DROZ, drō, FRANÇOIS XAVIER JOSEPH: French moralist and historian; b. at Besançon Oct. 31, 1773; d. at Paris Nov. 5, 1850. In 1792 he went to Paris to study law, but on the declaration of war joined the volunteer battalion of Doubs, and served in the army of the Rhine for the next three years. Obliged by ill health to abandon his military, career, he obtained the chair of eloquence in the École Centrale in his native town. In 1803 he removed to Paris, where for a time he held a position in the pension office; but after 1814 he devoted himself exclusively to his favorite pursuit of literature. In 1824 he became a member of the French Academy, and in 1838 president of the Academy of Moral and Political Sciences. At first an epicurean and a sensualist, be became more religious as he grew older. His last work was Pensées sur le Christianisme (Paris, 1844), to which he added Aveux d'un philosophe Chrétien in 1848. Other works were: De la philosophie morale (Paris, 1823); (Euvres morales (2 vols., 1826); and Histoire du règne de Louis XVI. (3 vols., 1839-42).

 

Bibliography: J. P. Damiron, Essai sur I'histoire de to philosophic en France au dix-neuvième siècle, ii. 79 sqq., Paris, 1834; Lichtenberger, ESR, iv. 104-105.