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A French poet; born Feb. 17 or 22, 1745, at Montpellier; guillotined at Paris, July 25, 1794. He wrote an epithalamium on the marriage of Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette, entitled "France and Austria at Hymen's Temple". But his principal production is the didactic poem in five songs, "The Months" (1779), which was ridiculed on its first appearance, but later acknowledged and admired by the literary world. He also translated Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" (1790). His letters to his family while in prison were published under the title of "The Consolations of my Captivity" (1797).