INTRODUCTION.
France surpasses all modern nations in awarding monumental honours to her illustrious sons. The feeling which prompts the grateful act is more akin to noble patriotism than to the littleness of personal display. The magnificent illustration of the national disposition at Versailles commands our respect by the important historical interest which it creates, and by the instruction and benefit which it confers upon the world.
The buildings of all the great institutions of France are adorned with portrait statues and busts of the men who have earned distinction in connexion with them. “The Institute,” which corresponds to our Royal Society, has its statues of philosophers and scientific men. The Mazarin Library possesses a collection of those most distinguished in literature, generally. The Théâtre Français has an exceedingly interesting gallery of dramatists and theatrical celebrities, which is only feebly reflected in the collection—valuable in some respects—of theatrical portraits at the Garrick Club in London, which we owe chiefly to the late Mr. Charles Mathews, the comedian.
The collection of the Théâtre Français is composed of statues and busts representing the greatest dramatic writers and the most celebrated comedians of the French stage, of pictures of actors or of paintings having reference to the dramatic art. The library is rich in autograph manuscripts, and in the letters of nearly all the authors who have illustrated the French stage. It contains also the registers and account books of the several theatrical administrations, without a single interruption, from the 24th of October, 1658—the date of Molière’s first representation in Paris—down to the present time.
The collection of statues and busts dates from only the last century, when the sculptor Caffieri laid its foundation. He proposed to the actors, in 1773, to present to their green-room the bust of his friend Alexis Piron, the poet (see [No. 231] in our collection)—who had died a few months before—on the condition that he should be allowed free entrance to the theatre for the rest of his life. It appears, from the letter of Caffieri, preserved in the library of the theatre, that the usual price of his marble busts was £120, and that the right of entrance to the theatre for life was fixed by the comedians at the same sum. The proposition was accepted, and Caffieri continued for some time to present busts to the theatre upon the same terms—that is to say, for every bust the right of an entreé for one of his relatives or friends. Other sculptors followed the example of Caffieri. The practice still continues, and the collection is yearly augmented, not only by this means, but also by the frequent gifts of the Minister of the Interior, and by the still larger donations of private individuals.
The collection of paintings dates as far back as the death of the tragedian Lekain. His comrades, to honour his memory, decided that his likeness should be hung in their green-room. Later came the portrait of Baron, and afterwards that of Mademoiselle Duclos by Largillière, a celebrated portrait painter of the time of Louis XIV. This portrait of Mdlle. Duclos is a masterpiece. At the present moment, in consequence of the frequent additions to this triple collection, there is not space enough in the interior of the theatre properly to display it; and it is proposed to transport it to a more commodious receptacle, and to give to the réunion of all these treasures of the drama the name of the Molière Museum. The busts, which we are enabled to exhibit in the Crystal Palace, form only a small selection from the gallery of the Théâtre Français.
The Louvre, which in Paris corresponds to our British Museum, National Gallery, and Hampton Court combined, has long been one of the world’s great treasuries of history and art. Resting upon ancient walls, founded certainly as far back as the 9th century—when it was a strong fortress in the midst of a forest—the Louvre has been gradually changing its form and appearance since the time of Philippe Auguste. In 1527, Francis I., with the aid of the architect Pierre Lescot, entirely remodelled it, and gave to it the character of splendour and vastness which has ever since attached to this great national structure. All succeeding kings—Charles, Henri, Louis, whatever the name—have done something to uphold its magnificence. In addition to the other numberless works of art contained in the Louvre there are some 300 antique portrait busts and statues, and an immense collection of rare cameos and medals, amongst which are many valuable portraits of antiquity, and about 200 statues and busts of great men of modern time, half of these being representations of military men, with some admirals, and about 50 portraits of sculptors and painters.
The Palace of Versailles is entirely devoted to the illustration of the glory of France. Here, in addition to many pictures, representing the great military achievements of the French, there are saloons filled with statues and busts of the kings, princes, marshals, and admirals, and portraits of nearly every great man of the country from the time of Clovis the First and Clotilde, a king and queen of the 5th century, down to Louis Philippe of our own time. There are more than 600 statues, busts and medallions, many of them fine works of art, and all possessing the very highest interest. A considerable portion being duplicates of works at the Louvre or Tuileries. In such an extensive series there are, as may be supposed, many arbitrary portraits executed to complete a series, but though not taken from the life, they have for the most part been derived from trustworthy authority. There are also upwards of 600 memorial tablets in bronze, placed in the Gallery of Battles, inscribed with the names of all officers killed or wounded in the service of the country, beginning with Prince Robert le Fort, Comte d’Outre-Maine, killed at the combat of Brissarthe, in 866, and ending with the heroes of Waterloo.
The Historical Gallery at Versailles contains portrait busts and statues by 146 different sculptors of France, commencing with Germain Pilon and Jean Goujon, who flourished in the middle of the 16th century.
From all these great collections our Portrait Gallery has been enriched, as the Catalogue will show.
As works of art the French portraits cannot be placed in the highest rank. The style, as in French works of ideal sculpture, is rather picturesque, than antique and severe; and few of the portraits are free from a certain affectation of attitude or assumed expression of countenance, for which it may readily be conceived, the artist, rather than the subject, is to blame. It is rare to find a French bust treated with the seriousness and intensity of the antique, or with the unaffected naturalness of the best busts of the English school: too many indeed verge upon the common and fatal error of portraiture—caricature.
We must, however, take these portraits as the characteristic works of the country to which they belong; all of them bear the stamp of truthfulness, if some should be found tainted with exaggeration. Many are models in the art of marble portraiture. Those of Madame Dubarry (No. 235), and Marie Antoinette (No. 310), are especially beautiful; that of Gaston de Foix (No. 258) is also a very noble portrait; and the bust of Thomas Corneille (No. 222), is one of the finest productions of the school. The heads are generally rather larger than life: and the visitor cannot fail to remark the exceeding care bestowed upon the wigs and elaborate embroidery of the time.
(The French Portraits commence immediately behind the Statue of Admiral Duquesne, in the Great Transept.)
ARTISTS AND MUSICIANS.
196. Jean Goujon. Sculptor.
[Born in Paris. Died there, 1572.]
Many of his works were destroyed in the French Revolution, but the Tribune of the “Salle des Cent Suisses,” in the Louvre, the “Diana of Poictiers,” and the “Fountain of the Innocents,” in Paris, are left to attest the artist’s superiority. At Malmaison, in France, is another statue by him of Diana, remarkable for the beauty of the pose, the suppleness of the limbs, and the extraordinary lightness of the drapery. The two caryatides in the Renaissance Court are examples of his style. Killed by a shot from an arquebuse during the massacre of Saint Bartholomew, and whilst he was at work on the decoration of the Louvre.
[This is considered to be a bust of the time, and perhaps by his own hand.]
197. Simon Vouet. Painter.
[Born in Paris, 1582. Died there, 1641. Aged 59.]
Is generally regarded as the founder of the French school of painting. He received his first instruction from his father, who was also an artist. When a mere youth, he acquired great fame as a portrait painter. He visited Constantinople, where he painted Achmet I. At Rome he worked for Pope Urban VIII. at St. Peter’s. Recalled to France by Louis XIII. in 1637, he was appointed chief painter to the king. His colouring is fine, and he possesses great boldness of touch; but his drawing is marked by mannerism, and he is not happy in perspective, or in his effects of light and shade. He accomplished, however, for French painting, what Corneille effected for the drama. He created and raised the national taste.
[From a marble in the Louvre.]
198. Nicolas Poussin. Painter.
[Born at Andelys, in France, 1594. Died in Rome, 1665. Aged 71.]
The greatest master of the French school of painting. His taste for art was revealed at a very early period. As a child, he drew upon his lesson books and the walls of the school-room. At eighteen, he went to Paris, where he frequented schools from which he learned but little. Genius and self-tuition did more for him. At thirty he painted the “Death of the Virgin” for a chapel at Nôtre-Dame, and so well, that the poet Marino took the painter to Rome, and recommended him to Cardinal Barberini with the energetic words, “You will see a youth who has the spirit of one possessed.”[31] The Italian syllables are yet stronger. In Rome he fell into poverty, and sold his pictures for a mere trifle. He worked against the spirit and taste of the age in both France and Italy: throwing himself, with his faithful comrade in art, the sculptor Fiamingo, entirely into the study of the ancient Greek sculpture. He was recalled to his own country by Richelieu, in 1640, and was created Court Painter. In 1643, he returned to Rome, whence no solicitations could again draw him. He lived twenty-five years in great calm and happiness, married to the sister of Caspar Poussin, without children, without a pupil, without a man-servant—esteeming quiet in the house above everything. He was devoted to his art, a great student in it, and of all science bearing upon it. His genius was altogether antique. He transported himself into an elder world, and lived there. Thus in religious subjects he seems to lean towards the Old Testament; and he revels in the wealth of Greek mythology. His classical spirit ennobled landscape both in its own forms and by the poetical significance and treatment of the figures. His art, like poetry, seemed to open to him an escape from the world about him. A style of severe simplicity, truth, high beauty, harmony.
[31] Vederete un giovane che ha la furia del diavolo.
[From the marble in the Louvre, by Blaise.]
199. Pierre Mignard. Painter.
[Born at Troyes, in France, 1610. Died in Paris, 1695. Aged 85.]
Called “The Roman Mignard,” in contradistinction to his brother Nicolas, also a painter, and styled “Mignard of Avignon.” The works of Pierre are not remarkable for originality of invention or peculiar facility of execution; but they exhibit correct design, beauty of form, and excellence of colouring. The French regard him as the best colourist of the age of Louis XIV. The “Grand Monarque” sat ten times to this painter, who also painted the portraits of the Popes Urban VIII. and Alexander VII. Mignard was first intended for the profession of medicine, but his taste for drawing led him to the arts. He passed twenty-two years in Italy, where he acquired fame. He was recalled to France by his own sovereign, and by him also appointed chief painter to the court.
[From a marble in the Louvre, by Antoine Coysevox.]
200. André le Nôtre. Architect and Gardener.
[Born in Paris, 1613. Died there, 1700. Aged 87.]
The designer of the magnificent gardens at Versailles; the projector of its grand fountains, grottos, porticos, and bowers. He also laid out the gardens of St. Cloud, the Tuileries, Meudon, and several others. Louis XIV. heaped favours upon this great gardener, but Le Nôtre could not be spoiled by royal indulgence. He travelled into Italy and was received by Pope Innocent XI. “I care not how soon I die now,” said Le Nôtre to the Pope, “since I have seen the two greatest potentates in the world—your Holiness and the King, my master.” Le Nôtre was simple, honest, and disinterested: possessed a fertile genius and lively imagination; in many respects the prototype of our own Paxton.
[From the marble in the Louvre, by Gourdel, which was taken from the one in the Church of St. Roch.]
201. Eustache le Sueur. Painter.
[Born in Paris, 1617. Died 1655. Aged 38.]
One of the greatest French painters. First taught by his father, a sculptor; then a pupil in the studio of Vouet. His fame established by the pictures, twenty-two in number, which he painted for the Chartreuse in Paris, and which represent the chief events in the life of St. Bruno, the founder of the Order. He took delight in sacred subjects, and in simple religious affection he left Lebrun and Poussin far behind him. He scarcely ever quitted Paris, never France; and his sole studies were the few exemplars from the antique which he could find in his native city. Raffaelle he could worship only through the engravings of Marcantonio. But the love of his art was boundless, his study intense, his industry inexhaustible. He excelled in purity of form, and his pictures reveal a tenderness of feeling and a spiritual grace, wholly wanting in the productions of the majority of his contemporaries. He was himself a man of mild and blameless nature. He died very early, worn out by his labours and by the active jealousy of his brother artists.
[The costume is that of the time of Louis XIII. From a marble by P. L. Laurent, done in 1806. Laurent was a pupil of Pajou, and died in 1816.]
202. Charles Lebrun. Painter.
[Born in Paris, 1619. Died 1690. Aged 71.]
One of the most celebrated painters of the French school. The Chancellor, Séguier, struck by his talent when a boy, placed him in the studio of Vouet, and subsequently sent him to Rome, where he maintained him during six years. In 1648, Lebrun was recalled to France, and admitted into the Academy. Mazarin, charmed by his works, presented him to the king, by whom he was favourably received and largely patronized. It is said that Louis XIV. would spend two hours at a time in Lebrun’s studio, whilst the artist was painting his “Battles of Alexander,” Alexander being Louis by allusion. For fourteen years, engaged in painting the great gallery of Versailles. Received many distinguished appointments in connexion with the Fine Arts, and at his instigation Louis XIV. instituted the French Academy at Rome. For many years Lebrun was as absolute in the republic of Art, as his master in the kingdom over which he ruled. He was styled “Dictator,” and his influence is perceptible in the works of his time. He was one of the vainest of men, and the most pompous, artificial, and theatrical of painters; his works, though they might swell the pride of a Court, would hardly flatter the pride of a country. His best picture is “The Stoning of Stephen,” in the Louvre.
[From the marble in the Louvre, by A. Coysevox. Extremely interesting, both on account of its being taken from the life, and having once surmounted the tomb of the great painter which was erected by order of his widow in the Church of St. Nicholas, in Paris, the tomb being also the work of Coysevox. The monument was removed at the time of the Revolution. The bust at Versailles, by Bosio (1837), takes its authority from this.]
203. André Félibien, Sieur des Avaux et de Javercy. Writer on Art.
[Born at Chartres, in France, 1619. Died in Paris, 1695. Aged 76.]
Held various appointments in connexion with art. Amongst others, those of Historiographer to the King, and Secretary to the Academy of Architecture. His best known work is “Lives of Ancient and Modern Painters,” which is translated into English. Grave and serious in character, but, right-minded and good-hearted, he preferred virtue to the favours of fortune.
204. Jean Mabillon. Antiquary.
[Born at Pierre-Mont, in France, 1632. Died in Paris, 1707. Aged 75.]
A Benedictine monk, who employed his life in collecting materials and writing on monastic history and antiquities. Entitled to high rank for his extensive learning and great virtues; his style clear, masculine, and methodical; his mind free from bigotry.
205. Jean Baptiste de Lully. Violinist and Musical Composer.
[Born near Florence, 1633. Died 1687. Aged 54.]
A musical genius; who began life as a scullery-boy, and, in soul, continued a scullery-boy to the last. It was whilst playing the fiddle in the kitchen of Mademoiselle de Montpensier that his musical faculty was detected and rescued. Subsequently playing some airs of his own composition to Louis XIV. he was made, at the age of 19, “Inspecteur Général des Violons.” In 1672, letters-patent were granted him to establish a Royal Academy of Music: that academy was the Opera. He performed marvels at his theatre. He was at once composer, director, ballet-master, leader of the band, and even machinist. Nothing came amiss to him; and his activity, his popularity, his success were enormous. In less than fifteen years he had composed nineteen operas, which continued in high favour until put out of fashion by Gluck a century afterwards. To appreciate the merits of Lully as a composer, we must look at him from the point of view of his own time. So regarded, he is an artist of great spirit and dramatic power. He found France without any dramatic music whatever. He left works which formed the style of later masters, and became the foundation of a national opera. He had wit, energy, versatility, and was a great favourite with the Court. His moral character was detestable. To the great he was grovelling; to his earliest benefactress he was ungrateful; towards his dependants he was overbearing, insolent and brutal.
[From the bust in the Church of Petits Pères.]
206. Antoine Coysevox. Sculptor.
[Born at Lyons, in France, 1640. Died in Paris, 1720. Aged 80.]
Of Spanish origin. Employed for four years on the decoration of Cardinal de Furstenburg’s palace, at Saverne, in Alsace. Executed also for Paris, a statue of Louis XIV., and the bronze winged horse placed in the Tuileries gardens. The Revolution destroyed most of his works; but amongst those left is one of the finest—the monument of Colbert. A persevering and painstaking artist.
[From a marble in the Louvre, by himself. The original bears the following inscription:—“Ch: Ant: Coysevox Sculpteur du Roi, Chancelier de l’Académie; par lui-même. Donné à l’Académie par Ch. Pierre Couston architecte du Roi, son petit neveu.”]
207. Jules Hardouin Mansart. Architect.
[Born in Paris, 1645. Died at Marly, in France, 1708. Aged 63.]
The builder of the Palace of Versailles, and of the Hôtel des Invalides in Paris: indebted for his celebrity more to the good-will of his sovereign, Louis XIV., than to his own genius. His works noble and striking, but his style not chaste, and apt to fall into extravagance. A vain man, proud of the favours of the king and jealous of retaining them.
[From a marble in the Louvre, by T. L. Lemoyne, a pupil of Coysevox, who died in 1755; and doubtless from the life. He wears a damask dress with the cordon of St. Michel.]
207*. Claude Joseph Vernet. Painter.
[Born at Avignon in France, 1714. Died 1789. Aged 75.]
He received his first instruction from his father, who was an historical painter. He set out for Italy in his eighteenth year, and continued there for many years, studying and painting for small remuneration. He returned to France in 1753, on the invitation of Louis XV., was elected a member of the French Academy, and commissioned by the government to paint the principal ports of France. He excelled in marine subjects. It is related of him that during a terrible storm at sea, when all on board his ship were trembling for their lives, he caused himself to be lashed to the mast of the vessel, that he might watch the boiling ocean. The Louvre contains several of his pictures, which display a consummate management of light and shade. He had no rival in France whilst he lived, and he died pencil in hand. He was a modest man, and never so happy as when at work.
[Bust to come.]
208. Jacques Germain Soufflot. Architect.
[Born at Irancy, in France, 1714. Died in Paris, 1781. Aged 67.]
When the Carthusians rebuilt their church at Lyons, Soufflot’s design for the dome was accepted, and he achieved celebrity in consequence. Then settling in Lyons, built several edifices there, including the theatre (one of the finest in France), and the Hôtel-Dieu (the hospital). Invited to Paris, he became architect to the king. His designs for the Church of Sainte Généviève were adopted; but the cupola exciting much adverse criticism, the architect fell into despondency, languished and died. Blunt in his manners, but of a generous and noble mind. He was called the “benevolent cross-patch.”
[From the marble in the Louvre, by Prévot.]
208*. Marie-Anne-Botol Dangeville. French Comic Actress.
[Born 1714. Died 1796. Aged 82.]
Actress at the Théâtre Français, and perhaps one of the most perfect mistresses of her division of the art that have trodden the French stage. The original of this bust, in the Théâtre Français, has not the name of the sculptor, but is a work of singular delicacy of expression, and evidently from the hand of a master.
[Bust to come.]
208**. Mademoiselle Clairon. French Tragic Actress.
[Born 1723. Died 1803. Aged 80.]
The most accomplished French tragic actress of her time. Born of poor and illiterate parents. Made her first appearance on the stage in her thirteenth year. At first unsuccessful, she proved eventually a sublime tragedian, and during twenty-two years held possession of the public. Disraeli the elder has a curious story from her life. He relates that as a child she was cruelly treated by a violent mother, and driven all day to manual labour. One day when locked in a room for punishment, she climbed upon a chair to look about her. In the house opposite she saw a celebrated actress amidst her family; one daughter performing her dancing lesson. Clairon noticed with excitement every motion: not one was lost upon her. The lesson over, the rest of the children applauded, and the mother embraced her clever dancer. The scene melted the heart of Clairon, reflecting on her own bitter lot, and she burst into tears. She ascended the chair again, but the vision had vanished. Henceforth she was a new child, and never so happy as when locked in that room: from her chair she watched again and again the happy dancer—imitated her gestures—reflected her grace. She worshipped a divinity. She had never been to a theatre; yet, without knowing what an actress meant, she had herself become an actress. Her ardent studies were soon manifest. Her first victory was over her barbarous mother, whom she softened. Her later conquest was the subjection of all Paris, and in Paris, of all polite France and Europe. The anecdote lives, how Voltaire, when his tragedy of “Oreste” was to be brought out, insisted that his Electra, compelled in the palace of her fathers to the discharge of menial offices, should appear habited as a slave. Mademoiselle Clairon, to whom the character fell, resisted. She shrank from flying in the face of the artificial French taste, and of the traditional stage decorum—both expecting a princess arrayed in proper theatrical splendour. The poet persisted. The piece over, she came to him and said, “Ah! M. de Voltaire, you have ruined me. All my gorgeous wardrobe is no longer worth a sou.” She had been released for once to act up to the truth, nature, and simple reality of her part; and had astonished audience, actors, herself—all save the poet—by her self-excelling success.
[This bust, which is to come, is from a marble by Lemoyne, dated 1761.]
209. Jacques Louis David. Painter.
[Born in Paris, 1748. Died at Brussels, 1825. Aged 77.]
The founder of the modern or classical school of French painters. Pupil of Vien, with whom he passed several years in Italy. Returning to France in 1780, opened a school, which attracted many pupils. In 1784, paid a second visit to Italy, and on his return was hailed with the title of Regenerator of Art. Was now admitted into the Academy and lodged in the Louvre, with the appointment of “Painter to the King.” His pictures proved eminently successful. His drawing was perfect, and the correctness of his design revealed the pure antique fount from which he had quaffed his inspiration. For a time David forsook the easel, to take part in the fury of Revolutionary politics. He forgot his apartments in the Louvre, joined hands with Robespierre, to whom he was personally attached, and became one of the loudest clamourers for the blood of Louis XVI. The painter was present at the mock trial of the monarch, whom he grossly insulted as the wretched king passed in front of him. After the fall of Robespierre, David owed the preservation of his own neck solely to his great reputation as an artist. He ceased to be a politician to become a dictator in art. During the Consulate his influence was supreme. He not only immortalized some of its heroic passages, but he designed its official costumes. Buonaparte heaped favours upon his artistic panegyrist, and the painter added grace and dignity to the deeds of the First Consul. The last work of David in Paris was “Leonidas,” painted in 1814. In that year, it is written that Wellington, accompanied by some English officers, visited the artist’s studio, and expressed a wish to be painted. The story adds, that David replied coldly that “he did not paint Englishmen,” and turned his back upon his visitor. Upon the return of Napoleon from Elba, David was made Commander of the Legion of Honour. The next year he was banished as a regicide, and took up his residence in Brussels. “Napoleon crossing St. Bernard” and “The Coronation of Napoleon” are amongst his offerings to the triumphs of the Emperor. Classical and correct in design, David fails in colour, and in picturesque expression. His figures, too, have a hard and marble-like appearance. A large swelling at the side of his face was caused by a blow he received, when young. It has been justly said that opinions of David will vary, accordingly as they are expressed by Frenchmen or by foreigners.
[From the marble in the Louvre, by Rude, 1831.]
210. Charles Percier. Architect.
[Born in Paris, 1764. Died, 1838. Aged 74.]
Known by his works in conjunction with Fontaine. The influence of the labours of both is matter of history in art. To them is due the completion of the Louvre and the erection of the arch in the Place du Carrousel at Paris. Percier wrote several works on art. In his youth sent to Rome to study, where he gained the friendship of Flaxman and Canova. Modest and retiring; and in the pursuit of his art most persevering.
[From a marble in the Louvre, by Pradier.]
211. Girodet-Trioson. Painter.
[Born at Montargis, in France, 1767. Died in Paris, 1824. Aged 57.]
The real name of this artist was Anne-Louis Girodet de Coussy; but he took the name of Trioson from his adopted father and benefactor, a physician, to whom he was indebted for his education. He was the son of the Duke of Orleans’ steward, and intended for the army, but evincing a great taste for painting, was placed in the studio of David. Afterwards proceeding to Rome, he received the first prize for a work of art in that city. At the end of five years returned to Paris, where an apartment was assigned him in the Louvre. In 1806, he gained a prize by his picture of “The Deluge,” competing with his old master, David. Girodet did not produce many works, habitual ill-health disabling his pencil; but he left enough behind him to maintain his reputation. His chief pictures are “Endymion,” “Hippocrates,” “The Revolt in Cairo,” and “Napoleon Receiving the Keys of Vienna.” The colouring of Girodet is cold and earthy; and his figures, whilst revealing the classic form and correct drawing that characterize the labours of all David’s pupils, lose the expression of inward life. In spite of obvious deficiencies in truthful representation, his paintings produce a deep, and occasionally a powerful impression.
[From a marble in the Louvre—the author unknown. One by M. Roman was in the French Exhibition of 1827.]
212. François Gérard. Painter.
[Born at Rome, 1770. Died in Paris, 1837. Aged 67.]
Studied under Pajou the sculptor, then with Brenet, and finally with David, whom he assisted in several works, until 1794, when he exhibited his own picture of “The Tenth of August” (the day of the storming of the Tuileries in 1792). Under the influence of David, Gérard became one of the jury of the Revolutionary Tribunal—an office from which he subsequently shrunk. He received great honour and distinction at the hands of Napoleon; and the Emperor Alexander, and the Duke of Wellington, became his friends. A man of extensive knowledge, and, as a painter, to be recommended for taste and refinement, rather than for invention or sublimity. His colouring, though harmonious, is not always true. His subjects were chiefly historical, and in these the arrangement of the figures and the selection of costume are always pleasing. He was also successful as a portrait painter.
[From a marble in the Louvre, by Pradier, 1838.]
213. Antoine Jean Gros. Painter.
[Born in Paris, 1771. Died there, 1835. Aged 64.]
One of the most distinguished of David’s pupils. Appalled by the horrors of the first Revolution, he quitted France, and withdrew to Geneva; thence to Milan, where he became known to Buonaparte, by whom he was countenanced and employed. He followed the army for six years, and returned to France in 1801. Then painted several pictures commemorative of Napoleon’s military achievements. He enjoyed ample patronage under both the Emperor, and the Restoration; but in his later years he fell into melancholy; and one morning his body was found in the Seine. His compositions are remarkable for boldness and facility of invention; but his colouring is frequently exaggerated. His subjects, too, though invariably treated with power, degenerate occasionally into vulgarity and theatrical display. His best picture is “The Plague at Jaffa.” He was a man of cultivated mind, and passionately fond of music.
[From the marble in the Louvre, by Debay Sen., 1827.]
214. Pierre Narcisse Guérin. Painter.
[Born in Paris, 1774. Died at Rome, 1833. Aged 59.]
The son of an humble shopkeeper, and in early years self-instructed. As a painter he was the pupil of Regnault, under whom he soon became distinguished for facility of execution and refined composition. He subsequently studied several years in Rome. In 1822, appointed Director of the French Academy. He was not distinguished either for design or colour; but his figures are full of expression. His subjects chiefly mythological and classical.
[From the marble in the Louvre, by Auguste Dumont, 1831, author of the statue of Louis Philippe, at Versailles, and lately deceased.]
215. Comte D’Orsay.
[Born in Paris, 1798. Died there, 1852. Aged 54.]
A man of fashion, endowed with exquisite taste and with great talent for the cultivation of art. He resided many years in England, where he influenced the taste of a portion of society, and practised sculpture and painting as an amateur. Towards the close of his life he withdrew to Paris, and there received an appointment in connexion with the fine arts, from his former friend the Emperor of France. He had engaging manners, a kind heart, and an open hand. Possessed of great personal beauty, he was not wanting in manly attributes, being athletic, and skilled in arms and horsemanship.
[This excellent work and admirable likeness is by W. Behnes.]
216. Mademoiselle Felix Rachel. Tragic Actress.
[Born at Munf, in Switzerland, 1821. Still living.]
The daughter of poor Hebrew parents. In 1831, this famous actress made her debût at the Theâtre Molière, in Paris, as Hermione in “Andromaque;” but without giving indication of the genius she has subsequently displayed. In 1841, she first appeared in England, and from that time has won unbounded admiration, and maintained an undivided supremacy both here and in France. French dramatic poetry, which ordinarily finds no welcome in English ears, is reconciled to our taste as it falls from her lips. Her excellence consists in the emphatic expression of deep feeling and passion, in the thrilling effects which she is able to produce, even by a whisper, and in her independent superiority over the traditions and conventionalities of the stage. She is the least unnatural of French tragedians; yet is not so natural as to be able altogether to conceal her art. The spectator never forgets that an actress is before him; is never carried away by an irresistible impulse. Rachel, great as she is, is always the same, even to the motion of a garment, and the raising of her hand. Hence, the impression made by a first representation is far more potent than any that may follow. She lacks ideality and refinement. Her temperament stands between her and her ability to inspire the spectator with a perfect belief in her earnestness, and in her love of the beautiful and good.
[Bust by Ludwig Wichmann. Plaster. 1844. The original in possession of the artist.]
217. Diane de Poitiers.
[Born 1499. Died at Arret, in France, 1566. Aged 67.]
At 13, married Louis de Brézé, Grand Sénéchal of Normandy, who died in 1531. At the age of 48 she became the favourite mistress of Henry II. of France. Her influence was used, except where she was herself biassed by religious prejudices, invariably for good and commendable objects. Her talents were commanding, and her beauty continued unimpaired by age. She was created Duchess of Valentinois, and her power was well appreciated abroad. One of her daughters by De Brézé married the son of the Duc de Guise, afterwards Duc d’Aumâle.
[A portrait of the time.]
POETS AND DRAMATISTS.
218. Pierre Corneille. Dramatist.
[Born at Rouen, in France, 1606. Died in Paris, 1684. Aged 79.]
The father of French tragedy. Educated by the Jesuits. During the early part of his career, monastic exhibitions were the only dramatic performances in vogue in France. When the French began to draw their dramatic inspirations from Spain, Corneille was the first to take real advantage of the movement. He dramatized the first youthful achievement of the Cid with extraordinary success. It soon became the custom to say of anything deserving applause, that “it was as good as the Cid.” Then followed his drama of “Les Horaces,” considered a masterpiece of French tragedy, a species of composition which is not to be criticized by the rules that we apply to the great productions of our own stage. “Cinna” and “Polyeucte” followed, both efforts of undoubted genius. In 1642, elected member of the French Academy. The claims of Corneille upon our regard not to be over estimated. The French drama was yet in the block when he took up his artist tools. Grandeur of thought, elevation of sentiment, and heroism of character are wrought out in all his productions, which have exercised a momentous influence upon succeeding times in France. Corneille was simple and almost rustic in his manners and appearance. Very proud, but very shy. Ambitious of glory, yet disdaining the society of the great, even up to the greatest. He had a commanding person, and expressive features. When he died he was poor, almost to want. Napoleon had a lofty idea of Corneille’s knowledge of government. “Had he lived in my time,” said the Emperor, “I should have taken him into my council.”
[This is from the original marble, by Caffieri, in the Comédie Française. There is a statue of him at Versailles done in 1836, by M. Laitie. Both are taken from painted portraits.]
219. Jean de Rotrou. Dramatist.
[Born at Dreux, in France, 1609. Died there, 1650, Aged 41.]
One of the creators of French tragedy. To him Corneille is indebted for the idea of founding a tragedy upon the subject of the Cid—for it was at his instigation that the great master first looked to the Spanish stage for inspiration and guidance. Rotrou gloried in the success of Corneille, and generously maintained his superiority over all dramatic writers in France—including himself. He left thirty-seven dramatic pieces, and many of them exhibit power and great felicity of language. He enjoyed a civil office in his native town, where he was much respected. He was cut off by an epidemic.
[The original is in marble, by Caffieri. The costume is of the time of Louis XIII.; but the bust must have been done from some painted portrait, as it bears the date of 1783, and Caffieri was not born until 1723.]
220. Jean de la Fontaine. Poet.
[Born at Château Thierry, in France, 1621. Died in Paris, 1695. Aged 74.]
A great French poet! His fables in verse, published when he was forty years of age, placed him at once amongst the first writers in verse that France had produced, and created an epoch in French literature. As a writer of fables he is probably not surpassed by any writer of any country. His life was full of vicissitudes. He succeeded his father, as Keeper of the Royal Domains at Château Thierry, but deserting both his wife and his occupation, he went to Paris, where he formed a lasting friendship with Molière, Racine, and Boileau. A pension saved him from starvation; and losing this with the fall of the Minister, Fouquet, who gave it, he was again rescued by the charity of Henrietta of England, daughter of Charles I., and wife to the Duke of Orleans. Upon the death of this princess, he was again fortunately provided for by Madame de Sablière, in whose house the poet lived for twenty years. In society, La Fontaine was dull, silent, and subject to absence of mind. In his youth he was remarkable for his aversion to poetry. He lies buried by the side of Molière, who ever regarded him with affection, and who discovered his genius years before it was acknowledged by the world. His style is easy, sprightly, graceful, witty, pointed, and inimitably naïve.
[This is from the bust in terra cotta in the Théâtre Français, by Caffieri. It has served as the authority for that by Dessine, at Versailles, and the statue in the Vestibule of the Admirals, by M. Seurre, done in 1837. Unfortunately, none of these could have been modelled from the life.]
220A. Jean de la Fontaine. Poet.
[By Auguste Dumont.]
221. Molière. Dramatist.
[Born in Paris, 1622. Died there, 1673. Aged 51.]
The real name of Molière was Jean Baptiste Poquelin. That which is associated with his renown was assumed when he became an actor, and “disgraced” his family, who cut Jean Baptiste away from the genealogical tree,—the father of Molière being valet de chambre to Louis XIII. Like our own Shakspeare, Molière was an actor as well as a writer of plays. He forsook the study of the law for the stage, and at the age of 24 was making his way in the provinces, where he produced comedies, in which he himself acted. In 1658, he returned to Paris, and by the favour of Louis XIV. opened the theatre of the Palais Royal. His new comedies produced there attracted crowds. His latest work was “The Imaginary Invalid,” brought out in 1673. He played the principal part himself, and during the fourth representation, was carried a dying man from the stage. The rites of Christian sepulture, denied, as a matter of course, to the player, were not conceded to the author who had satirized hypocrisy in his well-known comedy of “The Hypocrite.” Molière was beloved by his contemporaries: he was generous and warm-hearted—the friend of Condé, Boileau, and Racine. He is by far the first writer of Comedy in modern times. His place is close to the side of Shakspeare, for, like the English writer, he successfully addresses all countries and all ages, appealing to no limited, local, and accidental condition of the human mind, but striking home to the universal and unchangeable heart of man, as it everywhere throbs. Beyond the humorous faculty, he possessed earnestness of feeling, and a deep tone of passion. He was a man of tender heart; and of all French writers, he is the least French.
[From the marble in the Louvre.]
222. Thomas Corneille. Dramatist.
[Born at Rouen, 1625. Died at Andelys, 1709. Aged 84.]
Younger brother of the great Corneille, with whom he lived until his death in brotherly affection. Inspired by his brother’s success, he early devoted himself to dramatic composition, and, like his illustrious brother borrowed from Spain the materials for his earliest attempts. The labours of Thomas Corneille found even more approbation with contemporary audiences than those of Pierre; but the majority of the younger brother’s many comedies are now forgotten. The services rendered by Thomas to philology are perhaps more useful and lasting than his contributions to the drama. He published a supplementary Dictionary to that of the French Academy, and wrote other works. In his old age he lost his sight. He died honoured and beloved.
[By J. J. Caffieri, 1785. There is a copy of it at Versailles, in marble, by M. Chenillion, dated 1836. The original was taken from an authentic picture by Jouvenet, which belonged to the Countess of Bouville, daughter of Corneille, a copy of which picture was given to the Comédie Française by Caffieri.]
223. Philippe Quinault. Poet.
[Born at Felletin, in France, 1635. Died in Paris, 1688. Aged 53.]
A lyrical poet of great reputation, and the most famous writer of French operas. His earliest works were tragedies and comedies, but in 1670, after his election to the Royal Academy, he allied his verse to music, and did not sever the union until he altogether eschewed dramatic composition. He furnished to Lully, the musician, the words for his first opera, and continued to aid that composer until Lully’s death. Towards the close of his days, Quinault, influenced by religious scruples, ceased to write for the stage. His lyrical productions have great tenderness, and melodious sweetness, and are happily and eminently adapted to their alliance with the sister art.
[From a bust in terra cotta, by Caffieri, which was the model for that in marble placed in the public room of the Opera, at Paris, and for another in the Bibliothèque Généviève, at Paris.]
224. Nicolas Boileau. Poet and Satirist.
[Born at Crosne, in France, 1636. Died at Paris, 1711. Aged 75.]
One of the illustrious writers of his time. His labours went far to fix the character and purity of the French language, and his sharp criticisms have exercised ever since his day a salutary influence upon the literature of his country. He ridiculed with singular acuteness the false taste of his generation, and endeavoured to point out the true principles of composition. His “Art Poétique” is considered by many, as rivalling the “Ars Poëtica” of Horace. His humorous and heroic poem of “Le Lutrin,” written to illustrate his theory that an epic ought to have a slender groundwork, abounds in fanciful and sportive wit. He was the friend of Molière, Racine, and Lafontaine, and the great Condé was his patron. A generous and charitable man, an upholder of religion, but a sworn hater of hypocrisy. Constant in his friendships, and always ready to forgive injuries.
[From a marble, by François Girardon, in the Louvre, a sculptor born at Troyes, in Champagne, 1630, and died 1715.]
225. Jean Racine. Dramatist.
[Born at La Ferté Milon, in France, 1639. Died there, 1699. Aged 60.]
Racine was the Euripides of France, as Corneille was her Æschylus. The first excelled in impassioned tenderness, the last in power and sublimity. Corneille borrowed from the Spanish stage; Racine took his inspiration from the ancients, whom he studied with ardour and effect. He published “Phèdre,” one of his best tragedies, when he was thirty-eight years old, but, disgusted with the envy which he raised, he resolved to renounce the theatre ever afterwards. He did not keep his word; for some years later, at the request of Madame de Maintenon, he wrote his beautiful drama of “Athalie,” which, it would seem, was not appreciated at the time. His versification is sweet, expressive, and harmonious; and his plays are remarkable for grace and feeling. He was himself beloved for his simplicity, modesty, and genuine character. He was too sensitive to adverse criticism.
226. Jean François Regnard. Dramatist.
[Born in Paris, 1655. Died at Dourdan, in France, 1709. Aged 54.]
A celebrated comic writer of France, and a man of many adventures. Returning from an Italian journey, he was taken by pirates, and sold to slavery in Algiers. Whilst there he was sentenced to become a Mussulman, or to be burnt alive. Ransomed by the French Consul in 1681, he resumed his travels northwards. In 1683, he took up his abode in Paris, and wrote comedies, which became very popular,—the most successful being “The Gamester,” produced in 1696. Regnard had an inexhaustible fund of humour. Voltaire has said that “he who is not pleased with Regnard, is not entitled to admire Molière.”
[In marble, by J. J. Foucon, signed and dated 1779. There is a copy of this bust at Versailles.]
227. Charles Rivière Dufresny. Dramatist.
[Born in Paris, 1648. Died 1724. Aged 76.]
A versatile genius! A musician, a poet, a draughtsman, a gardener, and an architect. And most improvident withal! Was in the service of Louis XIV. first as valet-de-chambre, then as Inspector of the Royal Gardens. In the latter capacity, he was the first to introduce the English style of gardening into France. He enjoyed a pension; but for an inconsiderable sum he sold both place and pension, and soon became penniless. Then took to writing for the theatre as a last resource for bread. Few of his plays met with, or deserved, success; but one or two have recognised merit. He received fresh favours from the King, and the Duke of Orleans conferred upon him a handsome gift of money. But nothing could save Dufresny from himself. He fell in his age into deep poverty, and so died.
[From the marble by Augustin Pajou, signed and dated 1781. A sculptor and professor in the Academy of Paris, and one of the best of his time. He died in 1809.]
228. Prosper Jolyot de Crébillon. Dramatic Author.
[Born at Dijon, in France, 1674. Died in Paris, 1762. Aged 88.]
Styled the Æschylus of France. Educated by the Jesuits, and intended for the law, he produced, in 1705, his first play, “Idomeneus.” A subsequent effort, the tragedy of “Rhadamistus,” placed him at once in advance of all the tragic poets who lingered on the stage after Corneille and Racine had quitted it. Disgusted, at a later period, with Court neglect, and the decline of popularity, he withdrew from the world, and passed a life of abstinence amidst a large number of cats and dogs, whose attachment, he said, consoled him for man’s ingratitude. In 1731, elected a member of the French Academy. Towards the close of his days the sun once more smiled upon his fortunes. He received a pension through Madame Pompadour of 2,400 French livres; and the King of France caused his works to be printed at the Louvre press. As a tragic author he takes high rank. Too fond of dealing in horrors, but all his works have warmth, energy, and varied action. He was proud, independent, and alive to his own defects.
[The marble bust from which this was taken was executed after a model from the life, by the celebrated sculptor, J. B. Lemoyne, in 1760. The marble was carved by J. B. Huez, in 1778, as the inscription tells us. The only notice of Huez, who has often been considered the author of the bust, is in “Les Salons” of Diderot, where he is mentioned amongst the contributors to the exhibitions of the day, and not in complimentary terms. Lemoyne was a Parisian, and died in 1778. He did many busts.]
229. Philippe Néricault Destouches. Dramatist.
[Born at Tours, in France, 1680. Died 1754. Aged 74.]
In his youth served as a volunteer in the French army. Then adjoined to the embassy in Switzerland, where his leisure enabled him to follow the bent of his fancy, and to write for the stage. His plays were as popular as his diplomatic skill proved useful. He found favour with the Duke of Orleans, who attached him to the mission of Dubois, when that minister, in 1717, went to London. His diplomacy still pleased the Regent, who, unfortunately, died too soon for Destouches. But the dramatist had been prudent; and upon the death of his patron, he retired with a sufficient fortune to his estate, and sought consolation in the pursuits of agriculture and philosophy. His plays won applause rather by the interesting situations of which they were full, than by subtle development of character.
[From the only bust of him, by P. F. Berruer, done in 1781 and signed. Berruer was a member of the Paris Academy, and died in 1797.]
230. Alain Réné Le Sage. Novelist.
[Born at Sarzeau, in France, 1683. Died at Boulogne-sur-Mer, 1741. Aged 58.]
The author of “Gil Blas” and the “Devil on Two Sticks.” A poor man, notwithstanding the success of his novels. Becoming deaf, he used a speaking-trumpet in the presence of intelligent visitors; when other visitors came to him he gravely put the instrument into his pocket. An inimitable painter of human nature, ranking with the few immortals whose creations appeal to all times. Proud and independent, though amiable of disposition. Devoted to the pursuits and joys of a literary life.
231. Alexis Piron. Poet.
[Born at Dijon, 1689. Died 1773. Aged 84.]
A wild and dissolute spirit. The author of one admirable comedy, “La Métromanie,” which may take rank with the dramatic productions of the best period in France, and of seven volumes of compositions which have long ceased to float on the broad river of fame. Piron was the son of an apothecary at Dijon, and after almost breaking his father’s heart by his follies, he was obliged to flee his native town in consequence of the publication of an indecorous effusion written amidst the fumes of an orgie. He went to Paris, and there for nine years lived in great indigence, supporting himself as a copyist. Then he took to writing for the minor theatres, with more or less success, until 1738, when he produced his masterpiece, already mentioned. It secured him a place at once amongst the best dramatists of his country. In 1753, he applied for a vacant seat in the Academy, and was refused. He revenged himself by composing a satire and the following epitaph:—
“Ci-git Piron, qui ne fut rien,
Pas même Académicien.”
“Here lies Piron—a nullity—
Not even an Academician.”
[This is an admirable bust, by Caffieri, dated 1775. Copied at Versailles by M. Pigalle.]
232. Pierre Claude Nivelle de la Chaussée. Dramatist.
[Born in Paris, 1692. Died there, 1754. Aged 62.]
He is regarded as the inventor of sentimental comedy in France (Comédie larmoyante.) Hugh Kelly’s “False Delicacy” made the invention known in England, and Foote’s “Piety in Pattens” ridiculed it. Pierre de la Chaussée was a French Academician. His writings gained for him considerable fame during his life, and La Harpe ranks him amongst the authors who have conferred honour upon the French theatre.
[In marble, by Caffieri. 1785.]
233. François Marie Arouet de Voltaire. Historian, Poet, and Wit.
[Born at Chatenay, in France, 1694. Died in Paris, 1778. Aged 84.]
This extraordinary Intellect was not, as is generally supposed, an atheist. Voltaire was not destitute of the sense of moral responsibility; and he hardly believed in the immortality of the soul; but it was from his pen that fell the startling confession that, “if God did not exist, it would be necessary to invent his being.” Voltaire was richly endowed. He wrote the best epic poem in the French language; his tragedies, full of strength and passion, take high rank; his satire is cutting and inimitable, and his historical writings are full of life and movement. Wrapt up, however, in the philosophical spirit of the eighteenth century, he was ever incapable of judging justly of the greatness of minds who had received the prejudices of less enlightened times. For forty years, he led a life of incessant literary action: part of that time he was forced, in consequence of his satirical writings, to live in England, where he became the intimate of Bolingbroke, Toland, and other deists. In 1749, he visited Berlin, on the invitation of Frederic the Great. Always a persevering and acrimonious enemy of Christianity, he laughed at Revelation; and, a sneerer at hereditary orders, he helped largely to the overthrow of the monarchy in France. He did not live to witness the Revolution; but it is said that he lived long enough to be horrified at his infidelity. It must be noted to his honour, that whilst he ridiculed all things in which he had no faith, he was sincere in his maintenance of the rights of humanity, and in his denunciations of injustice. He was the idol of all who read and talked in France in his time.
[From the marble, by Houdon, done in 1778, and signed by him in the Théâtre Français. There is a fine seated statue of Voltaire in the Théâtre Français by Houdon considered to be his chef-d’œuvre as a portrait statue, and remarkable for the noble style in which the subject is treated. Copies of the same bust and statue exist at Versailles.]
233A. François Marie Arouet de Voltaire. Historian, Poet, and Wit.
[By Pajou.]
234. Michel Jean Sedaine. Dramatist.
[Born in Paris, 1719. Died there, 1797. Aged 78.]
The son of an architect. At the age of 13 relinquished, through poverty, the study of architecture and became a journeyman mason. Later in life he set up as master mason, but he forsook his calling for literature and the drama. His plays are well written for stage effect, but are not remarkable for their poetic character, or correctness of style. The success of his play, “Richard Cœur de Lion,” procured him admission into the French Academy.
[From a marble, by Jaques Edouard Gatteaux, signed and dated 1843. M. Gatteaux is an engraver of medals as well as sculptor, and member of the Institute. Born 1788.]
234*. Charles Palissot de Montenoy. Dramatist.
[Born at Nancy, in France, 1730. Died, 1814. Aged 84.]
Celebrated chiefly for his comedy of the “Cercle,” in which, by his ridicule of Rousseau, he gave offence to the philosophical literati of France, with whom he waged continual literary war. In 1760, he produced his comedy of “Les Philosophes;” in 1764, the “Dunciade.” His works are not distinguished by richness of invention or copiousness of ideas; but his style is natural, easy and correct.
[Bust to come.]
235. Marie Jeanne Vaubernier, Comtesse du Barry.
[Born at Vaucouleurs, in France, 1746. Guillotined, 1793. Aged 47.]
Of humble parentage. Quitting a convent in Paris into which she had entered at an early age, she worked as a milliner when fifteen years old. Shortly afterwards she became the mistress of the Count du Barry, a dissolute man of fashion, and by him was introduced to Louis XV., who captivated by her beauty and unrestrained manners, induced the brother of the Count to make Mademoiselle Vaubernier his lawful wife. La Comtesse du Barry, received at Versailles, soon acquired an ascendancy over the licentious monarch and his court. She exercised supreme sway, and held in her hands the power of life and death—promotion and disgrace. Her extravagance was boundless. At the death of Louis in 1774, she was shut up in a convent, where she became religious. Released from her imprisonment by Louis XVI., she conducted herself with decorum, but too late for any earthly happiness she might derive from repentance. In 1793, the revolutionists took her life because she had devoted it to the service of the Royal family, for whom, it would appear, she had sold her diamonds. She was much pitied at the scaffold, where she betrayed great want of courage.
[From the marble in the Louvre, by Pajou. A very beautiful work delicately chiselled, and full of life and softness. It is signed and dated 1772. The bust at Versailles is a repetition, dated 1773.]
SCIENTIFIC MEN AND WRITERS.
236. Michel de Montaigne. Essayist.
[Born at the Castle of Montaigne, in Perigord, France, 1533. Died at Perigord, 1592. Aged 59.]
An original and most engaging writer. His essays consist chiefly either of personal narrative, or of disquisitions upon his individual nature. His reasoning acute and philosophical, his manner, if one may so call it, grotesque, and naïve. His descriptions of persons, events, and places full of life and exquisite drawing. A favourite author with all lovers of sterling thought, lucid style, and quaint reflection. He lived during a time of religious conflict, but walked quietly and unscathed through the fire, blessed with philosophic calm. He travelled in 1580, visited Switzerland and Venice “which he had a hunger to see,” and settled for a time in Rome. He said “he could not go out of his way, for he had no way to go.” On his return, elected Mayor of Bordeaux, though he told the electors he had “neither party-spirit, memory, diligence, nor experience.” Elected for a second time to the office, nevertheless. A man of great moral courage, and warm in his friendships.
237. Jacques Auguste de Thou. Minister of State and Historian.
[Born in Paris 1553. Died 1617. Aged 64.]
Under Henry III. of France, De Thou discharged the duties of several offices with eminent ability and credit; and in 1581, was appointed one of the commissioners, sent to quiet the disturbances in Guyenne. In 1588, he was nominated Councillor of State, and in the following years proceeded to Germany and Italy on a diplomatic mission. On the death of Henry III. he received the confidence of Henry IV., and was employed, with others, to digest the articles set forth in the celebrated Edict of Nantes in 1598. In 1591, he commenced his great history of his own times; and, in 1604, published the first eighteen books. After the death of Henry IV., he served for a time as one of the Directors of Finance in Sully’s place, but soon retired, disappointed and vexed; and closed his days in the completion of his magnificent historical labours, and in the practice of piety. De Thou was deeply read in men, and learned in human dealings; grave and severely simple. His mighty work was written in 138 books, in the purest Latin, and is one of the world’s monuments of industry, intelligence, and knowledge. He also wrote Latin verses.
[From the marble in the Louvre, by Barthélemi Prieur. The head is in white marble, and the body in porphyry to imitate his robe.]
238. Réné Descartes. Mathematician and Metaphysician.
[Born at Touraine, in France, 1596. Died at Stockholm, in Sweden, 1650. Aged 54.]
Shares with Bacon the title of Father of Modern Philosophy. All the metaphysical writers follow him, as the men of the physical sciences follow Bacon. He was only three and twenty when, whilst with his regiment on the Danube, he determined to reform philosophy. To do so, he resolved to efface from his mind all that he had learnt, and to admit nothing that could not be demonstrated by reason and experience. With him, consciousness was the sole basis, mathematics the sole method, of certainty. He substituted the philosophy of reason for that of authority. His genius for the great sciences, and his superiority over the majority of his contemporaries in scientific acquirements, were remarkable. He first applied algebra to geometry; he likewise made observations on the decline of the magnetic needle, put forward the true theory of the rainbow, and brought the science of optics within the domain of mathematics. His influence over his age was great, though his writings involved him in controversies. But he was timid as a man. He wrote a book on astronomy, but destroyed it on learning the fate of Galileo. He was the first great master of French prose. It is said of him, that he began by doubting everything, and ended by believing that he had left nothing unexplained.
239. Antoine Arnauld. Theologian and Controversialist.
[Born in Paris, 1612. Died at Brussels, 1694. Aged 82.]
A learned and fierce polemic, whose consistency was as perfect as his spirit was bitter, and whose defiance of conflict and danger was as insolent as his private life was blameless. His happiness consisted in spiritual warfare. He established himself spokesman of the Jansenists. When he was ten years old he was heard to say to Cardinal Perron, “With this pen I, like you, will write against the Huguenots.” He commenced the labours of his life by an attack upon the Jesuits. Taking active part in all the angry discussion respecting grace, he published two “Apologies” in favour of Jansenius, which drew upon him the censure of the Sorbonne, and compelled him to retire to Port Royal, where he remained for the space of twelve years. Returning to Paris in 1668, he plunged immediately into the seething waters of controversy, and was again forced into exile. Fifteen years afterwards, we find him, as furious as ever, attacking the doctrine of Malebranche respecting the grace and vision of God. At his own request, his much-agitated heart, after it had ceased to beat, was sent to be deposited in the Port Royal. Forty-eight volumes remain to attest the intensity of his religious prejudices, the depth and extent of his learning, his violent love of wrangling, and his restless and unwearied industry. We sigh over the waste of power and the misuse of fine material.
240. Sébastien le Prestre de Vauban. Engineer.
[Born at St.-Léger de Foucheret, in Burgundy, 1633. Died 1707. Aged 74.]
Of poor parents, but well descended. At the age of seventeen, entered the army of Condé, in Spain, then fighting against France. Taken prisoner in 1653, he went over to the French army, and received his commission as lieutenant of engineers. His rise was as rapid as his services were great. At the age of twenty-five, he conducted the sieges of Gravelines, Ypres, and Oudenarde. He gave the most valuable help in all the campaigns of Holland and Flanders, from 1667 to 1703; and in 1703 was created Marshal of France. His contributions to the science of fortification have celebrated his name. He was not only a great builder, but a shrewd observer, and knew better than any of his contemporaries how to avail himself, whether in defence, or in attack, of the circumstances by which he was surrounded, and of the opportunities and conditions of his time. To him we owe the system of parallel lines, which he introduced before the city of Maestricht. At the siege of Philisbourg, he invented the “tir à ricochet,” in which the ball, making a series of bounds, strikes several times along works against which it is directed. He also invented the musket, in which the match served in lieu of the cover to the pan. He afterwards armed the musket with the bayonet. He vastly improved the system of inundations, that most useful element of self-defence. His engineering appliances during his long and indefatigable service were inexhaustible. It is affirmed on authority, that he repaired three hundred old fortresses, constructed thirty-three new works, conducted fifty-three sieges, and was present at a hundred and forty severe engagements. He also left behind him twelve folio volumes on Strategetics, entitled “Idle Hours.” Vauban was beloved by the soldiery, for whose safety he was always careful. His humanity is otherwise known by his endeavour to procure from the king, his master, the restoration of the Edict of Nantes. To that king he was deeply attached; although to him, as well as to every other man, he was blunt in the expression of what he believed to be truth,—straightforward and manly. He has been called the prince of engineers, and the best of subjects.
241. Joseph Pitton de Tournefort. Botanist.
[Born at Aix, in Provence, 1656. Died 1708. Aged 52.]
Educated by the Jesuits, and intended originally for the Church; but upon the death of his father he made several botanical excursions, and finally devoted his days to the prosecution of his darling pursuit. He visited England, Spain, and Holland. Tournefort did much towards the foundation of a scientific botany. His special service was in distinguishing plants from one another, and in preparing them by classification for the handling of the more philosophic student. Like the other botanists of his time, he had his own system of classification. He was one of the first thinkers upon the geographical distribution of plants. In 1700, he pursued his inquiries in the Levant, whence he brought home, after protracted and perilous wandering, no fewer than 1356 new plants. He published his “Travels in the Levant” upon his return to France.
242. Charles Rollin. Historian.
[Born in Paris, 1661. Died 1741. Aged 80.]
The son of a cutler, and himself intended for that trade; but rescued to learning and literature by a Benedictine monk who placed him at the College of Plessis. His studies were eminently successful. After holding many high scholastic appointments in France, he was obliged to resign, in 1720, the Rectorship of the College of Plessis, where he had been brought up, in consequence of the religious troubles of the time, he being suspected of favouring the Jansenists. From 1720 until his death, occupied in literary labours. His “Ancient History” appeared at intervals, from 1730 to 1738. Its simple style and moral tendency are more to be admired than the exactness of its narrative and the discernment of its author. The other writings of Rollin improved the taste of his age, and certainly strengthened its moral tone. As Rector of the University he revived the study of Greek, and gave prominence to the cultivation of French. He corresponded with Frederic the Great, Rousseau, and Voltaire, without deriving injury from their acquaintance: for all his contemporaries describe him as singularly virtuous and pious.
243. Jean Baptiste Rousseau. Lyric Poet.
[Born in Paris, 1669. Died at Brussels, 1741. Aged 72.]
A lyric poet of great celebrity in France, but many of his compositions defaced by scurrility and indecency. He was the son of a shoemaker, but he received a good education, and at an early age, gave sign of his poetic genius. In his nineteenth year, appointed page to the French ambassador at the court of Denmark; and subsequently attached as Secretary to the Embassy in England. In 1712, he fell into disfavour, and was banished from France for writing libellous verses, which, to the last moment of his life, he declared were the production of some enemy, who had designed his ruin. Retiring to Vienna, he found favour with Prince Eugene. The odes of Jean Baptiste Rousseau are not surpassed, if they are equalled, in the French language; his lyrics are elegant and harmonious, and his epigrammatic skill is perfect. His later productions, however, exhibit a lamentable falling off from the early excellence by which he won his fame.
[In marble, by Caffieri. No date.]
244. Réné Antoine Ferchault de Réaumur. Chemist and Naturalist.
[Born at Rochelle, in France, 1683. Died at Maine, in France, 1757. Aged 74.]
The discoverer, in his own country, of the art of making steel, till then imported into France. The thermometer which he adjusted, and which is named after him, is chiefly used on the continent. His life spent in the service of science, and in the close pursuit of truth. Entomology was, however, his favourite study; and he contributed a most interesting memoir towards the history of insects. He died from the effects of a fall from his horse.
245. Georges Louis Le Clerc, Comte de Buffon. Naturalist.
[Born at Montbard, in France, 1707. Died in Paris, 1788. Aged 81.]
This great naturalist commenced his scientific career at the age of 25, and his study at Montbard was called by Prince Henry of Prussia “the cradle of Natural History.” Shortly afterwards appointed Intendant to the Jardin des Plantes at Paris, where he projected his theory of the classification of animals, and assisted by Daubenton and Lacépède, wrote the great work which has immortalized his name. He was more or less dissimilar to Linnæus in the spirit and in the detail of his undertaking. Buffon’s object is to write a natural history of each animal; that of Linnæus to express its peculiar and distinctive character in the fewest possible words. Linnæus gives classical names to the objects he describes. Buffon names his animals in French. Buffon’s style is luminous and elevated, and at times approaches the character of blank verse. He is one of the founders of ethnological science, and as a writer on ethnology gave great prominence to the history of man as an Animal. He was sensual, vain, and in religious matters hypocritical.
[The original bust, which is in the Louvre, is inscribed—“By Pajou, sculpteur du Roy, professeur de son Académie de peinture et de sculpture, 1773.” Pajou died in 1809.]
245A. Georges Louis Le Clerc, Comte de Buffon. Naturalist.
[By J. Debay.]
246. Charles Linné, known by his Latin name Linnæus. Botanist.
[Born at Rœshult, in Sweden, 1707. Died at Upsal, in Sweden, 1778. Aged 71.]
A botanist, even at school, where he neglected his books in order to collect plants in the fields. His father, in despair, apprenticed him to a shoemaker. With eight pounds in his pocket, he went to Upsal, to study for the medical profession. Here he was appointed botanical lecturer in the University. Thence he was despatched to Lapland on a botanical expedition, and it is said he travelled 3,500 miles with no more than ten pounds. Finally became Professor of Medicine at Upsal, and Superintendent of the Botanical Gardens. Published, besides his great Systema Naturæ, many works on natural history, and a book on Materia Medica and nosology. He invented a new system of classification, founded upon the sexes of plants, which reigned in the science till superseded by the natural system of Jussieu. In person below the middle height, strong, and muscular. His head large; his look ardent and piercing; his features agreeable and animated. Vanity his greatest foible; yet few men have shown greater boldness, zeal, and activity, in the pursuit of science. His love of nature seemed a religious devotion of the heart. His library and herbarium were purchased for 1000l. by Sir James Edward Smith, and are now in the possession of the Linnæan Society of London.
247. Jean Jacques Rousseau. Philosopher and Writer.
[Born at Geneva, 1712. Died at Ermenonville, in France, 1778. Aged 66.]
This singular and morally-distempered man, was endowed by nature with a warm imagination, a teeming fancy, and ardent feeling; but his whole nature was unhinged, by the absence of conscientiousness and directing principle. He was not only self-loving and vain, but self-engrossed. His early life was passed in reading romances, and in the loose indulgence of his weaknesses and passions. Yet his pen was a potent one, and, even more than that of Voltaire, helped to bring about the Revolution in France, and all its social blasphemies. Whilst Voltaire, with his bright and sharpened wit, cut away the cable that held religion to its moorings, Rousseau penetrated to the households of men, invaded their firesides, and poisoned their hearts. His writings were new, fascinating, and eloquent; abounding in highly-wrought descriptions of nature, and in what seemed genuine bursts of passion. His philosophy attributed all vices to civilization, to the existence of property, and to the tyranny of governments. His career was as disgraceful to himself, as his works proved detrimental to the happiness of others. He committed frequent thefts in his youth, and behaved with infamous ingratitude towards his benefactress, Madame de Warens, who saved him from threatened starvation; yet was left by him to starve in later days, when the condition in life of both had changed. With all his profound sentiment, Rousseau was a cold-blooded and cruel man. He was a subtle, independent, and original inquirer.
[From the bronze in the Louvre which bears the name of Houdon, 1778. The treatment is in the antique manner. The drapery is a mantle, and the head is bound with a fillet. This bust has an especial interest, from its having been executed from a cast taken after death by Houdon, who was sent for to Ermenonville immediately after the decease of Rousseau, by M. de Girardin, with whom he lived. The original cast still exists, and shows its genuineness by the scar on the forehead, caused by Rousseau’s falling from his chair; an accident which gave rise to the report that he had shot himself.]
247*. Jean Darcet. Chemist and Physician.
[Born at Douazit, in France, 1725. Died in Paris, 1801. Aged 76.]
Disinherited by his father for preferring the study of natural philosophy to that of jurisprudence; but befriended by Montesquieu, who appointed him tutor to his sons. His great discovery was the composition of porcelain. He artificially formed from minerals, found in France, the earth of which porcelain is made, and which exists in a natural state in Saxony, where the law forbade its exportation. The first to extract gelatine from bones, and soda from the sea water. Director of the Gobelins and of the Sèvres manufactories.
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248. Jean Pierre Duhamel. Man of Science.
[Born at Nicorps, in France, 1730. Died 1816. Aged 86.]
In 1752, Duhamel visited the mines of the Pyrenees, and of various parts of Germany, in order to collect information, his object being to establish a School of Mines in his own country. But he had to wait twenty years for the realization of his idea. As soon as it was carried out, he received the appointment of Professor of Agriculture and Metallurgy. He was a true practical philosopher, and his inventions and discoveries were all of the highest use in the branch of science to the development of which his life-long exertions had been directed.
249. Joseph Louis Lagrange. Astronomer.
[Born at Turin, in Italy, 1736. Died in Paris, 1813. Aged 77.]
At the age of 19, was Professor of Mathematics at the College of Turin. Appointed successor to Euler when the latter was removed from Berlin. Subsequently settled in Paris, where he became one of the Directors of the Mint, and Professor in the Polytechnic school. In 1793, when all foreigners were ordered to leave France, he was permitted to remain. His important labours contributed largely to the advancement of mathematics and astronomy, agitating most of the problems which Laplace subsequently treated with such success. Delicate in health, he led a temperate life; and in society he was reserved and contemplative. Neither great fame nor high honour impaired his modesty. One of the Encyclopedists.
250. Jean François Galaup de la Pérouse. Navigator.
[Born at Albi, in France, 1741. Died about 1788.]
At an early age entered the naval service of his country, and in 1782 commanded the successful attempt to destroy the English settlement at Hudson’s Bay: an attack in which he displayed great humanity towards the foe. In 1785, he quitted France with two small frigates on a voyage of discovery. He visited the coasts of Tartary, Japan, and New Holland; in 1787, he sent home one of his officers with an account of his expedition; and in 1788, he quitted Botany Bay. No further intelligence was ever received of him or of any of his crew. He probably perished on one of the Vanikors islands.
250*. Marie-Jean-Antoine Nicolas Carétat, Marquis de Condorcet. Mathematician and Philosopher.
[Born in Picardy, France, 1743. Died at Clamart, in France, 1794. Aged 51.]
One of the original thinkers of the eighteenth century, and the biographer of Voltaire. Cold and reserved in his manner, but his feelings warm and enthusiastic. D’Alembert called him “a volcano covered with snow.” Another writer has said that goodness was so sweetly expressed in his eyes, that had he proved dishonest, he would have been more to blame than any other man. He earned and still retains the name of the “virtuous Condorcet.” His scientific attainments caused him to be elected Secretary to the Academy of Sciences at an early age. His works, which are in 21 vols., were collected by Cabanis and Garat. The work on which his fame will rest is the Esquisse d’un tableau Historique des progrès de l’esprit Humain, where, for the first time, the idea of Progress as a law of Humanity was scientifically expounded. Condorcet believed in the indefinite perfectibility of man as the result of this law of progress. In 1791, inflamed with the zeal which he had helped to kindle for liberty, and the overthrow of inveterate abuses, he became a member of the National Assembly, but not proving violent enough for his colleagues, was forced to secrete himself in the house of a friend. Death being pronounced against all who should harbour proscribed persons, Condorcet voluntarily quitted his sanctuary in disguise; but was detected in the village of Clermont, and thrown into prison. He swallowed poison, and was found dead on the following morning. In action, Condorcet wanted moral courage.
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251. Jacques Étienne Montgolfier. Aëronaut, and Inventor of Balloons.
[Born at Vidalon-lès-Annonai, in France, 1745. Died at Serrières, in France, 1799. Aged 54.]
The son of a paper-maker. Was led by reading the philosophical writings of Priestley to conceive the idea of employing gas, lighter than the atmosphere, as a means of ascending through the air. His first experiment was made at Annonai in 1783, and with such success that he repeated it the same year in Paris, and again at Versailles before the Court. Montgolfier was rewarded for his invention by admission to the Academy of Sciences, the cordon of St. Michel, and a pension of 2000 livres.
251*. Gaspar Monge. Geometrician.
[Born at Beaunée, in France, 1746. Died in Paris, 1818. Aged 72.]
Inventor of descriptive geometry, and one of the founders of the Polytechnic School at Paris. During the Revolution elected Minister of Marine but soon resigning, took a personally active part in the equipment of the army for war. Under Napoleon, visited Egypt, where his investigations of architectural remains were incessant. His whole life devoted to science; and his work on the history of Mathematics testifies to his deep spirit of research. An impartial writer, but a praiser of few.
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252. Dominique Denon. Egyptian Traveller.
[Born at Chalons-sur-Saone, in France, 1747. Died in Paris, 1825. Aged 78.]
Brought up to the law, he neglected his profession for the fine arts. Found favour with Louis XV. and his successor. Fulfilled several diplomatic appointments with great success. In 1787, became a member of the Academy of Painters. Employed by Robespierre to design the new republican official costumes. Accompanied the French expedition to Egypt; of which one result was his interesting and magnificent work, published at the public expense, “Travels in Upper and Lower Egypt, during the campaigns of General Buonaparte.” This work first brought the wonderful remains of ancient Egyptian art distinctly before our eyes. Subsequently appointed, by Napoleon, Director-General of Museums, and mainly organized in Paris the admirable collection which for a time constituted the richest treasury of art ever known in Europe. At the Restoration, Denon lost his office, and devoted his leisure to the arrangement of his own museum. He was an ardent lover of the fine arts, possessed an elegant taste and liberal mind.
[From the marble in the Louvre, by M. Marin. 1827.]
252*. Claude Louis Berthollet. Chemist.
[Born at Talloire, in Savoy, 1748. Died at Arcueil, in France, 1822. Aged 74.]
After studying at Turin, went to Paris. There elected a member of the Academy of Sciences, and Professor of Chemistry to the Normal and Polytechnic Schools. During the first wars of the Revolution employed in making gunpowder, and converting iron into steel. With Monge, the geometrician, accompanied the French army to Italy and Egypt in order to direct the removal of the plundered works of art. The friendship of these two philosophers, their calmness in pursuing science amidst danger, their courage and kindness to the soldiers, won for them the admiration of the whole army. Berthollet discovered the bleaching properties of chlorine, and the art of fixing the colour of dyes. Also assisted in the establishment of a new chemical nomenclature. Generous, disinterested, heroic; and his modesty equal to his merit.
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253. Antoine Laurent de Jussieu. Botanist.
[Born at Lyons, 1748. Died in Paris, 1836. Aged 88.]
One of a celebrated family of botanists; his uncle Bernard, who died in 1777, having been one of the foremost botanists of his age. His most famous work, founded upon his uncle’s great labours, was “The Varieties of Plants, arranged according to their Natural Order.” His whole scientific life was spent in an endeavour to ascertain the natural relations of plants, and, by the aid of fresh discoveries, to justify and complete the system he upheld.
253*. Pierre Simon Laplace. Astronomer.
[Born at Beaumont, in France, 1749. Died in Paris, 1827. Aged 78.]
A great geometrician and physical astronomer. To him we owe the Theory of Probabilities, and the Nebular Hypothesis. He also prepared the way for the Theory of Tides. He discovered the existence of an invariable plane in the solar system. Invented a thermometer. His great work, Mécanique céleste, introduced to the English by Mrs. Somerville in her “Mechanism of the Heavens,” is so complete that no alterations of importance have been made by subsequent discovery.
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254. Jean Antoine Chaptal. Chemist.
[Born at Nogaret, in France, 1756. Died in Paris, 1832. Aged 76.]
As a chemist eminent for making the science subservient to the uses of manufacture. In 1800, elected Minister of State. In 1802, presented to the State a scheme for education which embodied Napoleon’s educational measures. Curious to say, the scheme betrayed a distrust of general education altogether, and an anxiety to train up youth in the interest of the government. An able statesman, but in science a practical philosopher, rather than a brilliant discoverer.
255. Bernard Germain Étienne Lacépède, Comte de la Ville sur Illon. Naturalist.
[Born at Agen, in France, 1756. Died at Epinay, in France, 1825. Aged 69.]
When young, in the army; but quitted it for the study of Natural History. The favorite pupil of Buffon, who obtained for him the appointment of Curator to the king, and selected him to continue his Natural History. His works display profound research, and are elegantly written. A courteous and kind-hearted man.
255*. Antoine Isaac Silvestre, Baron de Sacy. Orientalist.
[Born in Paris, 1758. Died there, 1838. Aged 80.]
One of the greatest of modern linguists, he made himself master, not only of all the classical and modern languages of Europe, but of many of the languages of the East. His industry was remarkable. In 1806, he was appointed Professor of Persian. In 1810, he published an Arabic grammar. In 1832, he was raised to the peerage, and made keeper of the Oriental MSS. in the king’s library. De Sacy was the chief founder and first President of the Asiatic Society in Paris, and besides extending in his country the knowledge of every branch of Oriental literature, he caused professorships of Chinese, Sanskrit, and Hindostani to be established in Paris. He left behind him a magnificent library.
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256. Georges Léopold Chrêtien Frédéric Dagobert Cuvier. Naturalist.
[Born at Montbeliard, in France, 1769. Died in Paris, 1832. Aged 63.]
At an early age displayed a taste for drawing and natural history, and an extraordinarily retentive memory. After the Reign of Terror, invited to Paris, where he prepared his “Tabular Arrangement of the Natural History of Animals,” which has served as the basis for all subsequent works on zoological classification. Shortly afterwards commenced the formation of his celebrated collection for the study of comparative anatomy. His greatest work, “The Animal Kingdom distributed according to its Organization,” has been the foundation of all zoological studies since his time. Possessed of great administrative capacity. Famous for his discoveries among fossil animals, and by these rendered invaluable services to geology. Was made Councillor of State, by Napoleon. In 1881, raised to the peerage. His writings very attractive. His mind active and enterprising, yet sound and methodical. Unlike Buffon, he considered system indispensable in the investigations of physiology. Solicitous for the diffusion of knowledge. A good as well as great man. Unimpeachable in all the relations of social life.
256*. Jean Le Rond D’alembert. Mathematician and Philosopher.
[Born in Paris, 1717. Died there, 1783. Aged 66.]
When an infant exposed in the church of Le Rond, from which he is named. Nursed in obscurity by the wife of a glazier; educated at the College of Mazarin. Evinced astounding precocity and a decided inclination for mathematical studies. At the age of twenty-four gave proof of his great mathematical knowledge, and gained admission into the Academy of Sciences. Memorable for his connexion with the great French work “L’Encyclopédie,” to which he contributed many articles, and its excellent preliminary discourse. In 1772, appointed Secretary to the French Academy. The author of many celebrated works on his favourite science, in which he was an undoubted discoverer. He was the friend of the Empress Catharine of Russia, and of Frederic the Great of Prussia. In the war which in his time was carried on against the church, he took his place by the side of his friends Diderot, Voltaire, Grimm, and D’Holbach.
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256**. Alexandre Louis Joseph, Marquis de Laborde. Soldier, Traveller, and Educator.
[Born in Paris, 1774. Died there, 1842. Aged 68.]
At the breaking out of the French Revolution, entered the Austrian service, in which he remained nine years. After the treaty of Campo Formio, revisited his native city, prosecuted the study of literature and the arts, and attached himself to Napoleon and the Imperial family. Then travelled through. England, Holland, and Spain; accompanied Napoleon to the last-named country, and went with the Emperor also to Austria in 1810. He held many important offices during Buonaparte’s life, and formed one of the Embassy appointed to demand the hand of Maria Louisa. After the Restoration the influence of Laborde ceased; his usefulness, however, continued, for he took great pains to introduce into France the Lancasterian system of education for poor children. In 1822, he was elected Deputy for Paris; and in 1830, signed, with 220 other Deputies, the protest against the ordinances of Charles X. He was again deputy under Louis Philippe. Laborde was a traveller in the East as well as in the West: an accomplished man, and an eloquent speaker. He wrote many works having reference to his travels and to his educational objects.
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256***. Gay Lussac. French Chemist.
[Born 1778. Died 1850. Aged 72.]
A leading discoverer in Chemistry whilst the science was advancing with the most rapid steps and surprising disclosures. Of a spirit exact and large to reason out abstruse principles, subtly curious to hunt on the track of new marvels, and patient and inventive to repeat, vary, and heap experiments, his long life of labour might well leave a name memorable to his own science, and to the arts which it enlightens and aids. In 1816, he was appointed Professor of Chemistry in the Polytechnic School. He was one of those who do not shrink from personal peril in enlarging the domain of science. In. 1804, at the desire of the French government, he ascended in a balloon in order to ascertain by experiment, whether the magnetic force suffers perceptible diminution at great elevations, and found no appreciable diminution up to the elevation of 13,124 feet. Simple, modest, gentle, firm, open and upright, an unchangeable friend, and a sound patriot:—he carried into all the relations of life the ardour of truth which animated his scientific researches.
256****. Charles Nodier. Writer.
[Born at Besançon, in France, 1780. Died, 1844. Aged 64.]
One of the contributors to the “Biographie Universelle,” and an able writer on many subjects. He published a dictionary of words which naturally represent by their sound the action signified: and this work became at once, by order of the government, a class-book in all the public schools. He also wrote instructive works on flowers and insects. In 1800, there appeared from his pen a poem called “Napoleone,” for which he suffered imprisonment. A writer for the Journal des Débats newspaper; subsequently conducted the Quotidienne. In 1834, a member of the French Academy. He had great rapidity in composition, and published many writings; amongst them several novels. As a writer his style is pure; he was hostile to innovations in language. He has been accused of political tergiversation: and of being, little scrupulous in the way of pushing his interests, and forcing a reputation.
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SOLDIERS AND STATESMEN.
257. Pierre de Terrail, Seigneur de Bayard. Warrior.
[Born near Grenoble, in France, 1476. Died, 1524. Aged 48.]
The “Chevalier sans peur et sans reproche.” A true knight and gentleman. His earliest renown won at the tourney. At the age of eighteen, entered active service, which he did not quit until his death in Italy, where he fell, as he desired, by the weapon of the foe on the field of battle. Spotless in character, intrepid, generous, self-denying, and the very soul of honour. He enjoyed the respect and admiration of his country’s enemies, and by his own countrymen he was idolized. After the battle of Marignan, his King, Francis I., one of the bravest men of his age, desired to receive the order of knighthood from the hands of Bayard. The ceremony over, Bayard addressed his sword, vowing to regard it thenceforward as a sacred relic, never to be drawn except against Turks, Saracens, and Moors. The body of Bayard was embalmed by the foe and restored to the French for honourable burial, at Grenoble.
258. Gaston de Foix. Warrior.
[Born 1489. Died at Ravenna, in Italy, 1512. Aged 23.]
The nephew of Louis XII. of France. Succeeded the Duke of Longueville in the command of the army in Italy, where his prodigies of valour and daring exploits gained him the name of the “Thunderbolt of Italy.” He raised the siege of Ravenna, and in his hot pursuit of the foe, was cut down;—slaughtered in the hour of victory.
[This is one of the finest French busts. There is also a portrait of him in the Gallery of Vienna, by Palma Vecchio.]
259. Michel de l’Hôpital. Chancellor of France.
[Born at Aigueperse, in France, 1505. Died at Vignay, in France, 1573. Aged 68.]
One of the greatest magistrates of France. Educated by his father, a surgeon, for the profession of law, at Toulouse and Padua. Entering Parliament, he became distinguished for his judgment, learning, modesty, and legal attainments. On the death of Francis I. nominated Ambassador to the Council of Trent. Upon his return to France, appointed by Marguerite de Valois, Duchesse de Berri, Private Chancellor of her Household; and after the accession of Henry II., raised to the dignity of Chancellor of France. Religious dissensions were now rife and bitter, and L’Hôpital took the side of moderation and justice. It was his hand that in 1562 drew up the edict called the “edict of January,” which gave freedom of worship to Protestants in France. Hopeless, however, of seeing an end to the fierce quarrels of Roman Catholics and Calvinists, he resigned the seals of office in 1567, and retired into privacy. He was still in obscurity when the butchery of St. Bartholomew took place. During the massacre, Catherine de Medicis sent a body-guard to protect the Ex-Chancellor. Being told that he was pardoned, L’Hôpital calmly replied “that he was not aware that he had done anything demanding either death or pardon.” The grief and horror which he experienced at this dreadful event broke the heart of the mild and conscientious man. His character looks all the brighter from the darkness by which he is surrounded. His industry was equal to his great learning, and his high sense of honour and justice corresponded to his humanity. When, in 1554, he was made Superintendent of the Royal Finances, he restored an exhausted treasury by his stern and resolute honesty.
[From the marble in the Louvre, by Gois, Sen.]
260. Gaspard de Coligny. Marshal and Admiral.
[Born at Chatillon-sur-Loin, in France, 1517. Died in Paris, 1572. Aged 55.]
Greatly distinguished for his valour. The head of the Protestant party in France, and the first victim of the horrible massacre of St. Bartholomew.
261. Pierre Laurent Buirette de Belloy. Dramatist.[32]
[Born at St. Flour, in Auvergne, 1727. Died 1775. Aged 48.]
A writer who acquired immense popularity in his own day, but whose death, it is said, was hastened by grief at the total failure of his last dramatic work. His best production is “The Siege of Calais,” which, as the third great success achieved by his pen, secured for him the gold medal accorded by the king to authors who should have been thrice successful on the stage. The style of Belloy is somewhat laboured and sententious, and he indulges largely in hyperbole; but he had a happy knowledge of stage effect. He possessed an astonishing memory; and was the first introducer of national subjects, for representation upon the French stage. At an early period of his life he had himself been an actor in Russia.
[From the marble by Caffieri. On the pedestal of the bust is inscribed—“The work of his friend, Caffieri. 1771.”]
[32] This biographical notice belongs properly to “French Poets and Dramatists,” and has been unavoidably misplaced.
262. François de Bonne, Duc de Lesdiguières. Constable of France.
[Born 1543. Died 1626. Aged 83.]
When nineteen years of age, a simple archer; but, by dint of great bravery, activity, and success, he shortly became chief of the Protestant party in France. In 1575, appointed commander of the Protestant army in the place of Montbrun; performed great feats of arms in Dauphiny and Provence, and helped, more than any other soldier of his time, to place Henry IV. upon the throne. After the death of Henry, the religious convictions of Lesdiguières underwent a remarkable change. He was converted to Romanism,—some say, by the persuasive powers of a missionary; others, by the dazzling office of Lord High Constable of France, offered on condition that he abjured his faith. It is certain that he had a lust of power and wealth, and was unscrupulous in the means of getting them. Yet he had great qualities. He was generous and forgiving. He was conqueror in every battle he fought. Our own Elizabeth was heard to say that “had there been two Lesdiguières in France, she would have begged one from the king.” He was indeed a man after her own great heart; for he was brave, handsome, active, full of resources, and always successful.
263. Maximilien de Béthune, Duc de Sully. Minister of State.
[Born at Rosny, in France, 1560. Died at Villebon, in France, 1641. Aged 82.]
The early friend and Minister of Henry IV. of France. Educated, like his royal master, in the reformed faith, he ran in his youth great risk of falling a victim to the terrible massacre of St. Bartholomew. Escaping from that danger, he joined the standard of the young King of Navarre, shared his dangers, and distinguished himself by the most daring courage. His abilities, however, as diplomatist and financier outweighed his bravery and impetuosity on the field. When Henry IV. ascended the throne of France, Sully became Minister of Finance, and by dint of skilful management and great labour he so far repaired the monetary credit of the nation as to be able to pay off, in the course of ten years, a heavy debt, and to leave a considerable surplus in the treasury. Upon the accession of James II. of England, he came to this country as ambassador, and concluded a treaty advantageous to the interests of both nations. After the assassination of Henry IV., Sully quietly retired to his estates, where he was frequently consulted by Louis XIII., and where he composed his interesting “Memoirs.” He was amazingly rich, and laden with honours. He held many appointments—amongst others, those of Governor of Poitou, and Grand Surveyor of France. Sully was parsimonious, although he had ever been liberal in supplying the necessities of his royal master, when the King of Navarre stood in need of help. He had many fine qualities: not the least of these was his plain, blunt sincerity in all his dealings with the king. He was a most diligent worker, rising invariably at four o’clock in the morning to commence his daily work. He is described as violent in temper, avaricious, and greedy of honour as well as money. He had largely earned both by his life-long fidelity to his sovereign, and by the lasting services rendered in the time of peace to the bankrupt exchequer of his country. He died as he had lived—a Protestant.
[From the statue in the Institute of France, by Mouchy.]
264. Claude Fabri de Peiresc. Patron of Science.
[Born at Beaugensier, in France, 1580. Died 1637. Aged 57.]
A benefactor of his kind, being one of the most notable promoters and patrons of science and literature. For a long time resident on his native soil, then in Italy, England, and Holland, in all which countries he collected with the greatest avidity, and at infinite pains, rare memorials of antiquity. He encouraged and assisted men of genius wherever he met them, and corresponded with the learned of his time in Europe. We are indebted to him for the preservation of several ancient manuscripts, and for our acquaintance with fragments of learning, until his time unrecovered. He was himself an antiquary, a philologist, and an astronomer.
[From a marble in the Louvre, copied by Claude Francin from a bust by Caffieri. Francin died in 1773. An original work of his from the life, is the bust of D’Alembert, at Versailles. The original of our bust, some years ago, had the nose broken off. It has not been very skilfully restored.]
265. Abraham Duquesne. Vice Admiral of France.
[Born at Dieppe, in France, 1610. Died in Paris, 1688. Aged 78.]
One of the most famous sea-captains of France. At the age of seventeen, he already gained great distinction by his deeds against the Spaniard. During the minority of Louis XIV. entered the navy of Sweden, and destroyed the fleet of Christian IV. of Denmark. Returning to France, performed illustrious service against Spain and Holland combined; opposed Ruyter and Van Tromp, and gained important victories over both. Ruyter he completely defeated near Messina, winning that city for the French. In 1683, bombarded Algiers, and in 1684, humbled Genoa. Duquesne, being a Protestant, did not receive from his royal master the highest rank in the French navy, but he was created a Marquis, and upon the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, his was the sole name not included in the general proscription. Louis XIV. expressed to this great sailor his regret that he could not recompense his services as they merited, because of his religious faith. When Duquesne repeated this to his wife, she said, “You ought to have replied:—‘Sire, if I am a Protestant, my services are Catholic.’” Like Nelson, Duquesne was in private life admired for his gentleness and sterling worth.
[For an account of this statue, see Handbook of Modern Sculpture, No. 92.]
266. Henri de la Tour d’Auvergne, Vicomte de Turenne. Marshal of France.
[Born at Sedan, in France, 1611. Died at Baden, 1675. Aged 64.]
The most skilful commander in Europe, at a time when the art of war was studied with greater assiduity than at any previous period. The public and private acts of Turenne proclaim the inherent grandeur of his mind. He was born a Protestant, and becoming a Roman Catholic in after life, he exhibited moderation and comprehensive liberality, not always characteristic of the convert. He was sagacious, truthful, and virtuous. In war energetic, brave, and full of resources; in private life pure, kind, and disinterested. He entered upon military duty in Holland in his 13th year. After the death of Louis XIII., Mazarin and the Queen Mother enlisted the successful soldier in their service, and conferred upon him the Marshal’s baton. They had no cause to repent the act. He performed great deeds in Germany, took part in the wars of the Fronde, and covered himself with glory in every campaign. He fell whilst leading his men into action, and his marshalled troops, paralysed by the blow, retired without hazarding a battle. Montecucculi, the opposed commander, on seeing the movement, exclaimed, “Turenne is dead.” Turenne was unprepossessing in appearance: he had a fierce expression, was of the middle height, with very broad shoulders and thick eyebrows. He was mourned, by order of the King, as a prince of the blood royal, and buried with kings in the Church of St. Denis. Napoleon said, at St. Helena, that he had studied the life of Turenne, deeming his renown exaggerated, but that he had risen from the study confirmed in his opinion of the commander’s greatness. “The boldness of Turenne,” he added, “increased with his experience; for he was more daring at the close than at the outset of his career. It was the reverse with Condé, who made so great display at starting.”
267. Edouard Colbert. Minister of State.
[Died, 1693.]
Brother of the great Jean Baptiste Colbert, who was Finance Minister of Louis XIV. Edouard was a lieutenant-general in the army, and a member of the government.
[From a marble in the Louvre, by Desjardins, a Dutch sculptor, born at Breda, 1640, who died at Paris, in 1694. Desjardins attained to eminence and became principal of the Académie in Paris. The original is inscribed—“E. C. Marquis de Colbert, Surintendant des batimens du Roy, agé de LXIIII. ans.”]
267*. Jean Baptiste Colbert. Statesman and Financier.
[Born at Reims, in France, 1619. Died in Paris, 1683. Aged 64.]
It has been said that Louis XIV. would never have been so great a King had not Colbert been so great a financier. And there is warrant for the remark. His soul was absorbed in the work of glorifying France, and he carried out his patriotic object by re-establishing order in the finances of the country, from which he contended all material prosperity flows—by a reconstruction of the whole commercial system—by adorning the capital with great public works, and by a general encouragement of art and literature. Some authors assert that Colbert was the son of a draper. His mind was that of the most enlightened statesman. In early life, Mazarin had been his patron, and when the Cardinal died, he bequeathed his friend to the King as the best legacy he could leave him, and he appointed him his own executor. France prospered under his hand, which suffered no fatigue from inordinate exertion, and which ruled,—-if occasionally with a rod of iron,—with a success that has left some of its effects visible even at the present day. He died spent with service, having lived through intrigues and rivalries.
[This bust, which is to come, is from a marble in the Louvre, by Michel Anguier, who died in 1686. He was the artist who executed the sculptures of the Triumphal Arch at Paris, called the Porte St. Denis. The costume is the court dress, with a mantle over, which is the Order of the Holy Spirit, and the Cordon. At Versailles there is a bust also from the life, by Coysevox, who did the kneeling statue on his tomb in the church of St. Eustace, a copy of which is there also.]
268. Louis II. de Bourbon, Prince de Condé, surnamed The Great Condé. Warrior.
[Born in Paris, 1621. Died at Fontainbleau, in France, 1686. Aged 65.]
A great soldier, daring, impetuous, valiant, brilliant in his achievements, and, in the pursuit of victory, utterly regardless of human life, whether in respect of himself or of others. When he first entered the army, he served under the great Turenne, but in 1643, five days after the accession of Louis XIV., being invested with the chief command of the armies of Flanders and Picardy, he won the famous battle of Rocroi, in which, with a most inadequate force, he annihilated the veteran Spanish troops. From 1643 to 1649, he accumulated glory and honour upon his brow. In 1650, Mazarin, alarmed by the position assumed by the laurelled warrior during the troubles of the “Fronde,” arrested him, and imprisoned him in the Bastille. Released after thirteen months’ confinement, Condé in revenge threw himself into the arms of Spain, and marched against Paris; where, however, his bravery and hot indignation could make little way against Turenne. Peace having been concluded in 1659, Condé returned to France, resumed his old allegiance, and took part in the triumphant victories of the time. When Turenne was killed at Salzbach, in 1675, Condé assumed the place of the deceased commander, but only to make his last campaign; for ill-health soon compelled him to lay down his arms for ever. He retired to his estate at Chantilly, and passed the remainder of his days in the society and patronage of the chief literary men of the time. He was the friend of Racine and Molière, and an enthusiastic admirer of Corneille. Condé was a hero on the field of battle, but there only:—as a man, proud, fierce, eager, passionate, and ambitious. He had an eagle glance, and a spirit easily roused. After the wont of the great world in France in those days, he became religious in his decline.
269. Henri François d’Aguesseau. Chancellor of France.
[Born at Limoges, in France, 1668. Died at Fresnes, in France, 1751. Aged 83.]
A distinguished orator and judge, a fine scholar, a loyal citizen, and a worthy, if in some respects, a weak man. He improved the administration of justice in France, defended the monarchy against papal aggression, and the people from the aggressions of the monarch. He became Chancellor in 1717, but resolutely opposing the dangerous system of finance known as “Law’s system,” he was deprived of the seals and banished. In 1720, he was recalled, to counteract the disastrous effects of Law’s schemes; but in 1722, making another stand against corruption, he was again dismissed, by the influence of Court intrigue. Once more invited back to office, he served his country until 1750, when he finally resigned the Chancellorship. He was distinguished for gentleness of manner and sweetness of disposition, as much as for love of honesty and truth. It was said of him, that his thoughts were those of a philosopher; his speech, that of an orator. He was conversant with many ancient and modern languages, and he wrote Latin and other verses. His works, chiefly legal, formed thirteen quarto volumes.
[From the marble in the Louvre.]
270. Maurice, Comte de Saxe. Marshal of France.
[Born at Dresden, in Saxony, 1696. Died at Chambord, in France, 1750. Aged 54.]
One of the most illustrious warriors of the eighteenth century. The natural son of Frederic Augustus II., King of Poland, and Aurora, the celebrated Countess of Königsmarck. In 1711, he followed the King of Poland to Stralsund; he also served in Hungary against the Turks, and was at the siege of Belgrade. In 1720, he entered the service of France, in which, after famous deeds of heroism, and many brilliant triumphs, he rose to the highest rank. In 1745, he gained the battle of Fontenoy, and by the capture of Mäestricht in 1747, he secured the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle. Marshal Saxe was large in size, and of extraordinary strength. He was a Lutheran.
[From the marble in the Louvre, by J. B. Pigalle, a celebrated French sculptor of the last century, who died at Paris in 1785. The mausoleum to the memory of Saxe, in the church of St. Thomas, at Strasbourg, was built by him. The Marshal wears his armour, which is sculptured with the arms of his family. The statue at Versailles is the work of M. Rude, in 1836. Another bust, by Cartellier, treated in the Antique style, is in the Tuileries.]
271. François Christophe Kellermann. Marshal of France.
[Born at Strasbourg, in France, 1735. Died in Paris, 1820. Aged 85.]
One of Napoleon’s generals. Commanded at the battle of Valmy, 1792, against the Duke of Brunswick, and his victory probably determined the fate of Europe until 1815. Years afterwards it was his good fortune to decide the issue of one of Napoleon’s greatest battles by the brilliancy of his charge. Napoleon said “the charge was opportune.” “Opportune!” replied Kellermann, “it has put the crown upon your head.” The Emperor never forgave the remark. Kellermann excelled in statesman-like tact and finesse.
272. Charles François Dumouriez. French General.
[Born at Cambrai, in France, 1739. Died, 1823. Aged 84.]
Played a conspicuous part in the first French Revolution, changing from one party to another. His antipathy to the extreme Republicans induced him at last to treat with Austria for the invasion of France, but, deserted by his army, he retired to Hamburgh and thence to England. A friend of Lord Castlereagh and the late Duke of Kent. Enterprising, ambitious, and capable, but inconsiderate and hasty. He wrote several works.
273. Théophile Malo de la Tour d’Auvergne-Corret. Warrior.
[Born at Cartraix, in Lower Britanny, 1743. Died at Neuburg, in Bavaria, 1800. Aged 57.]
Styled by Napoleon “the first grenadier of France.” Entered the Spanish army as a volunteer, and conducted himself with great bravery and humanity at the siege of Mahon. Throughout his military life exhibited unflinching valour and singular judgment. After the close of his service, re-entered the army as the substitute for the son of a friend, who had been drawn as conscript. Killed at the battle of Neuburg, he was buried on the field, but his heart was embalmed and confided to the care of his regiment. A hero in war, and in private life. An excellent scholar, well versed in history, eminent as a linguist, and known as the author of a Franco-Celtic Dictionary. As a signal distinction, the name of La Tour D’Auvergne, after his death, was still called, in its turn, in the muster-roll of his regiment.
[From the marble in the Tuileries. The author not known, but supposed to be Chas. Louis Corbet.]
274. Pierre Alexandre Berthier. Marshal of France.
[Born at Versailles, in France, 1753. Died at Hamburg, in Germany, 1815. Aged 62.]
The bosom friend of Napoleon, and his constant companion in his campaigns. He received in person the Emperor’s instructions, and forwarded them to the different generals. Performed his duties with docility, readiness, and perfect silence, and never betrayed his master’s secrets. As a subordinate unsurpassed, but had none of the qualities of a commander. He proved ungrateful. On the fall of Napoleon, he went over to the Bourbons; on Napoleon’s return from Elba he changed again, but to be repulsed by his former chief. After Waterloo the Bourbons refused to countenance him, whereupon he fell into melancholy and died by his own hand.
[From the marble in the Tuileries.]
275. Jean Baptiste Kleber. French General.
[Born at Strasbourg, in France, 1754. Assassinated at Cairo, in Egypt, 1800. Aged 46.]
At first in the Bavarian army. At the breaking out of the French Revolution, served France in the ranks. His lofty stature, martial air, and fearless demeanour soon insured his promotion. With Napoleon in the Egyptian expedition. Left in command of the army in Egypt, he captured Cairo, but was himself assassinated in that city by a native of Aleppo. In him cool judgment and romantic bravery were combined; and his humanity and integrity equalled his courage and coolness. Napoleon pronounced him one of the greatest of his generals,
[From the marble in the Tuileries, by Masson. It figured in the Exhibition of the 9th year of the Consulate, with the statement that it was done for the Gallery of the Consuls.]
276. François Joseph Lefebvre, Duc de Dantzic. Marshal of France.
[Born in Alsace, 1755. Died in Paris, 1820. Aged 65.]
One of the many who at the breaking out of the French Revolution found themselves on the lowest step of the social ladder, and in time, by force of ability and valour, mounted to the very highest. Lefebvre was the son of a miller, and being an orphan, was brought up in charity by a relative. He enlisted in the Guard, and, at the time of the Revolution, had become a sergeant. Before forty, he was General of brigade. In 1804, Marshal of the Empire. In 1807, besieged and took Dantzic, and for the exploit received his title. In the expedition to Russia (1812) he had the command of the Imperial Guard. Upon the restoration of Louis XVIII, made peer of France, but deprived of his dignity at the second restoration, in consequence of his equivocal conduct during the hundred days. He died in 1820, having followed twelve sons to the grave. He was not a brilliant soldier, nor had he striking qualities of mind; but he was intelligent, well-informed, modest, and discreet—qualities not without their value in an officer of Napoleon’s army.
[From the marble in the Tuileries.]
277. Marie Paul Gilbert Motier, Marquis de Lafayette. French General.
[Born at Chavagnac, in France, 1757. Died in Paris, 1834. Aged 77.]
Of noble family, but a republican and an enthusiast from his earliest youth. He was only twenty-three years of age when he embarked secretly for America, in order to take part in the War of Independence. Raising and equipping a body of men at his own expense, he fought at the battles of Brandywine and Monmouth. He was again in France in 1779, for the purpose of concluding a treaty between that country and America; returned ta America after accomplishing his object, and commanded Washington’s vanguard when Lord Cornwallis surrendered in 1782. His zeal, on behalf of America and the republican cause, knew no bounds, and his restlessness was excessive. Many of his proposed schemes were wild and impossible. During the French Revolution, this arch-republican was himself obliged to fly from France, in order to save his head, and being taken by the Austrians, was imprisoned for five years at Olmütz. Buonaparte stipulated for his deliverance, in the treaty of Campo Formio (1796), and obtained it, but Lafayette took no part in politics under Napoleon, and at the Restoration publicly evinced his dislike for the Bourbons. In 1824, he revisited America, where he was received with an affectionate welcome, and acknowledged as one of the joint founders, with Washington and Franklin, of American Freedom. The Revolution of 1830 saw Lafayette, for a day, Dictator of France, but he resigned that supremacy to hand over the vacant throne to Louis Philippe. Lafayette, with purity of intention, and elevation of principle, was the victim of vanity, puerile simplicity, and an overweening-love of popularity. His heart was stronger than his head: his capacity for public business not equal to the virtues which adorned his heart. Brave and chivalrous to a fault, he was without solid judgment. One error ran through his life: he believed that the constitution of America might be transplanted to his own soil; and that a throne, surrounded by republican institutions, would be the very perfection of human government, even in France.
278. Pierre François Charles Augereau. Marshal of France.
[Born in Paris, 1757. Died at La Houssaye, in France, 1816. Aged 59.]
One of Napoleon’s generals, and remarkable for his recklessness and courage. At the age of 35, in the ranks, he rose to become a General of Division. On the fall of Napoleon, he took his army over to the Bourbons. When Napoleon returned from Elba he shouted “Vive l’Empereur!” After Waterloo, he again joined the legitimate monarch. His avarice was unbounded: he robbed churches and private houses, and his coarse manners contrasted strongly with the pomp of his dress and daily life.
[From the marble in the Tuileries, by Masson.]
279. André Massena. Marshal of France.
[Born at Nice, in Italy, 1758. Died in Paris, 1817. Aged 59.]
The French General whom Napoleon styled “The Child of Victory.” Entered the French army as a private soldier, and in 1793 was General of Division. Sharing in the brilliant campaigns of Napoleon, he was distinguished by his irresistible impetuosity, clear penetration, and military skill. In comprehensiveness of view, and in the formation of those combinations on which the fate of battles depends, he was superior to all his brother Marshals. He opposed Wellington in Portugal, and conducted the admirable retreat of the French army. Personally, he was avaricious, rapacious, cruel, and mean.
[From the marble in the Tuileries.]
279*. Pierre Claude François Dannon. Statesman and Writer.
[Born at Boulogne-sur-Mer, 1761. Died in Paris, 1840. Aged 79.]
Took an active part in the first French Revolution; but not proving violent enough for the Jacobins, was sentenced to death. Regaining his liberty, was appointed one of the Commissioners for drawing up the new Constitution. Afterwards sent with others to Italy, to organize the Roman Republic. On his return opposed the ascendancy of Napoleon, but was subsequently made Archivist of the Empire. In 1830, restored to offices, which he lost on the downfall of Buonaparte, and afterwards created peer of France. Wrote much in the “Biographie Universelle,” and in the “Histoire Littéraire.” Simple in manners, of unaffected modesty, disinterested and benevolent.
[Bust to come.]
279**. Pierre Paul Roger Collard. Statesman and Philosopher.
[Born at Sourmepuis, in France, 1763. Died in Paris, 1845. Aged 82.]
At twenty called to the bar. Embraced the revolutionary principles, but disgusted with the anarchy to which they led, withdrew to the more peaceful pursuits of literature. Devoted himself to philosophy, and sought to counteract the infidel tendencies of his age by a religious spiritualism. Appointed by Napoleon Professor to the Normal School. At the Restoration, re-entered the field of politics and made President of the Chamber of Deputies. Retired again in 1830. Introduced into France a system of philosophy analogous to that of Reid, the Scotch philosopher, of whose works he recommended the study. As a politician, one of the founders of the popular school known by the name of Doctrinaires, which recognised certain principles as essential to all society, and desired to render the actions of men conformable to them. A man of perfect integrity. His interests never interfered with his duty, and he left an honoured and unspotted name.
[Bust to come.]
280. Lazare Hoche. French General.
[Born at Montreuil, in France, 1768. Died at Witzlar, in Prussia, 1797. Aged 29.]
Son of an ostler in the Royal stables at Versailles. First a stable boy, then a private soldier, he commanded, at the age of 25, the army of the Moselle! Set sail to invade Ireland with 25,000 men, but a storm dispersed his vessels. Afterwards commanded the armies of the Sambre and Meuse, and forced a passage across the Rhine. His brilliant career cut short by death. In his early youth fiery and vehement; but he soon obtained a mastery over his temper, and became grave, silent, and thoughtful beyond his years.
[From the marble in the Tuileries by Delaistre.]
281. Bessières, Jean Baptiste. Duke of Istria. Marshal of France.
[Born in Guienne, France, 1768. Died 1813. Aged 45.]
One of the bravest, worthiest, and most faithful of Napoleon’s lieutenants. Served in the first campaign of Italy, in the expedition to Egypt, in the second campaign of Italy, and was created Marshal in 1804. In the subsequent wars in Germany he displayed the highest valour, skill, and judgment. According to the Emperor, “he was full of fire, but never otherwise than prudent and circumspect.” In 1808, achieved victory in Spain; afterwards greatly contributed to the success of the battle fought at Essling; and having visited Spain a second time in 1811, he proceeded in 1812 to Russia, at the head of the Imperial cavalry guard. On the morning of the battle of Lützen, in 1813, he betook himself to a narrow pass at Rippach, in order to drive out the enemy there vigorously defending himself. He was on foot and at the head of his men. The foe had already given way, when a shot struck him in the breast and he fell dead. Napoleon received the news with grief, but it was kept a secret from the army for the rest of the day. The Emperor had lost a friend, the soldiers a companion in arms, whose character had never belied his military deeds. He died very poor, leaving to his family nothing but his good name. At St. Helena, Napoleon left 100,000 francs to his son. He had not forgotten the fidelity of the father.
282. Barthélémi Catharine Joubert. French General.
[Born at Pont-de-Vaux, in France, 1769. Killed at Novi, in Italy, 1799. Aged 30.]
A brave soldier who, had he lived, would undoubtedly have proved not the least eminent of the famous Marshals of the Empire. He was intended for the bar: but at the breaking out of the Revolution, moved by his Republican sympathies, he entered the National Guard. Subsequently enlisted in the regular army as a common soldier, and rapidly distinguished himself. For his admirable conduct under Kellerman, at the Battle of Loano (1795), he was made General of Brigade upon the field. Two years afterwards he was General of Division. In 1798, he succeeded General Brune in the command of the army in Italy. He fell at Novi, whilst impetuously leading on his men. He was prompt, energetic, and fearless to a fault; he enjoyed the unbounded confidence of the soldiers, and his private life was stainless. His countenance had a melancholy cast—his manner was grave and silent. When he spoke it was with blunt and soldier-like brevity. An ardent Republican. One great aim of his life was said to be the dethronement of all the petty sovereigns of Italy, and the substitution of one great Italian Republic.
[From the marble in the Tuileries by Boizot.]
283. Louis Charles Antoine Desaix. French General.
[Born at St. Hilaire D’Argat, in France, 1768. Killed at Marengo, in Piedmont, 1800. Aged 32.]
A celebrated General of the French Republic. Brave, discreet, prompt, intelligent, and energetic. Mainly contributed to Napoleon’s triumphs in Egypt; and at Marengo, where he fell, his charge against the Austrians contributed largely to the fate of the day. Napoleon considered Desaix only second to himself, and said of him that “he thought only of glory; and luxury, and even comfort he despised.” Mild yet decided in character; and so just in his conduct as to have gained in Egypt the name of “the Just Sultan.”
[From the marble in the Tuileries by Dejoux.]
284. Jean Lannes, Duc de Montebello. Marshal of France.
[Born in Guienne, 1769. Killed at Essling, in Austria, 1809. Aged 40.]
In the first rank of Napoleon’s renowned Marshals. Of poor and humble parents, was in early life apprenticed to a dyer. In 1792, entered the army as a volunteer. By signal intelligence, activity, and matchless courage, soon fought his way upward, and secured the notice of Napoleon. Distinguished himself greatly in the first Italian campaign; accompanied Buonaparte to Egypt; followed him again into Italy in 1800, and covered himself with glory at Montebello in 1804, when he was created Duke. At Austerlitz, Jena, Eylau, and Friedland; and at one and all justified the fame his skill and intrepidity had gained. At the battle of Essling, 1809, he had the command of the centre. On the 22nd, on passing through the lines to cheer on his men, he was struck by a cannon shot, which took off both legs. He was borne to the Emperor, who was deeply affected at the sight of his brave and mutilated soldier. When speaking of Lannes, at a later period, Napoleon said that “at first his courage carried away his mind; but by degrees his mind came more and more abreast of his courage, and he was great when he perished. I took him,” he added, “a pigmy: I lost him a giant.”
285. Michel Ney. Marshal of France.
[Born at St. Louis, in France, 1769. Was judicially shot, in Paris, 1815. Aged 46.]
Known as “The Bravest of the Brave.” The son of poor parents. Enlisted at the age of thirteen, and speedily fought his way up to the command of a division. His name intimately connected with Buonaparte’s military career. He secured the retreat of the small remnant of the grand army after the disastrous Russian invasion, and at Waterloo he had five horses shot under him. After the final overthrow of Napoleon in 1815, Ney was tried and shot for his treachery to the Bourbons in joining the Emperor on his return from Elba. A monument recently erected on the spot where he fell has translated the act of treachery into a triumph of patriotism. Ney was sincere, honest, blunt, and almost austere in his manners, yet merciful to the vanquished. It is recorded to his honour that he lived and died poor.
286. François Sévérin Desgraviers Marceau. French General.
[Born at Chartres, in France, 1769. Killed at Hochsteinbach, in Germany, 1796. Aged 27.]
Brave, generous, and heroic, gifted for great military achievements. Twice narrowly escaped the guillotine; once for gallantly protecting a beautiful woman from the brutality of the soldiers. He fell mortally wounded in the forest of Hochsteinbach; and the armies of France and Austria both showed honour to his memory by firing volleys of artillery over his grave.
[From the marble in the Tuileries by Ed. Dumont.]
287. Pierre Jacques Cambronne. French General.
[Born at St. Sebastian, near Nantes, 1770. Died 1842. Aged 72.]
A brave, humane, and faithful soldier, who rose in virtue of his own good deeds from the ranks, and made for himself an honoured name in the French army. He entered that army in his twentieth year, and knew no repose until the peace of 1815. He made one in Hoche’s unsuccessful expedition against Ireland, fought in Italy, Switzerland, Spain, and was present at the battles of Lützen, Bautzen, Dresden, and Leipzig. Devoted to the Emperor, he accompanied him to Elba; returned with him in 1815; and at Waterloo was found ready as ever at his post, commanding a division of the Old Guard. At Waterloo, as befitted this brave and simple-minded soldier, he performed his best service. His men were slaughtered around him, and, threatened with death himself, he was called upon to surrender. His answer has been treasured up in the annals of the French army: “The Guard dies, but does not surrender.” He was taken prisoner, covered with wounds. In 1816, he was tried by a council of war; but he had broken no oath to the Bourbons, and was acquitted. Other generals of Napoleon have a wider fame; none can show a better title to their renown.
[By Debay, 1816.]
288. Louis Nicolas Davoust, Prince D’Eckmuhl. Marshal of France.
[Born at Annoux, in Burgundy, 1770. Died in Paris, 1823. Aged 53.]
One of the bravest and ablest of Buonaparte’s lieutenants. Cool and collected in danger, energetic and methodic in his plans. His troops were always in better order than those of any other general. Served at Ulm, Austerlitz, Jena, and Auerstadt, and successfully defended Hamburgh against the allies. Cruel, rapacious and coarse. His extortions, oppressions, and murders gained for him the title of the Hamburgh Robespierre. Upon the fall of Napoleon, he retired from active life.
289. Maximilien Sebastien Foy. French General.
[Born at Ham, in Picardy, 1775. Died in Paris, 1825. Aged 50.]
Began his military career at 15. Served in the Peninsular war, and at Waterloo received his fifteenth wound. Entered the Chamber of Deputies after the peace, became an orator, an opponent of the reactionary government, and one of the most popular men of his time. He died poor, and a subscription of 40,000l. was raised for the relief of his destitute family. Skilful and courageous in the field. Left an unfinished history of the Peninsular war, which is honest, candid and eloquent.
290. Antoine Charles Louis Collinet de Lasalle. General of Cavalry.
[Born at Metz, in France, 1775. Killed at Wagram, in Austria, 1809. Aged 34.]
A famous officer in the wars of Napoleon. Served with the revolutionary army in 1793, on the Rhone and Moselle. Accompanied Kellermann as Aide-de-Camp into Italy, and there was made prisoner. When taken before the veteran and war-tried field-marshal Wurmser, and asked the age of Buonaparte, he replied, “Of the age of Scipio when he conquered Hannibal.” At a later period with Napoleon in Egypt. In 1801, in Italy, where at the battle of Caldiero he had three horses killed under him. His later services were unremitting, and always brilliant. He fell mortally wounded at the battle of Wagram, July 6, 1809. On the eve of the battle he had a singular presentiment of his coming death. He rose in the night for the express purpose of inditing a letter to the Emperor, praying his consideration on behalf of his wife and children. The letter was placed the next morning in the hands of the Emperor at the very moment when news also came of the hero’s death. A dauntless soldier, and of spotless fidelity to his chief.
[From the marble in the Tuileries by Delaistre.]
291. Casimir Périer. Statesman.
[Born at Grenoble, in France, 1777. Died in Paris, 1832. Aged 55.]
First served in the army. Then entered into business, established a banking-house, and embarked in commercial speculations, which proved successful. Elected a member of the Chamber of Deputies. Until 1830, the fierce opponent of government, and the chief advocate of the popular cause. In 1831, until his death, Prime Minister of Louis Philippe; his policy the preservation of peace, the repression of the military spirit, and the encouragement of commerce. His public career courageous and free from corruption.
[Medallion by Houdon.]
PRELATES AND THEOLOGIANS.
291*. Georges d’Amboise. Cardinal and Minister of State.
[Born at Chaumont sur Loire, in France, 1460. Died at Lyons, 1510. Aged 50.]
As Prime Minister of Louis XII. of France, acquired popularity by reforming abuses and relieving the burdens of the subject. Acquired the title of “Father of the People.” Also Archbishop of Rouen. When created Cardinal, effected great reforms in some of the religious Orders. Benevolent and charitable. Never in possession of more than one benefice, two-thirds of which he gave to the church and to the poor.
[From the statue in the Cathedral at Rouen.]
292. Cardinal Richelieu. Minister of France.
[Born in Paris, 1585. Died there, 1642. Aged 57.]
The great Minister of Louis XIII., and the actual ruler of France during that monarch’s reign. He was the third son of François du Plessis, Seigneur de Richelieu, and at first destined for the army, but renounced this career for the Church, when his elder brother gave up his ecclesiastical dignities for a monastic life. His political career commenced when he was appointed Secretary of State for the War and Foreign Departments; and it was sustained on the highest eminence, by the force of superior intelligence, unequalled craftiness, and an utter contempt for conscientious scruples. He was now the grateful protégé of the King, now his exacting master; now he was insidiously sowing the seeds of distrust and dissension amongst all the members of the Royal Family, now openly and magnanimously effecting their reconciliation. But, subtle and unscrupulous as were the means he employed, his views were vast, his political ideas profound, and he laboured strenuously to give stability to the French monarchy. He was a heartless man, but a faithful minister; jealous of interference with his control, but using his boundless influence for the welfare of the nation. He was a right hypocrite, affecting piety, which he never felt; he was perfidious, and even cruel; but we look back upon his career with an enforced respect for his skill, his strong will, and his undoubted successes. He persecuted Protestants in France, and abated the power of the French nobility.
[From the marble in the Louvre, by Coysevox. He wears the Cardinal’s robe, with the Order of the Holy Spirit. Modelled from some of the painted portraits of the time. There are two statues of him at Versailles, one by Ramey, dated 1819, the other by Duret, 1836.]
292A. Cardinal Richelieu. Minister of France.
[A mask.]
293. Cardinal Mazarin. Minister of France.
[Born at Rome, 1602. Died at Vincennes, in France, 1661. Aged 59.]
The pupil, protégé, and successor of Cardinal Richelieu, by whom he was recommended to Louis XIII. on his death-bed, and whom he surpassed in cunning, finesse, intrigue, and in the skill with which he turned all his public acts to his own private advantage. His avarice was excessive, and his coffers groaned with the wealth of the country which he ruled and impoverished. France was indebted to him for the treaties of Westphalia and of the Pyrenees, and these constitute his best claim to the consideration and gratitude of the French people. Another service must not be forgotten. He beggared the French nation, but he endeavoured to make amends by bequeathing to Louis XIV. the sagacious Colbert, under whose strong hand the finances of France rapidly recovered. The character of Mazarin has been variously described. By some he is regarded as a great Minister of State, equal to Richelieu; by others as a man of indifferent abilities, with an inordinate share of craftiness and diplomatic trickery. It is certain that he was deeply versed in the knowledge of man. Louis XIV. was in leading-strings whilst Mazarin lived, but sole and absolute monarch from the day of his Minister’s death until the hour of his own. Mazarin founded the first public library established in France, but he kept the young monarch who was entrusted to his hands, in shameful ignorance of all that it concerned the youthful prince to know.
[From the marble in the Louvre by Coysevox.]
294. Blaise Pascal. Theologian and Philosopher.
[Born at Clermont-Ferrand, in France, 1623. Died in Paris, 1662. Aged 39.]
Of a genius so rare as to seem supernatural. In tender years the boy, debarred from mathematical books, with charcoal, on the wall of a garret, worked out for himself problems answering to nearly the first book of Euclid—without definitions or terms,—calling a circle a round, and a right line a score. Whilst still young, he was a discoverer in physics. The rise of water in pumps, and of quicksilver in the barometer, had, till his time, been ascribed by the philosophers to the “horror of Nature for a vacuum.” He guessed that the cause was the pressure of the atmosphere, and verified his conjecture by carrying the barometer up a mountain. He saw, agreeably to his expectation, that as by the ascent the pressure gradually diminished, the quicksilver as gradually fell. He had a subtle and profound metaphysical intellect, with great power to express abstruse thoughts clearly and precisely. His temperament was melancholy. A singular hallucination hung by him—without otherwise disturbing the sound use of his faculties—that at his side a visible gulph was ever yawning. The melancholy took a deeper hue as he advanced towards the close of his brief life. He became religiously austere, and subjected himself to personal mortification and trials, under which elasticity and health gave way. Yet the pious philosopher was not without the lighter qualities of the mind. His celebrated “Provincial Letters,” written in defence of the doctrines of the Abbey of Port Royal, against the Jesuits, are bright with the keenest satire. Pascal was a great mathematician, a true philosopher, and one of the purest of men.
295. Jacques Benigne Bossuet. Prelate of France.
[Born at Dijon, 1627. Died in Paris, 1704. Aged 77.]
According to Voltaire, the eloquence of Bossuet stands unrivalled. His Universal History, published for his pupil, the son of Louis XIV., written to point out the influence of God animating all the changes of historic events—an idea expressed in the noble aphorism “l’homme s’agite: Dieu le mène;” (man struggles and strives: but it is God who leads him). His sermons, funeral orations, and controversial publications, place him in the very highest rank as a writer. According to Eustace, who wrote the “Classical Tour,” it is the especial glory of Bossuet to have compelled the French language “to become the vehicle of sublimity.” In the second part of the Universal History, the truths of Christianity are vindicated with a lofty eloquence that is without equal in France. One of Bossuet’s controversial works against Protestantism, converted Gibbon, in his younger years, to the Roman faith. On one occasion, he was the opponent in argument of the mild Fénélon. Nothing can be more striking than the contrast between the styles of the fiery Bossuet and the gentler, but equally pious and learned author of “Telemachus.” The illustrious Bossuet was buried in the Cathedral of Meaux, of which city, his friend, Louis XIV., had appointed him Bishop. Hence he is still popularly styled “The Eagle of Meaux.”
[From a marble in the Louvre, by A. Coysevox.]
296. François de Salignac de Lamotte Fénélon. Archbishop and Writer.
[Born at Perigord, 1651. Died 1715. Aged 64.]
The author of “Telemachus.” A meek, pious, wise, and gentle-hearted man who passed through life loving all, and doing good to all. The tutor of the Duke of Burgundy, the King’s grandson, in whose self-willed and ungovernable temper, his influence and skilful management effected a moral conversion. Having engaged in a religious controversy with the celebrated Bossuet, who procured his writings to be condemned at Rome, and subsequently incurring the displeasure of Louis XIV., was banished by that monarch. The resignation of the archbishop caused the king to repent of his injustice, and Fénélon was recalled. Though possessed of high station, great talents, and sound learning, a perfect example of humility. The style of Fénélon is melodious, translucent.
[From a marble in the Louvre, by Coysevox, and taken from the life. The costume is that of a bishop of the time, with the Order of the Holy Spirit round the neck; this Order was broken at the first Revolution: the form of the cross is still apparent. The statue at Versailles is by Felix Lecomte.]
KINGS AND QUEENS.
296*. Charlemagne or Charles the Great. King of the Franks and Emperor of the West.
[Born at Saltzburg, in Bavaria, A.D. 742. Died A.D. 814. Aged 72.]
The son of Pepin, who was the first King of France of the Carlovingian dynasty. On the death of his father, in A.D. 768, crowned with his brother Carloman, joint King of France. On the death of Carloman in A.D. 771, became sole ruler. In 772, commenced the subjugation of the Saxons, whom he finally overthrew. Marched into Lombardy to the aid of the Pope, overran the country, and caused himself to be crowned King of Lombardy in A.D. 774. Then passed into Spain to assail the Saracen power established there, but suffered defeat at the battle of Roncesval. In A.D. 800, crowned at Rome “Emperor of the West,” by Pope Leo III. Engaged in ceaseless warfare throughout his reign; yet a great promoter of learning, and the founder of several universities. Collecting enlightened and learned men about him, he completed many national works, advanced agriculture and the arts, and rendered himself immortal by the wisdom of his laws, and by the influence which his magnificent labours produced upon the destinies of mankind. He was said to be the tallest and strongest man of his time. His habits were of the simplest, and his frugality a pattern to the world. A steadfast friend and a devoted father. He was buried with great pomp at Aix-la-Chapelle, and was sincerely mourned by his subjects, who had loved him in life. Few kings have so legitimately and nobly earned the title of “Great,” as Charles I., King of the Franks.
[A head from the Rotonda of the Vatican. In the Louvre is a very remarkable portrait of him in stucco; a similar one is in the Vatican library. There is also in the Vatican a large picture of the coronation of Charlemagne, which contains a vast number of portraits.]
296**. Philip III. King of France.
[Born 1245. Died 1285. Aged 40.]
This king was surnamed “The Bold” for a reason which historians have never been able to discover. He was a mere tool in the hands of his Chamberlain, whom he raised to the dignity of Prime Minister, but who eventually suffered as a common culprit on a gibbet. The king was wholly given up to superstitious practices, and his rule was disastrous for France. During this reign a plain gentleman, Rodolph, count of Hapsburg, was elected Emperor of Germany, and became the founder of a line of kings in Austria. We are reminded also that one of the most remarkable events of this period was the momentary reunion of the Greek and Latin Churches, in 1274, effected by Gregory X. at the second œcumenic council of Lyons.
297. Louis XI. King of France.
[Born at Bourges, in France, 1423. Died at Duplessis les Tours, 1483. Aged 60.]
The son of Charles VII. and Mary of Anjou. The mother was one of the most virtuous women of her age; the son proved a bad child, a bad father, a bad husband, a bad brother, a bad friend, a bad subject, and in all qualities of the heart, a bad king. He was a tyrant, a cheat, a bigot; cruel, implacable in his hatred, unscrupulous in revenge, a miser, until he had an end to accomplish, when he could prove a prodigal; crafty, sanguinary, suspicious, and despicably mean. He availed himself of the humbler orders to crush the power of the nobility, and loved to surround himself at all times with the lowest instruments for the accomplishment of his designs. Four thousand persons are said to have fallen victims to his cruelty, and history records that his father died of privations, self-imposed, through fear of being poisoned by his son. Yet this concentration of vice was personally brave, and a great promoter of letters. He introduced printing into France, and he wrote a book of counsels for his son, which he called “The Rose Tree of Wars.” He moreover left the royal authority established, and France powerful. His last few years were passed in seclusion, in suspicious alarm, and constant terror of death.
[A characteristic bust; evidently a true portrait, pourtraying the well-known bigotry and cruelty of the man.]
298. Louis XII. King of France.
[Born at Blois,in France, 1462. Died in Paris, 1515. Aged 53.]
The son of Charles, Duke of Orleans, and heir presumptive to the throne, during the minority of Charles VIII. Disputing the Regency with the mother of Charles VIII, he was defeated, and suffered severe imprisonment for the space of three years. Liberated by King Charles in person, he conceived a warm friendship for the young monarch, which was never broken. In 1498, when Charles died without issue, Louis succeeded to the French throne. His reign was fruitful of good to his country. He forgave his enemies, re-established discipline and order in his army, economized the resources of the state, and made the army of France victorious abroad. He appointed the judges of the land for life, in order to secure their integrity, encouraged literature and science, and liberally rewarded men of talent. He was three times married, his last wife being Mary, sister of Henry VIII. of England. During his reign, Gaston de Foix fell at Ravenna, and the authority of the Pope was suspended in France. Louis was of a frank and generous nature, and was called “the Father of his People.”
[From the bronze half-figure in the Louvre.]
299. Francis I. King of France.
[Born at Cognac, in France, 1494. Died at Rambouillet, 1547. Aged 53.]
The son of Charles of Angoulême, and cousin-german of Louis XII. of France, whose daughter he married, and whom he succeeded on the French throne. A libidinous king, with many knightly qualities, and with all the bigotry and self-absorption that characterized too many of the despotic rulers of his time. He was a great encourager and patronizer of letters and the fine arts: but he had no mercy towards the heretic, and, in 1535, he forbade printing in France under pain of death. Not a successful warrior; he was taken prisoner at Pavia, during a war with Spain, and detained at Madrid for the space of a twelvemonth. His meeting with our own Henry VIII. on the Field of the Cloth of Gold, in 1520, is known to every reader of history. A lustre is shed upon the reign of this monarch in consequence of his magnificent patronage of art, but his life otherwise presents as little for admiration as the satyr-looking bust which no doubt faithfully records the lineaments of the man. His passions were violent and gross: and though he received the dignity of knighthood from the hands of a subject, yet even the sword of a Bayard could not endow him with virtue enough to protect him from wilful prodigality, selfish follies, and open debaucheries.
[From the bronze in the Louvre by Jean Cousin, representing the king in complete armour, interesting as a work of the time, but far less real as a portrait than the head 299A, which is from the celebrated monument at St. Denis, by P. Bontemps, where the king is sculptured lying dead, and perfectly naked.]
299A. Francis I. King of France.
300. Charles V. Emperor of Germany and King of Spain.
[Born at Ghent, in Belgium, 1500. Died in Estremadura, in Spain, 1558. Aged 58.]
The reign of this undoubtedly great monarch is chiefly remarkable for the rivalry which, during twenty-eight years, subsisted between him and Francis I., of France, leading to European war, and to battles of varied fortune, Charles inherited Germany from his father, Spain from his mother; but the Empire was boldly disputed by Francis I., and thus war commenced. After alternate success and defeat, Charles overcame his rival at Pavia, in 1525, and took him prisoner. Gaining his freedom the following year, Francis allied himself with Henry VIII. of England, but Charles V. still contrived to obtain good terms by the treaty of Cambrai, in 1529. The wily Emperor now caused himself to be crowned Emperor of Rome, and then engaged in a crusade against the Turks. War again broke out with France; but this time fortune turned against Charles, and never pronounced in his favour again. Suffering reverse upon reverse, his army beaten by disease as much as by the enemy—he himself forced to flee, almost alone, for safety—he was thrown into a depth of calamity as profound, as his previous condition had been brilliant and lofty. Resigning his crown in favour of his son Philip, he retired to a monastery in Spain, where he closed his career. Charles was sagacious, cool, crafty, and obstinate, with great grasp of intellect; cruel and hypocritical, yet not without some knightly qualities. He affected great piety, especially in his later years, but there was more of policy than of spiritual conviction in his religious movements. One of his first acts as king, was to convene the Diet of Worms, to which he gave Luther a safe conduct. He treated the Protestants with cruel harshness. No two characters could have been more opposite than those of the Royal and Imperial rivals. Their points of difference are admirably described by Robertson.
[From a medallion in bronze in the Louvre. Compare with Titian’s portrait, often engraved.]
301. Charlotte, or Carlota d’Avesne, Duchess of Valentino.
[Died, 1514.]
A princess less illustrious for her great beauty and mental endowments, than for her virtue and piety. First married to Charles, Prince de Chimey; afterwards forced by Louis XII., to marry the infamous Cæsar Borgia, whose misfortunes she shared without participating in his vices.
302. Henry II. King of France.
[Born at St. Germain-en-Laye, in France, 1518. Died in Paris, 1559. Aged 41.]
The son of Francis I. He pursued the policy of his sire, carried war into Italy, and strenuously opposed the House of Austria under Charles V. and Philip II. He also took arms against England, and was bitter in his persecution of Protestants. In his reign France recovered from England the towns of Boulogne and Calais, the latter of which England had held for the space of 210 years. Henry II. was an average king of the time. He was the slave of his mistress, the celebrated Diana of Poitiers, upon whom, and upon his favourites, he lavished his wealth; he cultivated libertinism at Court, he robbed the people, he overstepped his legitimate rights, and he left his country largely in debt. Historians thank Providence that it was no worse. This monarch died of an accidental wound, in a tournament, from the hand of Montgomery, the chief of his Scotch guards.
[From a marble in the Louvre, by Jean Goujon. A very interesting relic, formerly part of a beautiful chimney-piece brought from the Château de Villeroy, and now in the Louvre, the work of Germain Pilon. No 302A is from the marble by Germain Pilon, the celebrated sculptor of the French Renaissance. The marble is very much decayed, but the general character of the head is preserved, as well as the costume. The head is crowned with laurel. The mantle is ornamented with the fleur-de-lys, and the Order is that of St. Michel. The magnificent tomb of this king in St. Denis is by Pilon.]
302A. Henry II. King of France.
303. Charles IX. King of France.
[Born at St. Germain, 1550. Died there, 1574. Aged 24.]
The son of Henry II. and Catherine de Medici. He was brought up under the tutelage of his mother; and at an early age, gave promise of a good career, exhibiting a taste for literature, princely courage, and a love of glory. But under the influence of his pernicious mother, he became profligate and cruel. His unenviable reign is notorious for the horrible Massacre of St. Bartholomew, when thousands of Protestants were deliberately murdered. Remorse for this tremendous crime followed Charles IX. to his grave, into which he was prematurely cast by diseases, the result of his debaucheries.
[From a marble in the Louvre, attributed to Germain Pilon. It represents the king in his youth. The pedestal is inscribed, Carolus IX. 1568.]
304. Henry III. King of France.
[Born at Fontainebleau, 1552. Died at St. Cloud, 1589. Aged 37.]
The son of Henry II. and Catherine de Medici. He acquired military fame as Duke of Anjou, by the victories of Jarnac and Moncontoni, gained over the Huguenots. In 1573, he was elected King of Poland; but on the death of his brother, Charles IX. of France, he relinquished the sovereignty of Poland for that of France. As King, his early energy and manly courage, gave place to shameless vice and debauchery. He was surrounded by the most unworthy favourites, who caused his reign to be designated as “The reign of the minions.” He had had a hand in the Massacre of St. Bartholomew; but at a later period, driven out of his own capital by a faction, he formed an alliance with Henry of Navarre, the chief of the Protestants, and with that prince he laid siege to Paris. He was thus employed at the camp of St. Cloud, when he was assassinated by a monk, named Jacques Clement. Henry III. has been described, by some historians, as a pupil of Machiavelli, concealing a profoundly devised plan beneath his gross immoralities, obscenities, and blasphemies. His acts were frequently those of a madman, yet he was not without good qualities. He was the last king of the house of Valois. It had reigned 261 years, and given 13 monarchs to France.
[From the marble in the Louvre, by Germain Pilon. Like its fellow, No. 302A, very much eaten away, as though at some time exposed to the weather.]
305. Henry IV. King of France.
[Born at Pau, in France, 1553. Assassinated in Paris, 1610. Aged 57.]
Educated in the reformed religion by his mother, Jeanne d’Albret, he became head of the Huguenot party: as such he took part in the civil wars, which arose in the reign of Henry III., and was in consequence excommunicated by Pope Sixtus V. Acknowledged King of France by a portion of the French army after the death of Henry III., he took arms against the League, vanquished its followers in several engagements, and finally entered Paris, after professing his adherence to the Roman Catholic faith. In the reign of Henry IV. the humane Edict of Nantes, which gave toleration to Protestantism, was promulgated, and the sagacious reforms of the Minister Sully, a Protestant, helped largely to the restoration of order, and to the development of the public resources. The arsenals were replenished, roads and canals were made, taxation was reduced, and the industry of the people fostered. Whilst this salutary work was going on, and Henry IV. and his. Minister were negociating the most important treaties with the various powers of Europe, in order to establish a general confederacy and a lasting peace, the monarch fell by the knife of Ravaillac, a fanatic. Henry IV. was an unfaithful husband, and unstable in his religion. He had many mistresses, and he twice abjured his faith: but he was the author of the edict of Nantes.
305A. HENRY IV. King of France.
[A very elegant statuette of the time. The head beautifully sculptured, and evidently a good portrait.]
306. Marie de’ Medici. Queen of France.
[Born at Florence, 1573. Died at Cologne, 1642. Aged 69.]
Daughter of Francis II., Grand Duke of Tuscany; wife of Henry IV. of France; and mother of Henrietta-Maria, the queen of Charles I. of England. She wedded Henry IV. after he had divorced his first wife, Margaret of Valois, and the alliance was not a happy one. Crowned the day before the assassination of her husband, at which some of her contemporaries more than suspected that she herself connived. But no proof of her guilt has been forthcoming. Regent during the minority of her son Louis XIII., she threw France into confusion by her misgovernment, prodigality, intrigues and wilfulness. The confusion ended in civil war. Resigning the regency when Louis XIII. attained his majority, she took up arms against her son; but reconciliation being made through the intervention of Richelieu, then Superintendent of her household, she introduced that great and wily man into the counsels of the king. Richelieu, appointed Prime-Minister, arrested his former mistress at Compeigne, and threw her friends into the Bastile. The sun of Mary had finally set; she became an outcast and a wanderer in Europe. Our own Charles I. found his mother-in-law an asylum; but he himself was soon in need of human charity, and the abased queen must needs creep to Cologne, where she lived in obscurity and died—as travellers are still shown—in a garret. A weak woman, with strong passions. Ambitious, jealous, irascible. In her character, as with all men and women—even the worst—-there is one brighter spot for contemplation. She introduced into France an enlightened and a pure taste for art. There still exist some specimens of engraving by her hand. To her, Paris owes the Palace of the Luxembourg, and, for her, Rubens painted a gallery still possessed by France.
[The companion statuette to 305A.]
307. Louis XIII. King of France.
[Born at Fontainebleau, 1601. Died at St. Germain, 1643. Aged 42.]
He succeeded his father Henry IV. when nine years old. In 1614, his majority was declared: in the following year he married Anne of Austria. His reign is chiefly remarkable for the ascendancy acquired over the King and his government, by Cardinal Richelieu, whose policy, although directed by personal ambition, elevated the power of France and prepared it for the glory of the succeeding reign. Louis XIII. was surnamed “The Just:” but the good, which he desired, he had neither firmness nor enlightenment enough to secure. He was timid and diffident, though scrupulous, sincere, and pious. He had a melancholy nature. Grandeur had no seductions for him, and it could not be said that he enjoyed the sweets of private life. His mother Richelieu caused to be banished, and Louis suffered her to die in misery at Cologne; an unfilial act to be attributed rather to weakness of character, and the influence of the Cardinal, than to deliberate unkindness. He was the father of Louis XIV.
[From a fine portrait statue in bronze, by Simon Guillain of Paris, who died in 1658. The original is in the Louvre, and a copy of it is at Versailles: it has lost a spur and the fleur-de-lys which was at the top of the sceptre. The King wears the royal fleur-de-lys mantle over his armour, and the grand collar of the Order of the St. Esprit. He holds the sceptre in one hand, and stretches out the other, as if giving a command. There is an interesting bust at Versailles of the same King when a boy, and no doubt from the life.]
307A. Louis XIII. King of France.
[From the marble statue in the Louvre, by Guillaume Couston, a pupil of Coysevox, who died at Paris in 1746. The King wears the royal fleur-de-lys mantle, and on his knees offers his crown and sceptre to the Virgin. The 15th of August, 1638, the day on which Louis XIV. was born, was ordered to be celebrated by a solemn procession in Nôtre-Dame; and throughout France, to this day it is kept in the Cathedral, and called the ceremony of the Vow of Louis XIII. The attitude chosen by the sculptor is thus explained. There are several other examples of the same kind at Versailles; the statue of Louis XIV. (No. 308) is one. At Versailles there is a similar statue by Coysevox, and a bust by Warin.]
307.* Anne of Austria. Queen of France.
[Born in Spain, 1602. Died in France, 1666. Aged 64.]
The daughter of Philip II. of Spain, and wife of Louis XIII. of France. She was neglected by the King, her husband, and had no influence in France during his lifetime. But upon his decease, the parliament annulled his will, which had restricted the Queen’s power, and gave her the unlimited Regency of the kingdom, and sole guardianship of her son, Louis XIV. She appointed Cardinal Mazarin her Prime Minister, and the alliance thus formed between a Spanish princess and an Italian priest, gave rise in France to the civil wars of “La Fronde.” In spite of the opposition which she encountered, she made over the sovereignty of France unimpaired to her son when he reached his majority. Of a mild and docile temper, religious and charitable. As a mother she was devoted to her children, and sought to imbue them with high moral and religious principles.
[Mask from the statue referred to in note No. 308.]
308. Louis XIV. King of France.
[Born at St. Germain, 1638. Died 1715. Aged 77.]
The son of Louis XIII. and Anne of Austria. He ascended the throne at five years old—his mother being Regent during his minority—and reigned 72 years, longer than any other King of France. Until the death of Mazarin in 1661, Louis XIV. suffered the adroit Cardinal to rule. From that hour until his own death, no man governed but himself. This renowned monarch survived nearly the whole of his family, and when he died, the crown, as in his own case, came to the charge of a child—his great grandson—then in his fifth year. The reign of Louis Quatorze was singularly eventful within and without the realm. It embraced wars, marked now with splendid successes, and now with formidable reverses. He aimed at universal monarchy, and endangered his own. He sustained, in the War of the Succession, the defence of Spain and France against united Europe—a war in which the allies hoped to dismember France, that did not lose a province. Under this king, the soil of France was stained with the blood of her children in religious civil conflict; the most industrious and the best, slaughtered for their faith, or exiled. A magnificent Court surrounded his person—the centre to the politeness of Europe, its stately decorum veiling great moral corruption. Jealous of his prerogatives and of his supremacy amongst kings, Louis XIV. was still more jealous to be thought the best bred gentleman of his time. In this reign, the marine, the commerce, and the manufactures of France made a vast stride. Arts, letters, and science were royally encouraged. It is looked back upon as the Augustan age of French literature, when the writings of Corneille, Racine, Molière, and Boileau—of Masillon, Bossuet, Fénélon, seemed to have fixed the language. The age of Louis XIV. was the age of glory to the French monarchy; and splendidly dissolute, and, in many respects, hollow, as it may have been, we still revert to its records with a fascination that never palls, and an interest that becomes more acute the more it is gratified.
[This statue, representing Louis as a child, is from a bronze by Guillain, which formed, with a statue of Anne of Austria, and one of Louis XIII., a group of three, as a monument to commemorate the building of the Pont-au-Change, begun by Louis XIII. in 1639, and finished under Louis XIV., 1647, while Anne was Regent. The monument was destroyed in 1787; but the statues are in the Louvre, as well as the great bas-relief. The bust of Anne of Austria (No. 307*) is taken from the statue.]
308A. Louis XIV. King of France.
[From the marble, by Ch. Ant. Coysevox, in the Louvre and at Versailles. The King, kneeling on a cushion where his crown is placed, is dressed in the Royal mantle, with the Orders of the Holy Spirit and St. Michel. There are numbered no fewer than twenty-two busts, statues, and medallions of this favourite King at Versailles. Four are equestrian statues in bronze; one by Martin Bogaert, called Desjardins, and two by Louis Petitot, done in 1834. The statue in bronze by Desjardins, which once stood in the Place des Victoires, was destroyed in 1793. The four slaves which stood chained at the angles of this statue were alone preserved, and are now at the Hotel des Invalides, at Paris.]
309. Louis XV. King of France.
[Born at Versailles, 1710. Died there, 1774. Aged 64.]
He succeeded his great grandfather, Louis XIV., in the fifth year of his age. He was styled “the well beloved.” In his 34th year, on the field of Fontenoy, he gave proof of courage. Up to the prime of manhood, he gave equally satisfactory evidence of many good qualities of heart and head. But indolence and vicious habits, subsequently contracted, rendered the latter half of Louis’s reign one of the most disgraceful and profligate that France had witnessed. The shameless proceedings which had stained the career of his guardian, the Regent Orleans, were re-enacted in his own vicious Court. The disasters of France abroad during this degraded time, the destruction of her navy, the financial crisis that followed that catastrophe, the corruptions that were eating into the very heart of the State, and the immorality that characterized the higher classes, were the natural forerunners of the frightful storm that burst over France in the following reign. Louis XV., once “the well beloved,” died execrated by his subjects, who insulted his wretched remains, as they were passing to their last home.
309A. Louis XV. King of France.
[From the marble, in the Louvre, by Guillaume Couston the son, who died at Paris, 1777. The costume, in accordance with the fancy of the day, is that of a Roman general, as we see in the statue of King James II., of England, ([No. 491]). The King holds in his right hand a sceptre reversed, and with his left presents a baton of a Marshal of France. At Versailles, are several authentic busts of the time of this monarch, besides a copy of this statue, and an equestrian statue in bronze, by Bouchardon. The date of this work is about 1728.]
310. Marie Antoinette Joséphine Jeanne. Queen of France.
[Born at Vienna, 1755. Guillotined 1793. Aged 38.]
The unfortunate daughter of Francis I., Emperor of Germany, and the illustrious Maria Theresa of Austria. In 1770, before she was sixteen, married to Louis the Dauphin, who in 1774 became King of France, under the title of Louis XVI. At the breaking out of the French Revolution, every public disaster was laid to her charge by the maddened people, and after the execution of her husband, she was herself condemned to death. On her way to the scaffold, she was for two hours reviled by a ferocious mob; but resignation and sweetness of demeanour only could be traced on her countenance. Her hair had been turned silvery white by her many troubles, and a settled melancholy was stamped on her beautiful features. After her execution, her body was immediately consumed with quick lime. The murder of this unhappy lady was the most crimson spot in all the bloody time of the French Revolution. She was of a playful, happy, cheerful disposition, devoted to her family, benevolent to all. Her purity is beyond question, her heroism perfect. In mixing in public concerns, which she did not understand, she betrayed imprudence. In despising etiquette she laid herself open to the worst criticisms of her ungenerous foes; but her character shines unsullied after cruel persecution, horrible imprisonment, and ignominious death.
[From the marble in the Louvre by Lecomte.]
311. Napoleon Buonaparte. Emperor of France.
[Born at Ajaccio, in Corsica, 1768. Died at St. Helena, 1821. Aged 53.]
A soldier of fortune at the outset of his career. Lieutenant of Artillery, 1785. First Consul of France, 1799. Emperor of France in 1804, when he was but 36 years of age. Discrowned exile, and prisoner, 1815. The military prodigy of his age. His story reads like a romance of eastern enchantment; for he made and unmade kings at his will, and confounding all the established conceptions and expectations of men, asserted and won his right to fix for a time the destinies of nations. His extreme hour of greatness was in 1813, after the fearful retreat from Russia, when in a few months he summoned a new army to his side from the fields of exhausted France, and alone defied, and almost overcame, the united strength of the rest of civilized Europe. The most ignoble period of his life is found on the barren rock of St. Helena, when, treacherous to his former grandeur, he was afflicted and absorbed by the worthless and passing annoyances of the moment. His career was that of a dazzling meteor, astonishing all men in its fiery passage, but creating little else than amazement, and admiration mingled with fear. Not naturally cruel, he enacted cruelties. Brave in the field, he lacked the true heroic element. He used all men for his own advancement, and counted human life valueless, when its sacrifice might add to his imagined glory. Superstitious, but not religious. Framed for intensest exertion, indefatigable, impatient, irritable, untruthful, theatrical, petty. Yet a grand lawgiver; cognisant of the wants of men, and capable of meeting them, had his lust of ambition suffered him to provide for the interests of his people as sedulously as for his own. His character, a singular conflict of great virtues with small vices, and of great vices with small virtues. The most splendid soldier since the days of Julius Cæsar, and the idol of his army. The uncle of Napoleon III., the present Emperor of France.
[From the marble in the Louvre by Houdon.]
311A. Napoleon Buonaparte. Emperor of France.
[The colossal bust by Canova.]
311B. Napoleon Buonaparte. Emperor of France.
[An ideal bust by Thorwaldsen, supported on the French eagle with palm branches.]
311C. Napoleon Buonaparte. Emperor of France.
312. Louis Philippe. King of the French.
[Born in Paris, 1773. Died at Claremont, in England, 1850. Aged 77.]
A monarch who ascended the throne of France on the neck of one Revolution, and was hurled from it by the heel of another. A king who had borne adversity bravely in his youth, yet was unequal to sustain prosperity in his age. The most remarkable example of the proverb that “a Bourbon learns nothing, and forgets nothing.” If any Bourbon could prove an exception to the rule, Louis Philippe must have been the man. He had great sagacity; he had mixed for many years with all ranks and conditions of men. He had acutely felt the want of the means of living. He had been forced to earn his own bread by humble day labour. He had travelled in America, resided in England, had read much, observed more. Yet in 1848, after a reign of 18 years, he conducted himself towards the French nation with a blind obstinacy and wilful disregard of consequences, worthy of a sovereign who had been suckled in the lap of despotism, and fed for ever afterwards upon obsequious flattery, and all the other dainty diet of a Court. Louis Philippe had many good qualities of heart. He was beloved by his wife and children, and was a true hero at the domestic hearth. He had also a shrewd, active, well-informed mind. Nor did he act without a principle in his dealing with his subjects. But unfortunately his love for his family led him into foolish schemes for their advancement, his shrewdness overreached itself, and his principle of action was based upon a fallacy. He imagined that he could satisfy his people with the very husk and rind of constitutional government, and flatter them with the conviction that they were chewing and enjoying the kernel. Corruption was hardly greater in the days of the Regency, than towards the untimely close of the reign of Louis Philippe, but the rottenness under the later Orleans was veiled beneath forms demanded by the spirit of the age, and conceded by the King in a spirit of mock complaisance and quiet irony. Few men have had greater opportunity than the King of the Barricades. None have so desperately disappointed hope and baffled expectation. The history of the House of Orleans is full of instruction for all who bear the name: but no chapter is so fraught with momentous interest to the living chief of the House as that which tells the extraordinary and calamitous history of Louis Philippe.
[From the Marble, by J. E. Jones, 1845.]
312*. Louis Napoleon. Emperor of France.
[Born 1808. Still living.]
The third Emperor of the name, and not the least remarkable of his extraordinary race. The opinions formed of the present Emperor of France from his earlier history, have all been belied by his subsequent career. He has been an exile, a prisoner, a wanderer, an outcast. When he has ceased to be an object of suspicion, it was only to become a subject for ridicule. Of all pretenders to thrones in Europe, he has been held the least likely to obtain, by any change of circumstances or overthrow of dynasties, supreme dominion. When kings, in their fear, have reckoned over the names of those from whom danger might be expected, and have exhausted the entire list by including all possible representatives of peril, Louis Napoleon has not been in the number. He lived for years in London, and on the 10th of April, 1848, when special constables were enrolled for the preservation of menaced order, he sallied forth with his neighbours, and performed street duty with the humblest. He was so poor in England, that his goods were sold to pay his debts. Yet at this hour the diadem binds his brow, and his foot is firmly planted upon the summit of power in tranquillized France, and we all pray Heaven in the interests of humanity, civilization, and peace, to maintain it there. Since the accession of Napoleon III., all his exertions have been directed to the development of the material resources of his country, and to the upholding of that good understanding amongst nations which is essential to the continuance of social prosperity. Europe lies under great obligations to his sagacity, and England has cause to rejoice in his friendship. When he married, he called himself a “parvenu.” His wisdom, moderation, and good faith have attached him to the heart of public opinion more closely than though, upon an insincere brow, he had brought to his imperial throne the stamp of a hundred kings.
[From the marble by Barre, 1853.]
312A. Louis Napoleon. Emperor of France.
[From the marble by J. E. Jones.]
312**. Eugénie Marie Guzman. Empress of France.
[Born 1826. Still living.]
The wife of Napoleon III., before her marriage with whom she was Countess Montijo of Teba.
THE GERMAN PORTRAITS.
