Gourné, Pierre Mathias de
Pierre Mathias de Gourné (Febnruary 23, 1702 - 1770) was a French journalist, geographer, priest, and malcontent. Very little is known of his background. He was born in Dieppe, and was educated for the priesthood. He was, near the end of his life, the prior of Notre Dame de Taverny; during his life he often signed himself the 'Abbot of Gourné,' but this may have been a pseudonym. He made enough of a study of geography to publish in 1741 a text, Géographie Méthodique. He was imprisoned on November 18, 1745 for illegal gambling, and remanded to Rome the next year. He was also known to police for openly complaining not only about the government but also the King; He briefly worked as a journalist for the Gazette de France but was expelled for his 'bad character.' By this time he had given up his geographical research, perhaps in favor of maintaining quarrels with the scholar Desfontaines over his translation of Virgil. De Gourné is mainly remembered for his text, and his reappearance in the geographical arena with his Atlas Abrégé, published in 1763 by Desnos. It was observed, that despite his having been a priest, and having said mass every day, at his death he refused confession, perhaps signalling that the man intended to continue his complaints and quarrels beyond the grave.
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