us and became professor at the Jesuit college at Lyons. In
1762, in reply to the attacks on his order, he published an _Apologie
generale de l'institut et de la doctrine des Jesuites_, which won him
much fame and some exalted patronage; notably that of the ex-king
Stanislaus of Poland and of his grandson the dauphin. During the
agitations that preceded the Revolution Cerutti took the popular side,
and in 1788 published a pamphlet, _Memoire pour le peuple francais_, in
which in a clear and trenchant style he advocated the claims of the
_tiers etat_. In May 1789 he presided over the electors of Paris, by
whom in January 1791 he was chosen member of the administration of the
department and afterwards deputy to the Legislative Assembly. He was a
friend of Mirabeau, whose policy he supported and whose funeral oration
he pronounced. He himself died on the 3rd of February 1792. Of Cerutti's
literary enterprises the most interesting, and probably the most
influential, was the popular newspaper founded by him, on the 30th of
September 1790, in collaboration with Rabaut Saint-Etienne and Philippe
Antoine Grouvelle. Its character and objects are explained by its
title: _La Feuille villageoise, adressee chaque semaine a tous les
villages de France pour les instruire des lois, des evenements, des
decouvertes qui interessent tout ban citoyen, &c._ It was continued by
Grouvelle after Cerutti's death, the last number appearing on the 2nd of
August 1795.

Cerutti's works were published in 1793 in 3 volumes. On the _Memoire
pour le peuple francais_, see F.A. Aulard in _La Revolution
francaise_, tom. xv. (1888).

CERVANTES SAAVEDRA, MIGUEL DE (1547-1616), Spanish novelist, playwright
and poet, was born at Alcala de Henares in 1547. The attempts of
biographers to provide him with an illustrious genealogy are
unsuccessful. The family history begins with the author's grandfather,
Juan de Cervantes (b. 1490), a lawyer who at one time (1545-6)
administered the estates of the duke de Osuna, and resided later at
Cordova, where he died about 1555. Cervantes' father was Rodrigo de
Cervantes, an apothecary-surgeon, who married Leonor de Cortinas in 1540
or 1541. The children of this marriage were Andres (b. 1543), Andrea (b.
1544), Luisa (b. 1546), Miguel, Rodrigo (b. 1550), Magdalena (b. 1554)
and Juan (of whom nothing is known beyond the mention of him in his
father's will).

The exact date of Cervantes' birth is not recorded: he w