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celebrated by DWlembert , to wWo ^ e'ifiVoge t am chiefly indebted for tlie following particulars , Charles Ireneus Castel , eldest son of Charles Castel , Knight , Lord and Baron of St . Pierre ,
was born Feb . 18 , 1658 , at the Castle of St . Pierre , in Lower Normandy . Of the circumstances connected with his earliest studies at Caen nothing is known except bis generosity to a fellow-student , tfie geometrician Varignon . St . Pierre was so much attached to
Iris society as to share with him Tiis cottage , as he termed it , sa Cabanc , in tbe suburbs of Paris , ai > d to settle on him for life 300 livreSj a sixth part of his own
annual income , saying to his friend , I present you not a pension but an engagement , un contraty that you may be independent and free to leave mjy society when you are
weary of \\> " que vouspuissiez me quitter—quand vouscominencerez a vous eniiuyer de moi . " Delivered from scholastic
wranfilings on a philosophy worse than ignorance , to which their College-Statutes had obliged them , they pursued studies interesting and useful . Varignon attached himself to geometry , St . Pierre to
policy and morals . Fontenelle would sometimes pass a few days with them , and has described , after an interval of forty years , the delight which their society afforded . We met > says he , with the highest pleasure , young , full
of tbe first desires of knowledge , mutually friendly , and , what we might not then esteem a great advantage , little known , " jeunes , p ieins de la premiere ardeur de tevoif , fort unis , et ce que nous fee ' corn ptions petit 6 tre pas alors pour un dssez erand bien , p « u con-
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nus . ' * Vertot the historian , thefr countryman , was also their occasional visito r * St . Pierre , in the course of his
studies , acquired a profound knowledge of the French history and especially of the language which he cultivated , not indeed as an orator and man of taste , but rather as a philosophic granrw marian , moins a la verite en
orateur et en homme de gotit , qu * en grammairien pbilosophe . " In all his works , extending to about thirty volumes , he has , according to D'Aletnbert , no pretensions to eloquence . Occupied with subjects , to his apprehension hi ghly important , he neglects the
advantages of style and method , abound * ing in repetitions . These be once defended , not unhappily , replying to an objector whom he had & £ - sired to give some instances % you have then remembered these pas ~ sages , learn why I repeated th '
etn'i" vous les avez done retenues , voila pour quoi je les ai repetfies /' His literary attainments opened to St . Pierre the doors of tbe A Cfu demy , the 3 d of March , \ 6 $ St His reputation for political knowledge , several years after , attracted the notice of the Cardinal de Po .
lignac , in whose suite he attended the congress at Utrecht , a circumstance in which his Project might probably originate . The conferences for peace at Utrecht occur pied the years 1711 and 1712 . In 1715 died Louis XlVtfa , a prince whose government St ^ . Pierre was
not prepared to jpraise , though he respected lawful authority , enlightened by wisdom and justly administered . D'Alembert attributes to J& Pierre the invention , or at least the use of the Mrotd hienfaisanct
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£$ 6 BfofrWorm . No . XV ,
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Citation
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Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), May 2, 1814, page 296, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2440/page/40/
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