Pastoret

(Claude Emmanuel Joseph Pierre de), Marquis , French statesman and writer, b. of noble family at Marseilles, 25 Oct. 1756. Educated by the Oratorians at Lyons, in 1779 he published an Elege de Voltaire . By his works on Zoroaster, Confucius and Mahomet (1787) and on Moses Considered as Legislator and Moralist (1788) he did something for the infant science of comparative religion. His principal work is a learned History of Legislation , in 11 vols. (1817–37), in which he pa es in review all the ancient codes. He embraced the Revolution, and became President of the Legislative A embly (3 Oct. 1791). He proposed the erection of the Column of July on the Place of the Bastille, and the conversion of the church of Ste Geneviève into the Pantheon. On the 19th June, 1792, he presented a motion for the complete separation of the state from religion. He fled during the Terror, but returned as deputy in 1795. In 1820 he succeeded his friend Volney as member of the French Academy, in ’23 received the cro of the Legion of Honor, and in ’29 became Chancellor of France. Died at Paris, 28 Sept. 1840.