his possessions. He
afterwards received a pension, but the Directory banished him from
France, and as he refused to share in the plots of the royalists he
lived at Barcelona till his death in 1814, when the house of Conti
became extinct.

See F. de Bassompierre, _Memoires_ (Paris, 1877); G. Tallemant des
Reaux, _Historiettes_ (Paris, 1854-1860); L. de R. duc de Saint
Simon, _Memoires_ (Paris, 1873); C. E. duchesse d'Orleans, _Memoires_
(Paris, 1880); R. L. Marquis d'Argenson, _Journal et memoires_
(Paris, 1859-1865); F. J. de P. cardinal de Bernis, _Memoires et
lettres_ (Paris, 1878); J. V. A. duc de Broglie, _Le Secret du roi_
(Paris, 1878); P. A. Cheruel, _Histoire de la minorite de Louis XIV
et du ministere de Mazarin_ (Paris, 1879); E. Boutaric,
_Correspondence secrete de Louis XV sur la politique etrangere_
(Paris, 1866); P. Foncin, _Essai sur le ministere de Turgot_ (Paris,
1877); E. Bourgeois _Neuchatel et la politique prussienne en
Franche-Comte_ (Paris, 1877).

CONTI, NICOLO DE' (fl. 1419-1444), Venetian explorer and writer, was a
merchant of noble family, who left Venice about 1419, on what proved an
absence of 25 years. We next find him in Damascus, whence he made his
way over the north Arabian desert, the Euphrates, and southern
Mesopotamia, to Bagdad. Here he took ship and sailed down the Tigris to
Basra and the head of the Persian Gulf; he next descended the gulf to
Ormuz, coasted along the Indian Ocean shore of Persia (at one port of
which he remained some time, and entered into a business partnership
with some Persian merchants), and so reached the gulf and city of
Cambay, where he began his Indian life and observations. He next dropped
down the west coast of India to Ely, and struck inland to Vijayanagar,
the capital of the principal Hindu state of the Deccan, destroyed in
1555. Of this city Conti gives an elaborate description, one of the most
interesting portions of his narrative. From Vijayanagar and the
Tungabudhra he travelled to Maliapur near Madras, the traditional
resting-place of the body of St Thomas, and the holiest shrine of the
native Nestorian Christians, then "scattered over all India," the
Venetian declares, "as the Jews are among us." The narrative next refers
to Ceylon, and gives a very accurate account of the Cingalese cinnamon
tree; but, if Conti visited the island at all, it was probably on the
return journey. His outward route now took hi