GARAT, DomixtquE JosErrr, 1749-1833; a- French statesman and contributor to newspapers. In 1785, he was named professsor of history at the Paris athenwum, where his lectures enjoyed an equal popularity with those of Laharpe on literature. Pos sessing strongly optimist views, a mild and irresolute character, and indefinite and changeable convictions, he acted an undignified part in the great political events of the time, and became a tool in carrying out the designs of others. He succeeded Dan ton as minister of justice in 1792, and in this capacity had intrusted to him what he called the commission afreuse of communicating to Louis XVI. his sentence of death. In 1593, he became minister of the interior, and during the reign of terror, he was imprisoned, but received his liberty after the revolution of the 9th Thermidor, and was named minister of public instruction. In 1793, he was appointed ambassador to Naples, and in the following year he became a member of the council of ancients.
After the revolution of the 18th Brumaire, he was chosen a senator by Napoleon and created a count. During the htindred days he was a member of the chamber of repre sentatives, and the recall of the Bourbons. In 1803, he was chosen a member of the institute of France, but after the restoration of Louis XVIII. his name was, in 1816, removed from the list of members. After the revolution of 1830, he was named a member of the new academy of moral and political science. His writings are characterized by elegance, grace, and variety of style, and by the highest rhetorical elo quence; but his grasp of his subject is superficial, and as his criticisms have no met in fixed and philosophical principles they are not unfrequentiy whimsical and inconsistent. He must not be confounded with his elder brother Dominique, 1735-99, also a deputy to the states-general.