Page:A biographical dictionary of modern rationalists.djvu/386

 SAINT LAMBEKT

SAINT SIMON

SAINT LAMBERT, Jean Francois,

Marquis de, French writer. B. Dec. 26, 1716. Ed. by the Jesuits at Pont-a- Mousson. Saint Lambert adopted a mili tary career, and attained a high position at the Lorraine court. He was in his youth very religious, and his early poetry is partly pious (Ode sur i Eucharistie, 1732, etc.) and partly amorous. The latter was much praised by Voltaire, whose influence made an end of his piety. He retired from the army in 1757, and devoted himself to letters. At Paris he was intimate with the Encyclopaedists, and he wrote his Essai sur le luxe for their great work. His poem Les saisons (1769) made him famous, and opened the doors of the Academy to him. During the Eevolution, which overlooked him, he worked at a &quot; catechism of morals for children&quot; (as recommended by D Alem- bert), which he published in 1798 (Principes des mosurs chez toutes les nations, 3 vols.) a treatise of secular morality on the principles of Holbach and Helvetius. It is quite Materialistic. D. Feb. 9, 1803.

SAINT PIERRE, Jacques Henri Bernardin de, French writer. B. Jan. 19, 1737. Ed. by the Jesuits at Caen, and the College de Kouen. Saint Pierre was so pious in his youth that he wanted to go as missionary to the Indies. His father refused permission, and he became a mili tary engineer. He had read Robinson Crusoe in his boyhood and been fired with an enthusiasm for travel. After some years abroad lie settled at Paris in 1771, and published his experiences. Eousseau captivated him, and in 1784 he issued his Etudes de la nature, which is a prolonged and often fantastic argument for the exis tence of God, on Deistic lines. His famous idyll, Paul et Virginie, was published in 1787 as the fourth volume of the Etudes. In 1792 Saint Pierre succeeded Buffon as Director of the Jardin des Plantes. In 1794 the revolutionaries appointed him professor of morals at the Ecole Normale, and in 1795 he entered the Institut. Under the Empire he was admitted to the Legion 699

of Honour, and received a pension. More advanced Eationalists like Cabanis satirized Saint Pierre and his natural religion ; but, after his early youth, he was never more than a Deist of the Eousseau type. D. Jan. 21, 1814.

SAINT PRIEST, Count Alexis Guignard, French diplomatist and writer. B. April 30, 1805. Ed. Odessa College. Born at St. Petersburg, and son of the Princess Sophia Galitzin, Saint Priest joined his father at Paris in 1822, and adopted liberal ideas. He applauded the Eevolution of 1830, and was a great friend of the Due d Orleans. In 1831 he was appointed charge d affaires at Parma, in 1832 plenipotentiary minister at Eio de Janeiro, in 1835 at Lisbon, and in 1838 at Copenhagen. In 1841 he was recalled to France and raised to the peerage. He devoted himself to letters and history, and in 1849 he was admitted to the Academy. His chief work is his valuable and very anti-clerical Histoire de la chute des Jesuites (1844). He was preparing a biography of Voltaire in 1851, when he set out on a voyage to Eussia which proved fatal. D. Sep. 27, 1851.

SAINT SIMON, Count Claude Henri de RouYroy de, French reformer. B. Oct. 17, 1760. Grandson of the Due de Saint Simon, author of the famous Memoires, he received at Paris the best education the time could afford. D Alembert was one of his teachers. He entered the army at the age of seventeen, and went to America to help the colonists. His extensive travels in America broadened his ideas, and after his return to France in 1783 he abandoned the army. Saint Simon, w r ho continued to travel and bring forth ideas of large enter prises, lost his fortune at the Eevolution. He made another by dealing in confiscated estates, and in 1797 retired from business to devote himself to the good of humanity. He studied science and history at Paris University, then completed his educational preparation in England and Germany. The 700