 He was brought up in Rouans, moved to Delft (1662), Heusden (1676-1679) and 's-Hertogenbosch, but spent most of his adult life in Deventer in the Netherlands, where he taught French and was professor of mathematics at the city's (1690 and 1699).He had probably met John Locke in the 1680s and almost certainly knew the Irish deist John Toland, who lived at The Hague in 1708–10.His life proceeded relatively uneventfully until 1727, when at the age of 72 the publication of his "Lettres choisies" caused a scandal.