Page:A biographical dictionary of modern rationalists.djvu/141

 DESCHAMPS

DESMAISEAUX

defends him, gives a bibliography of a hundred books for and against him. He was a philosophic Theist or Pantheist, influenced by Hegel, and far removed from Christian orthodoxy (see, for instance, his Storia della Letteratura Italiana, 1870). D. Dec. 28, 1883.

DESCHAMPS, Leger Marie, French philosopher. B. Jan. 10, 1716. He was a monk of the Benedictine Order, and he remained in it in spite of his radical heterodoxy and his cordial relations with the Encyclopaedists. In his Voix de la Eaison (1770) and La Verite (1771) he expounds a Pantheism akin to that of Spinoza, and with affinities to the later system of Hegel. The Grande Encyclopedic says that he looked to the establishment of an &quot; enlightened Atheism.&quot; D. Apr. 19, 1774.

DESCHANEL, Professor Emile Augustin Etienne Martin, French writer. B. Nov. 14, 1819. Ed. College Louis le Grand and Ecole Normale. After teaching rhetoric at Bourges, he was appointed lecturer at the Ecole Normale Superieure. He was suspended and expelled from France in 1851 for writing advanced articles. He returned in 1859, was elected to the Chambre (as Anti-Clerical) in 1876, and was made Senateur Inamovible and professor of modern French literature at the College de France in 1881. His literary works are of great value. A. Brissot, in his Portraits Intimes (ii, 116), describes Deschanel as &quot; a Freethinker &quot; and strong anti-clerical. D. 1904.

DESCHANEL, Paul Eugene Louis,

L. es L., L. en D., President of the French Republic, son of the preceding. B. Feb. 13, 1856. Ed. Lycee Condorcet, Paris. He began his career as secretary of the Minister of the Interior (1876-77), and was then appointed Sub-Prefect of Breux, later of Brest (1881). Elected to the Chambre in 1885, he earned distinction by his eloquent speeches on colonial questions. He was 209

Vice-President of the Chambre in 1896, and President from 1898 to 1902. In 1899 he was admitted to the Academy, in virtue of his numerous works on politics and letters. He was President of the Commission on Foreign and Colonial Affairs 1905-1909. His published speeches and dates given will sufficiently indicate that he follows the ideas of his father and fully supports the anti-clerical measures. He succeeded M. Poincare as President in 1920.

DESHUMBERT, Marius, French Ethicist. B. 1856. M. Deshumbert settled in England in 1879, and was professor of French at the Eoyal Military College, Sandhurst, and the Staff College, Camber- ley. He is the founder and secretary of the Comite International Pour la Pratique de la Morale fondee sur les lois de la Nature, general secretary of the Societe Londonienne de Morale, and President of the Croydon Alliance Franaise. He has written works on French grammar and on his naturalist theory of morals (Notre Ideal, etc.).

DESLANDES, Andre Frangois Boureau, French writer. B. 1690. In his early years he was a pious follower of Malebranche, who tried to induce him to enter the Oratory. He joined the Navy, becoming Commissioner General of Marine at Eochefort and Brest, and adopted Deism. His ideas are discreetly given in his Histoire critique de la Philosophic (3 vols., 1737) and De la certitude des connaissances humaines (1741) and other works. D. Apr. 11, 1757.

DESMAISEAUX, Pierre, F.E.S., bio grapher. B. 1673. Ed. Berne and Geneva. He was the son of a refugee French Pro testant minister. In 1699 Lord Shaftes- bury brought him to England, and he was familiar with A. Collins and Bayle. He translated into English Bayle s Dictionary (1734), prefixing to it a life of Bayle and a dedicatory letter to Sir E. Walpole, in 210