Page:EB1911 - Volume 08.djvu/112

 palaeontologist, was born in 1830. He succeeded his father about the year 1856 as professor of zoology at the faculty of sciences at Caen, and in 1861 he became also professor of geology and dean. After the death of his father in 1867, he devoted himself to the completion of a memoir on the Teleosaurs: the joint labours being embodied in his Prodrome des Téléosauriens du Calvados. To the Société Linnéenne de Normandie he contributed memoirs on Jurassic brachiopods, on the geology of the department of La Manche (1856), of Calvados (1856–1863), on the Terrain callovien (1859), on Nouvelle-Calédonie (1864), and Études sur les étages jurassiques inférieurs de la Normandie (1864). His work Le Jura normand was issued in 1877–1878 (incomplete). He died at Château Matthieu, Calvados, on the 21st of December 1889.

 DESMAISEAUX, PIERRE (1673–1745); French writer, was born at Saillat, probably in 1673. His father, a minister of the reformed church, had to leave France on the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and took refuge in Geneva, where Pierre was educated. Bayle gave him an introduction to the 3rd Lord Shaftesbury, with whom, in 1699, he came to England, where he engaged in literary work. He remained in close touch with the religious refugees in England and Holland, and constantly in correspondence with the leading continental savants and writers, who were in the habit of employing him to conduct such business as they might have in England. In 1720 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. Among his works are Vie de St Evremond (1711), Vie de Boileau-Despréaux (1712), Vie de Bayle (1730). He also took an active part in preparing the Bibliothèque raisonnée des ouvrages de l’Europe (1728–1753), and the Bibliothèque britannique (1733–1747), and edited a selection of St Evremond’s writings (1706). Part of Desmaiseaux’s correspondence is preserved in the British Museum, and other letters are in the royal library at Copenhagen. He died on the 11th of July 1745.

 DESMAREST, NICOLAS (1725–1815), French geologist, was born at Soulaines, in the department of Aube, on the 16th of September 1725. Of humble parentage, he was educated at the college of the Oratorians of Troyes and Paris. Taking full advantage of the instruction he received, he was able to support himself by teaching, and to continue his studies independently. Buffon’s Theory of the Earth interested him, and in 1753 he successfully competed for a prize by writing an essay on the ancient connexion between England and France. This attracted much attention, and ultimately led to his being employed in studying and reporting on manufactures in different countries, and in 1788 to his appointment as inspector-general of the manufactures of France. He utilized his journeys, travelling on foot, so as to add to his knowledge of the earth’s structure. In 1763 he made observations in Auvergne, recognizing that the prismatic basalts were old lava streams, comparing them with the columns of the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland, and referring them to the operations of extinct volcanoes. It was not, however, until 1774 that he published an essay on the subject, accompanied by a geological map, having meanwhile on several occasions revisited the district. He then pointed out the succession of volcanic outbursts and the changes the rocks had undergone through weathering and erosion. As remarked by Sir A. Geikie, the doctrine of the origin of valleys by the erosive action of the streams which flow through them was first clearly taught by Desmarest. An enlarged and improved edition of his map of the volcanic region of Auvergne was published after his death, in 1823, by his son (1784–1838), who was distinguished as a zoologist, and author of memoirs on recent and fossil crustacea. He died in Paris on the 20th of September 1815.

 DESMARETS (or ), JEAN, (1595–1676), French dramatist and miscellaneous writer, was born in Paris in 1595. When he was about thirty he was introduced to Richelieu, and became one of the band of writers who carried out the cardinal’s literary ideas. Desmarets’s own inclination was to novel-writing, and the success of his romance Ariane in 1631 led to his formal admission to the circle that met at the house of Valentine Conrart and later developed into the Académie Française. Desmarets was its first chancellor. It was at Richelieu’s request that he began to write for the theatre. In this kind he produced a comedy long regarded as a masterpiece, Les Visionnaires (1637); a prose-tragedy, Érigone (1638); and Scipion (1639), a tragedy in verse. His success led to official preferment, and he was made conseiller du roi, contrôleur-général de l’extraordinaire des guerres, and secretary-general of the fleet of the Levant. His long epic Clovis (1657) is noteworthy because Desmarets rejected the traditional pagan background, and maintained that Christian imagery should supplant it. With this standpoint he contributed several works in defence of the moderns in the famous quarrel between the Ancients and Moderns. In his later years Desmarets devoted himself chiefly to producing a quantity of religious poems, of which the best-known is perhaps his verse translation of the Office de la Vierge (1645). He was a violent opponent of the Jansenists, against whom he wrote a Réponse à l’insolente apologie de Port-Royal (1666). He died in Paris on the 28th of October 1676.

 DESMARETS, NICOLAS, (1648–1721), French statesman, was born in Paris on the 10th of September 1648. His mother was the sister of J. B. Colbert, who took him into his offices as a clerk. He became counsellor to the parlement in 1672, master of requests in 1674 and intendant of finances in 1678. In these last functions he had to treat with the financiers for the coinage of new silver pieces of four sous. After Colbert’s death he was involved in the legal proceedings taken against those financiers who had manufactured coins of bad alloy. The prosecution, conducted by the members of the family of Le Tellier, rivals of the Colberts, presented no proof against Desmarets. Nevertheless he was stripped of his offices and exiled to his estates by the king, on the 23rd of December 1683. In March 1686 he was authorized to return to Paris, and again entered into relations with the controllers-general of finance, to whom he furnished for more than ten years remarkable memoirs on the economic situation in France. As early as 1687 he showed the necessity for radical reforms in the system of taxation, insisting on the ruin of the people and the excessive expenses of the king. By these memoirs he established his claim to a place among the great economists of the time, Vauban, Boisguilbert and the comte de Boulainvilliers. When in September 1699 Chamillart was named controller-general of finances, he took Desmarets for counsellor; and when he created the two offices of directors of finances, he gave one to Desmarets (October 22, 1703). Henceforth Desmarets was veritable minister of finance. Louis XIV. had long conversations with him. Madame de Maintenon protected him. The economists Vauban and Boisguilbert exchanged long conversations with him. When Chamillart found his double functions too heavy, and retaining the ministry of war resigned that of finance in 1708, Desmarets succeeded him. The situation was exceedingly grave. The ordinary revenues of the year 1708 amounted to 81,977,007 livres, of which 57,833,233 livres had already been spent by anticipation, and the expenses to meet were 200,251,447 livres. In 1709 a famine reduced still more the returns from taxes. Yet Desmarets’s reputation renewed the credit of the state, and financiers consented to advance money they had refused to the king. The emission of paper money, and a reform in the collection of taxes, enabled him to tide over the years 1709 and 1710. Then Desmarets decided upon an “extreme and violent remedy,” to use his own expression,—an income tax. His “tenth” was based on Vauban’s plan; but the privileged classes managed to avoid it, and it proved no better than other expedients. Nevertheless Louis XIV. managed to meet the most urgent expenses, and the deficit of 1715, about 350,000,000 livres, was much less than it would have been had it not been for Desmarets’s reforms. The honourable peace which Louis was enabled to conclude at Utrecht with his enemies was certainly due to the resources which Desmarets procured for him.

After the death of Louis XIV. Desmarets was dismissed by the regent along with all the other ministers. He withdrew to