CIIA1IPAOXB. PHILIPPE DK. 



CHAUPOLLIOV, JKAH 



190 



nMbked at Leipeit la 4 vola. STO. 1844, and ft eeoood edition in 1843 

 U * vob, Itoo, th two laet of which cootein Chambeo't Ufa and 



, (.(nod Ir J K 

 . PH 11.IPPK DE. 



in Biddlinc 

 ud be 



born in BnxnU in 1002. HU 

 indulged hit early tatte 

 in hi. native place. 



At UM*O of Blailita he went to Paris, with the intention of passing 

 OB to Home, bat be wa uaabl to accomplish hb journey, probably 

 MM waat of taeana. H* received some atebUnos in hb ttudies 

 Fooquitav, aad aftorwardi became aoauaintod with Nicholas 

 a. whoa that treat painter rHuroed from Italy, from whose 

 aad tocbty be derived great advautage. They painted in 

 17 in tbe Luxembourg. Upon the death of D.ichctne, Cham 



to bb place a* painter to the queen. Richelieu 

 to withdraw him from hb royal patroness, but Champagne 

 ib BMMt brillbat often. H* wa* indeed so scrupulous in hb 



that bo never touch* 1 a brush on holidays, nor ever painted 



from UM aaked figure. H* married the daughter of Duebesno, by 

 whom b* bad a too. H* wat received into the academy upon its first 

 jjBMtlnsj. in 1648, aad wa* lubsequently it* rector. He died in 1874. 



Champairoe laboured with extreme assiduity, and acquired great 

 ejllll Hb dnwinK b minutely correct, and his colour pleating ; 

 but his doebja and eftVet are tame. Hb portrait* are most esteemed, 

 particularly one of Richelieu. Hb principal workt are at Paris, where 

 be sprat B ' 



drawivfa 



Bind elect 



oof Riobeli 

 apeot aearty UM whole of hb life. 



CHAMPOLLION, JEAN-JACQUES, commonly named CHAM- 

 POLLIOX FIUKAC, to dbtingubh him from hb younger brother, 

 dMvpollion leJeune. wt* bora in 1778 at Figeac, in the French 

 Dent of Lot. He at fint held an office in tbe library of Grenoble, 

 of tbe department of Iscre, and was afterwards professor of 

 Greek literature in that city. In 1828 he was appointed keeper of the 

 manuscripts in tbe Royal Library of Pan*, an office which ho held till 

 1848. la 1849 he became keeper of the library of the palace of Fou- 

 taaaitilian, aad b BOW (1858) librarian to the Bmperor Napoleon III. 

 Hb r*t publication wt* a 'Lettre h M. Fourier sur 1' Inscription 

 Orecqoe du Temple de Dendenh en F.gypte,' Svo, Grenoble, 1806, 

 which was followed in 1807 by hb 'Antiquites de Grenoble, ou 

 Hbtoir* Aaebea* de cette Ville, d'aprcs tes Monuments,' 4to, 

 Onooble; aad in 1809 by ' Nouvelle* Recherche* sur les Patois, ou 

 IdioBMt Vulgairet d* U France,' Svo. Hb ' Annales det Lsgides, on 

 Ckroaologb da* Bob Grec* d'Egypte, succeateurs d' Alexandra le 

 Grand,' i vob. Svo, Paris, 1819, received tbe prize of the Acoddmie des 

 Inscription*. He aborepubliihed several charters and other documents 

 appertaining to UM bbtory of France in the middle ages. The original 

 javascript* are preserved in the Royal Library of Paris, and some of 

 tbesa date a* tar back a* the 6th century. One of the most expensive 

 of bb publications was 'Lot Tournob du Roi Rdn<5, d'apres les 

 Manuscript* et b* Decant Originaux de la Bibliothcque Royale,' folio, 

 18S7-S8. la these -Tournament* of King Rene,' of which only 20U 



printed, he wa* asabtod by M. Motto, the lithographer. 



In 1 "42 be published a Notice tur le* Manuscripts Autographet de 

 Champollioo UJtnne, perdu* en 1'annee 1838, et re 



He publblMd 



retrouves en 1840.' 



rd in tbe following year an elementary treatise on 

 max/, and snother on Chronology. He was a contributor to 

 work* published periodically, tuch at the ' Dictionnaire de la 

 mUoo.' the Magazin Encyclopodique,' the ' Revue Encyclopc'- 

 . ,' UM' Bulletin de* Soboow Hbtoriaue*,' and the literary portion 

 of UM ' Mooiteur.' He also aasbtod in the preparation and issuing of 

 UM ' Doouontjui Hbtorique* ' published by the French government, 

 to whbb bo contributed < vola. 4 to. After the death of Cbampollion- 

 bJeua* b* publbbed tome of UM material, on Egypt, Hieroglyphics, 

 *X oa which hb brother had been employed immediately before bis 



CHAMPOLLION, JKAN FRANCOIS LE-JKUNE, to called to 

 dbtfafttbb him from hb elder brother, Champollion-Figeac. was bom 

 at rVsM, bl UM department of Lot, December 23, 1790. He studied 



it) UM lyceom of Orenoble, and afterwards went to Paris in 1807, where 

 he apjJbd himself to UM oriental languages under Langlos and De 

 aer. Ut tore trsoblly to the stodyrf the Coptic, and to Egyptian 

 tisnlosry LD general. la 1811 be was appointed professor ofhittory 

 UM lyotam of Urenoble, tad librarian of UM public library. In 

 ' ?$? * atal iw* 'L'Egypte aoua\* Phar^ns,' 2 

 a. o wbkh b a pogn.pUca] deecription of that country under ite 

 bat klap, Hh a view to fix ite divisions, the aites and names of 

 Tke work b accompanied bf map. In the preface, 

 "I * >>*"'*&* " * B*7Pn monument*, be say, 

 thatJt ws.tobebope.fthat from these monumeote, on which ancient 



* hottW u abu at ** 



PW^> of ' thought. 

 Tfccriture tfiora- 

 opinion "thai 



".liy* *5l M ** l P' M>d * PW^> 

 IB IMI be Mblbhed at Oreoobb a little work. De T 



Uqwe d* AMMM Bfyptira.,' la which be stated hb 

 UM hieratic characters wan roenlv a modification of tl 



i > it) .p. ... in object* 



ID tbe year foUowint; appeared ChampolUon't letter to M. Dacbr 



M aaeretary of the Academy of Inscriptions and BoUes-Lettret. 

 relative h ('alphabet des hioroglyphet phondtiques employd par les 

 igyptiens pour inscrire sur leurs monumens let litres, les nomt, et 

 es surnoms det souverains Grecs et Romains,' Paris, 1822. In this 

 etter he retracted what he had formerly asserted, in to far that lie now 

 demonstrated what Dr. Young had already stated in Novenih i 

 n the supplement to the ' Encyclopedia Britannica,' article ' Kgyjit,' 

 amely, tnat the Egyptians used occasionally hieroglyphic signs at 

 Iphabi-tical characters on their monuments, to express the names of 

 orcign sovereigns, Greek and Roman, who ruled over their country. 

 n the introduction to his next work, ' Pri'-cU du Systome HiiSrogly- 

 ibique, etc.,' Cbampollbn observes, and his friend Ronellini confirms 

 t in his biography, that he came to the same conclusion as Dr. Young 

 contemporaneously with the latter, and by his own investigation ; but 

 his assertion, especially with regard to contemporaneousness, is at 

 variance with the statements of the Grenoble work already mentioned, 

 which was published as late as IS'Jl, nearly two years after the publi- 

 cation of Dr. Young's discovery. However this may be, Champolliou 

 at least improved upon Dr. Young's hint, and deduced a phonetic 

 alphabet, applicable not only to the names and titles of foreign sove- 

 reigns, bat also to those of the native sovereigns and of the divinities 

 of ancient Egypt By comparing Champollion's alphabet with Dr. 

 foungX the difference between the two is apparent. Champollinn 

 used the word phonetic to express characters denoting sounds, a term 

 which had been used long before him by Zoega in the same sense in 

 lis work on ' Obelisks.' In his 'Prdcis du Systeme Hieroglyphi<|uo 

 des Ancient E^yptienn, or Recherches BUT les Klemens premiers de 

 cette Ecriture Sacree, sur leurs diverges combinaisons et sur les rap- 

 >ort de ce Systome avec les autret Mdthodet Graphiques Egyptiennes,' 

 J aris, 1824, he asserted, 1, "that his phonetic alphabet is applicable 

 o all the royal names of the most ancient epochs ; 2, that the ancient 

 Egyptians employed at all epochs phonetic hieroglyphics to represent 

 alphabetically the sounds of their spoken language ; 3, that all hiero- 

 glyphic inscriptions are in a great measure composed of signs purely 

 ilphabetic.il, and such as are determined in his phonetic alphabet" 

 .i seems almost superfluous to remark that the two last positions are 

 mere assertions, unsupported by proof, as any one who will take the 

 miiis to examine attentively Cbampollion'a works will easily see. 

 tlaproth, in his 'Observations Critiques BUT 1'Alphabet Hidro- 

 ;lyphique ddcouvert par M. Champollion-le-Jeune,' which precede his 

 Collection d'Antiquites Egyptieime?,' I'aris, 1829, has in our opinion 

 completely demolished Champollion's general theory, and reduced liin 

 discovery to its proper limits. Klaproth concludes bis critical 

 observations with the following corollaries: 1. "That Champolliou 

 appears to have had no fixed basis for his system, as he has repeatedly 

 altered the meaning of his characters, both phonetic and symbolic, as 

 appears from comparing the alphabet of the second edition of bin 

 ' Precis,' 1827, with that of the first 2. That although he has 

 explained proper names and some particles of speech, yet he has never 

 i>een able to read satisfactorily one connected sentence of hiero- 

 glyphic writing, nor three or four consecutive words of the demotio 

 characters of the Itosetta stone. 3. That he assumes against all 

 probability that the Coptic language, which is a mixed dialect, and 

 known to us in a very imperfect state, is the language that wat spokcu 

 by the Egyptians under the Pharaohs ; ite sounds, according to him, 

 being represented by the phonetic signs. 4. That it appears that the 

 names of the kings, and the ordinary epithets attached to them, arc 

 written alphabetically in the cartouches or frames ; but that besidvx 

 those every king has another title of honour, or pncnomen, which 

 fills up another cartouche, and which seems composed partly of 

 alphabetic and partly of symbolic characters, which last have hitherto 

 been only explained by conjecture." Besides these and other general 

 arguments against Champollion's system, for which wo refer to 

 Klaproth's work, Klaproth charge!) Chauipollion with having com- 

 pletely altered several cartouches of the table of Abydos to maku 

 them suit his hypothesis. And further, he does not forget to remind 

 us that Champollion, while passing through Aix on his way to Egypt 

 in 1828, saw a fine papyrus belonging to Mr. Sallier, written in demotic 

 characters, which he gravely pronounced to be " a history of the 

 campaigns of Sesostris Ramses, written in the ninth year of that 

 monarch's reign by hb bard and friend." This assertion was published 

 at a great discovery by the Academy of Sciences of Aix, and the report 

 was inserted in Ferussac's ' Bulletin Universe).' 



During Champollion's visit to Turin in 1824, to examine the 

 Egyptian Museum of that city, he wrote two letters to the Duke of 

 Blacks d'Aulps, who had become bis patron at the French court In 

 these Utters he explains the names and titles of many of the Pharaohs 

 written upon the monuments in the Turin collection, and he under- 

 takes to class them into dynasties, with the assistance of Mauethon. 

 (' Lettret K H. le Due de Blacas d'Aulps, relatives au Musde Royal 

 EgypUen de Turin,' Paris, 1824-25.) His work on the Egyptian gods 

 came out in parts, but has never been completed ' Panthron 

 Egyption, ou Collection det Personnages Mythologiques de 1'ancienne 

 Egypte, d'apre* les Monumens, avec un texte explicatif.' Charles X. 

 having determined to purchase a valuable collection of Egyptian 

 anti'iuitiet, just arrived at Leghorn, for the museum at Paris, Cham- 

 pollion was appointed, through the Duke of Blaoas, to proceed to Italy 

 for the purpose of examining and valuing them. From Leghorn he 



