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GENESTET


GHILLANY


she left Russia. Letourneau has edited and published some of her papers (Etudes sociales, 1886). D. Dec., 1884.

GENESTET, Petrus Augustus de,

Dutch poet. B. Nov. 21, 1829. Ed. Amsterdam Protestant Seminary. He was a Protestant minister at Delft from 1852 to 1860, but, becoming a Rationalist, he devoted himself entirely to letters. His first volume of poems (Eerste gedichten, 1851) won much regard, and his later works made him one of the most popular of Dutch poets. His Rationalism appears in his Leckedichtjes (1860, a volume of poems and epigrams). D. July 2, 1861.

GENIN, Francois, French writer. B. Feb. 16, 1803. Ed. Ecole Normale, Paris. A professor of literature at Laon, and later at Strassburg, he entered into relations with Littre, and joined the staff of Le National. In 1848 he became one of its editors, and wrote strongly against the Church. A work of his on Moliere won the Academy prize ; and he edited the works of Diderot (1847), and wrote a number of Rationalist works (chiefly Les actes des apotres, 3 vols., 1844). D. May 20, 1856.

GENOYESI, Antonio, Italian philo sopher. B. Nov. 1, 1712. Ed. Salerno seminary. He was ordained priest in 1736, and was professor of rhetoric at the seminary ; but the study of Locke and other philosophers wrecked his belief, and he quitted the priesthood. He was then appointed professor of metaphysics, and later of political economy, at Naples University. Although he made a pro fession of Christianity, his expressions were so heterodox that the clergy violently assailed him, and his works (4 vols., 1835) are really Deistic. D. Sep. 20, 1769.

GEOFFRIN, Marie Therese, French writer. B. June 2, 1699. Daughter of a chamberlain of the Dauphin, she was married to Geoffrin at the age of fourteen,

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and his death some years later left her rich and independent. Witty and culti vated, she made her home the chief centre for the brilliant Parisian Rationalists of the time ; and the Dictionnaire Encyclo- pedique is largely due to her liberality. D Alembert and Morellet wrote high praise of her (Eloges de Mme. Geoffrin, 1812), and published her Letters and an essay Sur la conversation, which she had written. D. Oct. 6, 1777.

GEOFFRO Y S AINT-HIL AIRE, Etienne,

French zoologist. B. Apr. 15, 1772. Ed. College de Navarre. His father destined him for the Church, and in his seventeenth year he became a canon and an abbe. He, however, turned his back on the Church, and studied science. In 1793 he was appointed professor of zoology at the Jardin des Plantes, and in 1809 at the Medical Faculty. He entered Parliament in 1815, but withdrew from political life at the Restoration. His Philosophic anatomique (1818) put forward a theory of organic types which prepared the way in France for the doctrine of evolution, and he sus tained an historic struggle with Cuvier over the new ideas. He was a Deist throughout life, yet at the 1830 Revolution he nobly saved the life of the Archbishop. His religion was " a fanaticism of humanity " | (Pariset). D. June 19, 1844.

GEOFFROY SAINT-HILAIRE, Isidore,

French zoologist, son of preceding. B. | Dec. 16, 1805. Ed. Paris. He was pro fessor of zoology at Bordeaux, then at the Paris Museum (1841), and finally at the Medical Faculty (1850). Besides several important works on his science, he wrote a biography of his father, edited his father s notes on the French expedition to Egypt, and issued the works of Buffon. The founding of the Paris Acclimatisation Society was chiefly due to him. D. Nov. 10, 1861.

GHILLANY, Friedrich Wilhelm, Ger- i man historian. B. Apr. 18, 1807. Ed.

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