MERLIN, PHILIPPE ANTOINE, COUNT , French politician and lawyer, known as Merlin "of Douai," was born at Arleux (Nord) on Oct. 30, 1754, and was called to the Flemish bar in 1775. As deputy for Douai in the Constituent Assembly he carried important legislation abolishing the feudal and seignorial rights. On the dissolution of the Assembly he be came judge of the criminal court at Douai. As a member of the council of legislation he presented to the Convention on Sept. 17, 1793 the law permitting the detention of suspects. He was closely allied with his namesake Merlin "of Thionville," and, after the counter-revolution which brought about the fall of Robespierre, he became president of the Convention and a member of the Committee of Public Safety. He persuaded the Committee of Safety to close the Jacobin club. He recommended the readmis sion of the survivors of the Girondin party to the Convention, and drew up a law limiting the right of insurrection. With Cambaceres he had been commissioned in April 1794 to report on the civil and criminal legislation of France, and produced his Rapport et pro jet de code des delits et des peines (1 o Venclemiaire, an. IV.).
Merlin's code abolished confiscation, branding and imprisonment for life. He was made minister of justice (Oct. 3o, 1795) under the Directory. After the coup d'etat of the 18th Fructidor he became (Sept. 5, 1797) one of the five directors, and, being accused of the various failures of the government, retired into private life on June 18, 1799. Under the consulate he became procureur general in the court of caseation, and did more than any other lawyer to fix the interpretation of the Napoleonic Code. He be came a member of the council of state, count of the empire, and grand officer of the Legion of Honour; but was banished on the second restoration. The years of his exile were devoted to his Repertoire de jurisprudence (5th ed., 18 vols., 1827-1828) and to his Recueil alphabetique des questions de droit (4th ed., 8 vols., 1827-28). At the revolution of 183o he returned to France, and re-entered the Institute of France. He died in Paris on Dec. 26, 1838.
See M. Mignet, Portraits et notices historiques (1852), vol i.