Raynal is no commanding figure. Born in 1711, he came to Paris from southern France, and joined the troop of needy priests who swarmed in the great city, hopefully looking out for the prizes of the Church. Raynal is the hero of an anecdote which is told of more than one abbe of the time; whether literally true or not, it is probably a correct illustration of the evil pass to which ecclesiastical manners had come. He had, it was said, nothing to live upon save the product of a few masses. The Abbe Prevost received twenty sous for saying a mass; he paid the Abbe Laporte fifteen sous to be his deputy; the Abbe Laporte paid eight sous to Raynal to say it in his stead. But the adventurer was not destined to remain in this abject case, parasite humbly feeding on parasite. He turned bookmaker, and wrote a history of the Stadtholderate, a volume about the English Parliament, and, of all curious subjects for a man of letters of that date, an account of the divorce of King Henry the Eighth of England. He visited this country more than once, and had the honour in 1754 of being chosen a fellow of the Royal Society of London.[157] We have some difficulty in understanding how he came by such fame, just as we cannot tell how the man who had been glad to earn a few pence by saying masses, came shortly to be rich and independent. He is believed to have engaged in some colonial ventures, and to have had good luck. His enemies spread the dark report that he had made money in the slave trade, but in those days of incensed party spirit there was no limit to virulent invention. It is at least undeniable that Raynal put his money to generous uses. Among other things, he had the current fancy of the time, that the world could be made better by the copious writing of essays, and he delighted in founding prizes for them at the provincial academies. It was at Lyons that he proposed the famous thesis, not unworthy of consideration even at this day: _Has the discovery of America been useful or injurious to the human race?_ [157] The _Biographie Universelle_, followed by the Encyclopaedia Britannica, tells a story of Raynal visiting the House of Commons; the Speaker, says the writer, learning that he was in the gallery, "suspended the discussion until a distinguished place had been found for the French philosopher." This must be set down as a myth. The journals have been searched, and there is no official confirmation of the statement, improbable enough on the face of it.