DEL CREDERE (Ital. “of belief” or “trust”). A “del credere agent,” in English law, is one who, selling goods for his principal on credit, undertakes for an additional commission to sell only to persons who are absolutely solvent. His position is thus that of a surety who is liable to his principal should the vendee make default. The agreement between him and his principal need not be reduced to or evidenced by writing, for his undertaking is not a guarantee within the Statute of Frauds. See also [Broker]; [Guarantee].
DELESCLUZE, LOUIS CHARLES (1809-1871), French journalist, was born at Dreux on the 2nd of October 1809. Having studied law in Paris, he early developed a strong democratic bent, and played a part in the July revolution of 1830. He became a member of various republican societies, and in 1836 was forced to take refuge in Belgium, where he devoted himself to republican journalism. Returning in 1840 he settled in Valenciennes, and after the revolution of 1848 removed to Paris, where he started a newspaper called La Révolution démocratique et sociale. His zeal so far outran his discretion that he was twice imprisoned and fined, his paper was suppressed and he himself fled to England, where he continued his journalistic work. He was arrested in Paris in 1853, and deported to French Guiana. Released under the amnesty of 1859, he returned to France with health shattered but energies unimpaired. His next venture was the publication of the Réveil, a radical organ upholding the principles of the Association internationale des travailleurs, known as the “Internationale.” This journal, which brought him three condemnations, fine and imprisonment in one year, shared the fate of his Paris sheet, and its founder again fled to Belgium. In 1871 he was elected to the National Assembly, becoming afterwards a member of the Paris commune. At the siege of Paris he fought with reckless courage, and met his death on the last of the barricades (May 1871). He wrote an account of his imprisonment in Guiana, De Paris à Cayenne, Journal d’un transporté (Paris, 1869).
DELESSE, ACHILLE ERNEST OSCAR JOSEPH (1817-1881), French geologist and mineralogist, was born at Metz on the 3rd of February 1817. At the age of twenty he entered the École Polytechnique, and subsequently passed through the École des Mines. In 1845 he was appointed to the chair of mineralogy and geology at Besançon; in 1850 to the chair of geology at the Sorbonne in Paris; and in 1864 professor of agriculture at the École des Mines. In 1878 he became inspector-general of mines. In early years as ingénieur des mines he investigated and described various new minerals; he proceeded afterwards to the study of rocks, devising new methods for their determination, and giving particular descriptions of melaphyre, arkose, porphyry, syenite, &c. The igneous rocks of the Vosges, and those of the Alps, Corsica, &c., and the subject of metamorphism occupied his attention. He also prepared in 1858 geological and hydrological maps of Paris—with reference to the underground water, similar maps of the departments of the Seine and Seine-et-Marne, and an agronomic map of the Seine-et-Marne (1880), in which he showed the relation which exists between the physical and chemical characters of the soil and the geological structure. His annual Revue des progrès de géologie, undertaken with the assistance (1860-1865) of Auguste Laugel and afterwards (1865-1878) of Albert de Lapparent, was carried on from 1860 to 1880. His observations on the lithology of the deposits accumulated beneath the sea were of special interest and importance. His separate publications were: Recherches sur l’origine des roches (Paris, 1865); Étude sur le métamorphisme des roches (1869); Lithologie des mers de France et des mers principales du globe (2 vols. and atlas, 1871). He died at Paris on the 24th of March 1881.
DELESSERT, JULES PAUL BENJAMIN (1773-1847), French banker, was born at Lyons on the 14th of February 1773, the son of Étienne Delessert (1735-1816), the founder of the first fire insurance company and the first discount bank in France. Young Delessert was travelling in England when the Revolution broke out in France, but he hastened back to join the Paris National Guard in 1790, becoming an officer of artillery in 1793. His father bought him out of the army, however, in 1795 in order to entrust him with the management of his bank. Gifted with remarkable energy, he started many commercial enterprises, founding the first cotton factory at Passy in 1801, and a sugar factory in 1802, for which he was created a baron of the empire. He sat in the chamber of deputies for many years, and was a strong advocate for many humane measures, notably the suppression of the “Tours” or revolving box at the foundling hospital, the suppression of the death penalty, and the improvement of the penitentiary system. He was made regent of the Bank of France in 1802, and was also member of, and, indeed, founder of many, learned and philanthropic societies. He founded the first savings bank in France, and maintained a keen interest in it until his death in 1847. He was also an ardent botanist and conchologist; his botanical library embraced 30,000 volumes, of which he published a catalogue—Musée botanique de M. Delessert (1845). He also wrote Des avantages de la caisse d’épargne et de prévoyance (1835), Mémoire sur un projet de bibliothéque royale (1836), Le Guide de bonheur (1839), and Recueil de coquilles décrites par Lamarck (1841-1842).
DELFICO, MELCHIORRE (1744-1835), Italian economist, was born at Teramo in the Abruzzi on the 1st of August 1744, and was educated at Naples. He devoted himself specially to the study of jurisprudence and political economy, and his numerous publications exercised great practical influence in the correction and extinction of many abuses. Under Joseph Bonaparte Delfico was made a councillor of state, an office which he held until the restoration of Ferdinand IV., when he was appointed president of the commission of archives, from which he retired in 1825. He died at Teramo on the 21st of June 1835. His more important works were: Saggio filosofico sul matrimonio (1774); Memoria sul Tribunale della Grascia e sulle leggi economiche nelle provincie confinanti del regno (1785), which led to the abolition in Naples of the most vexatious and absurd restrictions on the sale and exportation of agricultural produce; Riflessioni su la vendita dei feudi (1790) and Lettera a Sua Ecc. il sig. Duca di Cantalupo (1795), which brought about the abolition of feudal rights over landed property and their sale; Ricerche sul vero carattere della giurisprudenza Romana e dei suoi cultori (1791); Pensieri su la storia e su l’ incertezza ed inutilità della medesima (1806), both on the early history of Rome.
See F. Mozzetti, Degli studii, delle opere e delle virtù di Melchiorre Delfico; Tipaldo’s Biographia degli Italiani illustri (vol. ii.).