GRIMM, FRIEDRICH MELCHIOR, BARON VON (1723 1807), French author, the son of a German pastor, was born at Ratisbon on Dec. 26, 1723. He studied at Leipzig, where he came under the influence of Gottsched and J. A. Ernesti, and was after wards attached to the household of Count Schonberg. In 1748 he accompanied August Heinrich, Count Friesen, to Paris as sec retary, and he is said by Rousseau to have acted for some time as reader to Frederick, the young hereditary prince of Saxe-Gotha. In 1753 Grimm, following the example of the abbe Raynal, began a literary correspondence with various German sovereigns. Ray nal's letters, Nouvelles litteraires, ceased early in 1755, and, with the aid of friends (especially Diderot and Mme. d'Epinay) dur ing his temporary absences from France, he carried on the correspondence, which consisted of two letters a month, until eventually counting among his subscribers Catherine II. of Russia, Stanislas Poniatowski, king of Poland, and many princes of the smaller German States. It was probably in 1754 that Grimm was introduced by Rousseau to Mme. d'Epinay, with whom he soon formed a liaison which led to an irreconcilable rup ture between him and Rousseau, the latter in his resentment giving in his Confessions a wholly mendacious portrait of Grimm's character. In 1755, Grimm became secretaire des commande ments to the duke of Orleans, and in this capacity accompanied Marshal d'Estrees on the campaign of Westphalia in He was named envoy of the town of Frankfort at the court of France in 1759, but was deprived of his office for criticizing the comte de Broglie in a despatch intercepted by Louis XV. He was made a baron of the Holy Roman Empire in His introduction to Catherine II. took place at St. Petersburg in 1773, at the marriage of Wilhelmine to the tsarevich Paul. He became minister of Saxe-Gotha at the court of France in 1776, but in 1777 he again left Paris on a visit to St. Petersburg, where he remained for nearly a year in daily intercourse with Catherine. He acted as Paris agent for the empress in the purchase of works of art, and executed many confidential commissions for her. In 1783 and the following years he lost his two most intimate friends, Mme. d'Epinay and Diderot. In 1792 he emigrated, and in the next year settled in Gotha, where his poverty was relieved by Catherine, who in 1796 appointed him minister of Russia at Hamburg. On the death of Catherine he took refuge with Mme. d'Epinay's granddaughter, tmilie de Belsunce, comtesse de Bueil. He died at Gotha on Dec. 19, 1807.
The correspondence of Grimm was not divulged during his life time. It embraces nearly the whole period from 17 5o to 179o, but the volumes from 1773 were chiefly the work of his secretary, Jakob Heinrich Meister. At first he contented himself with giving views on literature and art and indicating very slightly the con tents of the principal new books; but gradually his criticisms became more extended and trenchant, and he touched on nearly every subject-political, literary, artistic, social and religious which interested contemporary Paris.