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SIRMOND, JACQUES. 



SISMONDI, JEAN CHARLES DE. 



6*6 



Hinierius, bishop of Tarracona, which is one of the oldest instances 

 of a bishop of Rome sending mandates to other churches to be 

 received as ecclesiastical laws. Siricius is also one of the first bishops 

 of Koine who wrote concerning the celibacy of the clergy. He 

 directed that a priest who married a second wife after the death of 

 the first should be expelled from his ofSce. (Platina, ' Lives of the 

 Popes ; ' Dupin, ' Nouvelle Bibliotheque, Vie de Sirice.') The council 

 of Nicaea had already decreed that all clerks who had been married 

 before they took orders should be allowed to retain their wives 

 according to the ancient tradition of the church, but that priests and 

 deacons should not marry after their ordination. Siricius died in 398. 



SIRMOND, JACQUES, was born at Riom, in France, October 22, 

 1559. Having completed his studies at the Jesuits' college at Billom, 

 the first which that society had in France, he adopted the rule of St. 

 Ignatius, and prepared himself, by a diligent study of the ancient 

 languages, for fulfilling the duties of a teacher. When he had finished 

 his noviciate, his superiors required him to proceed to Paris as pro- 

 fessor of rhetoric, in which city he remained till 1790, when he 

 repaired to Rome, on the invitation of the Pere Aquaviva, General of 

 the Society of Jesuits, who chose Sirmond as his secretary. In this 

 employment he continued sixteen years, during which he examined 

 diligently the manuscripts in the Vatican library, as well as the 

 inscriptions and other remains of antiquity, of which Rome possessed 

 such an abundant supply. 



In 1603 the Pere Sirmond returned to Paris, and soon afterwards 

 commenced a visitation of the. libraries and archives of the convents, 

 and was thereby enabled to save from destruction a great number of 

 documents of the highest value for the history of the middle ages. 

 Sirmond's first publication was the ' Opuscules ' of Geoffroi, abbe" de 

 Vendorne, in 1610; from which time he continued to add to his repu- 

 tation by other publications almost every year. Pope Urban VII. 

 invited him to return to Rome, but Louis XIII. retained him in 

 France, and in 1637 made him his confessor. Having left the court 

 on the death of Louis XIII., in 1643, he recommenced his literary 

 labours, which had been somewhat interrupted by attention to the 

 duties of his late dignified office, and continued with unabated ardour 

 to occupy himself in the same way till his death, October 7, 1651, 

 when he was 92 years of age. 



Sirmond's ' Ouvrages ' were collected and published in 1696, in 5 

 vols. folio. The first three volumes contain the ' Opuscules ' of those 

 Fathers and other ecclesiastical writers which had been published by 

 Sirmond, with prefaces and notes; the fourth volume contains his Disser- 

 tations ; and the fifth volume contains the works of Theodore Studite. 

 This edition of Sirmond's Works is by the Pere la Baume, and is pre- 

 ceded by a Life of Sirmond by the editor, his Funeral Oration by 

 Henri de Valois, and a list of Sirmond's Works in manuscript as well 

 as printed. In this edition are included the Works of Enodius bishop 

 of Pavia, of Sidonius Apollinaris, of Eugenius bishop of Toledo, the 

 Chronicles of Idatius and Marcellinus, the Collections of Anastasius 

 the Librarian, the Capitularies of Charles-le-Chauve and his successors, 

 the works of St. Avit, of The"odulphe bishop of Orleans, &c. Father 

 Sirmond published other ecclesiastical writers besides those included 

 in the above edition, among which are ' L'Histoire de Reims,' by 

 Flodoard, the ' Lettres de Pierre de Celles,' the ' OZuvres ' of Radbert, 

 of Theodoret, of Hincmar archbishop of Reims, &c. Sirmond pub- 

 lished also a Collection of the Councils of France, ' Concilia Antiqua 

 Gallise,' Paris, 1629, folio. 



SISIN'NIUS, a Syrian by birth, succeeded John VII. as bishop of 

 Rome, A.D. 707, and died twenty days after his election. He was 

 succeeded by Constantino. 



SISMONDI, JEAN CHARLES LEONARD SIMONDE DE, was 

 the son of a Protestant minister of the canton of Geneva ; he belonged 

 to an ancient family of Tuscan origin, which has become extinct by 

 liis death. His ancestors, who were attached to the Ghibelline party, 

 were expelled from Pisa in the 14th century, and took refuge in 

 France, where they remained till the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, 

 when they settled at Geneva. Sismondi was born at Geneva on the 

 9th of May, 1773. He was first placed at the College of Geneva, 

 where he acquired a sound knowledge of classical literature. From 

 the college he was removed to the Auditoire, where he was enabled to 

 pursue a more extended course of study. His education being com- 

 pleted, he was compelled by the change of fortune which befel his 

 family, owing to the events of the French revolution, to enter as clerk 

 in the counting-house of the firm of Eynard and Co. at Lyon. Filia! 

 obedience induced him to undertake a duty to which he was unfitted 

 by his previous habits, and which the highly cultivated disposition o: 

 his mind rendered scarcely supportable. The moral training, however 

 which he underwent in mastering the difficulties of his new situation 

 and in the regular discharge of its duties, produced an effect which, in 

 after life, he acknowledged to have been eminently beneficial ; to i' 

 he was also accustomed to ascribe his taste for the science of politica 

 economy, which predominates in hia historical writings. The revolu 

 tionary troubles, which overtook the city of Lyon in 1792, compellec 

 Sismondi to return to Geneva : this city, however, having become 

 annexed to the French republic, proved no asylum from politica" 

 persecution; his father and himself, though they had carefullj 

 abstained from interference in public affairs, were imprisoned ; but, as 

 no charge could be brought against them, they were soon after 



iberated. In February 1793, he accompanied his family to England, 

 where they intended to settle ; but the dilapidated state of his 

 ather's fortune rendered their residence in London one of privations 

 o which they had not been accustomed, and, after a year's residence 

 n different parts of England, they returned to their native city. 

 This sojourn in England Sismondi turned to profitable account; 

 jesides acquiring a sound knowledge of the language, and studying 

 the English constitution, he examined our commercial and agricultural 

 lystem, and was thus enabled, when in after-life he published hia 

 jeculiar views on political economy, to speak from actual knowledge 

 )f the merits and defects of the internal policy of England. His return 

 ;o Geneva afforded him the painful opportunity of studying the 

 science of politics in a far ruder school ; it was his lot to behold the 

 peaceful commonwealth where his fathers had enjoyed liberty of 

 conscience and freedom of speech, suffering under the despotism of 

 what was, by courtesy, termed a popular rule. The frenzy of revo- 

 .utionary feeling had spread over the city of Geneva, and had converted 

 its quiet money-making citizens into turbulent and suspicious dema- 

 gogues. In the hope of finding a more quiet abode, and in order to 

 afford a shelter to a friend, M. Caila, who had been proscribed by the 

 revolutionists, the family of Sismondi removed to Chatelaine. The 

 capture of their unfortunate friend, and his immediate execution in 

 their presence, rendered their residence at Chatelaine as distasteful 

 as it was dangerous. Having sold the estate they possessed there, 

 they determined upon emigrating to the country of their ancestors, 

 and arrived at Florence in October 1795. They invested the produce 

 of the estate which they had sold in purchasing a small farm at 

 Valchiusa, near Pebcia, a spot selected by the young Sismoudi. Here 

 be divided his time between the active superintendence of his farm 

 and the preparation of a work which he had projected during his 

 travels, ' Recherches sur les Constitutions des Peuples Libres.' These 

 researches were the groundwork of his subsequent historical writings ; 

 and though the ' Researches ' themselves were never completed, the 

 ideas which were adopted in them were reproduced in their leading 

 principles in his ' Etudes sur lea Constitutions des Peuples libres ' 

 published in 1836. 



In 1801 appeared at Geneva the first published work of Sismondi, 

 which he had written during the latter part of his stay in Italy ; it 

 was entitled, 'Tableau de 1'Agriculture Toscane.' To his study of 

 this subject may perhaps be attributed the prominence which, in his 

 writings on political economy, he gives to agriculture. Eminently 

 practical in its details, this interesting treatise discards even the 

 appearance of theory, and contents itself with portraying in true but 

 lively colours the actual state of the country and the manner of life 

 of its inhabitants. The year previous to the publication of this work, 

 Sismondi and his parents had again returned to Geneva, where they 

 lived on the remnant of a once large property, which his father had 

 sacrificed to his confidence in the financial measures of Necker. 

 [NECKER, JAMES.] He published, in 1803, his essay on political 

 economy, with the title ' De la Richesse Commerciale, ou Priucipes 

 d'Economie Politique applique"e & la Legislation du Commerce.' This 

 work he afterwards entirely remodelled, and, in 1819, published it 

 under the title ' Nouveaux Principes d'Economie Politique.' The 

 views of Adam Smith are almost implicitly followed in thia treatise, 

 and, as they happened to coincide with the popular notions on the 

 subject, they brought the writer into repute. The vacant chair of 

 political economy in the university of Wilna was soon after offerel to 

 him by Count Plattner, who came purposely to Geneva to urge in 

 person his proposal. Though the offer was advantageous in a pecu- 

 niary point of view, and the acceptance of it on that account urged 

 upon him by his parents, it was declined by him from his dislike to 

 teaching. It was at this period that Sismoudi began to apply himself 

 in earnest to historical investigations, and, by the advice of his 

 mother, a woman of cultivated mind and sound understanding, to 

 devote himself chiefly to the study of history. 



His residence at Geneva, though it was enlivened by his enjoying 

 the intimacy of several literary persons, such as Benjamin Constant 

 and Madame De Stael, could not deliver him from the desponding 

 feelings which are so common to the young author, and, at the sug- 

 gestion of his excellent mother, he was induced, in 1805, to accom- 

 pany Madame De Stael in a tour through Italy. Sympathy of literary 

 tastes had produced the sincerest friendship between these two dis- 

 tinguished writers ; the influence of the scenes they visited together 

 in that classical country, and the poetic charm cast upon them by the 

 conversation of the authoress of ' Corinne,' [STAEL, ANNE GEEMAINE 

 DE], fixed the determination of Sismondi to consecrate the past glories 

 of the land of his ancestors in the page of history. The first-fruits of 

 his historical studies appeared in the first two volumes of his ' Re'pub- 

 liques Italiennes,' which were published at Zurich, in 1807. His 

 publisher, Gesner, is stated to have dealt hardly with him, and the 

 publication of the subsequent volumes, the last of which appeared in 

 1818, was transferred to Treuttel and Wurtz. A new and more com- 

 plete edition, in sixteen volumes, appeared during the years 1825 and 

 1826, both at Paris and Brussels. In the composition of this his first 

 and most important historical work, Sismondi has been blamed for 

 not having made a sufficient use of public archives and private collec- 

 tions ; he is, however, acknowledged to have carefully consulted every 

 printed book from which he could derive information. It is to this 



