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Michel Louis Etienne Regnault, Comte de Saint-Jean D'angely

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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Comte]] (1761-1819), French politician, was born at Saint Fargeau (Yonne) on the 3rd of December 1761. Before the Revolution he was an avocat in Paris and lieutenant of the maritime provostship of Rochefort. In 1789 he was elected deputy to the States General by the Third Estate of the senechaussee of Saint Jean d'Angely. His eloquence made him a prominent figure in the Constituent Assembly, where he boldly attacked Mirabeau, and settled the dispute about the ashes of Voltaire by decreeing that they belonged to the nation. But the moderation shown by the measures he proposed at the time of the flight of the king to Varennes, by his refusal to accede to the demands for the king's execution, and by the articles he published in the Journal de Paris and the Ami des patriotes, marked him out for the hostility of the advanced parties. He was arrested after the revolution of the 10th of August 1792, but succeeded in escaping, and during the reaction which followed the fall of Robespierre was appointed administrator of the military hospitals in Paris. His powers of organization brought him to Bonaparte's notice, and he took part in the coup d'etat of 18 Brumaire, year VIII. (9th of November 1799). Under the Empire he enjoyed the confidence of Bonaparte, and was made councillor of state, president of section in the Council of State, member of the French Academy, procureur general of the high court, and a count of the Empire. He was dismissed on the first restoration of the Bourbons, but resumed his posts during the Hundred Days, and after Waterloo persuaded the emperor to abdicate. He was exiled by the government of the second Restoration, but subsequently obtained leave to return to France. He died on the day of his return to Paris (lath of March 1819). Les Souvenirs du Comte Regnault de St Jean d'Angely (Paris, 1817) are spurious. His son, Auguste Michel Etienne Regnault De Saint Jean D'Angely (1794-1870), an army officer, was dismissed from the army by the Restoration government, fought for the Greeks in the Greek War of Independence, and rejoined the French army in 1830. In 1848 he was elected deputy and sat on the right. Under the Second Empire he went through the Crimean and Italian campaigns, and was made senator and marshal for bravery at the battle of Magenta.

Regnier, Henri Francois Joseph De (1864-), French poet, was born at Honfleur (Calvados) on the 28th of December 1864, and was educated in Paris for the law. In 1885 he began to contribute to the Parisian reviews, and his verses found their way into most of the French and Belgian periodicals favourable to the symbolist writers. Having begun, however, to write under the leadership of the Parnassians, he retained the classical tradition, though he adopted some of the innovations of Moreas and Gustave Kahn. His gorgeous and vaguely suggestive style shows the influence of Stephane Mallarme, of whom he was an assiduous disciple. His first volume of poems, Lendemains, appeared in 1885, and among numerous later volumes are Poemes anciens et romanesques (18 9 o), (1890), Les Medailles d'argent (1900), La Cite des eaux (1903). He is also the author of a series of realistic novels and tales, among which are La Canne de jaspe (2nd ed., 1897), La Double Maitresse (5th ed., 1900), (1904), and Les Amants singuliers (1905). M. de Regnier married Mlle. Marie de Heredia, daughter of the poet, and herself a novelist and poet under the name of Gerard d'Houville.

See E. Gosse, French Profiles (1905), and Poetes d'aujourd'hui (6th ed., 1905), by van Bever and Leautaud.