[26] In a lecture read before the Academy of Sciences and Literature of Berlin, the 23d of August 1787, and printed in the memoirs of that Academy, Formey told this story on the authority of M. de Maupertuis, who is said to have heard it from the lady herself, the wife of the financier, Charles Rémy de July, to whom she brought a dowry of more than 100,000 _livres_. [27] See note 3, page 4. [28] See the Chapter “Of Society and Conversation,” page 122, § 66, and note 1; about Fontenelle, see in the same Chapter the character of Cydias, page 127, § 75. [29] This he stated openly in the speech he delivered at his reception at the Academy, the 15th of June 1693; his enemies would certainly have contradicted him if it had not been the truth. [30] See the Chapter “Of the Court,” page 201, note 2. [31] In the Introduction are to be found some extracts from this preface. [32] La Bruyèreʼs bitter feelings appear in such paragraphs as § 43, page 56; in the Chapter “Of the Town,” page 166, § 4; in that “Of the Great,” pages 223 and 224, §§ 11 and 12; page 232, § 33; and in the Chapter “Of Opinions,” page 334, § 19. Molière felt a somewhat similar bitterness; at least in the dedication of _les Fâcheux_ he says to Louis XIV.: “Those that are born in an elevated rank may propose to themselves the honour of serving your Majesty in great employments; but, for my part, all the glory I can aspire to, is to amuse you.” Compare also Shakespeareʼs hundred and eleventh Sonnet beginning—“Oh! for my sake do you with Fortune chide.” [33] See the Chapter “Of Society and of Conversation,” page 120, §§ 56, 57. [34] See in the Chapter “Of the Great,” page 230, § 26, which seems to me to prove this fear. [35] “We have wished to warn and not to bite; to be useful and not to wound; to benefit the morals of men, and not to be detrimental to them.” This quotation is taken from one of the letters of Erasmus to Martin Dorpius, in which the former replies to some criticisms on his “Praise of Folly.” The preface to the “Characters,” altered and augmented several times by the author himself, is found for the first time, in its present form, in the eighth edition of his work. [36] The first edition of the “Characters,” published in 1688, contained 420 characters, the fourth edition 771. [37] This mark, a ((¶)) between double parentheses, as well as the same mark between single parentheses, was first employed in the fifth edition (1690) of the “Characters,” and in all the following ones. But the mere ¶ without any parentheses was used by La Bruyère in all editions to denote the beginning of a paragraph. [38] This refers to the sixth (1691), seventh (1692), and eighth (1694) editions. The fifth edition contained 923 characters, the sixth 997, the seventh 1073, and the eighth 1120. The ninth edition (1696) was published about a month after the death of La Bruyère. [39] This seems to allude to La Rochefoucauldʼs “Maxims.”