FONTENELLE, BERNARD LE BOVIER DE (1657 17 5 7) , French author, was born at Rouen, on Feb. I 1, 1657. He died in Paris, on Jan. 9, 1757, having thus very nearly attained the age of zoo years. His father was an advocate settled in Rouen, his mother a sister of the two Corneille. He was educated at the college of the Jesuits in his native city, and then qualified as an advocate. He visited Paris from time to time and established relations with the abbe de Saint Pierre, the abbe Vertot and the mathematician Pierre Varignon. His tragedy Aspar (168o) was a complete failure. His opera of Thetis et Pelee (1689) was highly praised by Voltaire, but none of his dramatic works kept the stage. His Poesies pastorales (1688) show great purity of diction and occasional felicity of expression.
Real success came with his collection of entertaining stories, Lettres galantes du chevalier d'Her . . ., published anonymously in 1685. In 1686 appeared his famous allegory of Rome and Geneva, slightly disguised as the rival princesses Mreo and Eenegu, in the Relation de l'ile de Borneo. His most famous works are Nouveaux Dialogues des morts (1683) and Entretiens sur la pluralite des mondes (1686) . His object was to popularize among his countrymen the astronomical theories of Descartes, and he was a most ingenious and successful expositor.
In 1687 Fontenelle removed to Paris; and in the same year he published his Histoire des oracles, consisting of two essays, the first of which was designed to prove that oracles were not given by the supernatural agency of demons, and the second that they did not cease with the birth of Christ. In his Digression sur les anciens et les modernes (1688) he took the modern side in the controversy; his Doutes sur le systeme physique des causes. occa sionnelles (against Malebranche) appeared shortly afterwards.
In 1691 he was received into the French Academy in spite of the determined efforts of the partisans of the ancients in this quarrel, especially of Racine and Boileau, who on four previous occasions had secured his rejection. He consequently was admit ted a member both of the Academy of Inscriptions and of the Academy of Sciences; and in 1697 he became perpetual secretary to the latter body. This office he actually held for the long period of 42 years; and it was in this official capacity that he wrote the Histoire du renouvellement de l'Acadcmie des Sciences (3 vols., 1708, 1717, 17 2 2) containing extracts and analyses of the pro ceedings, and also the eloges of the members, written with great simplicity and delicacy. The other important works of Fontenelle are his Elements de la geometrie de l'infini (1727), and his Apolo gie des tourbillons (1752).
There have been several collective editions of Fontenelle's works, the first being printed in 3 vols. at the Hague in 1728-29. The best is that of Paris, 8 vols., 179o. Some of his separate works have been very frequently reprinted and also translated. The Pluralite des mondes was translated into modern Greek in 1794. Sainte-Beuve has an interesting essay on Fontenelle, with several useful references, in the Causeries du lundi, vol. iii. See also A. F. Villemain, Tableau de la litterature francaise au XVIIIe siecle (1864) ; the abbe Trublet, Memoires pour servir a l'histoire de la vie et des ouvrages de M. de Fontenelle ; A. Laborde-Milaa, Fontenelle (1905), in the "Grands ecrivains f rancais" series ; and L. Maigron, Fontenelle, l'homme, l'oeuvre, l'influence (1906).