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FAB
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FAB

a valuable record, particularly in reference to the progress of the Roman constitution. The fragments of them which remain, have been collected and carefully edited by Krause and Müller. There was another work, also entitled Annals, written by Servius Fabius Pictor, whose literary and legal accomplishments won for him distinction in the second century b.c.—W. B.

FABRE, Antoine-François-Hippolyte, a French physician, was born at Marseilles in 1797, and died at Paris in 1853. After taking his degree he was for some time engaged on several medical journals, and in 1827 became editor of the Clinique des Hôpitaux. In the following year he began the Lancette française, gazette des Hôpitaux. In 1833 the Institute voted him a medal for his work, published in the preceding year, on cholera morbus. Fabre was a voluminous writer. He seems to have had a turn for satire, and to have lashed with an unmerciful hand many of the abuses of the profession of medicine.—R. M., A.

FABRE, Jean Claude, a French ecclesiastic, and an author of some repute, was born at Paris in 1668, and died there in 1753. He was educated in his native city, and after being admitted to the degree of bachelor in theology by the faculty of Paris, entered the congregation of the oratory. The Pères de l'Oratoire made him professor of philosophy in their seminary at Rumilly. He taught also successively at Toulon, Riom, Mans, &c. After this he filled a theological chair, first at Riom and then at Lyons. It was while residing at the latter that he published his small Latin and French Dictionary, and also his enlarged edition of the Satirical Dictionary of Richelet. The warm commendation which he bestowed in that book on the Port Royalists, made the congregation of the oratory too hot for him. He accordingly withdrew from the society of the fathers, and retired to Clermont in Auvergne, where he supported himself by teaching. In 1715 he re-entered the congregation, and soon after published his little book entitled "Conversation between Christina and Pelagia, schoolmistresses, respecting the reading of the scriptures." The latter part of his life he spent at Paris, in writing his "Continuation of the Ecclesiastical History of the Abbé Fleury." This work is very bulky and tedious, and much inferior to that of Fleury.—R. M., A.

FABRE, Jean-Pierre, Count, a French politician, was born in 1755. He was originally an advocate in the parliament of Toulouse in 1783, was sent as a deputy to the estates of Languedoc, and held in succession various local offices. He quitted France during the Reign of Terror, but returned after the fall of Robespierre, and obtained a seat in the council of Five Hundred. He afterwards attached himself to the fortunes of Bonaparte, was appointed successively president of the tribunat, commander of the legion of honour, a member of the senate, a count of the empire, and procurator-general of the council. In 1814 he was one of the first to turn against Napoleon; but he joined him once more on his return from Elba. He opposed, however, the proposal to confer the crown on Napoleon's son, and declared in favour of the second restoration of the Bourbons. He was restored to his place in the chamber of peers in 1819, and died of cholera in 1832. Count Fabre was the author of various political pamphlets.—J. T.

FABRE, Jean-Raymond-Auguste, was born in 1792, and died in 1839. He was brother of M. J. Victorin Fabre. Like his brother, he gave up other pursuits for literature, and commenced his career as author, in 1823, with an epic poem, entitled "La Caledonie, ou la guerre nationale." M'Pherson's Ossian and some Danish legends supplied him with a story and the names of heroes. The poem was little read, and much praised. Modern Greece supplied him with his best subject, and in 1825 he wrote a tragedy, "Irene, or the Heroine of Souli," which the censorship did not permit to be acted. He next published a "Historical narrative of the Siege of Missolonghi." In 1829 he became one of the originators of a newspaper, called La Tribune, which in the next year passed into the hands of persons whose politics differed from his. This led him to publish some explanations and vindications. Fabre was a republican, but such a republic as he dreamed of has not yet been realized by any human society. With virtue a republic, according to him, is the best form of government; without it, the worst, and the least capable of supporting itself. In 1833 he published an interesting account of the revolution of 1830.—J. A., D.

FABRE, Marie-Joseph-Victorin,, was born at Jaujac in 1785, and died at Paris in 1831. Fabre, while yet a boy, wrote verses, which gained him a reputation beyond the bounds of France. Klein translated some of them into German, and such honours as academies can confer were bestowed on the young poet. At the age of nineteen he read at the Athenæum of Paris an éloge on Boileau, which was followed by similar displays on Corneille, La Bruyère, and Montaigne. In 1810 and 1811 he delivered lectures on eloquence. At the birth, of the king of Rome, efforts were made to get him to write a poem, but in vain. While every one who could string rhymes together was found contributing to swell the mass of nonsense, published under the titles of L'Hymen et la Naissance, and La Couronne poétique de Napoléon le Grand, Fabre and Delille refused to write. This did not prevent the emperor from asking Fabre to compose an "oraison funèbre" for Marshal Bessières. "Monsieur Fabre refuse tout," said he, with graceful flattery; "mais s'il agit de réveiller le sentiment de la défence nationale, il ne refusera pas." In 1823 Fabre delivered a course of lectures on the principles of civil society, intended as an introduction to a work which death interrupted. His works have been collected and published by Sabbotier, in 4 vols., Paris, 1844-45.—J. A., D.

FABRE D'EGLANTINE, Phillipe François Nazaire, born at Carcassonne in 1755; guillotined at Paris in 1794. He was dissipated in youth, became a player, and acted at Geneva, Lyons, and Brussels. He also painted miniatures, and wrote verses. At the age of sixteen he obtained at Paris a prize for verse, and afterwards was awarded the eglantine of gold at the "jeux floraux" of Toulouse. To his own name he added that of the flower. He went to Paris with a bundle of comedies, many of which he succeeded in bringing on the stage, and one of which had some success. He now plunged into the desperate politics of the Revolution, was of Danton's party, and for a while his secretary. He was sent to the convention as deputy for Paris. He voted for the king's death, but accompanied his vote with some oracular or prophetic speech that the people was the true sovereign, but had little chance of getting this truth acknowledged. Hebert soon after demanded his expulsion from the jacobin club, as having condemned the king not by a straightforward vote, but "d'une manière detournée." He was accused of "moderantisme" by the ultra-revolutionary clubs. He and Danton were executed at the same time, on the charge of wishing to restore the Bourbons. He left seventeen comedies, and an indecent novel. He contributed to a journal called the Revolutions of Paris.—J. A., D.

FABRE D'OLIVET, M., was born at Ganges, Languedoc, in 1768, and died at Paris in 1825. He was sent to Paris at twelve years of age to learn the silk trade, but soon left this occupation for what is called literature, and wrote plays and poems, which had their hour of success. Then came metaphysics and philology, and our hero found keys to the hieroglyphics, which, as far as we can see, opened nothing. Animal magnetism then caught his fancy, and through this he promised himself, after the manner of the Egyptian priests, to give hearing to those who were born stone-deaf. He had the power of raising up by an effort of the imagination any person, dead or alive, with whom he wished to converse. He was fond of the study of languages. Language had for him charms more than for others, for in every word, nay, in every syllable and letter, he found allegories. He had some talent for music. He thought he had recovered the musical system of the ancient Greeks, and as a specimen of the "mode Hellénique," executed an oratorio on Bonaparte's coronation. He has left some works on philology, very fanciful. He published a translation of Byron's Cain, with Commentaries, in which a great deal seems borrowed from the Cabbala. His books are amusing, if they cannot be given higher praise.—J. A., D.

FABRETTI, Raffaele the most erudite antiquarian of the seventeenth century. He was born of a noble family at Urbino in 1608. Having entered the seminary of Cagli, he was instructed in grammar and belles-lettres by the celebrated Manuzio; and, having adopted law as his profession, he received the degree of LL.D., when only eighteen years of age. His great professional acquirements, conjointly with the suavity of his manners, recommended him to Cardinal Imperiali, who sent him to Spain to protect the temporalities of the church; and he protracted his sojourn there for thirteen years, spending his many leisure hours in collecting antiquities, and in making archæological researches. Fabretti wrote there his "Arte Lapidaria;" and many consider him in that branch of archæology by far superior to Maffei. On his return to Rome he was intrusted with the keeping of the secret archives of the Vatican by Pope