came to receive his share of the inheritance of his grandfather. After
suffering many things, like all young men of firm will who struggle
for a place in the brilliant world of Paris, this son of the Minorets
reached a nobler destiny than he had, perhaps, dreamed of at the
start. He devoted himself, in the first instance, to medicine, a
profession which demands both talent and a cheerful nature, but the
latter qualification even more than talent. Backed by Dupont de
Nemours, connected by a lucky chance with the Abbe Morellet (whom
Voltaire nicknamed Mords-les), and protected by the Encyclopedists,
Doctor Minoret attached himself as liegeman to the famous Doctor
Bordeu, the friend of Diderot, D'Alembert, Helvetius, the Baron
d'Holbach and Grimm, in whose presence he felt himself a mere boy.
These men, influenced by Bordeu's example, became interested in
Minoret, who, about the year 1777, found himself with a very good
practice among deists, encyclopedists, sensualists, materialists, or
whatever you are pleased to call the rich philosophers of that period.

Though Minoret was very little of a humbug, he invented the famous
balm of Lelievre, so much extolled by the "Mercure de France," the
weekly organ of the Encyclopedists, in whose columns it was
permanently advertised. The apothecary Lelievre, a clever man, saw a
stroke of business where Minoret had only seen a new preparation for
the dispensary, and he loyally shared his profits with the doctor, who
was a pupil of Rouelle in chemistry as well as of Bordeu in medicine.
Less than that would make a man a materialist.

The doctor married for love in 1778, during the reign of the "Nouvelle
Heloise," when persons did occasionally marry for that reason. His
wife was a daughter of the famous harpsichordist Valentin Mirouet, a
celebrated musician, frail and delicate, whom the Revolution slew.