Chasles, PHILARÈTE

Chasles, PHILARÈTE, a voluminous French writer, was born at Mainvilliers, near Chartres, 8th October 1798. Early imbued with Rousseau's ideas by his father, an old Jacobin, he was apprenticed at fifteen to an ardent Jacobin bookseller, along with whom he was sent to jail after the Restoration. Released by Chateaubriand's influence, he went to England, where he found employment in a bookseller's shop, and during his seven years' residence laid the foundation of his large knowledge of English literature. After his return to France he contributed reviews of English books to the Revue encyclopédique. In 1824 his Discours sur Jacques Auguste de Thou, and in 1828 his Tableau de la Langue et Littérature Française, 1500-1610, were crowned by the Academy. In 1837 Chasles became librarian of the Bibliothèque Mazarin, and in 1841 professor of Northern Languages at the Collège de France, which chair he filled until his death, at Venice, July 18, 1873. Besides showing indefatigable activity as a journalist, he published books on Charles I., Cromwell, the middle ages, the 16th century in France, and studies on Spain, on Germany, on the 18th century in England, 19th-century manners, Shakespeare, Mary Stuart, and Aretino. His Mémoires fill two volumes (1876-78).