Royer-Collard
PIERRE PAUL, a French statesman; born in Sompuis, France, June 21, 1763. On the outbreak of the Revolution he was elected a member of the municipality of Paris, and in 1790-1792 acted as joint-secretary. Having incurred the enmity of the Jacobins, he lived in hiding at Sompuis during the Reign of Terror. Three years afterward (1797) chosen to the Council of the Five Hundred, he took an active part in the work of that assembly, till the 18th Fructidor. In 1811 ROYLE RUBBER he was appointed Professor of Philos- martial on his return to Russia, but was acquitted of blame. He died in 1909. ophy in Paris, and exercised an immense influence on the philosophy of France.
Rejecting the purely sensuous system of Condillac, he gave special prominence to the principles of the Scotch school of Reid and Stewart. Strongly "spiritualist" as opposed ist" as opposed to materialism, he originated the "Doctrinaire" school, of which Jouffroy and Cousin were the chief representatives. He was appointed president of the Commission of Public Instruction in 1815, but resigned that post in 1820; in 1825 also he returned to political life as deputy for the department of Marne. The French Academy opened its doors to him in 1827; and in 1828 he was named president of the Chamber of Representatives, and in that capacity presented the address of the 221 deputies (March, 1830) withdrawing their support from the government, which the king refused to hear read.
Next day the Chamber was prorogued.
From 1842 Royer-Collard completely withdrew from public life. His salon was latterly the resort of such men as Cousin, Guizot, De Broglie, Casimir Périer, Villemain, De Rémusat, and others. He never was a writer, and he became a philosopher only by accident; his true interest in life was politics, his real eminence as a political orator after the ancient pattern rather than that of the modern parliamentary debater. He died in his country seat, Châteauvieux, near St. Aignan, Loir-et-Cher, Sept. 4, 1845.