JEAN, an eminent French astronomer, was born at Flèche in 1620, and became priest and prior of Rillé in Anjou. His knowledge of astronomy early attracted notice. On the 25th of August 1645 he was employed, along with Cassini, in observing the solar eclipse; in 1655 he was appointed to the astronomical chair in the College of France; and in 1666 he was selected by Colbert to assist in founding the Academy of Sciences. Picard, however, was destined to become still better known for his improvements in practical geometry. In 1667, along with Auzout, he was the first to apply a telescope to the quadrant in the measurement of angles. It was his good fortune, shortly afterwards, to introduce the modern method of determining the right ascension of the stars by employing a pendulum to note the instant of their meridian passages. He brought this list of improvements to a close in 1669, by making the first exact measurement of a degree of the meridian. So great indeed were his services to science, that by the time of his death in 1682 he was worthy of being considered the father of French astronomy. The principal works of Picard are La Mesure de la Terre, Paris, 1671; Voyage d'Uranibourg, Paris, 1680; Observations Astronomiques faites en divers Endroits du Royaume; Observations faites à Bayonne, Bordeaux, et Royan pendant l'Année 1680; and La Connaissance des Temps. There are also several contributions by him in the sixth and seventh volumes of the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences. (See Delambre's Histoire de l'Astronomie, and his article "Jean Picard" in the Biographie Universelle.)

LOUIS-BENOIT, a celebrated French comic dramatist, was born in Paris in July 1769. Although educated for the law, he soon abandoned every pursuit to give himself up entirely to writing for the stage. His ready activity in this new profession was almost unparalleled. He brought into play a fertile brain, a happy skill in sketching manners, a lively wit, a great knowledge of scenic effect, and an abundant flow of diction. Prose comedies, poetical comedies, comic operas, were produced in rapid succession to delight the theatres. The business of actor, which he undertook in 1797, and that of theatrical manager, which he began not long afterwards, did not withdraw him from the literature of the stage. He continued to write until he had produced more than seventy dramas. Death only put an end to his industry in 1828. The best, though still incomplete, collection of Picard's plays, was that published in 10 vols. 8vo, 1821-23. A supplementary volume, in 8vo, was issued in 1832. He was also the author of Le Gil-Blas de la Révolution and other novels.