The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Ménage, Gilles

MÉNAGE, Gilles, a French author, born in Angers, Aug. 15, 1613, died in Paris, July 23, 1692. After practising law for a short time he became a priest, and lived for a while with Cardinal de Retz, but finally established himself in a house in the cloister of Notre Dame, where on Wednesdays he entertained numbers of wits and scholars. His wit and erudition became celebrated; his quarrels, his social relations, and the epigrams and witticisms which they called forth, are prominent in the literary history of the 17th century. He wrote, among other works, Origines de la langue français (1650), enlarged and published as Dictionnaire etymologique de la langue française (1694); Poemata Latina, Gallica, Græca et Italica (1658); and Anti-Baillet (1685). After his death his friends published, under the title of Menagiana, a collection of his witticisms and table talk. The best edition is that by La Monnoye (2 vols., 1693-'4). The second part of his Histoire de Sablé (1st part, 1686) was edited from the manuscript and published by J. B. Haureau in 1873.