It was resolved to make Chambers's work a mere starting-point for a new enterprise of far wider scope.
"The old and learned D'Aguesseau," says Michelet, "notwithstanding the pitiable, the wretched sides of his character, had two lofty sides, his reform of the laws, and a personal passion, the taste and urgent need of universality, a certain encyclopaedic sense.

A young man came to him one day, a man of letters living by his pen, and somewhat under a cloud for one or two hazardous books that lack of bread had driven him to write.
Yet this stranger of dubious repute wrought a miracle.

With bewilderment the old sage listened to him unrolling the gigantic scheme of a book that should be all books.

On his lips, sciences were light and life.

It was more than speech, it was creation.