CHAERON
advanced ideas. In 1830 Cousin got him
appointed professor at Caen, in spite of
violent clerical hostility. He became Dean
of the Faculty of Letters. His numerous
works include an Essai sur les bases et
les developpements de la moralitc humaine
(1834) and Condorcet (1862). D. Aug. 5,
1869.
CHARRON, Pierre, philosopher. B. Paris, 1541. Ed. Orleans and Bourges. Originally a lawyer at Bourges, Charron entered the clergy, and became a famous preacher. At Bordeaux he was an intimate friend of Montaigne, whose in fluence may be traced in his Traite de la Sagesse (1595). It was violently assailed, and is a treatise of natural virtue, with sceptical reflections on such doctrines as immortality. D. Nov. 16, 1603.
CHASTELLUX, Francois Jean, Mar quis de, French writer. B. May 5, 1734. He won rapid promotion in the French army, and served as Major- General in the Ameri can campaign in 1780. Meantime he cultivated a wide range of studies, wrote comedies and verse, and in 1772 published his philosophical De la Felicite publique (2 vols.). It has some severe strictures on Christianity, and makes progress depend on the development of reason and science. Voltaire put it higher than Montesquieu s Esprit des Lois. He was admitted to the Academy in 1775. Chastellux contributed to the Supplement of the Dictionnaire Encyclopedique, and one of his articles was suppressed because it did not mention God. D. Oct. 22, 1788.
CHATELET, Gabrielle Emilie, Mar quise du, French writer. B. Dec. 17, 1706, daughter of the Baron de Breteuil. She learned Latin, English, and Italian at an early age, and in her sixteenth year translated Vergil. In 1738 the Marquise nearly won the Academy s prize for a dissertation on the nature of heat. She was a woman of remarkable ability and accomplishments. Her chief Deistic work,
159
Doutes sur les religions r&veUes (published
posthumously in 1792), is dedicated to
Voltaire, with whom she lived for thirteen
years. D. Sep. 10, 1749.
CHATTERTON, Thomas, poet. B. (Bristol) Nov. 20, 1752. Ed. private school and Bristol Bluecoat School. In his thirteenth year Chatterton began to fabricate pseudo-ancient poems with such skill that even distinguished literary men were deceived. He was then an attorney s clerk, writing verse in his leisure. In 1770 he removed to London, but the struggle for maintenance and recognition was so severe that he committed suicide. Keats and Coleridge and nearly every poet of the time regarded him as a genius. " I am no Christian," he says in one of his published letters to his family shortly before his end. D. Aug. 25, 1770.
CHAUMETTE, Pierre Gaspard, French politician. B. May 24, 1763. Chaumette was a clerk at Paris at the outbreak of the Revolution, and he flung himself ardently into it. He was one of the most aggressive of the Atheistical section, claiming that the People was the only God. Robespierre attacked him, and he \vas condemned to death and executed for conspiracy on Apr. 13, 1794.
CHAUSSARD, Pierre Jean Baptiste,
French writer. B. Oct. 8, 1766. Ed. College de Saint Jean de Beauvais. He practised at the Paris bar, and in 1789 he dedicated to the National Assembly a work on penal reform. He was Republican Ambassador in Belgium, and later General Secretary of Public Instruction. Chaus- sard was one of the founders of Theophilan- thropy. In 1803 he became professor of literature at Nimes, but he was deposed at the Restoration. His numerous works on education, history, and religion are strongly Rationalistic. D. Jan. 9, 1823.
CHENIER, Andre Marie de, French poet. B. Oct. 29, 1762. Ed. College de 160
