The American Cyclopædia (1879)/Buffier, Claude

BUFFIER, Claude, a French author, born in Poland of French parents, May 25, 1661, died in Paris, May 17, 1737. He was educated at Rouen, entered the society of Jesus in 1679, and spent the greater part of his life in teaching at the collége Louis le Grand. His principal writings on grammar, literature, science, and theology are found in his Cours de sciences sur des principes nouveaux et simples (Paris, 1732), the most esteemed being the Traité des premières vérités. A separate edition of his remarkable Grammaire française sur un plan nouveau appeared subsequently. The Encyclopédie méthodique appropriated many of his writings without credit. He wrote various historical and other works, and in his Pratique de la mémoire artificielle (4 vols., Paris, 1701-'15) he applied Lancelot's method to the study of chronology, history, and geography.