with entire seriousness to weighty matters of literature. Though he devoted himself mainly to his great theme, the reconstruction of the elements of Roman society, he also wrote monographs on Madame de Sévigné (1887) and Saint-Simon (1892). He died in June 1908.
BOISSONADE DE FONTARABIE, JEAN FRANÇOIS (1774–1857), French classical scholar, was born at Paris on the 12th of August 1774. In 1792 he entered the public service during the administration of General Dumouriez. Driven from it in 1795, he was restored by Lucien Bonaparte, during whose time of office he served as secretary to the prefecture of the Upper Marne. He then definitely resigned public employment and devoted himself to the study of Greek. In 1809 he was appointed deputy professor of Greek at the faculty of letters at Paris, and titular professor in 1813 on the death of P. H. Larcher. In 1828 he succeeded J. B. Gail in the chair of Greek at the Collège de France. He also held the offices of librarian of the Bibliothèque du Roi, and of perpetual secretary of the Académie des Inscriptions. He died on the 8th of September 1857. Boissonade chiefly devoted his attention to later Greek literature: Philostratus, Heroica (1806) and Epistolae (1842); Marinus, Vita procli (1814); Tiberius Rhetor, De Figuris (1815); Nicetas Eugenianus, Drosilla et Charicles (1819); Herodian, Partitiones (1819); Aristaenetus, Epistolae (1822); Eunapius, Vitae Sophistarum (1822); Babrius, Fables (1844); Tzetzes, Allegoriae Iliados (1851); and a Collection of Greek Poets in 24 vols. The Anecdota Graeca (1829–1833) and Anecdota Nova (1844) are important for Byzantine history and the Greek grammarians.
A selection of his papers was published by F. Colincamp, Critique littéraire sous le premier Empire (1863), vol. i. of which contains a complete list of his works, and a “Notice Historique sur Monsieur B.,” by Naudet.
BOISSY D’ANGLAS, FRANÇOIS ANTOINE DE (1756–1828), French statesman, received a careful education and busied himself at first with literature. He had been a member of several provincial academies before coming to Paris, where he purchased a position as advocate to the parlement. In 1789 he was elected by the third estate of the sénéchaussée of Annonay as deputy to the states-general. He was one of those who induced the states-general to proclaim itself a National Assembly on the 17th of June 1789; approved, in several speeches, of the capture of the Bastille and of the taking of the royal family to Paris (October 1789); demanded that strict measures be taken against the royalists who were intriguing in the south of France, and published some pamphlets on finance. During the Legislative Assembly he was procureur-syndic for the directory of the department of Ardeche. Elected to the Convention, he sat in the centre, “le Marais,” voting in the trial of Louis XVI. for his detention until deportation should be judged expedient for the state. He was then sent on a mission to Lyons to investigate the frauds in connexion with the supplies of the army of the Alps. During the Terror he was one of those deputies of the centre who supported Robespierre; but he was gained over by the members of the Mountain hostile to Robespierre, and his support, along with that of some other leaders of the Marais, made possible the 9th Thermidor. He was then elected a member of the Committee of Public Safety and charged with the superintendence of the provisioning of Paris. He presented the report supporting the decree of the 3rd Ventose of the year III. which established liberty of worship. In the critical days of Germinal and of Prairial of the year III. he showed great courage. On the 12th Germinal he was in the tribune, reading a report on the food supplies, when the hall of the Convention was invaded by the rioters, and when they withdrew he quietly continued where he had been interrupted. On the 1st Prairial he presided over the Convention, and remained unmoved by the insults and menaces of the insurgents. When the head of the deputy, Jean Féraud, was presented to him on the end of a pike, he saluted it impassively. He was reporter of the committee which drew up the constitution of the year III., and his report shows keen apprehension of a return of the Reign of Terror, and presents reactionary measures as precautions against the re-establishment of “tyranny and anarchy.” This report, the proposal that he made (August 27, 1795) to lessen the severity of the revolutionary laws, and the eulogies he received from several Paris sections suspected of disloyalty to the republic, resulted in his being obliged to justify himself (October 15, 1795). As a member of the Council of the Five Hundred he became more and more suspected of royalism. He presented a measure in favour of full liberty for the press, which at that time was almost unanimously reactionary, protested against the outlawry of returned émigrés, spoke in favour of the deported priests and attacked the Directory. Accordingly he was proscribed on the 18th Fructidor, and lived in England until the Consulate. In 1801 he was made a member of the Tribunate, and in 1805 a senator. In 1814 he voted for Napoleon’s abdication, which won for him a seat in the chamber of peers; but during the Hundred Days he served Napoleon, and in consequence, on the second Restoration, was for a short while excluded. In the chamber he still sought to obtain liberty for the press—a theme upon which he published a volume of his speeches (Paris, 1817). He was a member of the Institute from its foundation, and in 1816, at the reorganization, became a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. He published in 1819–1821 a two-volume Essai sur la vie et les opinions de M. de Malesherbes.
See F. A. Aulard, Les Orateurs de la Révolution (2nd ed., 1906); L. Sciout, Le Directoire (4 vols., 1895); and the “Notice sur la vie et les œuvres de M. Boissy d’Anglas” in the Mémoires de l’Académie des Inscriptions, ix. (R. A.*)
BOITO, ARRIGO (1842– ), Italian poet and musical composer, was born at Padua on the 24th of February 1842. He studied music at the Milan Conservatoire, but even in those early days he devoted as much of his time to literature as to music, forecasting the divided allegiance which was to be the chief characteristic of his life’s history. While at the Conservatoire he wrote and composed, in collaboration with Franco Faccio, a cantata, Le Sorelle d’Italia, which was performed with success. On completing his studies Boito travelled for some years, and after his return to Italy settled down in Milan, dividing his time between journalism and music. In 1866 he fought under Garibaldi, and in 1868 conducted the first performance of his opera Mefistofele at the Scala theatre, Milan. The work failed completely, and was withdrawn after a second performance. It was revived in 1875 at Bologna in a much altered and abbreviated form, when its success was beyond question. It was performed in London in 1880 with success, but in spite of frequent revivals has never succeeded in firmly establishing itself in popular favour. Boito treated the Faust legend in a spirit far more nearly akin to the conception of Goethe than is found in Gounod’s Faust, but, in spite of many isolated beauties, his opera lacks cohesion and dramatic interest. His energies were afterwards chiefly devoted to the composition of libretti, of which the principal are Otello and Falstaff, set to music by Verdi; La Gioconda, set by Ponchielli; Amleto, set by Faccio; and Ero e Leandre, set by Bottesini and Mancinelli. These works display a rare knowledge of the requirements of dramatic poetry, together with uncommon literary value. Boito also published a book of poems and a novel, L’Alfier Meno. The degree of doctor of music was conferred upon him in 1893 by the university of Cambridge.
BOIVIN, FRANÇOIS DE, Baron de Villars (d. 1618), French chronicler, entered the service of Charles, Marshal Brissac, as secretary, and accompanied him to Piedmont in 1550 when the marshal went to take command of the French troops in the war with Spain. Remaining in this service he was sent after the defeat of the French at St Quentin in 1557 to assure the French king Henry II. of the support of Brissac. He took part in the negotiations which led to the treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis in April 1559, but was unable to prevent Henry II. from ceding the conquests made by Brissac. Boivin wrote Mémoires sur les guerres démêlées tant dans le Piémont qu’au Montferrat et duche de Milan par Charles de Cossé, comte de Brissac (Paris, 1607), which, in spite of some drawbacks, is valuable as the testimony of an eye-witness of the war. An edition, carefully revised,
