LOUIS SEBASTIEN, an eccentric French writer, was born in Paris in June 1740. After publishing several heroic epistles, and holding for some time the professorship of rhetoric at Bordeaux, he first displayed his satirical power in L'An 2440; Rêves, s'il en faut jamais, Amsterdam, 1771. In his Essai sur l'Art Dramatique he struck at the fame of Corneille, Racine, and Voltaire, and proposed, with grave self-conceit, to replace their dramas by his own productions. The comedians, however, rejected this proposal, and brought down upon themselves the satirical lash of Mercier. A more legitimate subject of satire was the corrupt social system of the French capital. Accordingly, in 1781 Mercier began to attack it in the first two volumes of his famous Tableau de Paris. While this work was exciting a great ferment in the nation, the vanity of the author would not suffer him to remain anonymous and to see it attributed to others. He therefore discovered himself to the inquisitor Lenoir, but thought it advisable at the same time to betake himself immediately to Neuchatel, and to publish the remaining ten volumes there. After visiting Germany, Mercier returned to France on the eve of that revolution which he vauntingly attributed to his Tableau. He assisted Carra for some time in editing Les Annales Patriotiques et Chronique du Mois. As a member of the Convention for the department of Seine-et-Oise, he voted for the perpetual detention of the king. Having been admitted in 1785 into the Council of the Five Hundred, he opposed the motion that Descartes should receive the honours of the Pantheon. He also signalized himself by his vehement invectives against education, which he styled "the pest of the human race." On his retirement from this council he was appointed professor of history in the central school, and a member of the newly-formed institute. Mercier died at Paris in April 1814. Among his numerous works are,—Mon Bonnet du Nuit, in 4 vols. 8vo, Neuchatel, 1783; Histoire de France depuis Clovis jusqu'au Règne de Louis XVI., in 6 vols. 8vo, 1802; and Néologie, in 2 vols. 8vo, Paris, 1801.