The Catholic World, Vol. 01, April to September, 1865: A Monthly Eclectic MagazineVarious
Religion
The Catholic World, Vol. 01, April to September, 1865: A Monthly Eclectic Magazine
Various
Catholic Church -- Periodicals
the next chapter relate the course of the journey which was begun on
that day.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
------
Abridged from Le Correspondant.
THE MARQUIS DE CHASTELLUX.
In the bleak region of Upper Burgundy, not far from the domain of
Vauban, stands the old manor of Chastellux, famous since the fifteenth
century as the birth-place of two brothers, one of whom became an
admiral, the other a marshal of France. From this feudal stronghold
came forth one of the most amiable of the courtiers of Louis XVI.--a
disciple of Voltaire and Hume, a rival of Turgot and Adam Smith, a
friend of Washington and Jefferson, a forerunner of the revolutionists
of 1789, a philosopher, an historian, a political economist, something
of a poet, something of a naturalist, something of an artist, a man of
taste, an enthusiastic student, a brilliant talker, and an elegant
writer. The rude Sieurs de Chastellux would have been not a little
astonished could they have foreseen what character of man was destined
to inherit their title.
François Jean de Beauvoir, first known as Chevalier and afterward
Marquis de Chastellux, was born at Paris in 1734. He was a son of the
Count de Chastellux, lieutenant-general of the armies of the king, by
Mlle. d'Aguesseau, daughter of the chancellor. His mother, being left
a widow at an early period, withdrew thereupon into the privacy of
domestic life, and the young marquis had the good fortune to be
brought up under the eyes of the Chancellor d'Aguesseau himself. He
entered the army at sixteen, and was hardly twenty-one before he had
risen to be colonel. He distinguished himself highly during the
campaigns of the Seven Years' War, and it was as a reward of his
gallantry no less than out of compliment to his hereditary rank that
he was selected on one occasion to present to the king the flags of a
conquered city. It is hard to understand how, in the midst of such an
active life, he could find time for study; but for all that he knew
Greek, Latin, English, and Italian, and had some acquaintance with
every branch of science cultivated in his time. From boyhood he showed
a zealous interest in every sort of invention or discovery which
promised to be of practical use {182} to mankind. When the principle
of inoculation for small-pox was first broached in Europe, everybody
shrank in alarm from the experiment. The young marquis had himself
inoculated without his mother's knowledge, and then, running to
Buffon, who knew his family, exclaimed joyfully, "I am saved, and my
example will be the means of saving many others."
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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