Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/62

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52 F A U F A U occupies, more than any other Frenchman, a position analo gous to that occupied by Cobden in relation to the same cause in England ; and perhaps both by his writings and by his former relations with Napoleon he had no small share, though an indirect and posthumous one, in bringing about the commercial treaty which through the intervention of Cobden was effected between the two countries in 1860. The principal writings of Faucher were contributed to the Revue dcs Deux Mondes, and were published posthumously in 2 vols. under the title Melanges d economic politiqite ct de finance, 1856. Among his other writings the principal are Rcchcrches sur I or et sur I argent, consideres commc etalons de la valeur, 1843, and Etudes sur VAngleterre, 2 vols., 1845. The former work and a portion of the latter have been translated into English. A short biography of Faucher, by L<5once de Lavergne, is contained in the Revue des Deux Mondes for January 1855. FAUCHET, CLAUDE (1530-1601), French historian and antiquary, was born at Paris in T530. Of his early life few particulars are known. He applied himself to the study of the early French chroniclers, and proposed to publish ex tracts which would throw light on the first periods of the monarchy. During the civil wars he lost a large part of his books and manuscripts in a riot, and was compelled to leave Paris. He then settled at Marseilles. Attaching himself afterwards to Cardinal de Tournon, he accompanied him in 1554 to Italy, whence he was several times sent on embassies to the king, with reports on the siege of Siena. His services at length procured him the post of president of the chambre des monnaies, and thus enabled him to re sume his literary studies. Having become embarrassed with debt, he found it necessary, at the age of seventy, to sell his office ; but the king, amused with an epigram, gave him a pension, with the title of historiographer of France. Fauchet has the reputation of an impartial and scrupulously accurate writer; and in his works are to be found import ant facts not easily accessible elsewhere. He was, however, entirely uncritical, and his style is singularly inelegant. His principal works treat of Gaulish and French antiquities, of the dignities and magistrates of France, of the origin of the French language and poetry, of the liberties of the Gallican church, &c. A collected edition was published in 1610. Fauchet took part in a translation of the Annals of Tacitus, which appeared in 1582. He died at Paris about the close of 1601. FAUCHET, CLAUDE (1744-1793), the Abbe Fauchet, a French constitutional bishop, and a noted actor in the Revolution, was born at Domes, in the department of Nievre, September 22, 1774. He devoted himself to the service of the church, passed through the usual course of studies, and was rapidly promoted. Before he was thirty years of age he made his mark as an orator in a panegyric of St Louis, delivered before the French Academy. For some time he was engaged as tutor to the children of the marquis of Choiseul, a brother of the famous minister of Louis XVI. ; and he was afterwards nominated grand-vicar of the archbishop of Bourges, preacher to the king, and abbd of Montfort-Lacarre in Brittany. The influence of the new philosophy was clearly seen in his discourses, and the political tone of his sermon, Discours siir les mceurs rurales, at the festival of La Rosiere at Surenes, especially exposed him to censure. As he was proof against remonstrance, he was deprived of his office as preacher to the king. This occurred in 1788; and when in the following year the Revolution broke out, Abbe" Fauchet was ready to fight with the foremost in the great cause. His speeches fired the primary assemblies and the sections of Paris, and on the memorable 14th of July he was one of those who led the people to the attack on the Bastille, displaying, it is said, not only courage under fire, but skill worthy of an accomplished officer. He was elected a member of the commune of Paris, figured in the clubs, blessed the tricolor flag for the National Guard, and by all means helped for ward with a passionate zeal the revolutionary movement. He contributed to the reorganization of the church by his Discours sur la religion nationale; and in May 1791 he was appointed constitutional bishop of Calvados. During the same period he had delivered three discourses on liberty, a discourse on the harmony of f religion and liberty, the funeral oration of the Abbe" de 1 Epde, and an filoge civiyne of Franklin. The last of these was spoken in the rotunda of the corn-market in the course of the festivities of the federation in July 1790. In these pieces the swift progress of the Revolution was reflected in a growing in tensity of sympathy and enthusiasm on the part of the orator ; and hostility to the church carried him well nigh to a denial of the faith of which he was a minister. In the winter of 1790-91 Fauchet organized, in the precincts of the Palais Royal, his "Cercle Social," with regenerative in tent, to be carried out chiefly by means of fluent oratory. He presided in the meetings under the self-assumed title of " Procureur general de la Verite." Condorcet was one of his coadjutors, and " ten thousand persons of respectability " flocked to hear them, a noisy and phantasmal affair, which came to a speedy end. In 1791 Fauchet was elected deputy to the legislative assembly, and afterwards to the conven tion. He wrote in favour of an agrarian law, voted against payment of priests who refused the oath to the constitution, and was one of the first to submit to the decree for sup pression of ecclesiastical costume. The excesses of the Jacobins, however, alarmed him, and he began to incline towards the Girondists. On the trial of the king he spoke earnestly and courageously against the proposal to put him to death, and voted for the appeal to the people, imprison ment, and banishment. The execution of the king drove him still nearer to the party of the Girondists, and thus made him an object of the wrath of the Mountain. His name was one of those included in the proscription list, but he continued to act as secretary of the assembly till May 31, 1793, when the decree of accusation against the Girondists was passed. On the 18th July he was accused, not only as a Girondist, but also, and without ground, as an accomplice of Charlotte Corday, the murderer of Marat. He was sent to the Conciergerie, was condemned with the Girondist deputies by the revolutionary tribunal on October 30, and with them executed on the 31st. FAUJAS DE SAINT-FOND, BARTHELEMI (1741- 1819), French geologist and traveller, was born at Monte li- mart, May 17, 1741. He was educated at the Jesuits College at Lyons; and, showing in his boyhood much poetic sensibility and a propensity to versifying, he received from some of his worldly-wise elders the earnest warning, If you would succeed, don t make verses. He appears to have submitted to this counsel ; for he went to Grenoble and applied himself to the study of law, and was admitted advocate to the parliament. He rose to be president of the seneschal s court (1765), a post which he honourably filled, but the duties of which became before long intolerably irk some, for his feeling for nature was not extinguished, and his favourite relaxation was found in visits to the Alps. His final bent, however, was not to the poetic but to the scientific interpretation of nature. In his frequent Alpine rambles he was amassing observations and facts, the full value of which could only be known at a later time. Geology was in its infancy, had scarcely even a name, when Faujas began his studies of the forms, structure, composi tion, and superposition of rocks, nor was it possible for him to divine how vast the science that was to arise upon the foundation of the facts of which he was so keen and so diligent an observer. In 1 776 he put himself in communi cation with Buffon, who was not slow to perceive that the humble labours of Faujas would be of great service to him