[Désiré]. French archæologist, born on the 9th of March 1789 at St. Amand in the department of Cher, and received his education at Bourges. He was made professor of history in the Collège de Louis-le-Grand at Paris (1813) and in the Sorbonne (1817). His Histoire critique de l’établissement des colonies grecques (4 vols., 1815) is now out of date. He was superintendent of antiquities in the Bibliothèque at Paris (1819–48), and professor of archæology at the Bibliothèque (from 1826), a result of which may be seen in his Cours d’archéologie (1828). In 1829 appeared his Monuments inédits, a work of great value at the time. Still valuable are his Peintures inédites (1836) and his Peintures de Pompéi (1844). He contributed to the Annali of the Roman Institute, the Journal des savants and the Académie des inscriptions. At his death on the 3rd of July 1854 Raoul Rochette was perpetual secretary of the Academy of Fine Arts and a corresponding member of most of the learned societies in Europe.
