CHAI1POLLION, JEAN FRANCOIS LE-JEUNE, so called to distinguish him from his elder brother, Champollion.Figese, was born at Neese, in the department of Lot, December 23, 1790. lie studied in the lyceum of Grenoble, and afterwards went to Paris In 1807, where he applied himself to the oriental languages under Langlte and De racy, bet more especially to the study of the Coptic, and to Egyptian archaeology In generaL In 1911 ha was appointed professor of history in the lyceum of Grenoble, and librarian of the public library. In MI be published Lie first work, L'Egypte sous les Pharaohs; 2 vole. evo, which is a geographical description of that country under its sealant kings, with a view to fix its divisions, the sites and names of Ito towns, te. The work is accompanied bf • map. In the preface, alluding to the hieroglyphics on the Egyptian monuments, he nye "that it was tote hoped that from these monuments, on which ancient Xgypt painted mere material objects, we should be able at but tc discover the sounds of its language, and the expression of Its thought? In 1821 be published at Gmeloble a little work,' De neriture llidra thine des Amine Egyptlesse; in which he stated hie opinion "that the hieratie characters ware merely a modification of the hieroglyphic symbols, which wore adopted for the sake of brevity, and as a sort u hieroglyphic abort-hand, and were not alphabetical characters as I' had been suppeeed by porno; the hieratic' characters, as well as the hieroglyphic Irons which they are derived, being expressive of object and Dot of sounds." Ira the year following appeared Champollion's letter to M. Dacier he secretary of the Academy of Inscriptions and Bolles-Lettree.
'relative It ]'alphabet des hieroglyphes phonetlques employe par lee gyptiene pour ioscrire sur inn monumens las titres, les uoms, et ee eurnoms des eouverains Greco et Romaine,' l'aris, 1822. In this etter he retracted what lie had formerly asserted, io eo far that be now lemonatrated what Dr. Young had already stated in November 1819, n the supplement to the ' Encyclopredia Britannica,' article ' Egypt,' lamely, that the Egyptians used occasionally hieroglyphic signs as Ilphabctical characters on their monuments, to express the names of amigo sovereigns, Greek And Roman, who ruled over their country.
fn the Introduction to his neat work, 'Précis du Syetaine Hierogly. abique, etc.,' Champollion observes, and his friend liosellini confirms t in his biography, that he came to the same conclusion as Dr. Young eantemporaneously with the latter, and by his own investigation ; but his assertion, especially with regard to contemporaneousness, is at mince with the statements of the Grenoble work already mentioned, rhich was published as late as 1821, nearly two years after the publi• ration of Dr. Young's discovery. However this may be Champollion it least improved upon Dr. Young's hint, and deduced a phonetic alphabet, applicable not only to the names and titles of foreign sove reigns, but also to those of the native sovereigns and of the divinities of ancient Egypt. By comparing Champollion's 1phabet with Dr.
Young's, the difference between the two is apparent. Champollion used the word phonetic to express characters denoting sounds, a term which had been used long before him by Zoega in the same sense in his work on Obelisks.' In his 'Précis du Systeme Hieroglyphiquo les Anciens Egyptienn, or Recherches mu les Eldmena premiers de eetto Ecriture Sacrde, Bur leurs diverses combiunisons et stir lea rap ports do ce Systdine avec les nudes lllethodes GmphiquesEgyptieunes; Paris, 1324, he asserted, 1, "that his phonetic alphabet is applicable to all the royal names of the most ancient epochs; 2, that the ancient Egyptians employed at all epochs phonetic hieroglyphics to represent alphabetically the sounds of their spoken language ; 3, that all lame glyphio inscriptions are in a great measure composed of signs purely alphabetical, and such as are determined in his phonetic alphabet."
It seems almost superfluous to remark that the two last positions are mere assertions, unsupported by proof, as any one who will take the pains to examioe attentively Champollion's works will easily see. Klaproth, in his ' Observations Critiques sur ]'Alphabet there glyphique ddeouvert par M. Champollionale,Teune,' which precede his 'Collection d'Antiquiths Egypticonas,' Paris, 1829, has in our opinion completely demolished Champollion's general theory, and reduced hie discovery to its proper limits. Riaproth concludes his critical observations with the following corollaries :-1. "That Champolliou appears to have had no fixed basis for his system, as he has repeatedly altered the meaning of his characters, both phonetic and symbolic, as appears from comparing the alphabet of the second edition of his ' Precis,' 1827, with that of the first. 2. That although ho has explained proper names and some particles of speech, yet he has never been able to rend satisfactorily one connected aenteuce of hiero glyphic writing, nor three or four consecutive words of the demotic characters of the Rosetta stone. 3. That he assumes against all probability that the Coptic language, which is a mixed dialect, and known to us in a very imperfect is the language that was spoken by the Egyptians under the Pharaohs ; its eounds, according to him, being represented by the phonetic signs. 4. That it appears that the names of the kings, and the ordinary epithets attached to them, are written alphabetically in the cartouchee or frames ; but that besides these every king has another title of honour, or prmnomen, which fills up another cartouche, and which seems composed partly of alphabetic and partly of symbolic characters, which last have hitherto been only explained by conjecture." Besides these and other geueral arguments against Champollion's system, for which wo refer to Klaproth's work, Klaproth charges Champollion with having com pletely altered several cat-touches of the table of Abydos to make them suit his hypothesis. And further, he does not forget to remind us that Chnmpollion, while passing through Aix on his way to Egypt in 1323, saw a fine papyrus belonging to Mr. Saltier, written in demotic characters, which lie gravely pronounced to be "a history of the campaigns of Scaontrie Ramses, written in the ninth year of that monarch's reign by his bard and friend." This assertion was published as a great discovery by the Academy of Sciences of Aix, and the report was inserted in Fernesac's 'Bulletin Universal.' During Champoliion's visit to Turin in 1824, to examine the Egyptian Museum of that city, he wrote two letters to the Duke of Blues d'Aulps, who had become his patron at the French court. In these letters he explains the names and titles of many of the Pharaohs written upon the monuments in the Turin collection, and he under takes to clean them into dynasties, with the assistance of Manethon.