La Bruyere has said, "A certain man appears loutish, heavy, stupid; he can neither talk nor relate what he has just seen; he sets himself to writing, and it is a model of story-telling; he makes speakers of animals, trees; stones, everything that cannot speak.

There is nothing but lightness and elegance, nothing but natural beauty and delicacy in his works." "He says nothing or will talk of nothing but Plato," Racine's daughters used to say.

All his contemporaries, however, of fashion and good breeding did not form the same opinion of him.

The Dowager-duchess of Orleans, Marguerite of Lorraine, had taken him as one of her gentlemen-in-waiting; the Duchess of Bouillon had him in her retinue in the country; Madame de Montespan and her sister, Madame de Thianges, liked to have a visit from him.

He lived at the house of Madame de La Sabliere, a beauty and a wit, who received a great deal of company.