before he died sent him an ode on death, which
aptly describes his state--
"Oui, soyez alors plus ferme,
Que ces vulgaires humains
Qui, pres de leur dernier terme,
De vaines terreurs sont pleins.
En sage que rien n'offense,
Livrez-vous sans resistance
A d'inevitables traits;
Et, d'une demarche egale,
Passez cette onde fatal
Qu'on ne repasse jamais."

Rochefoucauld left behind him only two works, the
one, Memoirs of his own time, the other the Maxims.
The first described the scenes in which his youth had
been spent, and though written in a lively style,
and giving faithful pictures of the intrigues and the
scandals of the court during Louis XIV.'s minority,
yet, except to the historian, has ceased at the present
day to be of much interest. It forms, perhaps, the
true key to understand the special as opposed to
general application of the maxims.

Notwithstanding the assertion of Bayle, that "there
are few people so bigoted to antiquity as not to prefer
the Memoirs of La Rochefoucauld to the Commen-
taries of Caesar," or the statement of Voltaire, "that
the Memoirs are universally read and the Maxims are
learnt by heart," few persons at the present day ever