HERBELOT DE MOLAINVILLE, BARTHELEMY D' (1625-1695), French orientalist, was born on Dec. 14, 1625, in Paris. He was educated at the University of Paris, and devoted himself to the study of oriental languages, going to Italy to perfect himself in them by converse with the orientals who frequented its sea-ports. There he also made the acquaintance of Holstenius, the Dutch humanist (1596-1661), and Leo Allatius, the Greek scholar (1586-1669) . On his return to France after a year and a half, he was received into the house of Fouquet, superintendent of finance, who gave him a pension of 1,500 livres. On Fouquet's disgrace in 166i, he was appointed secretary and interpreter of Eastern languages to the king. On a second visit to Italy the grand-duke Ferdinand II. of Tuscany presented him with a large number of valuable oriental mss., and tried to attach him to his court. Her belot, however, was recalled to France by Colbert, and in 1692 he succeeded D'Auvergne in the chair of Syriac, in the College de France. He died in Paris on Dec. 8, 1695. His great work is the Bibliotheque orientale, ou dictionnaire universel contenant tout ce qui regarde la connoissance des peuples de l'Orient, based mainly on the Arabic dictionary of Hadji Khalfa, which occupied him nearly all his life, and was completed in 1697 by A. Galland.
The Bibliotheque was reprinted at Maestricht (1776) , and at The Hague (4 vols., . The latter edition is enriched with the con tributions of the Dutch orientalist Schultens, Johann Jakob Reiske (1716-74) , and by a supplement provided by Visdelow and Galland.