Jules Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire

Jules Barthélemy-Saint-Hilaire (19 August 1805 – 24 November 1895) was a French philosopher, journalist, statesman, and possible illegitimate son of Napoleon I of France.

The reputation he gained from this work won him the chair of ancient philosophy at the Collège de France (1838) and a seat at the Academy of Moral and Political Science (1839).

During three years, he thus played an important role during the debates leading to the adoption of the Falloux Laws in 1850–1851, which greatly increased the clergy's influence on education, to the dismay of Republicans such as Saint-Hilaire.

In 1855 he went as member of the international commission to Egypt to report on the possibility of the proposed Suez Canal, and by the articles which he wrote he contributed largely to making the project popular in France.

His principal works, besides the translation of Aristotle and a number of studies connected with the same subject, are Des Védas (1854), Du Bouddhisme (1856) and Mahomet et le Coran (1865).