Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition/Pierre François Xavier de Charlevoix

CHARLEVOIX, Pierre François Xavier de (1682–1761), a French Jesuit traveller and historian, was born at St Quentin in 1682. At the age of sixteen he entered the society of the Jesuits; and, at the age of twenty-three, was sent to Canada, where he remained for four years. He afterwards became professor of belles lettres at home; and travelled on the errands of his society in various countries. In 1720 he visited America for two years, in order to collect materials for his Histoire de la Nouvelle-France, which appeared in 1744. He also wrote Histoire de Paraguay (1706), Historie de Saint Domingue (1730), Histoire du Japan, a compilation chiefly from Kämpfer (Rouen, 1715); and he was one of the directors of the Journal de Trévoux.