Brosses, CHARLES DE

Brosses, CHARLES DE, historian, was born at Dijon in 1709, and died president of the parliament of Burgundy, 7th May 1777. Among his works were: Lettres sur Herculanæum (1750); Histoire des Navigations aux Terres Australes (1756), in which he introduced the names Australia and Polynesia; Du Culte des Dieux Fétiches (1760), the word fétiche being first used by him in the sense now usual; the ingenious Traité de la Formation Mécanique des Langues (1765); and Histoire de la République Romaine (1777). His Lettres écrites d'Italie en 1739-40 was edited by Colomb in 1885. See Marnet, Le Président de Brosses (1875).