José Cecilio del Valle (1780–1834), a member of the French Academy of Sciences, was an intellectual, a political leader, and the author of the Central American declaration of independence. Francisco Morazán (1799–1842) was the last president of the United Provinces of Central America, which lasted from 1823 to 1839. Father José Trinidad Reyes (1797–1855) founded an institute in 1847 that became the National University. Outstanding literary figures were Marco Aurelio Soto (1846–1908), an essayist and liberal president; Ramón Rosa (1848–93), an essayist and biographer; Policarpo Bonilla (1858–1926), a politician and author of political works; Alberto Membreño (1859–1921), a philologist; Juan Ramón Molina (1875–1908), a modernist poet; Froilán Turcios (1875–1943), a novelist and writer of fantastic tales; and Rafael Heliodoro Valle (1891–1959), a historian and biographer.