Historiographer, someone who writes or has written history. The word was coined to distinguish this particular class of authors, but it is employed more generally as the title of a man who, by his talent, integrity and judgment, has merited the selection of the government to transmit the great events of the present reign to posterity. Boileau and Racine were named historiographers under Louis XIV. M. de Voltaire succeeded them to this important function under the reign of Louis XV. This extraordinary man vacated the position after being called to the court of a foreign prince, and it was given to M. Duclos, secretary of the French Academy. Racine and Boileau did nothing. M. de Voltaire wrote the history of the century of Louis XV. I have no doubt that M. Duclos is leaving to posterity memoirs worthy of the extraordinary things that have passed in his own time.