first place, editor of the Milan Gazette, and in 1769, in despite of the Jesuits, to a specially created chair of belles lettres in the Palatine School. On the French occupation of Milan he was appointed magistrate by Napoleon and Saliceti, but almost immediately retired to resume his literary work and to complete Il Vespro and La Notte (published after his death), which with the two other poems already mentioned compose what is collectively entitled Il Giorno. Among his other poems his rather artificial Odi, composed between 1757 and 1795, have appeared in various editions. He died on the 15th of August 1799.
His works, edited by Reina, were published in 6 vols. 8vo (Milan, 1801–1804); and an excellent critical edition by G. Mazzoni appeared at Florence in 1897.
PARIS (also called Alexandros), in Greek legend, the son of
Priam, king of Troy and Hecuba. Before he was born his
mother dreamed that she was delivered of a firebrand. The
dream was interpreted that her child would ruin his country,
and when Paris was born he was exposed on Mt Ida. His
life was saved by the herdsmen, and he grew up among them,
distinguished for beauty and strength, till he was recognized and
received by his parents. He was said to have been called
Alexandros from his bravery in defending the herds against
raids. When the strife arose at the marriage of Peleus and
Thetis between Hera, Athena and Aphrodite, each claiming the
apple that should belong to the most beautiful, Paris was selected
as the judge. The three rivals unveiled their divine charms
before a mortal judge on Mt Ida. Each tried to bribe the
judge, Hera by promising power, Athena wisdom, Aphrodite
the most beautiful woman in the world. Paris decided in favour of Aphrodite, and thus made Hera and Athena bitter enemies of his country (Homer, Iliad, xxiv. 25; Euripides, Troades, 925; Andromache, 284; Helena, 23). To gain the woman whom Aphrodite had promised, Paris set sail for Lacedaemon, deserting his old love Oenone, daughter of the river-god Cebren, who in vain warned him of the consequences. He was hospitably received by Menelaus, whose kindness he repaid by persuading his wife Helen to flee with him to Troy (Iliad, vi. 290). The siege of Troy by the united Greeks followed. Paris proved a lazy and backward fighter, though not wanting in actual courage when he could be roused to exert himself. Before the capture of the city he was mortally wounded by Philoctetes with an arrow (Sophocles, Philoctetes, 1426). He then bethought him of the slighted nymph Oenone, who he knew could heal the wound. He was carried into her presence, but she refused to save him. Afterwards, when she found he was dead, she committed suicide (Apollodorus iii. 12). The judgment of Paris became a favourite subject in Greek art. Paris is represented as a beautiful young man, beardless, wearing the pointed Phrygian cap, and often holding the apple in his hand.
PARIS, ALEXIS PAULIN (1800–1881), French savant, was born at Avenay (Marne) on the 25th of March 1800. He
published in 1824 an Apologie pour l’école romantique, and took
an active part in Parisian journalism. His appointment, in
1828, to the department of manuscripts in the Bibliothèque
royale left him leisure to pursue his studies in medieval French
literature. Paulin Paris lived before minute methods of
research had been generally applied to modern literature, and
his chief merit is that by his numerous editions of early French
poems he continued the work begun by Dominique Méon in
arousing general interest in the then little-known epics of
chivalry. Admitted to the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles
Lettres in 1837, he was shortly afterwards appointed on the
commission entrusted with the continuation of the Histoire
littéraire de la France. In 1853 a chair of medieval literature
was founded at the Collège de France, and Paulin Paris became
the first occupant. He retired in 1872 with the title of honorary
professor, and was promoted officer of the Legion of Honour in
the next year. He died on the 13th of February 1881 in Paris.
His works include: Manuscrits français de la bibliothèque du roi (7 vols., 1836–1848); Li Romans di Garin le Loherain, précédé d’un examen des romans carlovingiens (1883–1885); Li Romans de Berte aux grans piés (1832); Le Romancero français, histoire de quelques anciens trouvères et choix de leurs chansons (1833); an edition of the Grandes chroniques de France (1836–1840); La Chanson d’Antioche (1848); Les Aventures de maître Renart et d’Ysengrin (1861) and Les Romans de la table ronde (1868–1877), both put into modern French.
His son Gaston Paris contributed a biographical notice to vol. xxix. of the Histoire littéraire.
PARIS, BRUNO PAULIN GASTON (1839–1903), French
scholar, son of Paulin Paris, was born at Avenay (Marne) on the 9th of August 1839. In his childhood Gaston Paris learned to appreciate the Old French romances as poems and stories, and this early impulse to the study of Romance literature was
placed on a solid basis by courses of study at Bonn (1856–1857)
under Friedrich Diez, at Göttingen (1857–1858) and finally at the
École des Chartes (1858–1861). His first important work was an
Étude sur le rôle de l’accent latin dans la langue française (1862).
The subject was developed later in his Lettre à M. Léon Gautier
sur la versification latine rhythmique (1866). Gaston Paris
maintained that French versification was a natural development
of popular Latin methods which depended on accent
rather than quantity, and were as widely different from classical
rules as the Low Latin was from the classical idiom. For his
degree as doctor he presented a thesis on the Histoire poétique
de Charlemagne (1865). He succeeded his father as professor of
medieval French literature at the Collège de France in 1872; in
1876 he was admitted to the Academy of Inscriptions and in
1896 to the French Academy; and in 1895 he was appointed
director of the Collège de France. Gaston Paris won a European
reputation as a Romance scholar. He had learnt German
methods of exact research, but besides being an accurate
philologist he was a literary critic of great acumen and breadth
of view, and brought a singularly clear mind to bear on his
favourite study of medieval French literature. His Vie de
Saint-Alexis (1872) broke new ground and provided a model
for future editors of medieval texts. It included the original
text and the variations of it dating from the 12th, 13th and 14th
centuries. Gaston Paris contributed largely to the Histoire
littéraire de la France, and with Paul Meyer published Romania,
a journal devoted to the study of Romance literature. Among
his other numerous works may be mentioned Les Plus anciens
monuments de la langue française (1875); a Manuel d’ancien
Français (1888); an edition of the Mystère de la passion d’Arnoul
Greban (1878), in collaboration with M. Gaston Raynaud;
Deux rédactions du roman des sept sages de Rome (1876); a
translation of the Grammaire des langues romanes (1874–1878) of
Friedrich Diez, in collaboration with MM. Brachet and Morel-Fatio.
Among his works of a more popular nature are La Poésie
du moyen âge (1885 and 1895); Penseurs et poètes (1897); Poèmes
et légendes du moyen âge (1900); François Villon (1901), an
admirable monograph contributed to the “Grands Écrivains
Français” series; Légendes du moyen âge (1903). His excellent
summary of medieval French literature forms a volume of the
Temple Primers. Gaston Paris endeared himself to a wide
circle of scholars outside his own country by his unfailing
urbanity and generosity. In France itself he trained at the
École des Chartes and the Collège de France a band of disciples
who continued the traditions of exact research that he established.
Among them were: Léopold Pannier; Marius Sepet,
the author of Le Drame chrétien au moyen age (1878) and of the
Origines catholiques du théâtre moderne (1901); Charles Joret;
Alfred Morel-Fatio; Gaston Raynaud, who is responsible for
various volumes of the excellent editions published by the
Société des anciens textes français; Arsène Darmesteter and others.
Gaston Paris died in Paris on the 6th of March 1903.
See “Hommage à Gaston Paris” (1903), the opening lecture of his successor, Joseph Bédier, in the chair of medieval literature at the Collège de France; A. Thomas, Essais de philologie française (1897); W. P. Ker, in the Fortnightly Review (July, 1904); M. Croiset, Notice sur Gaston Paris (1904); J. Bédier et M. Roques, Bibliographie des travaux de Gaston Paris (1904).
PARIS, FRANÇOIS DE (1690–1727), French theologian, was born in Paris on the 3rd of June 1690. He zealously opposed the bull Unigenitus (1713), which condemned P. Quesnel’s
