Jacques Abbadie, a French Protestant divine, born at Nay, in Béam, in 1658, died in London, Oct. 6, 1727. After completing his studies at Sedan he went to Germany and Holland, and became pastor of the French church of Berlin. In 1690 he went to England, and, after preaching some time in London, was made dean of Killaloe in Ireland. He was a warm partisan of William III., and wrote a defence of the revolution and a history of the assassination plot. His most important works are: Traite de la divinite de Jesus Christ, and Traité de la vérité de la religion chretienne.

II. Antoine Thomson and Arnaud Michel d', French explorers, brothers, born in Dublin, Ireland, in 1810 and 1815. Their father, a Frenchman temporarily residing in Dublin, returned with them to France in their early childhood. In 1835 Antoine explored Brazil on a mission from the academy of sciences, while Arnaud travelled in Algeria. The two brothers happening to meet at Alexandria in 1837, they set out on an exploring expedition to Abyssinia, which lasted till 1845, and afterward passed three years in the Galla country. A rumor of their death caused a third brother, Charles, to proceed to that country, where he found them; and in 1848 they returned to France. A joint work of the two brothers appeared in 1860-63, under the title of Géodésie d'Éthiopie. Many of their writings are contained in the Bulletin of the Paris geographical society, including Notes sur le haut fleuve Blanc, published separately in 1849. The English expedition to Abyssinia led Arnaud d'Abbadie to publish in 1868 Douze ans dans la Haute-Éthiopie. The two brothers reside, when in France, at Ur-rugne, a village in the Basses-Pyrenees.