1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Jaubert, Pierre Amédée Émilien Probe

JAUBERT, PIERRE AMÉDÉE ÉMILIEN PROBE (1779–1847), French Orientalist, was born at Aix in Provence on the 3rd of June 1779. He was one of the most distinguished pupils of Silvestre de Sacy, whose funeral Discours he pronounced in 1838. Jaubert acted as interpreter to Napoleon in Egypt in 1798–1799, and on his return to Paris held various posts under government. In 1802 he accompanied Sebastiani on his Eastern mission; and in 1804 he was at Constantinople. Next year he was despatched to Persia to arrange an alliance with the shah; but on the way he was seized and imprisoned in a dry cistern for four months by the pasha of Bayazid. The pasha’s death freed Jaubert, who successfully accomplished his mission, and rejoined Napoleon at Warsaw in 1807. On the eve of Napoleon’s downfall he was appointed chargé d’affaires at Constantinople. The restoration ended his diplomatic career, but in 1818 he undertook a journey with government aid to Tibet, whence he succeeded in introducing into France 400 Kashmir goats. The rest of his life Jaubert spent in study, in writing and in teaching. He became professor of Persian in the collège de France, and director of the école des langues orientales, and in 1830 was elected member of the Académie des Inscriptions. In 1841 he was made a peer of France and councillor of state. He died in Paris on the 28th of January, 1847.

Besides articles in the Journal asiatique, he published Voyage en Arménie et en Perse (1821; the edition of 1860 has a notice of Jaubert, by M. Sédillot) and Éléments de la grammaire turque (1823–1834). See notices in the Journal asiatique, Jan. 1847, and the Journal des débats, Jan. 30, 1847.