FRERET, NICOLAS , French scholar, was born in Paris. His father was procureur to the parlement of Paris, and destined him to the profession of the law. His first tutors were the historian Charles Rollin and Father Desmolets (1677-1760). He was hardly 26 years of age when he was ad mitted as pupil to the Academy of Inscriptions. One of the first memoirs which he read was Sur l'origine des Francs (1714) . He maintained that the Franks were a league of South German tribes and not, according to the legend then almost universally received, a nation of free men deriving from Greece or Troy, who had kept their civilization intact in the heart of a barbarous coun try. These sensible views excited great indignation in the Abbe Vertot, who denounced Freret to the Government as a libeller of the monarchy. A lettre de cachet was issued, and Freret was sent to the Bastille. From the time of his liberation in March 1715 his life was uneventful. In Jan. 1716 he was received associate of the Academy of Inscriptions, and in Dec. 1742 he was made per petual secretary. The list of his memoirs, many of them post humous, occupies four columns of the Nouvelle Biographie generale. They treat of history, chronology, geography, mythology and religion. He was one of the first scholars of Europe to under take the study of the Chinese language; and in this he was en gaged at the time of his committal to the Bastille. He died in Paris on March 8,1749 The best account of his works is "Examen critique des ouvrages composes par Freret" in C. A. Walckenaer's Recueil des notices, etc. (1841-5o). See also Querard, France litteraire.
