He advocated the revision and simplification of the
whole code of laws--an idea afterwards carried out by the First
Napoleon. He wrote against duelling, against luxury, against
gambling, against monasticism, quoting the remark of Segrais, that
"the mania for a monastic life is the smallpox of the mind." He
spent his whole income in acts of charity--not in almsgiving, but
in helping poor children, and poor men and women, to help
themselves. His object always was to benefit permanently those
whom he assisted. He continued his love of truth and his freedom
of speech to the last. At the age of eighty he said: "If life is a
lottery for happiness, my lot has been one of the best." When on
his deathbed, Voltaire asked him how he felt, to which he
answered, "As about to make a journey into the country." And in
this peaceful frame of mind he died. But so outspoken had St.-
Pierre been against corruption in high places, that Maupertius,
his Successor at the Academy, was not permitted to pronounce his
ELOGE; nor was it until thirty-two years after his death that this
honour was done to his memory by D'Alembert. The true and
emphatic epitaph of the good, truth-loving, truth-speaking Abbe
was this--"HE LOVED MUCH!"
Duty is closely allied to truthfulness of character; and the
dutiful man is, above all things, truthful in his words as in his
actions. He says and he does the right thing, in the right way,
and at the right time.
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