A Brief Charles Marie René Leconte de Lisle Bio

Leconte de Lisle (Charles Marie René), French poet, b. Isle of Bourbon, 23 Oct. 1818. After travelling in India, returned to Paris, and took part in the revolution of ’48, but has since devoted himself mainly to poetry, though he has written also A Republican Catechism and A Popular History of Christianity (’71). One of his finest poems is Kain. On being elevated to the seat of Victor Hugo at the Academy in ’87, he gave umbrage to [204]Jews and Catholics by incidentally speaking of Moses as “the chief of a horde of ferocious nomads.”