died; next year (1716) he took possession of a mortar-cap president's (_president d mortier_) office, which had been given up to him by one of his uncles.

"On leaving college," he says, "there were put into my hands some law-books; I examined the spirit of them." Those profound researches, which were to last as long as his life, were more suited to his tastes than jurisprudence properly so called.

"What has always given me rather a low opinion of myself," he would say, "is that there are very few positions in the commonwealth for which I should be really fit.

As for my office of president, I have my heart in the right place, I comprehend sufficiently well the questions in themselves; but as to the procedure I did not understand anything about it.

I paid attention to it, nevertheless; but what disgusted me most was to see fools with that very talent which, so to speak, shunned me." He resolved to deliver himself from the yoke which was intolerable to him, and resigned his office; but by this time the world knew his name, in spite of the care he had taken at first to conceal it.