Bon Joseph Dacier (

Valognes Valognes () is a commune in the Manche department in Normandy in north-western France. Geography Valognes is situated in the Cotentin Peninsula, southeast of Cherbourg. Valognes station has rail connections to Caen, Paris and Cherbourg. Histor ...

, 1 April 1742 – Paris, 4 February 1833) was a French historian, philologist and translator of ancient Greek. He became a Chevalier de l'Empire''Héraldique napoléonienne et symbolisme maçonnique'', by Jacques Declercq, after ''L’héraldique napoléonienne'', by Philippe Lamarque Ed. du Guy.
/ref> (16 December 1813), then

Baron de l'Empire As Emperor of the French, Napoleon I created titles of nobility to institute a stable elite in the First French Empire, after the instability resulting from the French Revolution. Like many others, both before and since, Napoleon found that t ...

(29 May 1830). He also served as curator of the

Bibliothèque nationale A library is a collection of materials, books or media that are accessible for use and not just for display purposes. A library provides physical (hard copies) or digital access (soft copies) materials, and may be a physical location or a vi ...

Biography

After studying at the collège d'Harcourt, he became the student and assistant of Étienne Lauréault de Foncemagne. Dacier came to public notice in 1772 via his translation of the ''Histories'' of

Claudius Aelianus Claudius Aelianus ( grc, Κλαύδιος Αἰλιανός, Greek transliteration ''Kláudios Ailianós''; c. 175c. 235 AD), commonly Aelian (), born at Praeneste, was a Roman author and teacher of rhetoric who flourished under Septimius Severu ...

and the same year became an associate member of the

Académie des inscriptions An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of secondary or tertiary higher learning (and generally also research or honorary membership). The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, ...

, becoming its president and permanent secretary in 1782. In that position, he wrote the organisation's history from 1784 to 1830. He translated the ''

Cyropaedia The ''Cyropaedia'', sometimes spelled ''Cyropedia'', is a partly fictional biography of Cyrus the Great, the founder of Persia's Achaemenid Empire. It was written around 370 BC by Xenophon, the Athenian-born soldier, historian, and student of Soc ...

'' by

Xenophon Xenophon of Athens (; grc, Ξενοφῶν ; – probably 355 or 354 BC) was a Greek military leader, philosopher, and historian, born in Athens. At the age of 30, Xenophon was elected commander of one of the biggest Greek mercenary armies o ...

(1777). He became a member of Paris's corps municipal in 1790 and led the imposition of the new system of

contributions directes The contributions directes were a system of four taxes, also known as the ''quatre vieilles'', set up under the French Revolution. They were all direct taxes, willingly voted into existence by vote of the deputies, by contrast with the Ancien Rég ...

, but refused

Louis XVI Louis XVI (''Louis-Auguste''; ; 23 August 175421 January 1793) was the last King of France before the fall of the monarchy during the French Revolution. He was referred to as ''Citizen Louis Capet'' during the four months just before he was ...

's offer of the post of finance minister. After retiring to

Seine-et-Oise Seine-et-Oise () was the former department of France encompassing the western, northern and southern parts of the metropolitan area of Paris.French Revolution The French Revolution ( ) was a period of radical political and societal change in France that began with the Estates General of 1789 and ended with the formation of the French Consulate in coup of 18 Brumaire, November 1799. Many of its ...

, he became a member of the Tribunat in 1799. In 1800 he was made curator of manuscripts at the

and elected to the Académie des Sciences morales et politiques. It was to Dacier that Jean-François Champollion, Champollion sent hi
famous 1822 letter
known widely as ''Lettre à M. Dacier'', revealing his discovery of how to decipherment of ancient Egyptian scripts, decipher Egyptian hieroglyphs. At age 80, Dacier was elected to the Académie française in 1822; at the time he was the oldest member of the society. He was made a baron on 26 May 1830. Pierre-François Tissot, his successor in the Académie, said of him that "he had the sanest ideas on scholarship, and he unceasingly tended to give it a useful and philosophical direction. "Don't look for gold mines" he said to his brother-academicians and especially to their young emulators. [ ... ] Nothing could be more dangerous than his elogies; they were believed like an epigram by Pierre-Antoine Lebrun, Lebrun. On the other hand, he liked to support the development of talent; after having the good luck of having found something, his greatest pleasure was to bring it to public light."Cited by , ''Histoire des quarante fauteuils de l'Académie française depuis la fondation jusqu'à nos jours, 1635–1855'', volume IV, pp. 194-5 (1855) Biographic notice n° 124, devoted to him on page 118 of ''Le premier siècle de l'Institut de France'' (1895), gives his name as "DACIER (Le Baron Bon, Joseph)". He is buried in the cimetière du Père-Lachaise (29th Division, 4th line, S, 33).

Main works

Journals edited by Bon Joseph Dacier included the ''Journal des savants, Journal des sçavans'', and he also wrote on the history of the Order of Saint Lazarus (of which he was a member). He also wrote several historical articles.

Translations

*''Histoires diverses d'Claudius Aelianus, Élien le Sophiste'' (1772). Online text

*''La Cyropedia, Cyropédie, ou Histoire de Cyrus'' (by

, 2 volumes, 1777)

Other

*''Froissart's Chronicles, Les chroniques de Jean Froissart, Jehan Froissart'' (1788). Left incomplete due to the 1793 troubles *''Rapport historique sur les progrès de l'histoire et de la littérature ancienne depuis 1789 et sur leur état actuel'' (1810). Reissued : Belin, Paris, 1989. – commissioned by Napoleon I of France and published in 1810, remains a reference work for historians of the French Revolution. *''Histoire et mémoires de l'Institut royal de France. Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres'' (10 volumes, 1821–33)

References

External links

Académie française
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dacier, Bon-Joseph 1742 births 1833 deaths Translators to French 19th-century French historians French philologists Translators from Greek People from Manche Knights of the First French Empire Members of the Académie des sciences morales et politiques French classical scholars French librarians Burials at Père Lachaise Cemetery French male non-fiction writers 18th-century French historians