He advocated the revision and simplification of the whole code of laws--an idea afterwards carried out by the First Napoleon.

He wrote against duelling, against luxury, against gambling, against monasticism, quoting the remark of Segrais, that "the mania for a monastic life is the smallpox of the mind." He spent his whole income in acts of charity--not in almsgiving, but in helping poor children, and poor men and women, to help themselves.

His object always was to benefit permanently those whom he assisted.

He continued his love of truth and his freedom of speech to the last.

At the age of eighty he said: "If life is a lottery for happiness, my lot has been one of the best." When on his deathbed, Voltaire asked him how he felt, to which he answered, "As about to make a journey into the country." And in this peaceful frame of mind he died.