BETWA, a river of India, which rises in the native state of Bhopal in Malwa, and after a course of 360 m., for the most part in a north-easterly direction, falls into the Jumna at Hamirpur. A weir is thrown across the Betwa about 15 m. from Jhansi town, whence a canal 168 m. long takes off, irrigating 106,000 acres of the Jalaun district; similar works have been carried out elsewhere on the river.
BEUDANT, FRANÇOIS SULPICE (1787-1850), French mineralogist and geologist, was born at Paris on the 5th of September 1787. He was educated at the École Polytechnique and École Normale, and in 1811 was appointed professor of mathematics at the lycée of Avignon. Thence he was called, in 1813, to the lycée of Marseilles to fill the post of professor of physics. In the following year the royal mineralogical cabinet was committed to his charge to be conveyed into England, and from that time his attention was directed principally towards geology and cognate sciences. In 1817 he published a paper on the phenomena of crystallization, treating especially of the variety of forms assumed by the same mineral substance. In 1818 he undertook, at the expense of the French government, a geological journey through Hungary, and the results of his researches, Voyage minéralogique et géologique en Hongrie, 3 vols. 4to, with atlas, published in 1822, established for him a European reputation. In 1820 he was appointed to the professorship of mineralogy in the Paris faculty of sciences, and afterwards became inspector-general of the university. He subsequently published treatises on physics and on mineralogy and geology, and died on the 10th of December 1850.
BEUGNOT, JACQUES CLAUDE, Count (1761-1835), French politician, was born at Bar-sur-Aube. A magistrate under the old régime, he was elected deputy to the Legislative Assembly (1791), then to the Convention. He was involved in the proscription of the Girondists and imprisoned until the 9th Thermidor. He next entered into relations with the family of Bonaparte, and in 1799, after the 18th Brumaire, again entered politics, becoming successively prefect of the lower Seine, councillor of state, and finance minister to Jerome Bonaparte, king of Westphalia. In 1808 Beugnot, who had meanwhile been appointed administrator of the duchy of Berg-Cleves, received the cross of officer of the Legion of Honour with the title of count. He returned to France in 1813, after the battle of Leipzig, and was made prefect of the department of Nord. In 1814 he was a member of the provisional government as minister of the interior; and by Louis XVIII. he was named director-general of police and afterwards minister of marine. He followed Louis to Ghent during the Hundred Days, and became one of his confidants. He contributed to draw up Louis’s charter, and in his memoirs boasted of having furnished the text of the proclamation addressed by the king to the French people before his return to France; but it is known now that it was another text that was adopted. Lacking the support of the ultra-royalists, he was given the title of minister of state without portfolio, which was equivalent to a retirement. Elected deputy, he attached himself to the moderate party, and defended the liberty of the press. In 1831 Louis Philippe made him a peer of France and director-general of manufactures and commerce. He died on the 24th of June 1835.
His son, Auguste Arthur Beugnot (1797-1865), was an historian and scholar, who published an Essai sur les institutions de Saint Louis (1821), Histoire de la destruction du paganisme en occident (2 vols., 1885), and edited the Olim of the parlement of Paris, the Assizes of Jerusalem, and the Coutumes de Beauvoisis of Philippe de Beaumanoir. He was a member of the chamber of peers under Louis Philippe, and opposed Villemain’s plan for freedom of education. After 1848 he maintained the same rôle, acting as reporter of the loi Falloux. He retired from public life after the coup d’état of Napoleon III., and died on the 15th of March 1865.
The Mémoires of J.C. Beugnot were published by his grandson, Count Albert Beugnot (2nd ed., Paris, 1868); see H. Wallon, Éloges académiques (1882); and E. Dejean, Un Préfet du Consulat: J.C. Beugnot (Paris, 1907).
BEULÉ, CHARLES ERNEST (1826-1874), French archaeologist and politician, was born at Saumur on the 29th of June 1826. He was educated at the École Normale, and after having held the professorship of rhetoric at Moulins for a year, was sent to Athens in 1851 as one of the professors in the École Française there. He had the good fortune to discover the propylaea of the Acropolis, and his work, L’Acropole d’Athènes (2nd ed., 1863), was published by order of the minister of public instruction. On his return to France, promotion and distinctions followed rapidly upon his first successes. He was made doctor of letters, chevalier of the Legion of Honour, professor of archaeology at the Bibliothèque Impériale, member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres and perpetual secretary of the Académie des Beaux-Arts. He took great interest in political affairs, with which the last few years of his life were entirely occupied. Elected a member of the National Assembly in 1871, he zealously supported the Orleanist party. In May-November 1873 he was minister of the interior in the Broglie ministry. He died by his own hand on the 4th of April 1874. His other important works are: Études sur le Péloponnèse (2nd ed., 1875); Les Monnaies d’Athènes (1858); L’Architecture au siècle de Pisistrate (1860); Fouilles à Carthage (1861). Beulé was also the author of high-class popular works on artistic and historical subjects: Histoire de l’art grec avant Périclès (2nd ed., 1870); Le Procès des Césars (1867-1870, in four parts; Auguste, sa famille et ses amis; Tibère et l’héritage d’Auguste; Le Sang de Germanicus; Titus et sa dynastie).