Argens, Jean Baptiste De Boyer
ARGENS, JEAN BAPTISTE DE BOYER, Marquis d' (1704-1771), was born at Aix in Provence on the 24th of June 1704. He entered the army at the age of fifteen, and after a dissipated and adventurous youth settled for a time at Amsterdam, where he wrote some historical compilations and began his more famous Lettres juives (The Hague, 6 vols., 1738-1742), Lettres chinoises (The Hague, 6 vols., 1730-1472), and Lettres cabalistiques (2nd ed., 7 vols., 1769); also the Mémoires secrets de la république des lettres (7 vols., 1743-1478), afterwards revised and augmented as Histoire de l'esprit humain (Berlin, 14 vols., 1765-1768). He was invited by Prince Frederick (afterwards Frederick the Great) to Potsdam, and received high honours at court; but Frederick was bitterly offended by his marrying a Berlin actress, Mlle Cochois. Argens returned to France in 1769, and died near Toulon on the 11th of January 1771.
Note - this article incorporates content from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Eleventh Edition, (1910-1911)
