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Louis Gustave Vapereau

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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LOUIS GUSTAVE VAPEREAU (1819-1906), French man of letters and lexicographer, was born at Orleans on the 4th of April 1819. Educated at the Ecole Normale he became a teacher of philosophy, and was entrusted by Victor Cousin with the preparation of his studies on the Pensees of Pascal. Under the empire his republican principles cost him his position, and Vapereau studied for the bar. He practised, however, little or not at all, and after 1870 he was appointed prefect of Cantal (1870) and of Tarn et Garonne (1871-73). From 1877 to 1888 he was inspector-general of public instruction. He was the author of some excellent editions of the classics, and of works on political and social questions, but he is famous for his valuable Dictionnaire universel des contemporains (1858; 6th ed., 1893), brought up to date in 1895 by a supplementary volume. He also drew up a Dictionnaire universel des liiterateurs (1876). At the time of his death at Norsang-sur-Orge in 1906, he had been for twenty-six years a regular contributor to L' Illustration, some of his notes written for this journal being collected in 1896 as L'Homme et la vie.