BARANTE, Amable Guillaume Prosper, Baron de Brugière, an eminent French statesman, and the learned historian of the dukes of Burgundy, was the son of an advocate, and was born at Riom, June 10, 1782. At the age of sixteen he entered the Ecole Polytechnique at Paris, and at twenty obtained his first appointment in the civil service. His abilities secured him rapid promotion, and in 1806 the post of auditor to the council of state was given to him. After being employed in several political missions in Germany, Poland, and Spain, during the next two years, he became prefect of Vienne. At the time of the return of Napoleon I. he held the prefecture of Nantes, and this post he immediately resigned. About this period he married. On the second restoration of the Bourbons he was named councillor of state and Secretary-general of the Ministry of the Interior. About the same time he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for the two departments of Puy-de-Dôme and Loire Inférieure; [but in the following year, in consequence of being under the legal age of a deputy, as required by a new law, he lost his seat. After filling for several years the post of Director-general of Indirect Taxes, he was created, in 1819, a peer of France, and took an active and prominent part as a member of the opposition in the debates of the Upper Chamber. During the same period the leisure hours which he could spare from his political engagements were devoted to literary studies. After the revolution of July 1830, Μ. de Barante was appointed ambassador to Turin; whence, five years later, he was transferred in the same capacity to St Petersburg. Throughout the reign of Louis Philippe he remained a supporter of the Government; and after the fall of the monarchy in February 1848, he withdrew from ...