Note 349 — BOOK V[218]
Alexander Teixeira de Mattos translation
Alexandre Frédéric Jacques Masson, Marquis de Pezay (1741-1777), commenced life as an officer of Musketeers, and made his name known by means of some trivial drawing-room verse and of his inferior prose translations of Tibullus, Catullus, and Propertius. He was charged with the duty of instructing Louis XVI., then Dauphin, in elementary tactics, managed to insinuate himself into the Prince's intimacy, and eventually succeeded in bringing about the fall of Terray and the rise of Necker.—T.