Joseph Thoulier d', an elegant writer and accomplished classical scholar, was born at Salins in 1682. Being destined for the church, he entered the Order of Jesus, and studied theology at Rheims, at Dijon, and at Paris. But it was not until he had mingled familiarly in the society of such men as Boileau, Huet, and Rousseau, that his mind caught its fine ardour for classical learning, and his life took its peculiar bent. He soon afterwards resolved to leave the society of the Jesuits; the offer of the important position of tutor to the Prince of Asturias could not induce him to alter his resolution; and he retired to his quiet study in Paris, to live contentedly upon the emoluments of a small benefice. Then began that series of literary publications on the works of Cicero which has associated the name of Olivet with that of the great Roman orator. In 1721 was printed his translation of the De Natura Deorum,—a work which was the means of gaining for him an admission into the French Academy. He published his version of the Orations against Catiline in 1727; and in 1737 he appeared, along with President Boucher, as the joint-translator of the Tusculan Disputations. In 1740-1742 was given to the public his masterpiece, the edition of the entire works of Cicero, in 9 vols. 4to. A collection of extracts from Cicero, accompanied with a French translation, entitled Pensées, and published in folio, 1744, completed his elucidations of his favourite author. Meanwhile the Abbé d'Olivet had been emulating the elegant and severely simple style of the classical historians in his Histoire de l'Academie Francaise, intended for a continuation of Pelisson's History, and published in 2 vols. 4to, 1729. His death took place in 1768.

Olivet was also the author of a grammatical treatise entitled Remarques sur la Langue Francaise, in 12mo, Paris, 1767; and of a translation of the Philippics of Demosthenes, printed along with his version of the Orations against Catiline. Editions of his several translations from Demosthenes and Cicero appeared in 1766. His edition of Cicero has been very frequently reprinted.