Desbarreaux (Jacques Vallée), Seigneur, French poet and sceptic, b. Paris, 1602, great-nephew of Geoffrey Vallée, who was burnt in 1574. Many stories are related of his impiety, e.g. the well-known one of his having a feast of eggs and bacon. It thundered, and Des Barreaux, throwing the plate out of window, exclaimed, "What an amount of noise over an omelette." It was said he recanted and wrote a poem beginning, "Great God, how just are thy chastisements." Voltaire, however, assigns this poem to the Abbé Levau. Died at Chalons, 9 May, 1673. Descartes (René), French philosopher, b. at La Haye, 31 March, 1596. After leaving college he entered the army in '16, and fought in the battle of Prague. He travelled in France and Italy, and in '29 settled in Holland. In '37 he produced his famous Discourses upon the Method of Reasoning Well, etc., and in '41 his Meditations upon First Philosophy. This work gave such offence to the clergy that he was forced to fly his country "parce qu'il y fait trop chaud pour lui." He burnt his Traite du Monde (Treatise on the World) lest he should incur the fate of Gallilei. Though a Theist, like Bacon, he puts aside final causes. He was offered an asylum by Christina, Queen of Sweden, and died at Stockholm 11 Feb. 1650. Deschamps (Léger-Marie), known also as Dom Deschamps, a French philosopher, b. Rennes, Poitiers, 10 Jan. 1716. He entered the Order of Benedictines, but lost his faith by reading an abridgment of the Old Testament. He became correspondent of Voltaire, Rousseau, d'Alembert, Helvetius, and other philosophers. "Ce prêtre athée," as Ad. Franck calls him, was the author of a treatise entitled La Vérité, ou le Vrai Système, in which he appears to have anticipated all the leading ideas of Hegel. God, he says, as separated from existing things, is pure nothingness. An analysis of his remarkable work, which remained in manuscript for three-quarters of a century, has been published by Professor Beaussire (Paris, 1855). Died at Montreuil-Bellay, 19 April 1774. Deslandes (André François Boureau), b. Pondichery, 1690. Became member of the Berlin Academy and wrote numerous works, mostly under the veil of anonymity, the principal being A Critical History of Philosophy, 3 vols(1737). His Pygmalion, a philosophical romance, was condemned by the parliament of Dijon, 1742. His Reflexions sur les grands hommes qui sont mort en Plaisantant (Amsterdam, 1732) was translated into English and published in 1745 under the title, Dying Merrily. Another work directed against religion was On the certainty of Human Knowledge, a philosophical examination of the different prerogatives of reason and faith (London, 1741). Died Paris, 11 April, 1757.