437 



VOLNEY, COMTE DE. 



VOLNEY, COMTE DE. 



433 



was a distinguished advocate. He was educated at the colleges of 

 Ancenis and Angers. At this time, and till he reached his twenty- 

 fourth year, he bore the name of Boisgirais, invented by his father, to 

 whom the ancestral Chaesebceuf had always been matter of annoyance. 

 His father's wish was that he should study the law ; and with this view 

 he caine up to Paris in his seventeenth year, having already a small 

 income of 1100 livres (about 451.) of his own, left him by his mother ; 

 but he soon exchanged the study of the law for that of medicine ; and 

 eventually, on succeeding to a further independent revenue of 6000 

 livres (240J.), he gave up the thought of following any profession. He 

 now, in 1783, set out for the East. After shutting himself up for eight 

 mouths in an Egyptian convent to study the Arabic language, he spent 

 above two years more in traversing Lower Egypt and Syria ; and on 

 his return to France in 1787 he published, in 2 vols. 8vo, his account 

 of the physical and political condition of these countries, and of their 

 geography and antiquities, under the title of ' Voyage en Syrie et en 

 Egypte pendant les annees 1783, 84, et 85.' The first edition of 

 Larcher's translation of and commentary on Herodotus had been pub- 

 lished at Paris the year before, and had probably done something to 

 awaken a general interest about the subject of Volney's book. Volney 

 also, with the advantages of personal observation, with very consider- 

 able learning, and with more acuteness than Larcher, came to support 

 the same view of the trustworthiness of Herodotus which that writer 

 had enforced. On the whole, Volney's was universally received as at 

 once by far the most graphic and spirited, and the most exact and 

 complete description of Egypt and Syria which had yet appeared. A 

 third edition of the work, with considerable additions, appeared in 

 1800 ; and there is an English translation of it in 2 vols. 8vo. It was 

 followed the next year by a short tract on the war then carrying on 

 between Turkey and Russia (' Considerations sur la Guerre des Russes 

 et des Turcs'), remarkable for its anticipation of the seizure of Egypt 

 by the French, attempted ten years later ; and also for the indiscretion 

 or unusual frankness with which certain facts and questions of the 

 diplomacy of the day were discussed in it ; so that it was christened 

 by the wits ' Inconside'rations sur la Guerre,' &c. This tract was 

 reprinted in the 1800 edition of the ' Voyage/ and again by itself in 

 1808. 



Volney, who had some sanguine notions upon new modes of farming, 

 which he wished to have an opportunity of trying on a property he 

 proposed purchasing in Corsica, now got himself appointed by the 

 French government director of the agriculture and commerce of that 

 recently-acquired island; but being elected deputy of the ' tiers e"tat ' 

 to the National Assembly for the s^ndchaussde of Anjou, he remained 

 for the present in France to take part in the great events about to be 

 transacted there ; and he soon after resigned his government office. 

 In the Constituent Assembly, and afterwards in the Convention, of 

 which he was also a member, Volney acted generally with the party of 

 the Girondists, assisting the onward movement till the establishment 

 of the reign of terror in 1793 ; when, like many of his associates, he 

 began to think that matters had been carried too far ; but having a 

 weak voice, he was no orator, and his personal influence in the House 

 was inconsiderable. His history accordingly still continues to be prin- 

 cipally that of his literary career. It appears that in 1788 he had 

 commenced at Rennes a paper called ' La Sentinelle.' In 1790 he gave 

 in to the Acaddmie des Inscriptions an essay for a proposed prize on 

 the subject of the Chronology of the Twelve Centuries preceding the In- 

 vasion of Greece by Xerxes. Although he had no competitor, the prize 

 was not awarded to him ; but the essay was afterwards published by 

 Naigeon in the ' Encyclopedic Methodique.' In September 1791 he 

 presented to the National Assembly his famous ' Ruines, ou Medita- 

 tions sur les Revolutions des Empires ; ' the work in which he first 

 announced those peculiar views as to the symbolical character of the 

 Christian and other religions (similar, as has been observed, to those 

 developed by Dupuis in his ' Origine des Cultes,' probably known to 

 Volney, though not yet published), to which his name principally 

 owes its popular notoriety. There are numerous French editions of 

 the ' Ruines,' and there is also a wretched English translation of the 

 work, which has been often printed. It contains many striking and 

 ingenious views and some eloquent writing, though extravagant and 

 absurd in its leading principles. Soon after it appeared, Volney retired 

 to Corsica to cultivate a property which he had purchased there ; but 

 the insurrection headed by Paoli compelled him to leave the island in 

 the spring of 1793. It was during this visit to Corsica that he first 

 became acquainted with Napoleon Bonaparte, then an officer of 

 artillery. 



On his return to Paris, Volney published in the ' Moniteur ' of the 

 20th and Slst of March a ' Prdcis de 1'Etat de la Corse.' In 1793 he 

 published his well-known brochure (generally printed with his 

 'Ruines'), entitled 'La Loi Naturelle, ou Catechisme du Citoyen 

 Fran9ais,' or otherwise ' Principes Physiques de la Morale,' a title 

 which sufficiently explains its spirit and object. It is a clear and com- 

 prehensive exposition of such a system of ethics as can be reared on 

 the theory of materialism. Volney was now sent to prison by Robe- 

 spierre as a royalist, and remained in confinement for about ten 

 months : he regained his liberty on the overthrow of Robespierre by 

 what is called the revolution of the 9th Thermidor (27th July 1794). 

 Soon after he was appointed professor of history in the newly-esta- 

 blished Ecole Normale ; and here for about a year he delighted crowded 



audiences by his brilliant lectures, which were taken down as they 

 were delivered, and have been several times printed. In 1795 he drew 

 up, at the request of the government, a series of ' Questions de Statis- 

 tique a I'Usage dea Voyageurs,' which were reprinted in 1813. This 

 year also he published the first of his works on a subject which for the 

 rest of his life engaged much of his attention a tract entitled ' Sim- 

 plification des Langues Orientales, ou Me*thode nouvello et facilo 

 d'apprendre les Langues Arabe, Persane, et Turke, avec des Caracteres 

 Europdens.' His notions upon this subject were opposed by Langlds, 

 Silvestre de Sacy, and other orientalists, but he never himself relin- 

 quished them ; and he had the satisfaction, a few years after this, of 

 having an important testimony borne at least to the learning and inge- 

 nuity he had shown in explaining and applying them, by the Asiatic 

 Society at Calcutta, which in 1798 elected him one of its honorary 

 members. 



The Ecole Normale was suppressed in 1795 ; upon which Volney 

 proceeded to the United States of America. He was well received by 

 Washington, then president ; but his residence became less comfortable 

 after the commencement, in 1797, of the presidency of John Adams, 

 whom he is said to have offended by some severe things he had 

 said of his work on the ' Constitution of the United States;' and in 

 the spring of 1798 he quitted America and returned to France. 

 While residing in New England he had been attacked by Priestley in 

 his ' Observations on the Progress of Infidelity ; ' and he replied in a 

 pungent letter, which he caused to be translated into English and sent 

 to the press. During his absence he had been elected a member of 

 the Institute. Ever since they became acquainted in Corsica, Volney 

 and Bonaparte had been good friends ; it is said that it was by Volney's 

 advice that Bonaparte was dissuaded from going, in the beginning of 

 1794, to offer his services as a military man to Turkey or Russia ; and 

 Volney is supposed to have had, soon after his return from America, a 

 share in the contrivance and preparation of the revolution of the 18th 

 Brumaire (9th of November 1799), which placed Bonaparte at the 

 head of affairs. Bonaparte wished him to be one of his colleagues in 

 the consulate ; but he refused both that and the ministry of the 

 interior, and would only consent to be nominated to a seat in the 

 senate. From this date an alienation began to take place between 

 the two ; their fh*st open difference was on the subject of the church, 

 the restoration of which as one of the establishments of the state 

 Volney conceived to be a very foolish proceeding ; but their notions 

 upon all other matters also ran in opposite directions. When Bona- 

 parte assumed the imperial title, Volney offered the resignation of his 

 senatorial dignity ; he was prevailed upon to retain his seat, but he 

 seldom attended after this, and when he did he joined the small 

 minority of the body which Napoleon contemptuously called the 

 " ideologues," " homines speculatifs," and other such names. He sub- 

 sequently however accepted the titles of comte and commandant of the 

 Legion of Honour. In 1803 he published, in 2 vols. 8vo, his ' Tableau 

 du Climat et du Sol des Etats-Unis d'Amerique,' a work which sus- 

 tained the reputation he had acquired by his ' Travels in Egypt and 

 Syria,' though it is now of no value. His next work was a ' Rapport 

 fait k I'Acadetnie Celtique sur 1'Ouvrage Russe de M. le Professeur 

 Pallas, Vocabulaires compares des Langues de toute la Terre,' which 

 appeared in 1805. In 1808 he recast his ' Essay on the Chronology of 

 the Early Ages," and republished it under the title of ' Supplement h, 

 1'Herodote de Larcher.' This is a tract of only eighty pages, in which 

 he fixes the date (B.C. 625) of the great solar eclipse stated to have 

 been foretold by Thales [ALYATTES ; THALES] ; and also that of the 

 capture of Sardis and fall of the Lydian kingdom (B.C. 557). That and 

 another work, entitled ' Chronologie d'Herodote,' which he published 

 the following year, involved Volney in a controversy with Larcher, 

 whom he had attacked with much asperity, provoked perhaps in part 

 by the complete change of opinion as to religion which Larcher, 

 formerly as decided an infidel as himself, had avowed in the second 

 edition of his 'Herodotus,' published a few years before. Volney 

 however suppressed most of the personalities originally contained in 

 these two works when he reprinted them in 2 vols. 8vo, in 1814, along 

 with an examination of the antiquities of Persia, India, and Babylon, 

 under the title of ' Recherches Nouvelles sur I'Histoire Aucienne.' 



In 1810 Volney married his cousin, formerly Mademoiselle de 

 Chassebocuf, between whom and himself there had existed an early 

 attachment, but who had married while her lover was abroad, and 

 was now a widow. Upon this occasion he removed from the small 

 house in the Rue de la Rochefoucauld, in which he had resided since 

 his return from America, to a fashionable mansion, with a large 

 garden, which he bought in the Rue de Vaugirard. Volney was one 

 of the senators who voted in favour of the decree passed the 2nd of 

 April 1814, for the deposition of Bonaparte; and on the 4th of June 

 following he was elevated to the peerage by Louis XVIII. It may be 

 conceived from all this, that his early political ardour had now con- 

 siderably abated. But he showed that some of his old opinions were 

 still the same as ever by a pamphlet entitled 'Histoire de Samuel, 

 Inventeur du Sacre des Rois,' which he published in 1819, when pre- 

 parations were making for the coronation of Louis at Rheims, and in 

 which he treated the character of Samuel and of the Hebrew Scrip- 

 tures in general with equal freedom. It is said that Louis himself, 

 who in private used to profess a very easy liberalism, both in religion 

 and in politics, read this inquiry with not a little relish. Volney's 



