Littré, MAXIMILIEN PAUL ÉMILE, an eminent French philologist and philosopher, was born in Paris, 1st February 1801. He first studied medicine, but ere long gave himself to philology, mastering Sanskrit, Arabic, Greek, and the chief modern languages. One of his first tasks was a translation of the works of Hippocrates (10 vols. 1839-61), which at once opened for him the door of the Academy of Inscriptions. Littré held democratic opinions, distinguished himself on the barricades in 1830, and was one of the principal editors of the National down to 1851. He embraced Comte's Positivism with great ardour, and defended it ably in pamphlets and in journal articles, but he did not share the disciples' indiscriminating enthusiasm for the Master's later works. Disappointed at the results of 1848, he retired from active politics, resigning even his office of municipal councillor of the city of Paris. Returning to a life of study, Littré continued his researches in the history of medicine, at the same time working ardently at the history of the French language. His article, La Poésie Homérique et l'Ancienne Poésie Française (1847), attracted great attention. It was an attempt at the translation of the first book of the Iliad in the style of the Trouvères. The Academy of Inscriptions chose Littré, in place of Fauriel, in 1844, to be one of the commission charged with continuing L'Histoire Littéraire de France, and he is one of the authors of vols. xxi.-xxiii. In 1854 he was appointed editor of the Journal des Savants. Littré's principal work is his Dictionnaire de la Langue Française (4 vols. 1863-72; supplement, 1878), a monument of patience and erudition. This splendid work—the real thesaurus of the French language—did not prevent the French Academy in 1863 from rejecting its author, whom Bishop Dupanloup denounced publicly as holding immoral and impious doctrines. Just before the siege of Paris Littré's friends compelled him to quit the capital. In January 1871 Gambetta appointed him professor of History and Geography at the École Polytechnique. Next month he was chosen representative of the Seine department in the National Assembly, where he sat with the party of the Left. On the 30th December 1871 the French Academy at last admitted him to membership; whereupon Bishop Dupanloup resigned his seat. Littré published Médecine et Médecins in 1872. In 1875 he received honours from Leyden and from the Austrian Academy. He died at Paris, 2d June 1881.
Other works of Littré's were: French translations of Strauss's Life of Jesus (1839-40) and of Pliny's Natural History; Histoire de la Langue Française (2 vols. 1862), Paroles de Philosophie Positive (1859), Auguste Comte et la Philosophie Positive (1863), Auguste Comte et Stuart Mill (1866), La Science au Point de Vue Philosophique (1873), Littérature et Histoire (1875), Fragments de Philosophie Positive et de Sociologie Contemporaine (1876), and Œuvres Complètes d'Armand Carrel (1857). His Études et Glanures pour faire suite à l'Histoire de la Langue Française (1880) contains an interesting account of the origin of his great Dictionary. See also Sainte-Beuve's Notice sur M. Littré (1863); the Edinburgh Review (1882); and the Century (1884).