a French geographer, author and translator, best remembered in the English speaking world for his translation of German ghost stories Fantasmagoriana, published anonymously in 1812, which inspired Mary Shelley and John William Polidori to write Frankenstein and The Vampyre respectively. He was one of the founding members of the Société de Géographie, a member of the Société Asiatique, admitted to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres, awarded the Legion of Honour, elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1841,
