THE

JOURNAL

OF

SACRED LITERATURE

AND

BIBLICAL RECORD.

No. XVI.-JANUARY, 1866.

FRENCH ORIENTALISTS.-M. QUATREMÈRE.

Ar the last public sitting of the Paris Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, the president, M. Guigniaut," read an interesting and suggestive biographical notice on M. Etienne Quatremère, whose merits as an Orientalist are so well appreciated by competent judges. This kind of homage paid to the memory of deserving men is a custom which we should like to see more generally introduced; it both serves as an encouragement for those who devote themselves to scientific pursuits, and marks the progress made in the less frequented parts of the literary field.

Already at the death of M. Quatremère, nearly ten years ago, one of his confrères had paid a graceful tribute to his memory in the Journal des Savants (November, 1857). The article to which we are now alluding was written with the accuracy and freshness so characteristic of M. Barthélemy Saint Hilaire's essays, and from a perusal of it every one must have felt that the loss of M. Quatremère was, in particular, a heavy blow for the cause of Biblical literature. On such grounds alone, if not on others, the late professor of Hebrew at the Collège de France deserves a place in the pages of this review, and we gladly avail

M. Guigniaut (Joseph Daniel), member of the Académie since 1837, and well known especially by his French translation of Kreuzer's Symbolik.

NEW SERIES.-VOL. VIII., NO. XVI.

S

ourselves, whilst giving a short account of his life, of the details contained in the two éloges already mentioned.

M. Etienne Marc Quatremère, who was for more than forty years member of the French Institute, and for nearly twenty, one of the collaborateurs of the Journal des Savants, was born in Paris, July 12, 1782. His family had during many generations been engaged in business as cloth merchants, and they held a distinguished position in the bourgeoisie of their native city. His grandfather, who occupied the post of échevin, received from Louis XV. a patent of nobility together with the decoration of the order of St. Michael, and the letters expressly stated-a most wise clause-that one of the sons could always carry on commerce without any detriment to his dignity. M. Quatremère's father availed himself of this permission, and thought it no disgrace to be a tradesman. We must notice, however, that the substantial Paris bourgeois, trained up in a religious and intellectual atmosphere, knew how to conciliate the pursuits of taste with the exigencies of business. Thus, no less than three of the Quatremères were at the same time members of the Institute, viz., the two brothers Quatremère-Disjonval and Quatremère de Quincy-and their cousin, the subject of the present memoir. Another relative, Quatremère de Roissy, cultivated light literature with success. The ladies in that remarkable family were quite as distinguished as the men; for instance, M. Quatremère's grandmother, Anne Bourjot, had deserved, on account of her virtues, the honour of being mentioned by the Benedictine Dom Labat, editor of the collection Les Conciles de France.

It is in the midst of such noble examples that M. Quatremère was brought up. His mother understood Latin, and could therefore superintend part of his classical education, in which he received also the valuable assistance of his father's intimate friend, M. D'Ansse de Villoison.' The child made an ample return for all the care with which he was surrounded; his memory was prodigious; he could read when three years old, and at five years of age he had already mastered the contents of a goodly number of books. The end of his scholastic education was marred by the most tragical catastrophe that ever lad of fourteen met with. His father, well known for his liberal opinions and his active benevolence, had been elected in 1789 to the important office of municipal officer. So honourable a choice amounted to a sign of proscription when the reign of the mob was substituted to that of law. The sans-culottes of 1794

Jean Baptiste Gaspard D'Ansse de Villoison (1750-1805), professor of Greek literature at the Collège de France, distinguished as a scholar and a critic.

summoned before the bar of the revolutionary tribunal the citoyen Quatremère, just as they had summoned all those whose virtues, talents, or patriotism pointed them out as the "representative" men of French society. In vain did the poor and the destitute plead on behalf of him who had been their constant benefactor. The chairman of the tribunal said derisively that "Quatremère, in his acts of charity, had always had in view his God and not the sans-culottes; he therefore deserved death because he had humiliated the people by his benefits." The fatal sentence was carried out on the 21st of January, 1794, exactly one year after the death of Louis XVI. Etienne received from so atrocious an act of tyranny an impression which never wore off.

Madame Quatremère, left a widow under such frightful circumstances, did not lose courage. Obliged to seek a refuge in the cottage of some peasants who were devoted to her, deprived of her property as a ci-devant noble, she managed to live through the reign of terror, and when it was over, she immediately set to work collecting the scanty remains of her fortune, and providing for the support of her family. A few friends came to her assistance, and enabled her to begin business again; whilst young Etienne's tutor, M. Gravier, continued gratuitously his lessons to one who already promised to become a brilliant scholar. M. Quatremère, on leaving college, took up in the first instance the study of botany, mineralogy, mathematics, and entertained some idea of qualifying for admission at the Ecole Polytechnique, which had just been created. This plan, however, was soon abandoned; the young man's talent for languages manifested itself, and he learned unaided all those he ever knew, beginning with the Hebrew. He attended at the Collège de France M. Silvestre de Sacy's lectures on Arabic, and also those of M. Dupuis on Latin poetry. The well-known author of the Origine de tous les Cultes was far from sharing his pupil's religious opinions; but with a spirit of courtesy which did him the greatest credit, he avoided every reflection capable of offending what were, at all events, honourable scruples.

M. Quatremère was for a short time engaged as clerk at the Imperial Library in Paris (MSS. section); afterwards he accepted the post of professor of Greek literature at the Rouen Faculté des Lettres; finally he returned to Paris about 1811,

• Quatremère, dans sa charité pour les pauvres, n'avait en vue que son Dieu, et non les sans-culottes, et il mérite la mort pour avoir humilié le peuple par ses bienfaits.

d Charles François Dupuis (1742-1809), known by his fanciful opinions on astronomy, the Zodiac, etc.

and never since did he leave that city. He had already made himself known by several remarkable works when, in 1815, he was elected as the successor of La Porte du Theil by the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres; in 1819 he received his appointment to the lectureship of Hebrew, Syriac, and Chaldee, at the Collège de France; in 1832 he succeeded M. de Chézy in the Persian chair at the school of modern oriental languages; and, at the death of M. Silvestre de Sacy, who had been so long his master and his patron, he took his place amongst the collaborateurs of the Journal des Savants.

Such are the principal chronological data in the life of M. Etienne Quatremère. Painful events, heart-rending separations marked its early period; but the latter part of it was spent amidst that calm which is so grateful to the votaries of science; and unremitting labour gave it a character of useful uniformity. Let us add, that for nearly half a century M. Quatremère enjoyed the blessing of having near him the mother to whom he owed so much. We shall now give a brief notice of his works.

Our author's literary début was a volume entitled Recherches Historiques et Critiques sur la Langue et la Littérature de l'Egypte. Printed in 1808 at the expense of the State, this book was dedicated to M. Silvestre de Sacy, who, together with another eminent Oriental scholar, M. Langlès, had encouraged and assisted the writer. Bonaparte's expedition to Egypt had at that time turned the attention of every one towards the mysterious land of the Nile, and some persons have supposed that this circumstance determined M. Quatremère in the selection of

his subject. But, as M. Barthélemy Saint Hilaire remarks, it was never the habit of the author of the Recherches to consult public opinion on any point whatever, and why should we not simply say that the direction of his studies led him to continue the researches made by Renaudot, Jablonski, and Barthélemy? These three scholars had suspected that the Coptic language, such as it has been preserved to us in numerous MSS., was exactly the same as the ancient idiom of Egypt under the Pharoahs; M. Quatremère completely demonstrated the truth of what was at the time considered only as a plausible hypothesis.

• François Jean Gabriel de la Porte du Theil (1742-1815), distinguished especially as an archæologist and a critic. He published in common with M. de Bréquigny, a collection of charters, diplomas, and other documents relating to the early history of France.

An eminent Sanscrit scholar.

& Louis Mathieu Langlès (1764-1824), professor of Persian at the Ecole des Langues Orientales Modernes, and keeper of the oriental MSS. at the Bibliothéque du Roi.

Cf. Egypt's Place in Universal History, vol. i., pp. 259-60.

Since the conquest of Alexander, the Coptic vocabulary had been enriched by the addition of a large number of Greek words; during the third century of the Christian era it had even adopted the Greek alphabet with very slight modifications, and about the tenth century it had almost entirely disappeared as a colloquial language, leaving its place to the Arabic, and subsisting merely as a learned idiom. But, after all, it constituted really the language which the Egyptians spoke in the time of their independence and of their glory.

In this first work, M. Quatremère, who was only then twenty-six years old, exhibited all his merits, and, we must likewise add, his defects. He was evidently thoroughly acquainted with the various Semitic languages, which he quoted equally well. His reading was immense, but badly digested; although he had twice re-cast the book, it was extremely deficient as a literary composition, and the interesting details it contained were not presented with sufficient method. In 1811, M. Quatremère published a sort of sequel to his Recherches, in the shape of two volumes of geographical and historical memoirs taken from the Coptic and Arabic MSS. preserved in the Paris Imperial Library. In 1812 he added, by way of supplement, his Observations sur quelques points de la Géographie de l'Egypte, with the view principally of defending against recent critiques the labours of the younger Champollion.

The Mémoires Géographiques et Historiques sur l'Egypte are divided into two distinct parts, the former being an alphabetical list of all the towns and villages, the names of which have been preserved in the MS. collections alluded to above. M. Quatremère's work cannot be considered as occupying the same ground as Reinhold Forster's Index Geographicus, because it is not borrowed from classical sources, and only gives incidentally the designations handed down to us by Greek and Latin writers. Moreover, Forster had bestowed a great deal of his attention upon etymological difficulties, whereas M. Quatremère made geography his chief, we might almost say, his exclusive theme. The Coptic Gazetteer now under consideration embraces one hundred and three distinct articles, some of which are of great length, and their ensemble forms the most valuable contribution to the knowledge of ancient geography.

In the second volume of the Mémoires we have a series of essays on various topics of oriental history and literature, beginning with a description of Nubia, which was then, as it still is, relatively unknown. Whilst preparing this part of his work, M. Quatremère had unfortunately but very scanty resources at his disposal. Arab geographers speak of Nubia only in a most