Storia do Mogor 3.2

3.2

François Catrou was born at Paris on December 28, 1659, joined the Jesuit Society on October 28, 1678, and died at Paris on October 12, 1737. He was the author of some five separate works, among them a discredited 'History of the Romans' (21 volumes), published in 1721-1737, and translated into English in 1728-1737 (6 volumes, folio). For twelve years, 1701-1712, he edited the literary organ Journal de Trevoux, and acquired some reputation as a critic, though he displayed singularly little critical acumen in not discarding the earlier for the later and really valuable part of Manucci's historical notices. He was thus a practised and experienced literary man; but on the whole it would not be a libel to style him something of a hack writer, ready to undertake any task, whether he knew anything of the subject or not. Certainly he managed to give the coup de grace to the work sent home by Manucci, without establishing any permanent reputation for himself in the process. When he says in his second preface (1715) that the 'Memoires' were confided to him by Manucci himself, he tells a deliberate lie; for, as we shall see farther on, the unfortunate Italian had vigorously protested nine years before—namely, in 1706—that his manuscript had been communicated to the Jesuits without his knowledge or consent.