, 

 at the time of elections, for supplying a 

 vacant one-third of the National Assem- 

 bly. Hcrt! ho was chosen a member of 

 the Council of Ancients, by the unani- 

 mous suflrages of the electors of the de- 

 partment of Eurc, and sat for some lime 

 in it. In the new order of things, he 

 objected to many institutions, as untem- 

 pered by the powers of sensibility, and 

 introductory to habits and expressions 

 of continual indecorum, without regard 

 to manner, time, or place. He escaped, 

 however, that sentence of deportation 

 wherein most of his friends were in- -.J 

 volved ; but, the elections of the depart- 

 ment of Eure having been declared null, 

 he retired to his hamlet, where he died, 

 of an apoplectic fit, on the last day of the 

 eighteenth century. 

 The number of his works was prodi- 



^ gious ; besides furnishing several literary 



articles to tht French Encyclopedia, a 



inultiiudc 



