Fontenelle tells us that Bossuet, who had been tutor to the Dauphin,
"made a practice of supplying to the princes such persons, meritorious
in letters, as they had need of." In 1684, then, we know not why nor
how, Bossuet recommended La Bruyere as tutor to the House of Conde. It
is a matter of ceaseless wonderment, however, that the philosopher
accepted and retained the post. He possessed a sufficient though a
modest competence already, and he exchanged a life of complete
independence for a most painful and trying servitude, hung up between
the insolence of those above and the impertinence of those below him.
The situation of La Bruyere in the Maison de Conde was like that of
Fanny Burney at the court of George III., only worse. Commentators
have expended endless ingenuity in conjecturing what were the reasons
which induced him to enslave himself.
A careful study of his great book must add to our amazement. No one
ever locked himself up in prison with an exacter appreciation of the
discomforts of captivity. La Bruyere has some remarks about freedom,
which plunge us in bewilderment. "Liberty," he says, "is not laziness:
it is a free use of one's time; it is having the choice of one's own
work and exercise.
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