THE Huguenot writer Pierre Bayle (1647-1702) needs little in the way of introduction. Author of the Dictionnaire historique et critique, defender of toleration in his Commentaire philosophique, and indefatigable critic of superstitions of all kinds, Bayle's influence as a man ofletters and an unquiet intellectual is substantial and well-documented. His letters, beginning in his early twenties, reveal that he was ever anxious to establish what was then called a 'commetce de lettres' with anyone, but particularly learned men (the prejudice of the time made learned women a rarity) who could furnish him with news: news of battles during Louis XIV's European wars; news of the latest books; news concerning the nobility, the court and the petty nobility of all the regions of France, but notably of his own comte de Foix. As he became well known, his ambition to have a network of correspondents throughout the then known world became more of a reality, finally blossoming into an enviable 'commerce de lettres' when he became editor and principal author of the Nouvelles de Ia republique des lettres from I683 to !687. When he gave up this project, as a result of ill health, his correspondence diminished slightly, only to take off again in the 1 69os when he began work on his Dictionnaire. Then, as when he was writing the Nouvelles, Bayle wrote begging information and books from anyone willing to supply his avid and tireless curiosity.