for her lover, and false to him only because her love of splendour,
comfort and iuxury prevents her from welcoming privation with
him or for him, though in effect she prefers him to all others, perfectly
natural and even amiable in her degradation, and yet showing the
moral of that degradation most vividly, Manon is one of the most
remarkable heroines in all fiction. She had no literary ancestress;
seems to have sprung entirely from the imagination, or perhaps
sympathetic observation, of the wandering scholar who drew
her. Only the Princesse de Clèves can challenge comparison with
before or near to her own date, and in Manon Lescaut the
plot is much more complete and interesting, the sentiments less
artificial, and the whole story nearer to actual life than in
Madame de la Fayette's masterpiece. Prévost's other works
include: Le Doyen de Killérine, histoire morale, composée sur les
mémoires d'une illustre famille d'Irlande (Paris, 1735; 2nd part,
the Hague, 1739, 3rd, 4th and 5th parts, 1740); Tout pour l'amour
(1735), a translation of Dryden's tragedy; Histoire d'une Grecque
moderne (Amsterdam [Paris] 2 vols., 1740); Histoire de Marguerite
d'Anjou (Amsterdam [Paris] 2 vols., 1740); Mémoires pour servir à
l'histoire de Malte (Amsterdam, 1741); Campagnes philosophiques,
ou mémoires . . . contenant l'histoire de la guerre d'Irlande
(Amsterdam, 1741); Histoire de Guillaume le Conquérant (Paris,
1742); Histoire générale des voyages (15 vols., Paris, 1746–1759),
continued by other writers; translations from Samuel Richardson,
Pamela (4 vols., 1742), Lettres anglaises ou Histoire de Miss Clarisse
Harlowe (6 vols., London, 1741); Nouvelles lettres anglaises, ou Histoire
du Chevalier Grandisson (Amsterdam, 3 vols., 1755); Mémoires pour
servir à l'histoire de la vertu (Cologne, 4 vols., 1762), from Mrs
Sheridan's Mémoires of Miss Sidney Bidulph; Histoire de la maison
de Stuart (3 vols., 1740) from Hume's History of England to 1688;
Le Monde moral, ou Mémoires pour servir à l'histoire du cœur
humain (2 vols., Geneva, 1760), &c.
For the bibliography of Prévost's works, which presents many complications, and for documentary evidence of the facts of his life see H. Harrisse, L'Abbé Prévost (1896); also a thesis (1898) by V. Schroeder.
PRÉVOST, CONSTANT (1787–1856), French geologist, was born in Paris on the 4th of June 1787, and was son of Louis Prévost, receiver of the rentes of that city. He was educated at the Central Schools, where, inspired by the lectures of G. Cuvier, Alexandre Brongniart and A. Duméril, he determined to devote himself to natural science. He took his degree in Letters and Sciences in 1811, and for a time pursued the study of medicine and anatomy. Mainly through the influence of Brongniart he turned his attention to geology, and during the years 1816–1819 made a special study of the Vienna Basin where he pointed out for the first time the presence of Tertiary strata like those of the Paris Basin, but including a series of later date. His next work (1821) was an essay on the geology of parts of Normandy, with special reference to the Secondary strata, which he compared with those of England. From 1821–1829 he was professor of geology at the Athenaeum at Paris, and he took a leading part with Ami Boué, G. P. Deshayes and Jules Desnoyers in the founding of the Geological Society of France (1830). In 1831 he became assistant professor and afterwards honorary professor of geology to the faculty of sciences. Having studied the volcanoes of Italy and Auvergne, he opposed the views of von Buch regarding craters of elevation, maintaining that the cones were due to the material successively errupted. Like Lyell he advocated a study of the causes or forces now in action in order to illustrate the past. One of his more important memoirs was De la Chronologie des terrains et du synchronisme des formations (1845). He died in Paris on the 17th of August 1856.
Memoir with portrait, by J. Gosselet, Ann. soc. géol. du nord, tome xxv. 1896.
PRÉVOST, EUGÈNE MARCEL (1862–), French novelist, was born in Paris on the 1st of May 1862. He was educated at Jesuit schools in Bordeaux and Paris, entering the École Polytechnique in 1882. He published a story in the Clairon as early as 1881, but for some years after the completion of his studies he applied his technical knowledge to the manufacture of tobacco. He published in succession, Le Scorpion (1887), Chonehette (1888), Mademoiselle Jaufre (1889), Cousine Laura (1890), La Confession d'un amant (1891), Lettres de femmes (1892), L'Automne d'une femme (1893), and in 1894 he made a great sensation by an exaggerated and revolting study of the results of Parisian education and Parisian society on young girls, Les Demi-vierges, which was dramatized and produced with great success at the Gymnase on the 21st of May 1895. Le Jardin secret appeared in 1897; and in 1900 Les Vierges fortes, and a study of the question of women's education and independence in two novels Frédérique and Léa. L'Heureux ménage (1901), Les Lettres à Françoise (1902), La Princesse d'Erminge (1904), and L'Accordeur aveugle (1905) are among his later novels. An amusing picture of modern German manners is given in his Monsieur et Madame Moloch (1906). He had a great success in 1904 with a four act play La Plus faible, produced at the Comédie Française. In 1909 he was elected to the Academy.
PRÉVOST, PIERRE (1751-–1839), Swiss philosopher and physicist, son of a Protestant clergyman in Geneva, was born in that city on the 3rd of March 1751, and was educated for a clerical career. But he forsook it for law, and this too he quickly deserted to devote himself to education and to travelling. He became intimate with J. J. Rousseau, and, a little later, with Dugald Stewart, having previously distinguished himself as a translator of and commentator on Euripides. Frederick II. of Prussia secured him in 1780 as professor of philosophy, and made him member of the Akadémie der Wissenschaften in Berlin. He there became acquainted with Lagrange, and was thus led to turn his attention to physical science. After some years spent on political economy and on the principles of the fine arts (in connexion with which he wrote, for the Berlin Memoirs, a remarkable dissertation on poetry) he returned to Geneva and began his work on magnetism and on heat. Interrupted occasionally in his studies by political duties, in which he was often called to the front, he remained professor of philosophy at Geneva till he was called in 1810 to the chair of physics. He died at Geneva on the 8th of April 1839.
Prévost published much on philology, philosophy, and political economy; but he will be remembered mainly for having published, with additions of his own, the Traité de physique of G. L. Le Sage, and for his enunciation of the law of exchange in radiation. His scientific publications included De l'Origine des forces magnétiques (1788), Recherches physico-mécaniques sur la chaleur (1792), and Essai sur le calorique rayonnant (1809).
PRÉVOST-PARADOL, LUCIEN ANATOLE (1829–1870), French man of letters, was born in Paris on the 8th of August 1829. He was educated at the College Bourbon and entered the École Normale. In 1855 he was appointed professor of French literature at Aix. He held the post, however, barely a year, resigning it to become a leader-writer on the Journal des débats. He also wrote in the Courrier du dimanache, and for a very short time in the Presse. His chief works are Essais de politique et de littérature (three series, 1859–1866), and Essais sur les moralistes français (1864). He was, however, rather a journalist than a writer of books, and was one of the chief opponents of the empire on the side of moderate liberalism. He underwent the usual difficulties of a journalist under that regime, and was once imprisoned. In 1865 he was elected an Academician. The accession of Émile Ollivier to power was fatal to Prévost-Paradol, who apparently believed in the possibility of a liberal empire, and consequently accepted the appointment of envoy to the United States. This was the signal for the most unmeasured attacks on him from the republican party. He had scarcely installed himself in his post before the outbreak of war between France and Prussia occurred. He shot himself at Washington on the 11th of July 1870, and died on the 20th.
PREY (O. Fr. preie, mod. proie, Lat. praeda, booty, from prae and the root hed—seen in prehendere, prendere, to grasp), booty, spoil, plunder taken in war, by robbery, or other violent means; particularly the quarry, the animal killed for food by a carnivorous animal; a beast or bird of prey. A particular usage for that which is saved from any trial of strength or battle is familiar from the Bible (Jer. xxi. 9) “his life shall be unto him for a prey.”
PRIAM (Gr. Πρίαμος), in Greek legend, the last king of Troy, son of Laomedon and brother of Tithonus. Little is known of him before the Trojan War, which broke out when he was advanced in years. According to Homer (Iliad, iii. 184) in his
