C.D. Warner, et al., comp.
The Library of the World’s Best Literature. An Anthology in Thirty Volumes. 1917.
François, duc de La Rochefoucauld (1613–1680)
La Rochefoucauld, François duc de (rōsh-fö-kō’), Prince de Marcillac. A great French classic; born at Paris, Sept. 15, 1613; died there, March 17, 1680. His celebrity is due to his small volume of ‘Reflections, or Moral Sentences and Maxims,’ commonly known as the ‘Maxims’ (first ed. 1665; final edition of the author 1678, comprising 504 maxims). The dominant note of the ‘Maxims’ is egoism: virtue and vice are in themselves indifferent. His ‘Memoirs’ (1662) possess literary merit in a degree hardly inferior to the ‘Maxims’; and in historical interest they are equal to the most celebrated memoirs of the time. (See Critical and Biographical Introduction).