PERE, a learned Jesuit, born in 1718 at Toulon. He was sent to Pekin in 1751, and continued to reside there until his death in 1794. He obtained the favourable notice of the emperor Kien Lung; which, with his profound knowledge of the Chinese and Manticheou languages, enabled him to collect and transmit to Europe more information on China than all his predecessors. His researches have enriched all the memoirs on that singular people during the last century.