se servir, for vous servir

M. de Nîmes : i.e. Fléchier (1632-1710), a famous sacred orator, who was appointed bishop of Nimes in 1687. Besides his Oraisons funèbres, the best of which is that of Turenne, he wrote Sermons, Panégyriques de Saints, and Mémoires sur les Grands-Jours de Clerinont.

21 du Révérend Père Maimbotirg' : an ecclesiastical historian of the seventeenth century who, having attacked the Holy See, was excluded by Pope Innocent XI. from the order of the Jesuits. He compiled in a diffuse style a great many historiés, notably that of Calvinism, which was wittily criticised by Bayle.

28. Chapelain : one of the third-rate poets ridiculed by Boileau. M. l'abbé de Saint - Cyran : Duvergier de Hauranne (1581-1643), a famous Jansenist who became 'abbé de Saint-Cyran ' in 1620.

37. d'un janséniste : the Jansenists, so-called because they foUowed the teaching of Jansenius, a Dutch theologian who died in 1638, maintained the doctrine of free grâce, and were strongly opposed by Louis XIV. and the Jesuits. Defended by Pascal and the scholars of Port Royal, they were condemned by several buUs, notably by the buU Unigenitus in 17 13, and so mercilessly persecuted that a great many left France for the Netherlands.