Life
He was born in the village of Neuville near Beauvais, in Picardy. His parents could only afford to send him to a small school in the village, but he picked up some Latin from the friars of a neighbouring convent, who brought him under the notice of the bishop of Beauvais. By his kindness Baillet received a thorough education at the theological seminary, and was afterwards appointed to a post as teacher in the college of Beauvais. In 1676 he was ordained priest and was presented to a small vicarage.
He accepted in 1680 the appointment of librarian to François-Chrétien de Lamoignon, advocate-general to the parlement of Paris. He made a catalogue raisonné (in 35 vols.) of its library, all written with his own hand.
The remainder of his life was spent in incessant, unremitting labour; so keen was his devotion to study that he allowed himself only five hours a day for rest.
With regard to René Descartes, he is popularly said to have recorded the three dreams leading up to the Cartesian Cogito.
Read more about this topic: Adrien Baillet
Famous quotes containing the word life:
“It had been a moving, tranquil apotheosis, immersed in the transfiguring sunset glow of decline and decay and extinction. An old family, already grown too weary and too noble for life and action, had reached the end of its history, and its last utterances were sounds of music: a few violin notes, full of the sad insight which is ripeness for death.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)
“Each work of art excludes the world, concentrates attention on itself. For the time it is the only thing worth doing—to do just that; be it a sonnet, a statue, a landscape, an outline head of Caesar, or an oration. Presently we return to the sight of another that globes itself into a whole as did the first, for example, a beautiful garden; and nothing seems worth doing in life but laying out a garden.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“And Manuel embraced his mother and they laughed together: Délira’s laugh sounded surprisingly young; that was because she hadn’t really had the chance to make it heard; life was just not happy enough for that. No, she never had time to use it; she had kept it fresh as can be, like a birdsong in an old nest.”
—Jacques Roumain (1907–1945)