1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Clément, François

CLÉMENT, FRANÇOIS (1714–1793), French historian, was born at Bèze, near Dijon, and was educated at the Jesuit College at Dijon. At the age of seventeen he entered the society of the Benedictines of Saint Maur, and worked with such intense application that at the age of twenty-five he was obliged to take a protracted rest. He now resided in Paris, where he wrote the 11th and 12th vols. of the Histoire littéraire de la France, and edited (with Dom Brial) the 12th and 13th vols. of the Recueil des historiens des Gauls et de la France. The king appointed him on the committee which was engaged in publishing charters, diplomas and other documents connected with French history (see Xavier Charmes, Le Comité des travaux historiques et scientifiques, vol. i., 1886, passim); and the Academy of Inscriptions chose him as a member (1785). Dom Clément also revised the Art de vérifier les dates, edited in 1750 by Dom Clémencet. Three volumes with the Indexes appeared from 1783 to 1792. He was engaged in preparing another volume including the period before the Christian era, when he died suddenly of apoplexy, at the age of sixty-nine. The work was afterwards brought down from 1770 to 1827 by Julien de Courcelles and Fortia d’Urban.