BROSSES, CHARLES DE French magistrate and scholar, was born at Dijon. After a visit to Italy in 1739 he published his Lettres sur l'etat actuel de la ville souterraine d'Herculee (Dijon, 175o), the first work upon the ruins of Her culaneum. It was during this tour that he wrote his famous letters on Italy, posthumously published in 1799 (better edition by Poulet-Malassis, Lettres familieres, 1858). At the request of his friend Buffon, he undertook his Histoire des navigation aux terres australe s (1756). In this work de Brosses first laid down the geo graphical divisions of Australasia and Polynesia, which were adopted by succeeding geographers. In 1765 appeared his work on the origin of language, Traite de la formation mecanique des langues. De Brosses had been occupied, during a great part of his life, on a translation of Sallust, and in 1777 he published L'His toire du septieme siecle de la republique romaine, to which is prefixed a learned life of Sallust. De Brosses was first president of the parliament of Burgundy.
BIBLIOGRAPHY. See H. Mamet, Le President de Brosses, sa vie et Bibliography. See H. Mamet, Le President de Brosses, sa vie et ses ouvrages (Lille, 1874) ; also Cunisset-Carnot, "La Querelle de Voltaire et du president de Brosses," in the Revue des Deux Mondes (Feb. 15 :888).