Guillaume François Antoine, Marquis de l', a celebrated French mathematician, was born at Paris in 1661. Entering the army, he served for some time in a cavalry regiment, but his bad eyesight, and a strong desire to pursue the study of mathematics, induced him to retire into private life. At a very early age he had given proof of a strong bent as well as of a large capacity for the pure sciences. One day at the table of the Duke de Rohan, a problem was mentioned, for which it was said that Pascal after long thinking had found an elegant solution. De l'Hôpital, then a lad of fifteen, astonished the savants who were admiring the neatness of Pascal's method by de- declaring that he believed he could solve it otherwise, and in a few days he did send in a correct solution on a totally different principle. Towards the close of the seventeenth century the calculus was beginning slowly, and amid fierce opposition, to force its way into general acceptance among the mathematicians of Europe. One of its ablest advocates, John Bernoulli, coming to Paris, was engaged by De l'Hôpital to give him instructions in it, and spent some time in the marquis's house, teaching him the higher mathematics. So great was De l'Hôpital's progress, that when his tutor propounded to the mathematicians of Europe his famous problem of the curve of quickest descent he was the only Frenchman who sent in a solution. De l'Hôpital now became one of the warmest supporters of the calculus, and indeed wrote the first systematic treatise on it, which appeared at Paris in 1696, under the title of L'Analyse des Infiniment Petits. In the preparation of this work De l'Hôpital is said, though apparently on insufficient grounds, to have been unduly aided by his old tutor Bernoulli. This work, which may be fairly regarded as marking an era in the history of mathematical science, was frequently reprinted in the course of the eighteenth century. Not long after De l'Hôpital's death, which took place in 1704, a treatise on the conic sections, which he had left in MS., was published, and long maintained its ground as the standard work on this department of mathematics. See Playfair's Dissertation, prefixed to this work.

Hôpital or Hospital, Michel de l', chancellor of France, was born at Aigueperse in Auvergne, in the year 1505. His father, Jean de l'Hôpital, who was at once physician and councillor to the Constable of Bourbon, sent him to study law, first at Toulouse, and afterwards at Padua, the legal school of which then enjoyed great celebrity. In that age jurisprudence was the principal science cultivated, and no one could aspire to any employment without having studied it profoundly. L'Hôpital, although he had already acquired the elements of this science in France, spent six years at Padua in improving himself in it; he also applied himself to the study of the belles lettres, in which he made rapid progress, and at the same time cultivated the Greek and the Latin languages, with which he rendered himself perfectly familiar. Having completed his studies, and finding his prospects clouded by the death of the Cardinal de Grammont, who had induced him to return to France, and upon whose influence he had placed his hopes of preferment, he entered himself of the bar at Paris. In this profession, his merit and virtue were soon appreciated. At the end of three years, Jean Morin, criminal-lieutenant, a person famous in the martyrology of the Protestants, on account of the severity with which he enforced the laws enacted against them, gave L'Hôpital his daughter in marriage, and at the same time conferred upon him the office of counsellor to the parliament of Paris as her dowry.

In this situation, which he held during twelve years, the toleration he displayed formed a remarkable contrast to the unrelenting severity by which his father-in-law had rendered himself but too celebrated. When L'Hôpital entered the parliament, that once illustrious body had much degenerated, owing to the venality introduced or at least overlooked by Francis I. A witness of this corruption, L'Hôpital deplored its consequences, and, in concert with some old magistrates who still remained, endeavoured to set an example of assiduity and application to a crowd of inexperienced young men, who, by venality, had obtained admission into the parliament, and who had no other title to that honour but the money they had paid for it. L'Hôpital was long cited as a model in the magistracy. He made it a rule to listen with patience, to interrupt no one, to express himself as concisely as possible, and to oppose all unnecessary delays; he was also punctual in his attendance in court, where he generally remained until the business of the day had been regularly gone through, and always rose with reluctance, however late, if any portion of it remained unattended to. In short, he was a laborious and conscientious judge, who to great talents united the most steady and persevering industry. The vacations made no material change in his way of life; his pursuits were indeed different, but his application was the same; the perusal of the great writers of antiquity, the study of French history, and the reading of the Holy Scriptures, each in its turn formed the occupation of his leisure time. "There is nothing frivolous in my amusements," says he, in one of his letters; "sometimes Xenophon is the companion of my walks; sometimes the divine Plato regales me with the discourses of Socrates. History and poetry have their turns; but my chief delight is in the sacred writings."

The next appointment which L'Hôpital received was that conferred upon him by Henri II. of envoy or ambassador to the Council of Trent, which was then sitting at Bologna. But having soon grown tired of the inactivity to which he found himself reduced, he was, at his own desire, recalled, and, upon his return, experienced some coldness on the part of the court, which did not altogether relish his evident disinclination to assist in the proceedings of that famous council. The coldness, however, proved only temporary, for ere long he was appointed master of the requests. In 1554 he was made director and superintendent of the royal finances in the chamber of accounts. At this time the finances required a guardian at once vigilant and faithful. Enormous abuses prevailed in the whole fiscal administration. On the one hand there existed profusion without limits, and on the other malversation without shame. Scarcely a third, or even a fourth part of the sums collected, ever reached the royal treasury; the people were exposed to the most grinding exactions, yet the revenue was in a state of gradual decline. To put an end to these disorders, L'Hôpital revived the ancient laws which had fallen into desuetude; he struck terror into defaulters by some examples of wholesome severity; he refused to sanction any expenditure except for the immediate purposes of the state; he defied the enmity of that numerous and vindictive class whose dishonest gains he had destroyed; and he acted with so much personal disinterestedness, that, after having been five years in office, he was unable to give a portion to his daughter, and the deficiency was supplied by the liberality of the sovereign.

After the fatal accident which, in 1559, put an end to the life of the king, the Cardinal de Lorraine, then at the head of affairs, introduced L'Hôpital into the council of state; but as one of the articles of the treaty of Chateau-Cambresis had provided that the Duchess De Berri, his benefactress, should espouse Emanuel-Philibert, Duke of Savoy, he was appointed to conduct that princess into Piedmont, whither he attended her in the capacity of chancellor. The distracted situation of France, however, soon made it necessary to recall a man of such undaunted firmness and inflexible integrity. In the midst of faction, turbulence, and confusion, when the passions of men appeared, like the evil spirits, to have been for a season unchained, he was advanced to the office of chancellor of France, and in this elevated station conducted himself like a philosopher and a hero. At this period the destruction of the Protestants had been determined on; it was resolved to leave them no alternative but abjuration or death; and it was even meditated to establish the inquisition in France. The new chancellor durst not attack this project directly, without compromising himself with the governing party; but he sought indirectly to defeat the odious design, and by the edict of Remorantin, which declared the crime of heresy to be cognisable only by the ecclesiastical judge, he ultimately accomplished his benevolent design, and thus decided the clergy to abandon all idea of establishing the inquisition, which, they knew, would be powerless when deprived of the aid of the secular arm. Upon all occasions, indeed, he was the advocate of mercy and reconciliation, and a declared enemy to persecution on account of religion; and hence the more bigoted Romanists, offended at his wisdom and moderation, accused him of being a concealed Protestant, unconscious that by such suspicions and accusations they paid the highest compliments to the spirit of that faith which they were so desirous to eradicate. With a man of such character, ability, and firmness, at the head of affairs, it was hopeless to attempt to carry through the violent measures which were already contemplated; yet when the question of giving him a successor came to be seriously agitated, Catherine de Medici found herself involved in very great perplexity. The ancient relations of L'Hôpital with the House of Lorraine; the estimation in which he was universally held; his known love of his country, which, in his mind, absorbed all other affections; and the difficulty of finding any one to fill his place, who would not sink into insignificance and contempt in comparison with this truly great man—were serious obstacles to his removal; but nothing could induce him to abandon or change the pacific character of his measures, all other considerations were at length disregarded, and the queen excluded him from the council of war, upon which he immediately withdrew to his country-house at Vignay, near Estampes.

His exclusion from the council was accompanied with insult. The Constable of Montmorency told him that a man of his profession, a civilian, ought not to intermeddle in what related to war. "That is a subject," said the constable, "on which you are not qualified to give advice." "True," replied the chancellor, "I do not know how to make war, but I know when it is necessary." Several days after his retirement from office, when the seals were demanded of him, he resigned them without regret, observing that the affairs of the world were too corrupt for him to meddle with them. He spent his time in lettered ease, amusing himself with writing Latin poetry, and enjoying the society of some select friends, until his peace was broken by the bloody tragedy of St Bartholomew, which, with his usual sagacity, he had foreseen. Of this barbarous and inexplicable massacre the judgment he pronounced has been ratified by posterity. He himself narrowly escaped being one of its victims. The inhabitants of the country had risen, and were devastating the fields, and dragging the farmers in chains towards the city. But the queen, anxious about his fate, sent a detachment of cavalry for his protection. The sudden apparition of this troop, whose destination was unknown, produced great consternation in his house, which was open on all sides. He was asked by the inmates if they would close the gates. "No, no," said he; "if the small gate will not admit them, throw open the large one." When informed that the persons who prepared the lists of proscription had pardoned him the opposition which he had always given to their projects; "I did not know," replied he coldly, "that I had done any thing to deserve either pardon or death." But what most deeply affected L'Hôpital on this mournful occasion, was the danger to which his daughter, who happened to be in Paris, was in consequence exposed. She was saved by the interference of Anne d'Este, duchess of Guise, whom L'Hôpital thanked for this signal service, in an epistle overflowing with the warmest feelings of paternal gratitude. These cruel events, however, deeply affected his health and spirits, and he died at Vignay, on the 13th of March 1573, at the age of sixty-eight, and less than one year after the massacre.

"L'Hôpital," says Brantôme, "was the greatest, worthiest, and most learned chancellor that was ever known in France. His large white beard, pale countenance, and austere manner, made all who saw him think they beheld a true portrait of St Jerome, and, in fact, he was called St Jerome by the courtiers. All orders of men feared him, particularly the members of the courts of justice; and when he examined Hopkins, them on their lives, their discharge of their duties, their capacities, or their knowledge, and particularly when he examined candidates for offices, and found them deficient, he made them feel it. He was profoundly versed in polite learning, very eloquent, and an excellent poet. His severity was never ill-natured; he made due allowance for the imperfections of human nature; he was always equal and firm. After his death his very enemies acknowledged that he was the greatest magistrate whom France had known, and that they did not expect to see such another." The productions of L'Hôpital are—1. Latin poems; 2. Speeches delivered at the meeting of the States at Orleans; 3. Mémoires, containing plusieurs Traités de Pair, &c., from 1551 to 1560, Cologne, 1672, in 12mo. A work which he had undertaken on law is lost; and it is said that he had also projected a history of his own time, on the model of the ancient historians; but of this no part appears to have been executed. In 1807, M. Bernardi published his Essai sur la Vie, les Ecrits, et les Lois de Michel de l'Hôpital, in one volume 8vo, from which and other documents Mr Charles Butler published his Essay on the Life of L'Hôpital, principally with the view of exhibiting him as a friend of toleration. An admirable life and estimate of De l'Hôpital will also be found in Villemain's Nouveaux Mélanges Littéraires. (J. B.—E.)