Note 62 — BOOK VI[60]

Pierre Joseph Thoulier, Abbé d'Olivet (1682-1768) was born at Salins, on the Furieuse, a tributary of the Loire. He first joined the Jesuits, where he was known as the Père Thoulier, but soon left the Company, in order to follow a literary career. Meantime Voltaire had been his pupil at the college of Louis-le-Grand. He became a member of the French Academy in 1723; Voltaire in 1746. D'Olivet is the author of an Histoire de l'Académie française, up to 1700, and of several important grammatical works and translations, and he worked much on the Dictionary of the French Academy.—T.