[Desaix, Louis Charles Antoine], a distinguished French general, born at the Château d'Ayat, Auvergne, of a noble family; entered the army at 15; commanded a division of the Army of the Rhine in 1796, and after the retreat of Moreau defended Kehl against the Austrians for two months; accompanied Bonaparte to the East, and in 1799 conquered Upper Egypt; contributed effectively to the success at Marengo, and fell dead at the moment of victory, shot by a musket-ball; he was an upright and a chivalrous man, known in Egypt as "the just Sultan," and in Germany as "the good general" (1768-1800).
[Desaugiers, Marc], a celebrated French composer of songs and vaudevilles; "stands second to Béranger as a light song-writer," and is by some preferred to him (1772-1827).
[Desault], a French surgeon, born in dep. of Haute-Saône; his works contributed largely to the progress of surgery (1714-1795).
[Desbarres, Joseph Frederick], military engineer and hydrographer, aide-de-camp of General Wolfe at Quebec; fortified Quebec; surveyed the St. Lawrence; revised the maps of the American coast at the outbreak of the American war; died at Halifax, Nova Scotia, aged 102 (1722-1824).
[Descamps], a French painter, born at Dunkirk; painted village scenes (1714-1791).
[Descartes, René], the father of modern philosophy, born at La Haye, in Touraine; was educated at the Jesuit College of La Flèche, where he made rapid progress in all that his masters could teach him, but soon grew sceptical as to their methods of inquiry; "resolved, on the completion of his studies, to bid adieu to all school and book learning, and henceforth to gain knowledge only from himself, and from the great book of the world, from nature and the observation of man"; in 1616 he entered the army of the Prince of Orange, and after a service of five years quitted it to visit various centres of interest on the Continent; made a considerable stay in Paris; finally abandoned his native land in 1629, and betook himself to seclusion in Holland in order to live there, unknown and undisturbed, wholly for philosophy and the prosecution of his scientific projects; here, though not without vexatious opposition from the theologians, he lived twenty years, till in 1649, at the invitation of Christina of Sweden, he left for Stockholm, where, the severe climate proving too much for him, he was carried off by pneumonia next year; Descartes' philosophy starts with Doubt, and by one single step it arrives at Certainty; "if I doubt, it is plain I exist," and from this certainty, that is, the existence of the thinking subject, he deduces his whole system; it all comes from the formula Cogito, ergo sum, "I think, therefore I exist," that is, the thinking ego exists; in which thinking philosophy ere long sums the universe up, regarding it as a void, without thought; Descartes' philosophy is all comprehended in two works, his "Discourse on Method," and his "Meditations" (1596-1650).
[Deschamps, Émile], a French poet, born at Bourges, one of the chiefs of the Romantic school (1795-1871).
[Deschamps, Eustache], a French poet, born at Vertus, in Champagne; studied in Orleans University; travelled over Europe; had his estate pillaged by the English, whom, in consequence, he is never weary of abusing; his poems are numerous, and, except one, all short, consisting of ballads, as many as 1175 of them, a form of composition which he is said to have invented; he deals extensively in satire, and if he wields the shafts of it against the plunderers of his country, he does no less against the oppressors of the poor (1328-1415).
[Desdemona], the wife of Othello the Moor, who, in Shakespeare's play of that name, kills her on a groundless insinuation of infidelity, to his bitter remorse.
[Desèze], a French advocate, had the courage, along with advocate Tronchet, to defend Louis XVI. when dragged to judgment by the Convention, and who, honourably fulfilling his perilous office, pled for the space of three hours, an honourable pleading "composed almost overnight; courageous, yet discreet; not without ingenuity, and soft pathetic eloquence"; he was imprisoned for a time, but escaped the scaffold; on the return of the Bourbons he was made a peer (1750-1828).