named the _historiographe des Alpes_ by
the emperor Joseph II., who visited him at Geneva. His last visit to
Chamonix was in 1812. His writings are composed in a naive, sentimental
and rather pompous style, but breathe throughout a most passionate love
for the Alps, as wonders of nature, and not as objects of scientific
study. His chief works are the _Description des glacieres de Savoye_,
1773 (English translation, Norwich, 1775-1776), the _Description des
Alpes pennines et rhetiennes_ (2 vols., 1781) (reprinted in 1783 under
the title of _Nouvelle Description des vallees de glace_, and in 1785,
with additions, in 3 vols., under the name of _Nouvelle Description des
glacieres_), and the _Descriptions des cols ou passages des Alpes_, (2
vols., 1803), while his _Itineraire de Geneve, Lausanne et Chamouni_,
first published in 1791, went through several editions in his lifetime.
(W. A. B. C.)

BOURSAULT, EDME (1638-1701), French dramatist and miscellaneous writer,
was born at Mussy l'Eveque, now Mussy-sur-Seine (Aube), in October 1638.
On his first arrival in Paris in 1651 his language was limited to a
Burgundian patois, but within a year he produced his first comedy, _Le
Mort vivant_. This and some other pieces of small merit secured for him
distinguished patronage in the society ridiculed by Moliere in the
_Ecole des femmes_. Boursault was persuaded that the "Lysidas" of that
play was a caricature of himself, and attacked Moliere in _Le Portrait
du peintre ou la contre-critique de l'Ecole des femmes_ (1663). Moliere
retaliated in _L'Impromptu de Versailles_, and Boileau attacked
Boursault in Satires 7 and 9. Boursault replied to Boileau in his
_Satire des satires_ (1669), but was afterwards reconciled with him,
when Boileau on his side erased his name from his satires. Boursault
obtained a considerable pension as editor of a rhyming gazette, which
was, however, suppressed for ridiculing a Capuchin friar, and the editor
was only saved from the Bastille by the interposition of Conde. In 1671
he produced a work of edification in _Ad usum Delphini: la veritable
etude des souverains_, which so pleased the court that its author was
about to be made assistant tutor to the dauphin when it was found that
he was ignorant of Greek and Latin, and the post was given to Pierre
Huet. Perhaps in compensation Boursault was made collector of taxes at
Mont-lucon about 1672, an appointment that he retained until 1688. Among
his be