Daru

Daru, PIERRE ANTOINE, COMTE, a French writer and financier, was born at Montpellier, 12th January 1767. At sixteen he entered the army, and rose rapidly, but was flung into prison during the Terror, where he amused himself by translating Horace. Under Napoleon he was Intendant- general in Austria and Prussia, and a councillor of state, while in 1818 Louis XVIII. made him a peer. Thenceforth he devoted himself exclusively to letters. He died a member of the Institute and of the Academy of Sciences, 5th September 1829. Of his many books the chief are Cléopédie (1800), a spirited poem; Histoire de la République de Venise (7 vols. 1819–21); and Histoire de la Bretagne (3 vols. 1826).—His son, NAPOLEON DARU (1807–90), opposed the coup d'état, and was proscribed; but became a member of the National Assembly in 1871, of the senate in 1876.