Académie française
What organization did Émile Littré join in Dec 1871?
Émile Littré Émile Maximilien Paul Littré ( ; 1 February 18012 June 1881 ) was a French lexicographer , freemason and philosopher , best known for his Dictionnaire de la langue française , commonly called . Biography . Littré was born in Paris . His father , Michel-François Littré , had been a gunner and , later , a sergeant-major of marine artillery in the French navy who was deeply imbued with revolutionary ideas of the day . Settling down as a tax collector , he married Sophie Johannot , a free-thinker like himself , and devoted himself to the education of his son Émile . The boy was sent to the Lycée Louis-le-Grand , where Louis Hachette and Eugène Burnouf became his friends . After he completed his studies at the lycée , he was undecided as to what career he should adopt ; however , he devoted himself to mastering the English and German languages , classical and Sanskrit literature , and philology . He finally decided to become a student of medicine in 1822 . He passed all his examinations in due course , and had only his thesis to prepare in order to obtain his degree as doctor when , in 1827 , his father died leaving his mother without means . He abandoned his degree at once despite his keen interest in medicine , and , while attending lectures by Pierre Rayer , began teaching Latin and Greek to earn a living . He served as a soldier for the populists during the July Revolution of 1830 , and was one of the members of the National Guard who followed Charles X to Rambouillet . In 1831 , he obtained an introduction to Armand Carrel , the editor of Le National , who gave him the task of reading English and German papers for excerpts . By chance , in 1835 , Carrel discovered Littrés skills as a writer and from that time on , he was a constant contributor to the journal , eventually becoming its director . In 1836 , Littré began to contribute articles on a wide range of subjects to the Revue des deux mondes , and in 1837 , he married . In 1839 , the first volume of his complete works of Hippocrates appeared in print . Due to the outstanding quality of this work , he was elected to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in the same year . He noticed the works of Auguste Comte , the reading of which formed , as he himself said , the cardinal point of his life . From this time forward , the influence of positivism affected his own life , and , what is of more importance , he influenced positivism , giving as much to this philosophy as he received from it . He soon became a friend of Comte , and popularised his ideas in numerous works on the positivist philosophy . He continued translating and publishing his edition of Hippocrates writings , which was not completed until 1862 , and he published a similar edition of Plinys Natural History . After 1844 , he took Fauriels place on the committee engaged to produce the Histoire littéraire de la France , where his knowledge of the early French language and literature was invaluable . Littré started work on his great Dictionnaire de la langue française in about 1844 , which was not to be completed until thirty years later . He participated in the revolution of July 1848 , and in the repression of the extreme Republican Party in June 1849 . His essays , contributed during this period to the National , were collected together and published under the title of Conservation , revolution et positivisme in 1852 , and show a thorough acceptance of all the doctrines propounded by Comte . However , during the later years of his masters life , he began to perceive that he could not wholly accept all the dogmas or the more mystic ideas of his friend and master . He concealed his differences of opinion , and Comte failed to recognise that his pupil had outgrown him , as he himself had outgrown his master Henri de Saint-Simon . Comtes death in 1858 freed Littré from any fear of alienating his master . He published his own ideas in his Paroles de la philosophie positive in 1859 . Four years later , in a work of greater length , he published Auguste Comte et la philosophie positive , which traces the origin of Comtes ideas through Turgot , Kant , and Saint-Simon . The work eulogises Comtes own life , his method of philosophy , his great services to the cause and the effect of his works , and proceeds to show where he himself differs from him . He approved wholly of Comtes philosophy , his great laws of society and his philosophical method , which indeed he defended warmly against John Stuart Mill . However , he stated that , while he believed in a positivist philosophy , he did not believe in a religion of humanity . About 1863 , after completing his translations of Hippocrates and his Pliny , he began work in earnest on his great French dictionary . He was invited to join the Académie française , but declined , not wishing to associate himself with Félix Dupanloup , bishop of Orléans , who had denounced him as the head of the French materialists in his Avertissement aux pères de famille . At this time , he also started La Revue de philosophie positive with Grégoire Wyrouboff , a magazine that embodied the views of modern positivists . Thus , his life was absorbed in literary work until the events that overthrew the Second Empire called him to take a part in politics . He felt himself too old to undergo the privations of the Siege of Paris , and retired with his family to Brittany . He was summoned by Gambetta to Bordeaux to lecture on history , and thence to Versailles to take his seat in the senate to which he had been chosen by the département of the Seine . In December 1871 , he was elected a member of the Académie française in spite of the renewed opposition of Msgr . Dupanloup , who resigned his seat rather than receive him . Littrés Dictionnaire de la langue française ( Dictionary of the French Language ) was completed in 1873 after nearly 30 years of work . The draft was written on 415,636 sheets , bundled in packets of one thousand , stored in eight white wooden crates that filled the cellar of Littrés home in Mesnil-le-Roi . The landmark effort gave authoritative definitions and usage descriptions to every word based on the various meanings it had held in the past . When it was published by Hachette , it was the largest lexicographical work on the French language at that time . In 1874 , Littré was elected Senator for life of the Third Republic . His most notable writings during these years were his political papers that attacked and revealed the confederacy of the Orléanists and Legitimists against the Republic ; his re-editions of many of his old articles and books , among others the Conservation , révolution et positivisme of 1852 ( which he reprinted word for word , appending a formal , categorical renunciation of many of the Comtist doctrines therein contained ) ; and a little tract , Pour la dernière fois , in which he maintained his unalterable belief in the philosophy of Materialism . In 1875 , he applied for membership in the Masonic Lodge La Clémente Amitié ( Grand Orient de France ) . When asked whether he believed in the existence of a supreme being in the presence of 1000 Freemasons , he replied : When it became obvious that the old man would not live much longer , his wife and daughter , who had always been fervent Catholics , strove to convert him to their religion . He had long discussions with Father Louis Millériot , a celebrated Controversialist , and Abbé Henri Huvelin , the noted priest of Église Saint-Augustin , who were much grieved at his death . When Littré was near death , he converted , was baptised by the abbé and his funeral was conducted with the rites of the Roman Catholic Church . Littré is interred at Montparnasse Cemetery in Paris . Works . Translations and re-editions . - Translation of the complete works of Hippocrates ( 1839–1863 ) - Translation of Plinys Natural History ( 1848–1850 ) - Translation of Strausss Vie de Jésus ( 1839–1840 ) - Translation of Müllers Manuel de physiologie ( 1851 ) - Re-edition of the political writings of Armand Carrel , with notes ( 1854–1858 ) Dictionaries and writings on language . - Reprise du Dictionnaire de médecine , de chirurgie , etc . with Charles-Philippe Robin , of Pierre-Hubert Nysten ( 1855 ) - Histoire de la langue française a collection of magazine articles ( 1862 ) - Dictionnaire de la langue française ( Le Littré ) ( 1863–1873 ) - Comment jai fait mon dictionnaire ( 1880 ) Philosophy . - Analyse raisonnée du cours de philosophie positive de M . A . Comte ( 1845 ) - Application de la philosophie positive au gouvernement ( 1849 ) - Conservation , révolution et positivisme ( 1852 , 2nd ed. , with supplement , 1879 ) - Paroles de la philosophie positive ( 1859 ) - Auguste Comte et la philosophie positive ( 1863 ) - La Science au point de vue philosophique ( 1873 ) - Fragments de philosophie et de sociologie contemporaine ( 1876 ) Other works . - Études et glanures ( 1880 ) - La Verité sur la mort dAlexandre le grand ( 1865 ) - Études sur les barbares et le moyen âge ( 1867 ) - Médecine et médecins ( 1871 ) - Littérature et histoire ( 1875 ) - Discours de reception à lAcadémie française ( 1873 ) Sources . - For his life consult C.A . Sainte-Beuve , Notice sur M . Littré , sa vie et ses travaux ( 1863 ) ; and Nouveaux Lundis , vol . v. ; also the notice by M . Durand-Gréville in the Nouvelle Revue of August 1881 ; E Caro , Littré et le positivisme ( 1883 ) ; Pasteur , Discours de récéption at the Academy , where he succeeded Littré , and a reply by Ernest Renan . Further reading . - Jean Hamburger , Monsieur Littré , Flammarion , Paris , 1988 External links . - Collection Medic@ offers Littrés edition of Hippocrates , complete in scanned page images - Dictionnaire de la langue française Littré ( 1863–1876 )