Chalvet, Matthew De

, in Latin Calventius, president of the Inquests of the parliament of Toulouse, was born in May 1523. He was brought to Paris in 1539 by Mr. Lizet his uncle, at that time advocate-general in the parliament of Paris, who kept him six years to his studies under Orontius Fineus, Tusan, Buchanan, and some other learned persons. He went to Toulouse in 1546, to learn the civil law, and lodged in the same house with Turnebus, Mercerus, and Govea. He travelled into Italy in 1550, in order to pursue his studies, and was Alciat’s disciple at Pavia, and Socinus’s at Bologna. Being returned to France, he went to Toulouse, and there completed his course of law-studies, and was associated with Roaldes and Bodinus, reading law lectures together in the public schools with reputation. Having taken his doctor’s degree in that university, he resolved to go to Paris, in order to make his fortune; but though this resolution of his was strengthened by some letters he received from Mr. Lizet, yet he chose rather to settle in Toulouse, where he married, in 1552, Jane de Bernuy, daughter of the lord de Palficat, baron of Villeneufve. He was admitted counsellor in the parliament of that city in 1553, afterwards created judge of French poesy, and maintainer of the floral sports. He was appointed president of the inquests by the parliament in 1573. Being of a peaceable temper, he retired to his house in Auvergne, during the first and last furies of the civil wars, in order that he might not be an eye-witness of the confusions which he saw would break out in Toulouse. It was in this retirement he studied and translated Seneca, to administer some consolation to himself during the wild havock that was then making, and to employ his leisure to advantage. His attachment to his sovereign gained him the particular esteem of Henry IV. who in 1603 appointed him counsellor of state and privy counsellor. The year after, he resigned his dignity of president to Francis Chalvet sieur de Fenouiliet, one of his sons, and retired from business to spend the remainder of his days in peace and among his books. He spent two years in this -retirement, with so much satisfaction to himself, that he used frequently to declare to his relations, that he could not say he had lived during the previous years of his life. He died at Toulouse the 20th of June, 1607, being seventy-nine years of age. Several authors have honoured him with eulogiums. | His “Translation of Seneca,” was published at Paris, 1604, folio, and reprinted there in 1638, with a life of the translator, and some encomiastic verses in French and Latin. Chalvet himself wrote much French and Latin poetry, which was not published. Huet, in his treatise “De claris interpretibus,” thinks that his translation of Seneca is too diffuse. ¹