At the age of forty-six, Huet entered into orders ; and in 1678 he was presented by the king to the abbey of Au nay in Normandy, whither he retired every summer after he had left the court. In 1685, he was nominated to the bishopric of Soissons, which, with the consent of the king, he exchanged with the Abbe de Sillery for the see of Avranches. In 1689, Ire published his Censura philosophite Cartesiante ; and in 1690, his Questionie 41netane de Con cordia Rationis et Fidei, which work is written in the form of a dialogue, after the manner of Cicero's Tusculan Ques tions.
In 1699, he resigned his bishopric of Avranches, and was presented to the abbey of Fontenay, near the gates of Caen. Soon after, he removed to Paris, and lodged among the Jesuits in the Maison Professoe, to whom he bequeath ed his library, reserving to himself the use of it while he lived. Here he resided during the last twenty years of his life, and employed himself chiefly in writing notes on the vulgate translation of the Bible ; for which purpose he is said to have read over the Hebrew text twenty-four times, comparing it, as he went ale'ig, with the other Oriental texts. In 1712, he was seized with a severe illness, from which, contrary to the expectation of his physicians, lie gradually recovered, and applied himself to the writing of his life, which was published at Amsterdam in 1718, under the title of Pet. Dan. Huetii, Episcopi Abricensis, Commen
taries de rebus ad cum pertinenabus. The elides have wondered how such a master of the Latin language as Huet should have been guilty of so great a solecism in the very title of his book, by using the pronoun eum instead of sc. This performance, although composed in an amusing style, is by no means equal to his other works, his facul ties being then a good deal impaired. He died on the 26th of January, 1721, in the 91st year of his age. The Abbe Olivet relates a most remarkable singularity of II uet, viz. that for two or three hours before his death, he recovered all the vigour of his genius and memory.
Besides the works we have mentioned in the course of the preceding narrative, Huet published a variety of other treatises upon literary ar,d philosophical subjects. He had been, throughout the whole of his long life, a hard student; and he left behind him the reputation of one of the most learned men of the age. Sec Eloge Historiryue de M. Huet, Aar M. l'?bbe Olivet, prefixed to his 'Pratte Philosolihigue de la foiblesse de l'Esprit humain ; Aikin's Lye of Bizet, London, 1810 ; and Gen. Biog. Diet. (1