Page:A biographical dictionary of modern rationalists.djvu/392

 SAVAEY

SAY

of infidel opinions.&quot; He was an Agnostic. D. Apr. 19, 1739.

SAYARY, Anne Jean Marie Rene,

Due de Eovigo, French soldier. B. Apr. 26, 1774. He joined the army in 1790, and fought with distinction in the German and Egyptian campaigns. Napoleon made him a brigadier-general after Marengo, and he became a general of division in the Eussian campaign. In 1807 he was created Due de Eovigo, and appointed Governor of East Prussia. In 1808 he commanded an army in Spain. From 1810 to 1814 he was Minister of Police, and he was raised to the peerage in 1815. The Duke wished to accompany Napoleon, to whom he was deeply attached, in exile, but the Allies sent him to Malta, whence he escaped to Smyrna. He returned to France in 1819 to face a trial, and was acquitted. Louis Philippe in 1831 gave him the supreme command in Algeria. Eovigo w r as, like all Napoleon s great generals, a Eationalist. His Memoirs are historically important. D. June 2, 1833.

SAYILE, Sir George, Marquis of Halifax, statesman. B. Nov. 11, 1633. Ed. by his mother and on the continent. Elected to the House of Commons in 1660, he was created Baron Savile and Viscount Halifax in 1668, made a Commissioner of Trade in 1669, and admitted to the Privy Council in 1672. In 1679 he entered the King s Council and was created Earl of Halifax. He opposed the execution of Stafford, and warmly defended the liberties of the American colonists ; but his services were so material that he became one of the king s most trusted advisers and was created Marquis (1682). In 1685 Halifax published his Character of a Trimmer, and the later meaning of the word has misled many as to his intentions. The work was a defence of liberty and a plea for com promise in the struggle of the time. James II, whom he had honourably opposed, stripped him of his offices when he came to the throne, and Halifax devoted 711

himself to the study of philosophy and the writing of pamphlets against the trium phant Catholics. He had no share in inviting William to England, but that monarch restored his position, and ap pointed him Lord Privy Seal. Halifax was a man of great intellectual ability and considerable culture, and he was in a deeply corrupt age exempt from the least charge of corruption. Montaigne was his- favourite author, and he was credited with saying : &quot; The man who sits down a philo sopher rises an Atheist.&quot; Bishop Burnet, who knew him, says that he often used his caustic wit on religion, and passed for a bold and determined Atheist.&quot; He- told Burnet, however, that he was not an Atheist, and said that &quot; he believed as. much as he could, and hoped that God would not lay it to his charge if he could noi digest iron as an ostrich did, nor take into his belief things that must burst him &quot; (History of His Own Time, i, 267). He seems to have been an Agnostic with a polite use of Deistic language. Like so many Eationalists of the time, he admitted the ministration of the clergy when he was dying. D. Apr. 5, 1695.

SAY, Jean Baptiste Leon, French economist and statesman. B. June 6&amp;gt; 1826. Say was educated in law, but he entered a bank, and then the Civil Service. Of a distinguished family of economists,, he began in his early twenties to earn a reputation by his brilliant financial articles- in the Journal des Debats and other writings. His sympathies were with the English school of economists ; and he was a Free Trader and a pioneer of the Co-operative Movement in France. In 1871 he was- returned to the National Assembly and appointed Prefect of the Seine. In 1872 Thiers, a warm friend of his, made him Minister of Finance, and he is mainly responsible for the wonderful recovery of his country between 1871 and 1876. He was Financial Minister in 1872-73 and 1875-79 (under Gambetta). He became President of the Senate in 1880, and again 712