Court de Gébelin, Antoine (1725-84). A Protestant and a freemason, he was the author of the Lettres toulousaines (1763), a defence of Calas, and of a monumental but unfinished nine-volume work, Le Monde primitif (1773-82). This shows all languages to derive from a common tongue, which corresponds to the true nature of things. Not only language but all sorts of relics of antiquity can be read allegorically: ‘le monde entier n'est qu'une allégorie, un miroir fait pour nous conduire à la connaissance d'un monde supérieur.’ His mystical thought was admired by Saint-Martin.

[Peter France]

(äNtwän' kūr) , 1696–1760, French Protestant preacher, called the Restorer of Protestantism in France. He was successful in reorganizing the remnants of the persecuted Calvinists in France. With a price on his head, he escaped to Lausanne in 1730, where he spent the remainder of his life directing the theological seminary that he founded.