PIERRE PAUL, a French statesman; born in Sompuis, France, June 21, 1763. On the out break of the Revolution he was elected a member of the municipality of Paris, and in 1790-1792 acted as joint-secre tary. Having incurred the enmity of the Jacobins, he lived in hiding at Som puis during the Reign of Terror. Three years afterward (1797) chosen to the Council of the Five Hundred, he took an active part in the work of that as sembly, till the 18th Fructidor. In 1811 he was appointed Professor of Philos ophy in Paris, and exercised an immense influence on the philosophy of France. Rejecting the purely sensuous system of Condillac, he gave special prominence to the principles of the Scotch school of Reid and Stewart. Strongly "spiritual ist" as opposed to materialism, he orig inated the "Doctrinaire" school, of which Jouffroy and Cousin were the chief rep resentatives. He was appointed presi dent of the Commission of Public In struction in 1815, but resigned that post in 1820; in 1825 also he returned to political life as deputy for the depart ment of Marne. The French Academy
opened its doors to him in 1827; and in 1828 he was named president of the Chamber of Representatives, and in that capacity presented the address of the 221 deputies (March, 1830) withdrawing their support from the government, which the king refused to hear read. Next day the Chamber was prorogued. From 1842 Royer-Collard completely withdrew from public life. His salon was latterly the resort of such men as Cousin, Guizot, De Broglie, Casimir Pe rier, Villemain, De Remusat, and others. He never was a writer, and he became a philosopher only by accident; his true interest in life was politics, his real emi nence as a political orator after the ancient pattern rather than that of the modern parliamentary debater. He died in his country seat, Chateauvieux, near St. Aignan, Loir-et-Cher, Sept. 4, 1845.