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48 by starting, in concert with Brissot, a General Correspondence on the Arts and Sciences, or News of the Republic of Letters. This ambitious scheme, intended as an international association of scientific and literary men, looks like a germ of our British Associations and Social Science Congresses; and the man who planned them must have had some far-reaching ideas and good intentions, if nothing more. Certain it is that he was the first suitor of modern views who crossed Madame Roland's path, and the first who in any way touched her feelings.

He was also a man of literary proclivities, and, in 1776, published a work entitled, "Extracts from a Journal of my Travels; or, the History of a young Man: a Lesson to Fathers and Mothers." There is frequent mention of this book in Manon's correspondence, and an interesting review of it by her, written for her friend's behalf. She speaks of it with the impartiality of a critic, though admitting that she is afraid to mention it to others for fear they should suspect her interest in the author. It was a dull, moralising work, yet containing shocking descriptions of the licentiousness prevalent in the seminaries and colleges of the time, and it may have inspired Manon with some of that recoil from "the innate ferocity" of man which is a noticeable feature in her.

Lablancherie had proposed for Manon some years before; but, considering that he was only two-and-twenty, penniless, and studying for the Bar, with no definite prospects of advancement, the father considered such a marriage out of the question, and would not even hear of a correspondence, for which he had begged before returning to Orleans. That Manon regarded his suit with very different eyes from those