or of the seminary at
Reims, where he wrote his _Histoire civile et politique de Reims_ (3
vols., 1756-1757), perhaps his best work. He was then director of the
college of Senlis, where he composed his _Esprit de la Ligue ou histoire
politique des troubles de la Fronde pendant le XVI^e et le XVII^e
siecles_ (1767). During the Reign of Terror he was imprisoned at St
Lazare; there he began his _Precis de l'histoire universelle_,
afterwards published in nine volumes. On the establishment of the
national institute he was elected a member of the second group (moral
and political sciences), and was soon afterwards employed in the office
of the ministry of foreign affairs, profiting by his experience to write
his _Motifs des guerres et des traites de paix sous Louis XIV., Louis
XV, et Louis XVI._ He is said to have been asked by Napoleon to write
his _Histoire de France_ (14 vols., 1805), a mediocre compilation at
second or third hand, with the assistance of de Mezeray and of Paul
Francois Velly (1709-1759). This work, nevertheless, passed through
numerous editions, and by it his name is remembered. He died on the 6th
of September 1808.

ANQUETIL, DUPERRON, ABRAHAM HYACINTHE (1731-1805), French orientalist,
brother of Louis Pierre Anquetil, the historian, was born in Paris on
the 7th of December 1731. He was educated for the priesthood in Paris
and Utrecht, but his taste for Hebrew, Arabic, Persian, and other
languages of the East developed into a passion, and he discontinued his
theological course to devote himself entirely to them. His diligent
attendance at the Royal Library attracted the attention of the keeper of
the manuscripts, the Abbe Sallier, whose influence procured for him a
small salary as student of the oriental languages. He had lighted on
some fragments of the _Vendidad Sade_, and formed the project of a
voyage to India to discover the works of Zoroaster. With this end in
view he enlisted as a private soldier, on the 2nd of November 1754, in
the Indian expedition which was about to start from the port of
L'Orient. His friends procured his discharge, and he was granted a free
passage, a seat at the captain's table, and a salary, the amount of
which was to be fixed by the governor of the French settlement in India.
After a passage of six months, Anquetil landed, on the 10th of August
1755, at Pondicherry. Here he remained a short time to master modern
Persian, and then hastened to Chandernagore to acquire S