la langue francaise_ (1683) had
anticipated Perrault in the famous academical dispute concerning the
relative merit of the ancients and moderns. He is credited with a share
in the production of the magnificent series of medals that commemorate
the principal events of the age of Louis XIV. Charpentier, who was long
in receipt of a pension of 1200 livres from Colbert, was erudite and
ingenious, but he was always heavy and commonplace. His other works
include a _Vie de Socrate_ (1650), a translation of the _Cyropaedia_ of
Xenophon (1658), and the _Traite de la peinture parlante_ (1684).

CHARRIERE, AGNES ISABELLE EMILIE DE (1740-1805), Swiss author, was Dutch
by birth, her maiden name being van Tuyll van Seeroskerken van Zuylen.
She married in 1771 her brother's tutor, M. de Charriere, and settled
with him at Colombier, near Lausanne. She made her name by the
publication of her _Lettres neuchateloises_ (Amsterdam, 1784), offering
a simple and attractive picture of French manners. This, with _Caliste,
ou lettres ecrites de Lausanne_ (2 vols. Geneva, 1785-1788), was
analysed and highly praised by Sainte-Beuve in his _Portraits de femmes_
and in vol. in of his _Portraits litteraires_. She wrote a number of
other novels, and some political tracts; but is perhaps best remembered
by her liaison with Benjamin Constant between 1787 and 1796.

Her letters to Constant were printed in the _Revue suisse_ (April
1844), her _Lettres-Memoires_ by E.H. Gaullieur in the same review in
1857, and all the available material is utilized in a monograph on her
and her work by P. Godet, _Madame de Charriere et ses amis_ (2 vols.,
Geneva, 1906).

CHARRON, PIERRE (1541-1603), French philosopher, born in Paris, was one
of the twenty-five children of a bookseller. After studying law he
practised at Paris as an advocate, but, having met with no great
success, entered the church, and soon gained the highest popularity as a
preacher, rising to the dignity of canon, and being appointed preacher
in ordinary to Marguerite, wife of Henry IV. of Navarre. About 1588, he
determined to fulfil a vow which he had once made to enter a cloister;
but being rejected by the Carthusians and the Celestines, he held
himself absolved, and continued to follow his old profession. He
delivered a course of sermons at Angers, and in the next year passed to
Bordeaux, where he formed a famous friendship with Montaigne. At the
death of Montaigne, in 1592,