1842.} General Meeting of the Asiatic Society of Paris. 413 



resume the teaching of the Hindostani, and he lastly repaired to France, 

 where he was occupied to his death with his favourite theory of an 

 universal language. He was rather distinguished for the activity than 

 for the exactness of his mind, and for an ardent character, which threw 

 him during his whole life into endless literary and political disputes, 

 though he had a large fund of benevolence. 



Another very distinguished member, the loss of whom the Society 

 has to complain, is, Monseigneur J. L. Taberd, Bishop of Isauropolis, 

 Apostolic Vicar of Cochin- China. Born at Saint Etienne in the year 

 1795, he took orders in 1818, and went two years afterwards as Mission- 

 ary to Cochin-China, where he arrived in the year 1821, just at the 

 moment when the position of the French missions in that country 

 became involved in difficulties. The Archbishop of Adran, who in 

 Cochin-China had exercised an almost royal power, expired, when 

 the reaction on which the Anti- French and Anti-Christian party a long 

 time since contemplated, forthwith broke out, and thence continued to 

 rage with increasing fury until this day. Under these difficult circum- 

 stances, M. Taberd was elected in 1823, Superior of the Mission, and in 

 1827, Bishop of Isauropolis, and Apostolic Vicar of Cochin-China. The 

 persecution having dispersed the Bishops of Cochin-China, he was 

 obliged to remove to Siam to be consecrated. The king Ming-Menh, 

 however, by fixing a price during his absence on his head, prevented 

 him from re-entering his diocese. Then taking refuge to Pulo-Penang, 

 he founded the Catholic College for the missions of Transgangetic India, 

 and went from thence to Calcutta to print his Cochin-China Dictionary, 

 the fruit of the accumulated labours of a large number of missionaries, 

 which was completed by himself. The generosity of the Governor Ge- 

 neral of India, and of the Protestant Missionaries at Serampore furnished 

 him the means of accomplishing his great undertaking. Some time 

 afterwards, he was elected Apostolic Vicar of Bengal, but he could not 

 discharge the functions of his new appointment, as he almost suddenly 

 died on the 31st July 1841, and as he had not previously received his 

 definitive nomination. 



The year, the labours of which occupy us, has not been very favour- 

 able to Oriental studies, especially in Asia, where war has paralysed 

 so many undertakings. These circumstances indeed will latterly turn out 

 to the benefit of Oriental literature in Europe, because the more and 



