DESMOULINS
which he rails at " the blind zeal and
stupidity cleaving to superstition." Des-
maiseaux wrote numerous biographies and
was admitted to the Eoyal Society (1720).
D. July 11, 1745.
DESMOULINS, Benoit Camille, French politician. B. Mar. 2, 1760. Ed. College Louis le Grand, Paris. He studied law and practised at the Paris Bar. Before the Revolution he wrote a number of advanced pamphlets, and a speech of his in 1789 is regarded as the spark which lit the Eevolution. He represented Paris in the Convention and edited the Vieux Cordelier. Desmoulins worked for con ciliation as quarrels developed, and he was condemned to the guillotine. When the tribunal asked his age he said : " Same as that of the sans-culotte Jesus." D. Apr. 5, 1794.
DESNOIRETERRES, Gustavo le Brisoys, French writer. B. June 20, 1817. Ed. Bayeux. He adopted a literary career at Paris and established the monthly Province et Paris. He wrote novels of distinction, studies of Balzac and Gliick, and valuable works on eighteenth-century writers. His Voltaire et la Societe Fran- gaise au XVIII siecle (8 vols., 1867-75) was crowned by the Academy. D. Jan. 11, 1892.
DESSAIX, Count Joseph Marie,
French general. B. Sep. 24, 1764. Ed. Turin. He graduated in medicine and practised at Paris, but he returned to his native Savoy to spread revolutionary principles and formed " The Propaganda Society of the Alps." He advanced rapidly in the service of the Eepublic, and Napo leon made him a general. In 1803 he was made Commander of the Legion of Honour, and in 1809 Count. Dessaix was known as " the Intrepid " and " the Bayard of Savoy." He was imprisoned at the restoration, and was never reconciled with the royalist clericals. He commanded the National Guard in 1830. D. Oct. 26, 1834.
211
DESTRIYEAUX, Professor Pierre
Joseph, Belgian jurist. B. Mar. 13, 1780.
Ed. Paris. He won distinction at the
Liege Bar, and after 1816 was active
among the Belgian Liberals. In 1833 he
was appointed professor of criminal law.
The Catholic ministry deposed him in
1835, but in 1841 he was called to the
chair of modern political history, and in
1847 elected to the Chambre. He wrote
on law, and was conspicuous for reform in
the civic life of Liege. D. Feb. 3, 1853.
DESTUTT DE TRACY, Count Antoine Louis Claude, French philosophical writer. B. July 20, 1754. Ed. Strassburg Univer sity. A deputy to the States General, he adopted the moderate principles of the Eevolution and opposed excess. Napoleon made him a Senator (1801), and the Bour bons raised him to the peerage. He was a member of the Institut and the Academy. De Tracy was a friend of Condillac and Cabanis, whose ideas he partially embodies in his " ideology," denying the spirituality of the mind. His chief work is Elements d ideologie (5 vols., 1801-1815). His favourite recreation in his last years was to have Voltaire read to him. D. Mar. 10, 1836.
DETROSIER, Rowland, reformer. B. 1796. He was the illegitimate son of a Frenchwoman named Detrosier and a Manchester man, and he laboriously acquired his education while he worked in a mill. He founded the first Mechanics Institutes (Manchester and Salford) and the Banksian Society of Manchester. Detrosier, who presided over a Theistic chapel at Stockport, was a man of lofty ideals and a power among the progressive forces of the north. D. Nov. 23, 1834.
DEUBLER, Konrad, German peasant- philosopher. B. Nov. 25, 1814. He studied science and philosophy while working as a shepherd, and attained a remarkable repute. He corresponded with Feuerbach and Strauss, and was visited by
212
