Morellet, Andre

Morellet, Andre a celebrated French abbot, noted for his literary labors, was born at Lyons in 1727, and educated in the Sorbonne, at Paris. He became a friend of Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, and D'Alembert, to whose Encyclopedie he also contributed. He translated into French Beccaria's treatise On Crimes and Penalties (1766), and wrote several treatises on political economy, and many others, among which is Melanges de la Litterature et de la Philosophie du dix-huitienme siecle (Paris, 1818, 4 volumes, 8vo). In 1785 he was admitted to the French Academy, and concealed its archives at the risk of his life during the reign of terror. He died in 1819. See Lemontey, Eloge de Morellet. prefixed to Morellet's Memnoires (1821, 2 volumes); Nouv. Biog. Generale, s.v.; "Morellet and his Contemporaries," in the North Amer. Rev. October 1822, by A.H. Everett.