DUPUIS, du'pwi•, Fltxxcons. t 1809). A distinguished French savant. the son of a poor schoolmaster. Ile was born at Trie Chatean, near Chaumont. and obtained admis sion into the college of Harcourt, where lie .11 sour acquired extensive knowledge flint at the age of twenty-four he was made professor of rhetoric in the college of Lisieux. At the -ante time he went through a course of law studies, and was admitted an advocate of the Parliament. acquaintance with La laude introduced him to the study of mathematics and astronomy. and he was led to the thought of explaining myth ology by means of :istromany. After several communications in the .founts! des ap peared his .1ft'aioirt sue dta constella tions et stir respliention ft( la fable per le moyrn tie rastronomir (1781). He was now ap rointed professor of Latin oratory in the Col lege de France. member of the Aea&mie des Inscriptions (1788), and shortly after a member of the Commission of Publie hist ructit n. During the Revolution he became a member of the Con vention, next of the Council of Five Hun dred. and, after the Eighteenth Brumaire, of the legislative body. He was also one
of the forty-eight individuals who formed the nucleus of the Institnt National. Ili, great work, L'Origine de tons ha unites. on religion 17931. which he had long withheld front fear of offending the religion: world, was at last published at the instance if the Cortle liers' Club. This eireumstanee rendered the book more an object of party hitterm.ss than its own purely scientific character would probably have called forth. It made a considerable im pression on France at the time, and no doubt after aidscaused Napoleon to appoint the famous commission to explore 'Upper Egypt. which Dupuis had pointed out as the general sot reeof southern mythology. NO less attention was awakened by hi- memoirs on the origin and spread of the Pelasgi, and on the zodiac of Den derah (q.v.). In hi- last work. Ih'inoi re .rpli mtif do zodiaque chronologique ct mythologique (ISOW, he attempts to demonstrate the unity of the astronomical and religions myths of all nations.