REMUS AT
RENAN
He was a member of the Academy of
Moral and Political Sciences (1842) and the
French Academy (1846). Count Remusat
translated Cicero s De Legibus and part of
Goethe, and wrote a large number of
philosophical and historical works (chiefly
Essais de philosophic, 2 vols., 1842 ;
Aboard, 2 vols., 1845 ; and Histoire de la
philosophic en Angleterre, 1875). He was
a special authority on English literature
and wrote lives of Bacon, Lord Herbert,
Hartley, and Channing. He was an
eclectic Theist in regard to religion. " Of
the principles of the eighteenth century he
retained the love of free thought and
confidence in reason " (Nouvelle Biographic
Generale}. D. Jan. 6, 1875.
REMUSAT, Professor Jean Pierre Abel, M.D., French orientalist. J9. Sep. 5, 1788. Ed. Paris. He was trained in medicine, and he served in the hospitals of Paris and wrote several medical works. But from an early age ho was attracted to the study of Chinese, and as early as 1811 he won attention by his Essai sur la langue et la literature chinoises. In 1814 he was appointed professor of Chinese at the College de France. In the following year he was admitted to the Academy of Inscriptions. He now abandoned medicine and became one of the most learned philo logists in Europe. There were few Euro pean languages, ancient or modern, which he did not master, and he had a remarkable knowledge of Chinese literature. He was one of the first to vindicate the high morality of Lao-Tse and Buddha, and he severely criticized the missionaries for their Chinese translation of the Bible. Professor Remusat founded the Asiatic Society of Paris in 1822, and was its secretary until he died. He was Adminis trator of the oriental manuscripts at the Bibliotheque Royale ; and he was a mem ber of the Asiatic Societies of London, Calcutta, and Batavia, and the Academies of Berlin, St. Petersburg, and Turin. He was also an Officer of the Legion of Honour. D. June 4, 1832.
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REMUSAT, Count Paul Louis Etienne,
French writer and politician, son of Count C. F. M. de Remusat. B. Nov. 17, 1831. He studied law, but, like his father, turned from it to literature and political journalism. In 1857 he became associate editor of the Journal des Debats. In 1870 he accom panied Thiers on his tour of the courts of Europe, and, being elected to the National Assembly, he was made chef de cabinet to his father while he was Foreign Minister. In 1876 he was elected to the Senate. Count Paul wrote a biography of Thiers (1889), and published a volume of his articles from the Bevue des Deux Mondes (Les sciences naturelles, 1857). He was admitted to the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences. D. Jan. 22, 1897.
RENAN, Henriette, sister of J. Ernest Renan. B. July 22, 1811. Ed. by nuns. The father, a Breton fisher, was drowned in 1828, and Henriette opened a school at Treguier, where she and Ernest were born. It failed, and she went to teach at Paris, partly in order to pay her father s debts. She induced the ecclesiastical authorities at Paris to send for Ernest, who was studying for the priesthood, and, as she shortly afterwards abandoned Catholicism, she was ready to strengthen her brother s resolution when his period of doubt arrived. Their letters during that period (1842-45) were published in 1896 (Lettres intimes ; Eng. trans., Brother and Sister), and they reveal Henriette s magnificent character. Ernest lived with her after 1856, and Lockroy tells us (in his Au hazard de la vie, p. 48) that whenever Ernest seemed to regret the loss of his faith his sister would say : " Allons, allons, Ernest." She in spired his idea of writing a life of Christ, accompanied him to Syria, and copied out his notes. In the East she contracted a fatal illness. She was unconscious when a priest administered the rites of the Church to her. Canon W. Barry, in his scandalous life of Renan (1905), suppresses this fact in describing her end (p. 102). Renan himself, in his beautiful little work 650
