RAYNAL, WILLIAM FRANCIS, a celebrated French historian, was born at St. Genies, in the Rovergue, in the year 1713. At an early age he entered the society of the Jesuits, and was ordained priest ; but he quitted that body in the year 1748, and began the career of a professional author. In 1748 he published his Histoire du Stadthouderat, which was followed by his Histoire du Parlement D'4ngleterre ; a work which procured him considerable celebrity. He likewise composed a work entitled Anecdotes Literaires, in 3 vols. 12ino.; the Memoires de Ninon de l'Enclos, and various smaller pieces, in the Me•cure de France.
lit consequence of finding that his literary pursuits were not very profitable, he entered into some commer cial speculations, which led him to those studies which terminated in the composition of his great work entitled " Histoire Fhiloso/rhique et Politique des Etablissemens et du Commerce des Europeens dans les deux Index ; which appeared in the year 1770. This work at first excited considerable interest. One party was pleased with the spirit of philosophy and liberty which it breathed, and regarded its author as a bold reformer of the abuses of the age in which he lived; while the critics of another party condemned both the style and the principles of the work, and cast a doubt even on the facts and docu ments on which the reasonings of the author were founded.
Sensible of the numerous imperfections of his work, the Abbe himself resolved to improve it by foreign travel; and he accordingly visited the principal commer cial towns in France, England, and Holland, and col lected much useful information from the traveller's and mercantile men with whom he happened to associate. Upon his return he corrected and enlarged his work, and published it at Geneva, in 10 vols. 8vo. Although the work was greatly i hproved, yet its general tone was the sante; and so bold were its aspersions upon existing authorities, that the Parliament of Paris ordered it to be burnt, and issued a decree for apprehending Raynal.
Under these circumstances he retired to Spa; and, after having made a tour through Germany, and visited most of its principal towns, he ventured to return to France, and lived unmolested in the southern provinces.
The war between America and the mother country having excited general attention in Europe, the Abbe R ynal published. in 1781, his Tableau et Revolutions des Colonies Angloise• dans l'Amerique Se/itentrionale. When the French revolution was about to burst forth, the Abbe came to Paris in 1788 ; and one of the first acts of the National Assembly was to abrogate the decree which had been issued against him by the parlia ment. The violent and unjust proceedings which afterwards took place in Paris induced our author to publish, in May 1791, a long letter of advice and re monstrance, in which he points out the errors and licentiousness of the people, reminds them of the eter nal obligations of religion, the laws, and the royal authority, and endeavours to prove that it was not the business or the right of the Assembly to abolish ancient institutions, and that the genius of the French people is such, that they cannot be happy or pro.sperous but under a well regulated monarchical government. These re monstrances excited little notice, and the author retired to where Ire died in a state of great indigence, in March 1794, in the 85th year of his age. The Abbe Raynal wrote a History of the Divorce of Catharine of Arragon by Henry VIII. and a History of the Revoca tion of the Edict of „Mintz, See Marmontel's Memoirs, for some anecdotes of Raynal.