Jean de La Bruyère

He was born in Paris, not, as was once thought, at Dourdan (in today's Essonne département) in 1645. His family was middle class, and his reference to a certain Geoffroy de La Bruyère, a crusader, is only a satirical illustration of a method of self-ennoblement common in France as in some other countries. Indeed he himself always signed the name Delabruyère in one word, as evidence of this. He could trace his family back at least as far as his great-grandfather, who had been a strong Leaguer. La Bruyère's own father was controller general of finance to the Hôtel de Ville. The son was educated by the Oratorians and at the University of Orléans; he was called to the bar, and in 1673 bought a post in the revenue department at Caen, which gave him status and an income. His predecessor in the post was a relation of Jacques Benigne Bossuet, and it is thought that the transaction was the cause of La Bruyère's introduction to the great orator Bossuet, who from the date of his own...

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