AMIOT, JOSEPH

AMIOT, JOSEPH. - Jesuit missionary in China, b. at Toulon on 8 Feb. 1718, d. at Peking on 9 Oct. 1793. A versatile genius, he devoted himself not only to sacred science but also to the study of history, languages, and the arts. After ordination to the priesthood, he requested in 1749 to be sent on mission; he departed the same year for China and arrived in 1750 at Macao, and in 1751 at Peking, attached to the French Mission (founded separately for the French Jesuits in 1687 by Louis XIV with a twofold purpose, religious and scientific). There he remained until his death, fulfilling his ministry while at the same time pursuing with untiring diligence a wide range of scientific studies. For these he trained a young Chinese, Yang, who worked with him for more than thirty years. He became an expert master of the Chinese and Tartar languages, of Chinese history and antiquities, and of the languages and scripts of the nations tributary to China, earning the esteem and trust of Emperor Kien-Long and widespread renown among scholars in Europe. His scientific reports, particularly directed to the Académie des inscriptions et belles-lettres in Paris, were published in large part in the collection Mémoires concernant l'histoire, les arts, les mœurs et les usages des Chinois par les Missionnaires de Pékin (15 vols. in-4°, Paris 1776-79), under the care of his patron, the statesman Bertin. After the suppression of the Society of Jesus in 1773, he continued in Peking, like the other former Jesuits, his work as missionary and scientist, even after the Lazarists succeeded the Jesuits in the French Mission in 1785.