Of an aristocratic Catholic family, he led a life of dissipation in his youth. He joined the army and then eloped to Spain; at one time he attempted suicide. He spent 25 years in the court of Frederick the Great as chamberlain, producing 18 volumes of letters, Correspondance philosophique. As a freethinker, he challenged authoritarian religion and scholasticism, relying on empirical reason and personal ethics. His Lettres juives (1738; “Jewish Letters”), Lettres cabalistiques (1741; “Cabalistic Letters”), and Lettres chinoises (1739–40; “Chinese Letters”) are patterned after Montesquieu's Lettres persanes.