BELLECOUR (1725-1778), French actor, whose real name was Jean Claude Gilles Colson, was born on the 16th of January 1725, the son of a portrait-painter. He showed decided artistic talent, but soon deserted the brush for the stage under the name of Bellecour. After playing in the provinces he was called to the Comédie Française, but his début, on the 21st of December 1750, as Achilles in Iphigénie was not a great success. He soon turned to more congenial comedy rôles, which for thirty years he filled with great credit. He was a very natural player, and his willingness to give others on the stage an opportunity to show their talents made him extremely popular. He wrote a successful play, Fausses apparences (1761), and was very useful to the Comédie Française in editing and adapting the plays of others. He died on the 19th of November 1778.
His wife, Rose Perrine le Roy de la Corbinaye, was born at Lamballe on the 20th of December 1730, the daughter of an artillery officer. Under the stage name of Beaumenard she made her first Paris appearance in 1743 as Gogo in Favart’s Le Coq du village. After a year at the Opéra Comique she played in several companies, including that of Marshal Saxe, who is said to have been not insensible to her charms. In 1749 she made her début at the Comédie Française as Dorine in Tartuffe, and her success was immediate. She retired in 1756, but after an absence of five years, during which she married, she reappeared as Madame Bellecour, and continued her successes in soubrette parts in the plays of Molière and de Regnard. She retired finally at the age of sixty, but troublous times had put an end to the pension which she received from Louis XVI. and from the theatre, and she died in abject poverty on the 5th of August 1799. There is a charming portrait of her owned by the Théâtre Français.
BELLEFONTAINE, a city and the county-seat of Logan county, Ohio, U.S.A., about 45 m. N.W. of Columbus. Pop. (1890) 4245; (1900) 6649 (267 foreign-born); (1910) 8238. It is served by the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis (which has large shops here) and the Ohio Central railways; also by the Dayton, Springfield & Urbana electric railway. It is built on the south-west slope of a hill having an elevation of about 1500 ft. above sea-level and at the foot of which are several springs of clear water which suggested the city’s name. Among the city’s manufactures are iron bridges, carriage-bodies, flour and cement. The municipality owns and operates its water-works system and its gas and electric-lighting plants. Bellefontaine was first settled about 1818, was laid out as a town and made the county-seat in 1820 and was incorporated in 1835.
BELLEGARDE, the name of an important French family. Roger de Saint-Lary, baron of Bellegarde, served with distinction in the wars against the French Protestants. He showed much devotion to Henry III., who loaded him with favours and made him marshal of France. He eventually fell into disgrace, however, and died by poisoning in 1579. His nephew, Roger de Saint-Lary de Termes, a favourite with Henry III., Henry IV. and Louis XIII., was royal master of the horse and governor of Burgundy. His estate of Seurre in Burgundy was created a duchy in the peerage of France (duché-pairie) in his favour under the name of Bellegarde, in 1619. In 1645 the title of this duchy was transferred to the estate of Choisy-aux-Loges in Gâtinais, and was borne later by the family of Pardaillan de Gondrin, heirs of the house of Saint-Lary-Bellegarde. When Seurre passed into the possession of the princes of Condé they in the same way acquired the title of dukes of Bellegarde.
(M. P.*)
BELLEGARDE, HEINRICH JOSEPH JOHANNES, Count von (1756-1845), Austrian soldier and statesman, was born at Dresden on the 29th of August 1756, and for a short time served in the Saxon army. Transferring his services to Austria in 1771 he distinguished himself greatly as colonel of dragoons in the Turkish War of 1788-1789, and served as a major-general in the Netherlands campaigns of 1793-1794. In the campaign of 1796 in Germany, as a lieutenant field marshal, he served on the staff of the archduke Charles, whom he accompanied to Italy in the following year. He was also employed in the congress of Rastatt. In 1799 he commanded a corps in eastern Switzerland, connecting the armies of the archduke and Suvarov, and finally joined the latter in north Italy. He conducted the siege of the citadel of Alessandria, and was present at the decisive battle of Novi. He served again in the latter part of the Marengo campaign of 1800 in the rank of general of cavalry. In 1805, when the archduke Charles left to take command in Italy, Bellegarde became president ad interim of the council of war. He was, however, soon employed in the field, and at the sanguinary battle of Caldiero he commanded the Austrian right. In the war of 1809 he commanded the extreme right wing of the main army (see [Napoleonic Campaigns]). Cut off from Charles as the result of the battle of Eckmühl, he retreated into Bohemia, but managed to rejoin before the great battles near Vienna (Aspern and Wagram). From 1809 to 1813 Bellegarde, now field marshal, was governor-general of Galicia, but was often called to preside over the meetings of the Aulic Council, especially in 1810 in connexion with the reorganization of the Austrian army. In 1813, 1814 and 1815 he led the Austrian armies in Italy. His successes in these campaigns were diplomatic as well as military, and he ended them by crushing the last attempt of Murat in 1815. From 1816 to 1825 (when he had to retire owing to failing eyesight) he held various distinguished civil and military posts. He died in 1845.
See Smola, Das Leben des F.M. van Bellegarde (Vienna, 1847).