Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 3.djvu/418

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BAR—BAR

resided with his family at Aubague, and during this period of his life was introduced by his friend, M. Gary of Marseilles, to the study of classical antiquities, particularly in the department of numismatics. In 1744 he repaired to Paris, carrying with him a letter of introduction to M. Gros de Boze, perpetual secretary of the Academy of Inscriptions and Belles Letters, and keeper of the medals. He became assistant to De Boze, and on the death of the latter in 1753, was appointed his successor. In the following year he was enabled to pay a visit to Italy, and spent some time in that country, inspecting its rich treasures of classical remains. While on his journey he made the acquaintance of the French ambassador, M. de Stainville, afterwards due de Choiseul, and of his wife. The minister conceived a great regard for Barthelemy, and on his accession to power loaded the scholar with benefits. In 1759 he gave him a pension on the archbishopric of Albi; in 1765 he conferred on him the treasurership of Sfc Martin de Tours, and, in 1768, made him secretary- general to the Swiss guards. In addition to these sources of revenue, the abbe" enjoyed a pension of 5000 livres on the Mercure de France. His income, which was thus con siderable, was well employed by him; he supported and established in life three nephews, and gave largely to indigent men of letters. In 1789, after the publication of ]iis great work, ho was elected a member of the French Academy, one of the highest honours to which a French author aspires. During the troubled years of the Revolu tion, Bartheleiny, from his position and habits, took no share in any public affairs. Yet he was informed against and arrested as an aristocrat. So great, however, was the respect felt for his character and talents, that the Com mittee of Public Safety were no sooner informed of the arrest, than they gave orders for his immediate release.

Barthelemy died soon after, on the 30th April 1795.


The great work on which Barthelemy s fame rests appeared in 1788, and was entitled Voyage dujcune Anacharsis en Grecc, dans le milieu du quatrieme siecle avant I ere Chreticnne. He had begun it in 1757, and, during an uninterrupted succession of thirty years, occupied his leisure hours in bringing it to maturity. The hero, a young Scythian, descended from the famous philosopher Anacharsis, whose name he bears, is supposed to reuair to Greece for instruction in his early youth, and after making the tour of her republics, colonies, and islands, to return to his native country and write this book in his old age, after the Macedonian hero had overturned the Persian empire. In the manner of modern travellers, lie gives an account of the customs, government, and antiquities of the country he is supposed to have visited; a copious introduction supplies whatever may be wanting in respect to historical details; whilst various dissertations on the music of the Greeks, on the literature of the Athenians, and on the economy, pursuits, ruling passions, man ners, and customs, of the surrounding states, supply ample informa tion on the subjects of which they treat. The author, indeed, is not profound; and the young Scythian seldom penetrates much be low the surface. But his remarks are commonly judicious, and to considerable erudition he unites singular skill in the distribution of his materials, and a happy talent for presenting his subject in the most agreeable and attractive form. The assumed character is so admirably sustained throughout, that we can scarcely persuade our selves we are not perusing a book of real travels, and communing with an actual personage who has recorded his observations and ex perience for the instruction and improvement of his countrymen. Modern scholarship has superseded most of the details in the Voyage, but the author himself did not imagine his book to be a register of accurately ascertained facts; he rather intended to afford to his countrymen, in an interesting form, some knowledge of Greek civilization. The Charicles of Becker is a more recent attempt in a similar direction, but, though superior in scholarship, it wants the charm of style which is the principal quality in the Anacharsis.

BARTHEZ, or Barthès, Paul Joseph, one of the most celebrated physicians of France, was born on the llth of December 1734, at Montpellier. He received his early education at Narbonne and Toulouse, and soon gave decisive indications of the great talents with which nature had endowed him. He commenced the study of medicine at Montpellier in 1750, and in 1753, when he had only at tained his nineteenth year, he received his doctor s degree. He afterwards occasionally visited Paris, where he attracted the notice and acquired the friendship of the most distin guished literati of the period. In 1756 he obtained tli3 appointment of physician to the military hospital in Nor mandy attached to the army of observation commanded by Marshal d Estr^es. A severe attack of hospital fever com pelled him to leave this post; but the numerous cases which had come under his notice furnished materials for several papers contributed to the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences. In 1757 his services were required in the medical staff of the army of Westphalia, where he had the rank of consulting physician. After his return to Paris he acted for some time as joint editor of the Journal des Savans and the Encyclopedic Mcthodique. In 1761 he obtained a medical professorship at Montpellier, in which his abilities as a teacher soon shone forth with unrivalled lustre. His success was the more honourable, inasmuch as his colleagues Lamure, Leroy, and Venel were men of distinguished reputation, and had raised the school to a high pitch of celebrity.

In 1774 he was created joint chancellor of the university, with the certainty of succeeding singly to the office on the death of the colleague, which happened in 1786. He afterwards took the degree of doctor in civil law, and was appointed counsellor to the Supreme Court of Aids at Mont pellier. In 1780 he was induced to fix his residence in Paris, having been nominated consulting physician to the king, with a brevet of counsellor of state, and a pension of a hundred louis. Honours were now heaped upon him; he was admitted free associate to the Academies of Sciences and of Inscriptions, and appointed first physician to the duke of Orleans, in the room of Tronchin. His reputation increased in proportion as his merits were displayed on a wider theatre. He practised as a physician at Paris for nearly ten years, and received the most flattering testi monials of public approbation.

The outbreak of the French Revolution compelled Bar- thez to leave Paris. He lost considerable part of his fortune, and retired to Carcassonne, where he devoted himself to the study of theoretical medicine. It was in this retreat that he gave to the world his Nouvelle MccaniquR des Mouvemens de 1 IIomme ct des Animaux, which appeared in 1798.

On the re-establishment of the College of Medicine at Montpellier, Barthez was naturally looked upon as the person most likely to revive its former fame. But age and infirmity operated to dissuade him from resuming the laborious office of teacher, and he was accordingly nominated honorary professor. In 1802 he received several marks of favour from the new government under Bonaparte; he was nominated titular physician to the Government, and afterwards consulting physician to the emperor, and member of the Legion of Honour.

His Traitement des Maladies Goutteuses, in two vols. Svo, appeared in 1802, and he afterwards occupied , himself in preparing for the press a new edition of his JSlemcns de la Science de I lfomme, of which he just lived to see the pub lication. His health had been declining for some years before his death, which took place soon after his removal to Paris, on the loth of October 1806, in the 72d year of his age. He bequeathed his books and manuscripts to M. Lordat, who, in consequence, published two volumes of Consultations de Medicine, Paris, 1810, Svo, to which he prefixed a preface of his own. Another posthumous work of Barthez, the Traite du Beau, preceded by some account of his life, was edited in 1807 by his brother, M. Barthez de Marmorieres.

Barthez has enjoyed a much higher reputation on the Continent than in England, where, indeed, his writings