Page "Pierre Jean George Cabanis" Paragraph 1

Cabanis was born at Cosnac ( Corrèze ), the son of Jean Baptiste Cabanis ( 1723 – 1786 ), a lawyer and agronomist.

At the age of ten, he attended the college of Brives, where he showed great aptitude for study, but his independence of spirit was so great that he was almost constantly in a state of rebellion against his teachers and was finally expelled.

He was then taken to Paris by his father and left to carry on his studies at his own discretion for two years.

From 1773 to 1775 he travelled in Poland and Germany, and on his return to Paris he devoted himself mainly to poetry.

About this time he sent to the Académie française a translation of the passage from Homer proposed for their prize, and, though he did not win, he received so much encouragement from his friends that he contemplated translating the whole of the Iliad.