Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens (June 24, 1704, Aix-en-Provence - January 11, 1771, Toulon) was a French philosopher and writer.
An arch-opponent of the Catholic Church, intolerance and religious oppression, he had to flee his native France and his books were frequently denounced by the Inquisition. He was a friend of Voltaire, Maupertuis, Euler, Formey, Maargraf, Charles-Louis de Beausobre, the Abbé de Prades, Casanova, Friedrich Nicolai and Moses Mendelssohn. In 1724 he accompanied the French ambassador on a journey to Constantinople, where he lived for a year. After an adventurous youth, he was disinherited by his father. He then settled for a time in Amsterdam, where he wrote his famous Lettres juives (The Hague, 6 vols, 1738-1742), Lettres chinoises (The Hague, 6 vols, 1739-1742), and Lettres cabalistiques (2nd ed., 7 vols, 1769); also the Mémoires secrets de la république des lettres (7 vols, 1743-1478), afterwards revised and augmented as Histoire de l'esprit humain (Berlin, 14 vols, 1765-1768). He also wrote six novels, the best known of which is Thérèse Philosophe (1748).
He was invited by King Frederick II of Prussia [Frederick the Great] to his court where he spent the greater part of his career. He was appointed a Royal Chamberlain and Director of the Belles-Lettres section of the Academy. He married a Berlin actress, Mlle Cochois and had one daughter. D'Argens returned to France in 1769, and died near Toulon on the 11th of January 1771.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed (1911). Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.