MALLET, Edme, was born at Melun in 1713, and enjoyed a curacy in the neighbourhood of his native place till 1731, when he went to Paris to be professor of theology in the college of Navarre, of which he was admitted a doctor. Boyer, bishop of Mirepoix, was at first much prejudiced against him; but being afterwards undeceived, he conferred upon him the fee of Verdun as a reward for his doctrine and morals. Janfenism had been imputed to him by his enemies with this prelate; and the gazette which went by the name of Ecclesiastical, accused him of impiety. Either of these imputations was equally undeserved by the abbé Mallet: as a Christian, he was grieved at the disputes of the French church; and, as a philosopher, he was astonished that the government had not, from the very beginning of those dissensions imposed silence on both parties. He died at Paris in 1755, at the age of 42. The principal of his works are, 1. Principes pour la lecture des Poètes, 1745, 12mo, 2 vols. 2. Essai sur l'Etude des Belles Lettres, 1747, 12mo.
Mallet, 12mo. 3. Essai sur les bienfaisance oratoires, 1753, 12mo. 4. Principes pour la lectures des Orateurs, 1753, 12mo. 3 vols. 5. Histoire des Guerres civiles de France sous les regnes de Francois II. Charles IX. Henri III. et Henri IV. translated from the Italian of d'Avila.— In Mallet's work on the Poets, Orators, and the Belles Lettres, his object is no more than to explain with accuracy and precision the rules of the great masters, and to support them by examples from authors ancient and modern. The style of his different writings, to which his mind bore a great resemblance, was neat, easy, and unaffected. But what must render his memory estimable, was his attachment to his friends, his candour, moderation, gentleness, and modesty. He was employed to write the theological and belles-lettres articles in the Encyclopédie; and whatever he wrote in that dictionary was in general well composed. Abbé Mallet was preparing two important works when the world was deprived of him by death. The first was Une Histoire generale de nos Guerres depuis le commencement de la Monarchie; the second, Une Histoire de Concile de Trente, which he intended to set in opposition to that of Father Paul translated by Father le Courayer.