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 PEEVOST

PEEYEE

mathematics at Paris, and was a member of the Berlin Academy of Sciences. In 1735 he drew upon himself the zeal of the clerical authorities by an attack on religion, and he was compelled to fly. After visiting Switzerland and Holland he settled in Berlin in 1752, and wrote a number of Deistic works, besides several works on mathematics. Premontval is now chiefly remembered for his Memoires (1749). D. Sep. 2, 1764.

PREYOST, Eugene Marcel, French novelist. B. May 1, 1862. Ed. Jesuit Seminary, Orleans, and other Jesuit colleges, and Ecole Polytechnique. Prevost entered the business world at Lille, but in 1891 he abandoned it, and engaged in literary work at Paris. He had published a novel, Le scorpion (1887), which had been very suc cessful. It was based upon his experiences of the Jesuits as teachers, and did not spare them. Choncette (1888), Mademoiselle Jaufre (1889), and subsequent stories sus tained his success, and he came to be regarded as one of the masters in his school of fiction. He excels in the emo tional analysis of character, especially of female character, and is very far from respecting ecclesiastical precepts. Prevost was admitted to the Academy in 1909, and he is an Officer of the Legion of Honour and Honorary President of the Societ6 des Gens de Lettres.

PREYOST, Professor Louis Constant,

D. es L., D.Sci., French geologist. B. June 4, 1787. Ed. Ecole Centrale, Paris. Absorbed at first in anatomy and medicine, Prevost turned after a time to geology, and became one of the most devoted explorers in Europe. From 1821 to 1829 he was professor of geology at the Paris Athenaeum. In 1831 he was appointed assistant pro fessor, and later professor, at the Faculty of Sciences (the University). He was one of the chief founders of the French Geo logical Society (1830). He was admitted to the Academy of Sciences in 1843. Prevost did a work in France analogous to 621

that of Lyell in England. He swept out Biblical reactionaries and insisted on uniformity. D. Aug. 17, 1856.

PREYOST, Professor Pierre, Swiss physicist. B. 1751. Son of a Swiss clergyman, Prevost was put to the study of theology with a view to entering the ministry. He became a Eationalist, and took to the study of law and education, as he was a friend and disciple of Eousseau. Frederick the Great appointed him pro fessor of philosophy at the Berlin Academy of Sciences. Prevost was, however, a very learned and versatile man, and familiarity with Lagrange at Berlin changed his interest to physics and mathematics, in which field he achieved great distinction. In 1784 he had received the chair of philo sophy at Geneva, and in 1810 he exchanged it for the chair of physics. There were few fields of culture in which Pr6vost was not at home. D. Apr. 8, 1839.

PREYOST-PARADOL, Lucien Anatole,

D. es L., French historian. B. Aug. 8, 1829. Ed. College Bourbon and Ecole Normale. In 1850 he competed against a brilliant group for the Academy prize for eloquence, and won it. He was appointed professor of French literature at Aix in 1855, but he resigned in the following year, and joined the staff of the Journal des Debats and the Courrier du Dimanche. A spirited opponent of the clerical-imperialists, he was sent to prison in 1866, and the Courrier was suppressed, In 1870 he accepted the post of French Ambassador at Washington, for which his advanced colleagues blamed him. The Franco-Prussian War, which at once broke out, so depressed him that he shot himself in America, which at least proved that in accepting the Empire he had not embraced its theology. He was a member of the Academy, and author of a number of able historical works. D. July 20, 1870.

PREYER, Professor Wilhelm Thierry,

German physiologist. B. July 4, 1841. 022