MONTYON, Or MONTHYON, ANTOINE JEAN BAPTISTE ROBERT ANGEL, Baron de, (sometimes erroneously named MONTHION), 1733-1820; b. in Paris. Left in the possession of considerable wealth while young, he soon became distinguished by his noble use of it. An advocate at 23, member 'of the council of state at 27, at .bkle head of the government of Auvergne at 33, Moutyon in every place exhibited benevolence and philanthropy- in connection with administrative ability. He dedicated 20,000 livres annually to the help of poor workmen. After serving successively as intendant of Provence and La Roehelle he was called to Paris to be made councilor of state in 1775. Author as well as states man and philanthropist, he sent to the academie Francais in 1777 an Eloge de :Michel de l'Hospital; in 1778 published Recherches et Considerations sur la Population de. France. Often he relieved the wants of writers in distress, who rarely knew the source of their bene factions. In 1780 he founded a large number of prizes in the various societies of France, to be awarded through their officers to meritorious improvements or work in the arts, for the most useful literary works, for the best means of avoiding the unhealthy effects of certain mechanical operations upon the workmen, for the best treatises on mechanical processes, for the noblest acts performed by the poor, and for the most useful medicine. For each of these prizes or sets of prizes be set apart 12,000 livres of which the income should form the annual awards. At the beginning of the revolution, fearing the storm that menaced the rich and noble, he emigrated to Geneva, whence he sent an essay to the French academy, entitled, Consequences qui oat R.esulte pourl'Europe de la Deeouverte de
l'Amerique, for which be received the prize of 3,000 francs, and presented it to the acad emy to be used for another prize. He took no part while in Geneva, or afterwards while residing in England, with the intrigues of the royalists. In 1798 be published in London a valuable work entitled Rapport sur les Principes de la Monarchic Francaise, intended as a refutation of a work by Caloune in which that minister asserted that France never had had a legal constitution. Montyon made a..masterly, showing that .while France had not lacked for legal constitutions her kings' had always power and will to violate them at pleasure. He remained an exile from his country throughout the direc tory and the empire of Napoleon L, not so much by hilslettachmtfit to the old monarchy as his repugnance to the military horrors of imperialism. He returned to Paris in 1814. and after 1815 re-established such of his prizes and beneficences as had been stopped by the revolution and the empire, and not only put them on a new footing but endowed new charitable institutions in Paris; and on his death in Paris distributed permanent bequests to it large number of the most beneficent institutions of France. Among his published works of permanent value are: Quelle Influence oat les diverse Especes d'impots sac la Moraine, l'Activite, et des Penple; and, Particularites et Observations say les Ministres de Finances les plus Celebres depuis 1660 jusqu' en 1791, a remarkably interesting compendium of facts, philosophy, and anecdotes.