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 356 VILLEMAIX VILLOISON VILLFJIAIN, Abel Francois, a French author, born in Paris, June 9, 1790, died there, May 8, 1870. He completed his education at the imperial lyceum (the present Louis-le-Grand college), where, as well as at the Charlemagne lyceum, he subsequently occupied the chair of rhetoric. He obtained academical prizes for his filoge de Montaigne (1812), and for two other essays, including Eloge de Montesquieu (1816). In 1816 he became professor of rhet- oric at the Sorbonne, having since 1814 taken Guizot's place as teacher of modern history. For several years he was chief of the printing and publishing department in the ministry of the interior; and in 1818 he was appointed auditor in the council of state. He was elected to the French academy in 1821 ; and in 1827 he lost the former offices for opposing the re- vival of the censorship. His lectures at the faculty aided in paving the way for the July revolutioh ; and in 1830 he was elected to the chamber of deputies and strenuously opposed the fatal ordinances of Charles X. In 1832 Louis Philippe made him a peer. In 1834 he became president of the council of education, and succeeded Arnault as perpetual secretary of the academy. He was minister of education in 1839-'40, and a?ain under Gnizot from the autumn of 1840 till the end of 1844. Subse- quently he took little part in politics, excepting in occasional speeches in the chamber of peers (1846-7), and he altogether retired after the revolution of 1848. He refused allegiance to Napoleon III., and in 1852 he was removed from his chair at the Sorbonne, retaining only the title of honorary professor. In his younger days he had given a new impulse to literature and scholarship by the generous eclecticism of his criticisms, to historical studies by promoting the publication of Documents inedits sur Vhis- toire de France, and to general culture by edu- cational reforms, and by a reorganization of the public library ; and in the last 20 years of his life he developed a remarkable literary ac- tivity in revising his former and preparing new works. They include Histoire de Crom- well (2 vols., Paris, 1819); La republique de Ciceron, a translation of Cicero's De Republica, from a palimpsest discovered in Rome in 1822 by Cardinal Mai (2 vols., 1823) ; Discours et melanges litteraires (1823; enlarged, 1860); Lascaris, ou Us Greet du quimieme stick, a historical novel (1825 ; new ed. by Gustavo Masson, London, 1875) ; Nouvcaux melanges historiques et litteraires (1827) ; Court de lit- terature francaise (5 vols., 1828-'38 ; enlarged, 6 vols., 1864) ; a celebrated Preface du Dic- tionnaire de V academic francaise (1835) ; fitudes de litterature ancienne et etrangere (1846 ; en- larged, 1859) ; Tableau de I 'eloquence chretienne au quatrieme siecle (1846 ; enlarged, 1857 ; later ed., 1861-'5) ; tudes d'histoire moderne, com- prising Lascaris, Discours sur Vetat de V Europe au XV' siecle, Essai historique sur Us Orecs de- pute la conquete mussulmane, and Vie du chan- celier de VHopital (1846 ; enlarged, 1856 ; new ed., 1862); Souvenirs contemporains d'histoire et de litterature (2 vols., 1853-'5; new <!.. 1859-'62) ; Choix d'etudes sur la litterature contemporaine (1857); La tribune moderne, the first part containing M. de Chateaubriand, sa vie, ses ecrits, son influence litteraire et po- liti>/ite sur son temps (2 vols., 1858); and his elaborate Histoire de Qregoire VII., preceded by his lecture on the history of the papacy down to the llth century (2 vols., 1872). YILLEMESSANT, Jean Hlppolyte de, a French journalist, born in Rouen, April 22, 1812. Ho is a son of Col. Cartier and Mile, de Villemes- sant, whose name he assumed. In 1830 he mar- ried and engaged in business at Blois. After residing at Tours and Nantes, he settled in 1840 in Paris, where he established the Sylphide and wrote the fashion articles for the Presse. In 1848 he was connected with several papers, which were speedily suppressed ; but the Chro- nique de Paris, founded by him Jan. 1, 1850, was not molested till June, 1852. His two sons-in-law enabled him in 1854 to revive the Figaro as a weekly and semi-weekly journal, and Edmond About, Rochefort, and Henri de Pne wrote for it. The last was wounded in a duel, and Villemessant himself and his staff were repeatedly involved in duels. But he turned all these and subsequent difficulties to good account, and became so successful that in 1866 he was able to issue a daily and to pay Rochefort an annual salary of 80,000 francs. To save the paper from prosecution, the latter withdrew in 1868. The daily issue is now (1876) 70,000, chiefly on account of its enter- taining gossip. Villemessant has conducted various other enterprises, and published Me- iii" i ri.i d'un journaliste (1867-'76 et seq,). YILLEBS, Charles Francois Dominique de, a French philosopher, born at Boulay, Lorraine, about 1765, died in Leipsic, Feb. 26, 1815. He was an artillery officer, but wrote against the revolution, and settled in 1797 in Lubeck. He devoted himself to the introduction of German literature and philosophy in France, translated a number of important works, and wrote La philosophic d Kant, ou principes fondamen- taux de la philosophic transcendentale (1801), Essai sur Vesprit et ^influence de la reforma- tion de Luther (1804), Coup d'ceil sur les uni- tersites de V AlUmagne protestante (1808), and Lettre a Madame la comtese Fanny de Beau- harnais sur Lubeck, in which ho related the atrocities committed by the French at the cap- ture of that city, and which caused his arrest and exile in 1811, when the Hanseatic towns were incorporated in the French empire. He found an asylum in Gottingen, where he be- came professor, but at the restoration of the Hanoverian dynasty he was deposed. YILLIERS. See BUCKINGHAM. YILLOISON, Jean Baptist* Gaspard d'Ansse de, a French philologist, born at Corbeil-sur-Seine about 1750, died April 26, 1805. In 1773 he published from a manuscript Apollonius's lexi- con of the Iliad and Odyssey, together with