Jean de La Bruyère

(1645 - 1696)

Jean de La Bruyère is best known for his book The Characters, or the Manners of the Age. Its primary aim: “Detecting the fallacy and ridicule to be found in the objects of human passions and inclinations, and in demolishing such obstacles as at first weaken, and afterward extinguish, any knowledge of God in mankind.” He wrote in the preface, “The subject matter of this work being borrowed from the public, I now give back to it what it lent me; it is but right that having finished the whole work throughout with the utmost regard to truth I am capable of, and which it deserves from me, I should make restitution of it.” The cast of characters increased from 420 in the 1688 edition to 1,120 in the 1694 edition, which appeared two years before La Bruyère died at the age of fifty.