In the second half of the 18th century, the ardour of the Benedictines of St Maur diminished, and scientific work passed more and more into the hands of laymen. The Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres, founded in 1663 and reorganized in 1701, became its chief instrument, numbering among its members Denis Francois Secousse, who continued the collection of _Ordonnances des rois de France_, begun (1723) by J. de Lauriere; J.-B. de La Curne de Sainte Palaye (_Memoires sur l'ancienne chevalerie_, 1759-1781; _Glossaire de la langue francaise depuis son origine jusqu'a la fin de Louis XIV_, printed only in 1875-1882); J.-B. d'Anville (_Notice sur l'ancienne Gaule tiree des monuments_, 1760); and L.G. de Brequigny, the greatest of them all, who continued the publication of the _Ordonnances_, began the _Table chronologique des diplomes concernant l'histoire de France_ (3 vols., 1769-1783), published the _Diplomata, chartae, ad res Francicas spectantia_ (1791, with the collaboration of La Porte du Theil), and directed fruitful researches in the archives in London, to enrich the _Cabinet des chartes_, where Henri Bertin (1719-1792), an enlightened minister of Louis XV., had in 1764 set himself the task of collecting the documentary sources of the national history. The example set by the religious orders and the government bore fruit. The general assembly of the clergy gave orders that its _Proces verbaux_ (9 vols., 1767-1789) should be printed; some of the provinces decided to have their history written, and mostly applied to the Benedictines to have this done. Brittany was treated by Dom Lobineau (1707) and Dom Morice (1742); the duchy of Burgundy by Dom Urbain Plancher (1739-1748); Languedoc by Dom Dominique Vaissete (1730-1749, in collaboration with Dom Claude de Vic; new ed. 1873-1893); for Paris, its secular history was treated by Dom Michel Felibien and Dom Lobineau (1725), and its ecclesiastical history by the abbe Lebeuf (1745-1760; new ed. 1883-1890).