Barante

Barante, AIMABLE GUILLAUME PROSPER BRUGIÈRE, BARON DE, a French historian and statesman, born at Riom in Auvergne, June 10, 1782. After filling some subordinate offices, he was appointed in 1809 prefect of La Vendée. In this year was published his Tableau de la Littérature Française au XVIII^e Siècle, of which Goethe has said that it contains neither a word too little nor a word too much. In 1815 Louis XVIII. made Barante secretary of the ministry of the interior, and about the same time he took his seat in the Chamber of Deputies, where he voted with the moderate liberals. In 1819 he was raised to the Chamber of Peers. His principal work, a Histoire des Ducs de Bourgogne de la Maison de Valois, 1364-1477, published in 12 vols. 1824-28, has run through several editions. It secured his election to the Academy in 1828. Between 1830 and 1840 he represented France at Turin and St Petersburg, but after the revolution of 1848 he devoted himself entirely to literary pursuits. He died, November 23, 1866, at his country-seat in Auvergne.