AIME-MARTIN, Lours, 1781-1847; a native of Paris, who in 1815 was appointed editing secretary to the chamber of deputies, and not long afterwards professor of belles lettres, moral philosophy, and history in the polytechnic school. In 1831, he became keeper of the library of Sainte Genevieve. In 1810 he published Lettres el Sophie sur in physique, la chimie, et rhistoire vaturelle, in prose and verse; and afterwards the Life of Bernardin de St. Pierre, in the literary style of his celebrated subject. But his most valuable work is Education des ndres de famale, showing that the only way to improve mankind is to educate women so that they may be able to raise up men of virtue. Ills wife, a daughter of the marquis of Belleport, was the widow of Bernardin de St. Pierre, whom she took for her husband in his 63d year, she being 18. She died in the same year with her second husband, bequeathing her fortune to Lamartine, with whom she was a special favorite.
AIN, a river in France, rises in the mountains of the Jura, flows through the depart ments of Jura and A., and after a course of about 100 m., falls into the Rhone, 18 m. above Lyon.
AIN, a frontier department of France, is bounded on the n. by the departments of Jura and Saone-et-Loire, on the e. it is separated from Switzerland and Savoy by the Rhone, which also divides it from Isere on the s., while on the w. the Saone separates it from the departments of the Rhone and Saone-et-Loire. The eastern part is mountainous ; but the southern portion of that part which lies to the w. of the Ain forms an argilla ceous plateau, abounding with marshes, which occasion epidemic fevers. This dep. con tains five arrondissements—Bourg, Belley,.Gex, Nautua, Trevoux—or 33 cantons. Area, 2230 sq.m. Pop. '76, 365,462. Chief t., Bourg.