Grand, John Baptist Le

, was born at Amiens, June 3, 1737, and was surnamed d’Aussy, because his father was a native of Auxy-le-Chateau, in the department of Pas-de-Calais. He received his education in the college of the Jesuits at Amiens at the age of eighteen entered into the society of his preceptors and, a few years afterxvards, had the honour of being elected to the rhetorical chair at Caen. At the age of twenty-six he was thrown on the world by the dissolution of the order, and was soon employed in the elaborate work of the French Glossary, projected by Lacurne de Sainte-Palaye, and in an examination of the very rich library of the marquis de Paulmy. In 1770 he was appointed secretary in the direction of the studies of the military school. He afterwards co-operated, under the marquis de Paulmy, and again with the count de Tressan, in the “Bibliotheque des Romans;” after which he became still deeper engaged in collecting, translating, extracting, and commenting upon the “Fabliaux,” or tales of the old French poets of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries. In 1782 he published, in three volumes, 8vo, his “Histoire de la Vie privee des Frangais;” and in 1788 his far more celebrated “Tour to Auvergne,” which province he visited the preceding year, at the entreaty of his Jesuit brother Peter Theodore Lewis Augustin, who was then prior of the abbey of Saint Andre, in the town of Clermont. This Tour he first published in one volume, ivo; but he afterwards enlarged and republished it in 1795, in three volumes of the same size. His contributions | to the Institute were numerous, and, for the most part, possessed of merit. For some years before his death, he had conceived the plan of a complete history of French poetry, and had even begun to carry it into execution; and as he stood in need of all the treasures of the national library, he was fortunately nominated, in 1796, conservator of the French Mss. of this library and he now not only renewed his intention, but enlarged his scheme he included in it the history of the French tongue that of literature in all its extent, and all its various ramifications as well as that of science, of arts, and their utility in different applications a monument too vast for the life and power of an individual to be able to construct. He had, however, accomplished some part of his design, when, after a slight indisposition which caused no alarm, he died suddenly in 1801. He was upon the whole a retired and taciturn scholar. “His life,” says his biographer, “like that of most other men of letters, may be comprized in two lines What were his places of resort The libraries. Among whom did he live His books. What did he ever produce Books. What did he ever say? That which appears in his books.

In 1779, he published his “Fabliaux,” or Tales of the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, Paris, 1779, 5 vols. 8vo. His object in this collection appears to have been an ardent zeal for the reputation of his country, to which he has successfully restored some tales claimed by other nations, and particularly the Italians. Whether these tales, which shock all probability, were worth his pains, the English reader may discover by a prose translation published in 1786, 2 vols. 12mo, or by Mr. Way’s metrical translation, 1800, 2 vols. 8vo. These were followed by “Contes devots, Fables et Romans anciens, pour servir de suite aux Fabliaux,1781, 8vo. He published also “Vie d'Apollonius de Tyanes,” 2 vols. 8vo. 1

1 Memoirs of th National Institute —Dict. Hist.