La Bruyère, Jean de

a celebrated French moralist, born at Paris; was tutor to the Duke of Bourbon, the grandson of the great Condé, and spent a great part of his life in Paris in connection with the Condé family; his most celebrated work is "Les Caractères de Théophrastus" (1687), which abounds in wise maxims and reflections on life, but gave offence to contemporaries by the personal satires in it under disguised names; he ranks high as a writer no le than as a moralist; his style is "a model of ease, grace, and fluency, without weakne in his characters; a book," adds Profe or Saints bury, "most interesting to read, and especially to English men" (1645-1696).