REMUSAT, CLAIRE ELISABETH JEANNE GRAVION DE VERGENNES, Comtesse de, 17S0-1821; b. Paris; grand-niece of Vergennes, prime minister under Louis XVI. ; noted beauty of the court of Napoleon I., an intimate friend of Josephine, a woman of rare moral and intellectual endowments, and author of an Essai sur l'Education des Femmes (1821), and of the Memoires de Madame de Remusat (1879). Notwithstanding a life of dignity and honor spent in the heart of the corrupt and vulgar court of Napoleon I., and in which she became a semi-historical figure, she is best known by her posthumous which expose the baseness of Bonaparte's character by an analytical narrative of his home life. Partisans of the emperor throw doubts on the disinterestedness of her judgment. But the work affords its own evidences.
ItEXUSAT, JEAN PIERRE ABEL, a distinguished Chinese scholar, was born at Paris, Sept. 5, 1788, studied medicine, and took his diploma in 1813; but as early as 1811 had published an Essai sur la Langue at la, Litterature Chinoises, the fruit of five years' ardn ous work. In 1813 the conscription seized him, but, instead of being compelled to serve as a common soldier, he was appointed assistant-surgeon in, the Paris military hospitals, and was subsequently intrusted with the charge of fever-patients at the hospital Mon taiga. In the midst of his arduous and harassing professional duties, he found time to prepare for the press his Uranographie Mongole, and Dissertation sur-la Nature Monosylla bique attribuee communement d la Langue Chinoise. At last, however, the day came when he was at liberty to devote himself entirely to Sinological studies. The abbe Montesquiou, minister of the interior during the first restoration of the Bourbons, instituted a chair of Chinese at the college de France, and Remusat was named professor, Nov. 0, 1814. He delivered a splendid inaugural address in Jan., 1815, an analysis of which appeared in the Moniteur of Feb. 1, executed by Silvestre de Sacy himself. Of the numerous works that he wrote subsequent to this period, we may mention Recherches sur les Langues Tar tares (1820), a work in some sort preparatory to his Elements de la Grammaire Chinoise (1822), the grandest monument of the vast Sinological erudition and labor of Remusat. Another of his important philological productions was his I?echerches sur 'Origine et la Formation de l'Ecriture Chinoise (1827). "Although acquainted," says M. Walckenaer,
" with several of the most difficult of Asia, and with almost all the ancient and modern languages of Europe, he regarded such knowledge as only a means to an end. . . . . In a crowd of treatises, dissertations, critical analyses, and translations, either published as separate works or inserted in Memoires, he has endeavored, to embrace everything relating to the nations whom he proposed to make known. Religious beliefs, philosophical systems, natural history, geography, political revolutions, the origins of races, biography, literature, manners, habits, and customs—lie has treated all in an equally masterly style." Among the works of Remusat which illustrate this eloge of M. Walckenaer are his Etude Historique sur la Medecine des Chinois; Tableau Complet des Con naissances des Chinois en Histoire Naturelle (unfinished); Sur la Pierre Iu (a curiously learned disquisition on a crowd of historical questions and religious rites); Notice sur Chine et sea Habitants (in which the author treats of the extent, administration, manners, commerce, etc., of China); Sur l'Extension de l'Empire Chinois en Occident depuis le Premier Siècle avant Jesus-Christ jusqu'd nos Jaurs, a work that has thrown much light on the question: Who were the barbarians that overthrew the Roman empire? Rethusat, in particular, paid great attention to the religions of China, except, strange to say, that of Confucius. He was the first to make known in Europe the life and opinions of the philosopher Laou-Tsze, head of the religious sect and wrote numerous works, more or less valuable, on the history of Buddhism. A list of his various works is given in the article "Remusat," in the 1VOurelle Biographic Generate, to which we are chiefly indebted for our information. In 1818 Remusat became one of the editors of the Journal des Savants; in 1822 he founded the Societe Asiatique of Paris, of which he was perpetual secretary; in the following year he was chosen a member of the Asiatic socit tics of London and of Calcutta; and in 1824 he was appointed curator of the oriental department in the bibliotheque royale. He died of cholera at Paris, June 4, 1832, at the early age of 44.