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 then common in France, as in some other countries.

[6] His father was controller general of finance to the Hôtel de Ville, and despite the turmoil in the country, was able to pay for La Bruyère's education and to leave him a considerable sum as an inheritance.

[4] It was not until 1693 that he was elected, and even then, an epigram, which, considering his admitted insignificance in conversation, was not of the worst, haeret lateri: His unpopularity was, however, chiefly confined to the subjects of his sarcastic portraiture and to the hack writers of the time, of whom he was wont to speak with a disdain only surpassed by that of Alexander Pope.

His description of the Mercure galant as "immédiatement au dessous de rien" (immediately below nothing) is the best-remembered specimen of these unwise attacks; and would, of itself, account for the enmity of the editors, Fontenelle and the younger Corneille.

It is not surprising that, considering contemporary panic about poisoning, the bitter personal enmities that he had excited, and the peculiar circumstances of his death, suspicions of foul play should have been entertained, but there was apparently no foundation for them.

[4] The Caractères, a translation of Theophrastus, and a few letters mostly addressed to the prince de Condé, complete the list of his literary work, with the addition of one curious, and much-disputed, posthumous treatise.

He was a man of acknowledged probity and he knew of the intimacy of La Bruyère with Bossuet, whose views in his contest with Fénelon these dialogues are designed to further, at so short a time after the alleged author's death, and without a single protest on the part of his friends and representatives, all of which seems to have been decisive in the acceptance of authorship.

[citation needed] In the titles of his work, and in its extreme desultoriness, La Bruyère reminds the reader of Montaigne, but he aimed too much at sententiousness to attempt even the apparent continuity of the great essayist.

The short paragraphs of which his chapters consist are made up of maxims proper, of criticisms literary and ethical, and above all, of the celebrated sketches of individuals baptized with names taken from the plays and romances of the time.