...of a good lexicographer

Neither is it forbidden to turn to Pierre Larousse’s Great Universal Dictionary of the Nineteenth Century and consult the appropriate entry, an on-the-spot report, written while the old fart was still animate, a document all the more precious in that it issues from one who witnessed firsthand the doings of this NISARD (Jean-Marie-Napoléon-Désiré), French critic, born in Châtillon-sur-Seine (Côte d’Or) in 1806. After completing his studies at the Collège Sainte-Barbe, Monsieur Nisard embarked on a journalistic career, whereby he would prove that a man can go laces in journalism, provided he gets out of it - an axiom much in vogue under the July Monarchy. From his beginnings at the Journal des Débats and Le National, he would rise to the ranks of Representative in the Chambre des Députés, head of the École Normale, and member of the Académie Francais. As we see, Larousse maintains an uncomfortable silence on the subject of Nisard’s childhood, which is entirely to the good lexicographer’s credit, and indeed we shall have many more occasions to admire the nobility of his soul and the kindliness of his heart, not to mention his commendable self-restraint, for the young Nisard was a wearisome brat, whiny, secretive, capricious, irresolute, fearful, forever smearing his shirtsleeves with the snot that flowed unquenchably from his ridiculous nose, a filthy habit he is said to have kept until an advanced age, despite the many remonstrations doled out by his parents, whose other two sons, Charles and Auguste, nevertheless gave them every satisfaction.”My father was an upstanding man, his integrity equal to all challenges, his every act rooted in virtue,” Nisard would belatedly acknowledge, and his mother too was a very sweet lady, utterly without guile. The name she chose for her child tells us eloquently enough how eagerly his coming was awaited. In spite of which, somewhat adrift in the billows of infant apparel designed for a far more robust child, the sickly newborn continually soils his diapers and regurgitates his milk, devoting the remaining hours of his days to endless wailing. Such were the first months of an existence that would in years to come eschew no mode of expression by which complaints might be voiced.

[Demolishing Nisard, Chevillard, É]