NANTES

nantes, french politician and author, was born at beaurepaire, in the department of isere. in 1791 he was elected to the legislative assembly by the department of loire inferieure, and was noted for his violent attacks upon the farmers general, the pope and the priests; but he was not re-elected to the convention. during the terror, as he had belonged to the girondin party, he was obliged to seek safety in the mountains. in 1798 he was elected to the council of five hundred by the department of isere, and became one of its secretaries; and in the following year he voted against the directory. he took office under the consulate as prefect of charente inferieure, rose to be a member of the council of state, and in 1804 obtained the important post of director-general of the indirect taxes (_droits reunis_). the value of his services was recognized by the titles of count of the empire and grand officer of the legion of honour. on the second restoration he retired into private life; but from 1819 to 1822 he was representative of the department of isere, and after the july revolution he was made a peer of france. he died at paris on the 7th of march 1836. francais wrote a number of works, but his name is more likely to be preserved by the eulogies of the literary men to whom he afforded protection and assistance. it is sufficient to mention _le manuscrit de feu m. jerome_ (1825); _recueil de fadaises compose sur la montagne a l'usage des habitants de la plaine_ (1826); _voyage dans la vallee des originaux_ (1828); _tableau de la vie rurale, ou l'agriculture enseignee d'une maniere dramatique_ (1829). francais, francois louis (1814-1897), french painter, was born at plombieres (vosges), and, on attaining the age of fifteen, was placed as office-boy with a bookseller. after a few years of hard struggle, during which he made a precarious living by drawing on stone and designing woodcut vignettes for book illustration, he studied painting under gigoux, and subsequently under corot, whose influence remained decisive upon francais's style of landscape painting. he generally found his subjects in the neighbourhood of paris, and though he never rivalled his master in lightness of touch and in the lyric poetry which is the principal charm of corot's work, he is still counted among the leading landscape painters of his country and period. he exhibited first at the salon in 1837 and was elected to the academie des beaux-arts in 1890. comparatively few of his pictures are to be found in public galleries, but his painting of "an italian sunset" is at the luxembourg museum in paris. other works of importance are "daphnis et chloe" (1872), "bas meudon" (1861), "orpheus" (1863), "le bois sacre" (1864), "le lac de nemi" (1868).