Constantin François de Chassebœuf, comte de Volney

Constantin-François Chassebœuf de La Giraudais (), comte de Volney (1757–1820), was a French philosopher, historian, orientalist and politician.

In his youth, he attended Madame Helvétius's salon in Paris, where he met Benjamin Franklin during the American War of Independence. He became famous in 1787 with a book about his journey to Ottoman Egypt and Syria. At the beginning of the French Revolution, Volney represented commoners of Anjou in the Estates General and took part in the National Constituent Assembly. His best-known book, ''The Ruins'' (1791), was among the first to defend the Christ myth theory.

He was imprisoned during the Reign of Terror and left for the United States of America in 1795. A friend of Thomas Jefferson, he was suspected of espionage by President John Adams, who had him expelled from the country in 1798. On his return to France, he contributed to the Coup of 18 Brumaire and became a Senator. He was a close advisor to Bonaparte at the start of the Consulate, until the Concordat with the Catholic Church in 1801. Napoleon granted him the title of Imperial Count in 1808. When the House of Bourbon reclaimed its throne in 1814, Louis XVIII made him a Peer of France.

A member of the Académie Française, the American Philosophical Society, the Asiatic Society and the Celtic Academy, he wrote on ancient history and created a “universal alphabet”. Provided by Wikipedia