Ponnat

(de), Baron , French writer, b. about 1810. Educated by Jesuits, he became a thorough Freethinker and democrat and a friend of A. S. Morin, with whom he collaborated on the Rational i ste of Geneva. He wrote many notable articles in La Libre Pensée , Le Critique , and Le Candide , for writing in which last he was sentenced to one year’s imprisonment. He published, under the anagram of De Pontan, The Cro or Death , a discourse to the bishops who a isted at the Ecumenical Council at Rome (Bru els, ’62). His principal work is a history of the variations and contradictions of the Roman Church (Paris, ’82). Died in 1884.