original—an effort which, notwithstanding the support of poets of genius, succeeded no farther than in laying the foundation for future success. Since Emile Deschamps published his excellent translation of Macbeth and of Romeo and Juliet, the great English poet has gained considerable ground against the deeply-rooted prejudices created by Voltaire. Emile Deschamps has also made translations from the German.—J. F. C.
DESCHAMPS, Eustache, a French poet, was born about 1320. Having studied at the university of Orleans, he visited Egypt and Syria, where he was cast into prison. After his liberation he served under the kings Charles V. and VI. His writings afford some accounts of the wars for the expulsion of the English, and give curious details regarding that terrible massacre called the Jacquerie.—J. F. C.
DESEINE, Louis Pierre, a self-taught sculptor, born in Paris in 1750. He is renowned for several good monuments, statues, and busts he executed for the Bourbons, and for the attachment he bore to that family, which he allowed no occasion to escape without attesting. Amongst his busts the most remarkable are those of Pius VII., of Portalis, Cardinal Maury, Louis XVI., XVII., and XVIII., Prince Condé, duke of Enghien, Montesquieu, and Talleyrand. He died in 1827.—R. M.
DESFONTAINES, René Louiche, a celebrated French botanist, was born at Tremblay in Brittany about the year 1752, and died at Paris on 16th November, 1833. He prosecuted his early studies in his native town, and was afterwards sent to the college of Rennes. Subsequently he went to Paris to study medicine. There he showed a decided taste for botany, and rather neglected the practical department of medicine. He did not graduate as doctor till 1782. He became acquainted with Lemonnier, the professor of botany in the garden of plants, and to him he was indebted for much of his success in life. In 1783 he was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences of Paris. The same year he made a botanical excursion to the coasts of Barbary. He remained for two years in the kingdoms of Tunis and Algiers, and examined them thoroughly, even to the summits of the Atlas mountains. He returned to Paris in 1785, after making extensive and valuable collections in all departments of natural history, but specially in botany. In 1786 he was appointed professor of botany in the gardin des plantes in the room of Lemonnier, who had resigned. In this situation he prosecuted botany with vigour, and contributed many valuable papers to the Transactions of the Academy. In 1796 he presented to the Institute his celebrated memoir on the structure of monocotyledons, which at once placed him in a high rank among naturalists. In 1798 he published the first number of his "Flora Atlantica." He prepared a catalogue of the specimens in the garden of plants, and he described many new plants in the Annales du Museum. In 1809 he published his history of trees and shrubs which can be cultivated in France in the open air. He married at the age of sixty-three, and had a daughter who survived him, and who contributed much to his comfort in his declining years. His wife became afflicted with mania after childbirth, and this melancholy event threw a gloom over the later years of his life. He now devoted himself to the arrangement of the herbarium of the museum, and to the proper determination of the species. In the memoirs of the museum he gave descriptions and figures of many new genera and species. From 1815 to 1822 he added seventeen marked genera to botanical science. He retained his active powers until he was between seventy and eighty years of age. He became ultimately affected with blindness, and was thus debarred from carrying on his researches. His death was caused by bronchitis.—J. H. B.
DESFORGES, Pierre Jean Baptiste Choudard, born in 1746; died in 1806. Desforges claimed to be the natural son of the celebrated Dr. A. Petit. He was born a poet. At nine years old he wrote two tragedies—"Tantalus and Pelops," and the "Death of Jeremiah." Some love stories gave him a scandalous notoriety a few years after. His reputed father wished him to learn medicine; but the young man was thinking of other things, and said nature intended him for a painter; so he passed his days idly among amateurs, and did nothing. Petit died, and Desforges found himself without anything—without even a right to his father's name. He had learned to copy music, and earned a trifle in this way. Then he became a kind of clerk, or servant of all work, in one of the public offices. Next we find him on the stage—a strolling player—and soon engaged in himself producing plays of his own. He now married. The empress of Russia, Catherine II., was at this time doing what she could to import French manners into her capital, and Desforges and his wife transferred themselves to St. Petersburg. He was given a pension by the empress, and found time to cultivate his talents for literature. In 1782 he returned to France. His works are very numerous. The best is probably a dissolute and discreditable work called "Le Poëte," which is understood to have been drawn from the incidents of his own life.—J. A., D.
DESFOURNEAUX, Edme-Etienne Borne, Count, a French general, was born in 1767. He entered the army as a private soldier in 1787, and by his courage and activity gradually rose in the service until he obtained the rank of lieutenant-colonel in 1792. In that year he was sent to St. Domingo, where he rendered important services to the government, defeating the Spaniards in a sanguinary engagement near St. Michael on the 22nd of August, 1794, and repulsing an attack of an English squadron upon Port-a-Prince. Shortly after he returned to France, but was sent back in command of a new expedition against the English, who in his absence had made rapid progress in the subjugation of St. Domingo. Desfourneaux ultimately compelled them to evacuate the island. In 1791 he was nominated governor of Guadaloupe, and held that office for two years. On his return to France the first consul appointed him to the command of the reinforcements which were about to be sent to Egypt. He embarked in 1801, but the vessel in which he sailed was captured by the British. He was speedily exchanged, and in 1802 was sent to Hayti, and served in the disastrous expedition of General Leclerc. On his return home, Napoleon addressed Desfourneaux in flattering terms, but the general was no courtier, and was left unemployed and in obscurity. In 1815, when the allies besieged Paris, Desfourneaux commanded the troops which occupied the heights of Montmartre. On his retirement in 1818 Louis XVIII. created him a count. He died in 1849.—J. T.
DESGENETTES, Nicolas-René Dufriche, Baron, a distinguished French physician, was born at Alençon in 1762, and died in 1837. After finishing his medical studies he came into possession of a moderate fortune, and travelled for some time in England and Italy. In 1789 he received his degree from the faculty of Montpellier, and was admitted a corresponding member of the Academy of Medicine. He was attached to the army of Italy in 1793, and acquitted himself so well, that Napoleon, before his departure for Egypt, appointed him head-physician of the army of the East. His remarkable abilities and generous devotion were of the highest service in that hazardous expedition. Returning to France towards the end of 1801, Desgenettes was named chief physician to the military hospital of Val-de-Grace. He was present with the French armies in Prussia, Poland, and Spain, and in the disastrous campaign of 1812 was taken prisoner by the Russians. He demanded his liberty from Alexander in return for services rendered to the Russian soldiers, and not only obtained it, but also an escort of honour which conducted him to the advanced guard of the French army. He was with Napoleon at Waterloo, and after the restoration shared the honourable disgrace which overtook Pinel, Dubois, and others. After the accession of Louis Philippe, Baron Desgenettes was appointed mayor of the tenth arrondissement, and medecin en chef des invalides.—R. M., A.
DESHAYES, G. P., a distinguished French naturalist, and member of the Natural History Society of Paris. He is principally known in Europe through his writings on the family of mollusca. To this group of animals he has devoted great attention, and some of the most important monographs on this family during the last quarter of a century have come from his pen. The first work by which he attracted general attention was his "Description of the Fossil Shells found in the neighbourhood of Paris." The work was commenced in 1824 and finished in 1837, and consisted of four volumes quarto, with numerous illustrations. His next work was an "Elementary treatise on Conchology, with especial application to the science of Geognosy." This was published also in parts, and commenced in 1839, and finished in 1841. His papers upon the structure and characters of individual shells are very numerous. He has also published some valuable memoirs on fossil shells and the geological strata in which they occur and which they characterize. The number of his works and papers given in Agassiz' and Strickland's Bibliography of Geology and Zoology is fifty-four. In addition to these papers, M. Deshayes, in conjunction with M. Milne-Edward,
