BAZARD, AMAND (1791-1832), French socialist, the founder of a secret society in France corresponding to the Carbonari of Italy, was born at Paris. He took part in the defence of Paris in 1815, and afterwards occupied a subordinate situation in the prefecture of the Seine. About 1820 he united some patriotic friends into a society, called Amis de la vérité. From this was developed a complete system of Carbonarism, the peculiar principles of which were introduced from Italy by two of Bazard’s friends. Bazard himself was at the head of the central body, and, while taking a general lead, contributed extensively to the Carbonarist journal, L’Aristarque. An unsuccessful outbreak at Belfort ruined the society, and the leaders were compelled to conceal themselves. Bazard, after remaining for some time in obscurity in Paris, came to the conclusion that the ends of those who wished well to the people would be most easily attained, not through political agitation, but by effecting a radical change in their social condition. This train of thinking naturally drew him towards the socialist philosophers of the school of Saint-Simon, whom he joined. He contributed to their journal, Le Producteur; and in 1828 began to give public lectures on the principles of the school (see [Saint-Simon]). His opposition to the emancipation of women brought about a quarrel with Enfantin (q.v.) in 1831, and Bazard found himself almost deserted by the members of the society. He attacked Enfantin violently, and in a warm discussion between them he was struck down by apoplexy. After lingering for a few months he died on the 29th of July 1832.
BAZAS, a town of south-western France, in the department of Gironde, 38½ m. S.S.E. of Bordeaux by rail. Pop. (1906) town, 2505; commune, 4684. The town, which was the seat of a bishop from at least the beginning of the 6th century till 1790, has a Gothic church (formerly the cathedral) dating from the 13th to the 16th centuries. There are remains of ramparts (15th and 16th centuries) and several old houses of the 16th century. The vineyards of the vicinity produce white wine. The town is capital of an arrondissement, and carries on tanning, &c., and trade in the well-known Bazadais cattle.
Bazas (Cossio) was capital of the ancient tribe of the Vasates, and under the Romans one of the twelve cities of Novempopuluna. In later times it was capital of the district of Bazadais. It was the scene of much bloodshed during the religious wars of the 16th century.
BAZIGARS, a nomad gipsy-folk of India, found throughout the peninsula, and variously known as Bazigars, Panchpiri, Nats, Bediyas, &c. They live a life apart from the surrounding Hindu population, and still preserve a certain ethnical identity, scarcely justified by any indications given by their physique. They make a living as jugglers, dancers, basket-weavers and fortune-tellers; and in true European gipsy fashion each clan has its king.
BAZIN, RENÉ (1853- ), French novelist and man of letters, was born at Angers on the 26th of December 1853. He studied law in Paris, and on his return to Angers became professor of law in the Catholic university there. He contributed to Parisian journals a series of sketches of provincial life and descriptions of travel, but he made his reputation by Une Tache d’encre (1888), which received a prize from the Academy. Other novels of great charm and delicacy followed: La Sarcelle bleue (1892); Madame Corentine (1893); Humble Amour (1894); De toute son âme (1897); La Terre qui meurt (1899); Les Oberlé (1901), an Alsatian story which was dramatized and acted in the following year; L’Âme alsacienne (1903); Donatienne (1903); L’Isolée (1905); Le Blé qui lève (1907); Mémoires d’une vieille fille (1908). La Terre qui meurt, a picture of the decay of peasant farming and a story of La Vendée, is an indirect plea for the development of provincial France. A volume of Questions littéraires et sociales appeared in 1906. René Bazin was admitted to the Academy on the 28th of April 1904.
BAZIRE, CLAUDE (1764-1794), French revolutionist, was deputy for the Côte d’Or in the Legislative Assembly, and made himself prominent by denouncing the court and the “Austrian committee” of the Tuileries. On the 20th of June 1792 he spoke in favour of the deposition of the king. In the Convention he sat with the Mountain, opposed adjourning the trial of Louis XVI., and voted for his death. He joined in the attack upon the Girondists, but, as member of the committee of general security, he condemned the system of the Terror. He was implicated by François Chabot in the falsification of a decree relative to the East India Company, and though his share seems to have been simply that he did not reveal the plot, of which he knew but part, he was accused before the Revolutionary Tribunal at the same time as Danton and Camille Desmoulins, and was executed on the 5th of April 1794.