AZAIS, PIERRE HYACINTHE French philosopher, was born at Soreze and died at Paris. The son of the musician P. H. Azais (1743-96), he spent his early years as a teacher and a village organist. In 1809 he published his Des Compensations dans les destinees humaines ( 5th ed. 1846), which pleased Napoleon so much that he made its author professor at St.-Cyr. The Restoration Government at first suspected him as a Bonapartist, but at length granted him a pension. From that time he occupied himself in lecturing and the publication of philosophical works. In the Compensations he sought to prove that, on the whole, happiness and misery are equally balanced, and therefore, that men should accept the government which is given them rather than risk the horrors of revolution.