Author

Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle(1657–1757)

Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle is documented in Fuller’s manuscripts. No work is named in the surviving passages, all in Extracts Only, and the most intensive engagement recorded is “mentioned”.

Engagement: Mentioned
Present in: Manuscripts

Totals count documented engagements, once at the earliest witness. How we count →

Reprints, Memoirs passages, and repeat notes within a single manuscript are shown but never counted twice. Evidence for this author is selective, not exhaustive. Methodology →

In Fuller’s words

“Fontenelle a raison: il y a des / hochets pour tout âge; il n’y a que / le malheur qui soit vieux, et il n’y / a que la passion qui soit raisonn- / able.”

Extracts Only

When Fuller engaged with Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle

No datable encounters with de Fontenelle, Bernard le Bovier have been catalogued yet.

This page brings together documented engagements currently identified within the Fuller Reading Worlds catalog.

Documentary evidence

Selected passages from Fuller’s own writings, in chronological order.

Undated

Pieces with no legible date. They are part of the record but cannot be placed on the lifeline.

n.d.—

Extracts Only

p38

mentionedManuscript page

“Fontenelle a raison: il y a des / hochets pour tout âge; il n’y a que / le malheur qui soit vieux, et il n’y / a que la passion qui soit raisonn- / able.”

Fuller, Margaret. "Extracts Only." Houghton Library, Harvard University; bMS Am 1086 (88); Box 6 (88).

Fuller cites Fontenelle by name (‘Fontenelle a raison’) in a passage transcribed from Lespinasse’s letters; the maxim is attributed to Fontenelle by Voltaire and Littré. Lespinasse (in a letter to Guibert, transcribed by Fuller) cites Fontenelle: ‘Fontenelle a raison: il y a des hochets pour tout âge’ (Fontenelle is right: there are rattles for every age). This maxim is attributed to Bernard le Bovier de Fontenelle — confirmed by Littré and Voltaire, who traced it to a letter by Fontenelle.