Jean Charles Leonard Simonde De Sismondi, a French historian, born in Geneva, May 9,1773, died there, June 25, 1842. He was the son of a Protestant clergyman, and of remote Italian descent. After completing his classical studies, he was placed in a commercial house at Lyons. He subsequently resided with his family in England for some time, and having returned to Geneva about 1794, he and his father were driven into exile for assisting a political refugee. He returned to Geneva in 1800, became a secretary of the chamber of commerce, and published in 1803 Traite de la richesse commer-ciale, ou principes d'economie politique (2 vols. 8vo). In this work he supported the principles of Adam Smith, but his views afterward underwent a radical change. The influence of Mme. de Stael, whom he accompanied to Germany and Italy, and of her friends, turned his attention to historical labors, in which he revealed his ardent love of humanity. In 1819 he married Miss Allen, a sister of Sir James Mackintosh's second wife, and declined chairs at the Sorbonne and the college de France, to spend the rest of his life at Geneva. His principal works are: Histoire des republiques ita-liennes du moyen age (16 vols., Zurich, 1807-'18; new ed., 10 vols., Paris, 1840); La littera-ture du midi de l"Europe (4 vols., 1813; 4th ed., 1840; English translation by Thomas Roscoe, with notes, 4 vols., 1823); Nouveaux prin-cipes d'economie politique (2 vols., 1819); Histoire des Francais (31 vols., 1821-44; vols. xxx. and xxxi. by Amedee Renee, the last forming a general index); Julia Severn, ou Van 492, a picture of Gaul during the 5th century (3 vols. 12mo, 1822); "History of the Italian Republics," an eloquent summary of his great work on the same subject, and "The Fall of the Roman Empire," both originally written in English for Lardner's "Cabinet Cyclopaedia" (1832 and 1834), and translated by himself into French; Etudes sur la constitution des peuples libres (1836; enlarged ed., entitled Etudes des sciences sociales, 3 vols., 1836-'8); and Precis de l'histoire des Francais (2 vols., 1839), a summary of his larger work, bringing it down to the death of Henry IV. - See "Political Economy and the Philosophy of Government," selected from his works, with a notice of his life and writings by Mignet (London, 1847); Sismondi, fragments de son journal et de sa correspondance avec Mlle, de Sainte-Aulaire (Paris, 18G3); and his Lettres inedites a Madame d' Albany (1864).