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16 to acquire a broader reputation, and to increase his circle of friends. He had a little country house at Gentilly, and there he gathered about him the most philosophical and critical spirits of the age, in those réunions that have since become famous. Gassendi, whose Exercitationes against Aristotle had made him distinguished, and the caustic Guy Patin were perhaps the most remarkable among the frequenters of Naude's hearth at Gentilly.

It was when he was only twenty-six years old, and still librarian to President de Mesmes, that he wrote, in gratitude to his patron, the book which of all