VILLEMAIN, ABEL. FRANcOIS, a distinguished French scholar and writer, b. at Paris, June 11, 1790, and educated at the lycee Imperial (now the lycee Louis-le-Grand). In 1810 he was appointed extraordinary' professor of rhetoric at the lycee Charlemagne; and shortly after, maitre de conferences de litterature Francaise et de versification Latine, at the ecole Normale. During the years 1812-16 three of his literary essays were crowned by the French academy—the Elope de Montaigne, Avantages et,Inconvenients de la Critique, and Eloge de Montesquieu. „In 1816 he was appointed to a chair of modern history at the Sorbonne, as assistant to Guizot; but, in the course of the same year, was transferred by Royer-Collard to the chair of eloquence, which lie held till 1826. In 1819, he published in 2 vols. his Histoire de Cromwell d' apres les Memoires die Temps et les Recueils Parlementaires=a work written in a calm, liberal, and wise spirit. Louis XVIII. took notice of the author, and Villernain was induced to enter on a political career. The post assigned to him was rather a delicate one, that of chef de l'imprr merle et de la librairic. Under the ministry of M. Decazes, he also held the office of maitre des requetes to the council of state, and in 1820 was decorated with the legion of honor. Two years later appeared his translation (with preliminary essay and notes) of the Republic of Cicero; and in 1825, a drama entitled Lascaris, ou tes Gress du XV. Siecle, and an Essen sur Etat des Grecs depuis la Conqugte Mitsulmane. In 1827, having gradually passed over to the ranks of the liberal opposition, he was charged, along with Lacretelle et Chateaubriand, to draw up the petition addressed by the French academy to Charles X. against the re-establishment of the censorship of the press! The result of this hardihood was the loss of his appointment i as maitre des requetes, and, in consequence, a vast increase of his popularity as a lecturer at the Sorbonne. In the beginning of 1830 he was sent to the chamber of deputies by the electoral college of Evreux, took his seat among the liberal party, signed the famous address of the 221, and was altogether very prominent and active in those movements which brought about the constitutional monarchy of Louis Philippe. But
he was too sober, unsympathetic, philosophical a politician, too much a doctrinaire of the Guizot school, to be a favorite with the excitable masses, and he only sat in the chamber for one year. In 1831 the king named him member of the royal council of public instruction, of which he became vice-president in 1832. The same year witnessed his elevation to the peerage. Villemain held the portfolio of public instruction in the ministries of Soult (1838-40) and Guizot (1840-44); but his health failed under the immense labors of his department, and the impossibility of pleas ing so many different parties—the church, the university, the reds, the liberals, the doctrinaires, and the king himself; and, in consequence, he found it necessary to resign. Afterward, Villemain wisely devoted himself to literature alone. His principal works are: Coors de Litterature Francaise; Tableau du XVIIL Siecle; Discours et Melanges Lit teraires (1823); Nouveaux Melanges Ilistorigues et Litteraires (1827); Etudes de Litterature Aneienne et Etrangere (1846); Tableau de ('Eloquence Chretienne au IV Siècle (2d ed. 1849); Etudad'Ilistoire Moderne (1846) ; Souvenirs Contempora ins d' Ilistoire et de Litterature (1856); Choix d'Etudes sur la Litterature Contemporaine (1857); La Tribune Contemporaine, JL de Clarteatibriand (1857); Essais sur le Genie de Pindare et sur laPoesie Lyrique (1859); besides a vast number of essais, etudes, discours, notices, and rapport's, addressed to the French academy, of which he was perpetual secretary from 1832. Villemain's elaborate Hist oire de Gregoire VII., nearly finished at the time of his death, was published in 1872. Villemain died Slay 8, 1870.