His father, notary and later _greffier en chef_ of the "Chambre des Comptes" at Dijon, being above all things desirous that his family should become distinguished in the magistracy, destined his son to the law, saying that the best heritage he could leave him was his own example. Crebillon resigned himself to his father's wishes with a very good grace, and repaired to Paris, there to keep his terms. In the capital, he divided his time between study and the pleasures and amusements natural to his age. As soon as he was admitted as advocate, he entered the chambers of a procureur named Prieur, son of the Prieur celebrated by Scarron, an intimate friend of his father, who greeted him fraternally. One would have supposed that our future poet, who bore audacity on his countenance, and genius on his brow, would, like Achilles, have recognized his sex when they showed him arms; but far from this being the case, not only was it necessary to warn him that he _was_ a poet, but even to impel him bodily, as it were, and despite himself, into the arena. The writers and poets of France have ever railed in good set terms against procureurs, advocates, and all such common-place, every-day personages; and in general, we are bound to confess they have had right on their side. We must, however, render justice to one of them, the only one, perhaps, who ever showed a taste for poetry. The worthy man to whom, fortunately for himself, Crebillon had been confided, remarked at an early stage of their acquaintanceship, the romantic disposition of his pupil. Of the same country as Piron and Rameau, Crebillon possessed, like them, the same frank gayety and good-tempered heedlessness of character, which betrayed his Burgundian origin. Having at an early age inhaled the intoxicating perfumes of the Burgundian wines, his first essays in poetry were, as might be expected, certain _chansons à boire_, none of which, however, have descended to posterity. The worthy procureur, amazed at the degree of power shown even in these slight drinking-songs, earnestly advised him to become a poet by profession. Crebillon was then twenty-seven years of age; he resisted, alleging that he did not believe he possessed the true creative genius; that every poet is in some sort a species of deity, holding chaos in one hand, and light and life in the other; and that, for his part, he possessed but a bad pen, destined to defend bad causes in worse style. But the procureur was not to be convinced; he had discovered that a spark of the creative fire already shone in the breast of Crebillon. "Do not deny yourself becoming a poet," he would frequently say to him; "it is written upon your brow; your looks have told me so a thousand times. There is but one man in all France capable of taking up the mantle of Racine, and that man is yourself."