Chasles

Chasles, Philarete (1798-1873), a French writer born near Chartres. A follower of Rousseau from youth, he was imprisoned at the Restoration along with the Jacobin bookseller to whom he was apprenticed. Released from this imprisonment by the intervention of Chateaubriand, he was employed at a bookseller's shop in England, and studied deeply English literature, and so was able on his return to Paris to review English books in the Revue Encyclopedique. Two of his works were crowned by the Academy, and in 1841 he was appointed professor of northern languages in the College de France. Among other English subjects he wrote of Charles I., Mary Stuart, Cromwell, and Shakespeare.