BOURSE (from the Med. Lat. bursa, a purse), the French equivalent of the Stock Exchange, and so used of the Paris Exchange, or of any foreign money-market. The English form “burse,” as in Sir Thomas Gresham’s building, which was known as “Britain’s Burse,” went out of use in the 18th century. The origin of the name is doubtful; it is not derived from any connexion between purse and money, but rather from the use of a purse as a sign. At Bruges a house belonging to the family de Bursa is said to have been first used as an Exchange, and to have had three purses as a sign on the front.
BOURSSE, ESAIAS (1630-1673), Dutch painter, was born in Amsterdam. He was a follower of Pieter de Hooch, in whose manner he worked for many years in his native town; then he took service with the Dutch East India Company, and died on a sea voyage. His paintings are exceedingly rare, perhaps because, in spite of their greater freedom and breadth, many of them pass under the names of Vermeer of Delft and Pieter de Hooch. Two of the paintings ascribed to the latter (one bears the false signature) at the Ryks museum in Amsterdam, are now recognized as being the work of Boursse. His subjects are interiors with figures, painted with great precision and with exquisite quality of colour. The Wallace collection has his masterpiece, an interior with a woman and a child in a cradle, almost as brilliant as on the day it was painted, and reflecting something of the feeling of Rembrandt, by whom he was influenced. Other important examples are at the Ryks museum and at Aix-la-Chapelle. Boursse’s “Boy blowing Soap Bubbles,” in the Berlin museum, was until lately attributed to Vermeer of Delft. More than one picture bearing the false signature of Boursse have been publicly shown of late years.
BOUSSINGAULT, JEAN BAPTISTE JOSEPH DIEUDONNÉ (1802-1887), French chemist, was born in Paris on the 2nd of February 1802. After studying at the school of mines at Saint-Étienne he went, when little more than twenty years old, to South America as a mining engineer on behalf of an English company. During the insurrection of the Spanish colonies he was attached to the staff of General Bolivar, and travelled widely in the northern parts of the continent. Returning to France he became professor of chemistry at Lyons, and in 1839 was appointed to the chair of agricultural and analytical chemistry at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers in Paris. In 1848 he was elected to the National Assembly, where he sat as a Moderate republican. Three years later he was dismissed from his professorship on account of his political opinions, but so much resentment at this action was shown by scientific men in general, and especially by his colleagues, who threatened to resign in a body, that he was reinstated. He died in Paris on the 11th of May 1887. His first papers were concerned with mining topics, and his sojourn in South America yielded a number of miscellaneous memoirs, on the cause of goitre in the Cordilleras, the gasses of volcanoes, earthquakes, tropical rain, &c., which won the commendation of A. von Humboldt. From 1836 he devoted himself mainly to agricultural chemistry and animal and vegetable physiology, with occasional excursions into mineral chemistry. His work included papers on the quantity of nitrogen in different foods, the amount of gluten in different wheats, investigations on the question whether plants can assimilate free nitrogen from the atmosphere (which he answered in the negative), the respiration of plants, the function of their leaves, the action and value of manures, and other similar subjects. Through his wife he had a share in an estate at Bechebronn in Alsace, where he carried out many agricultural experiments. He collaborated with J.B.A. Dumas in writing an Essai de statique chimique des ètres organisés (1841), and was the author of Traité d’économic rurale (1844), which was remodelled as Agronomie, chimie agricole, et physiologie (5 vols., 1860-1874; 2nd ed., 1884), and of Études sur la transformation du fer en acier (1875).
BOUTERWEK, FRIEDRICH (1766-1828), German philosopher and critic, was born at Oker, near Goslar in Lower Saxony, and studied law at Göttingen. From 1790, however, he became a disciple of Kant, published Aphorismen nach Kants Lehre vorgelegt (1793), and became professor of philosophy at Göttingen (1802), where he died on the 9th of August 1828. As a philosopher, he is interesting for his criticism of the theory of the “thing-in-itself” (Ding-an-sich). For the pure reason, as described in the Kritik, the “thing-in-itself” can be only an inconceivable “something-in-general”; any statement about it involves the predication of Reality, Unity and Plurality, which belong not to the absolute thing but to phenomena. On the other hand, the subject is known by the fact of will, and the object by that of resistance; the cognizance of willing is the assertion of absolute reality in the domain of relative knowledge. This doctrine has since been described as absolute Virtualism. Following this train of thought, Bouterwek left the Kantian position through his opposition to its formalism. In later life he inclined to the views of F.H. Jacobi, whose letters to him (published at Göttingen, 1868) shed much light on the development of his thought. His chief philosophical works are Ideen zu einer allgemeinen Apodiktik (Göttingen and Halle, 1799); Aesthetik (Leipzig, 1806; Göttingen, 1815 and 1824); Lehrbuch der philos. Vorkenntnisse (Göttingen, 1810 and 1820); Lehrbuch der philos. Wissenschaften (Göttingen, 1813 and 1820). In these works he dissociated himself from the Kantian school. His chief critical work was the Geschichte der neuern Poesie und Beredsamkeit (Göttingen, 12 vols., 1801-1819), of which the history of Spanish literature has been published separately in French, Spanish and English. The Geschichte is a work of wide learning and generally sound criticism, but it is not of equal merit throughout. He also wrote three novels, Paulus Septimus (Halle, 1795), Graf Donamar (Göttingen, 1791) and Ramiro (Leipzig, 1804), and published a collection of poems (Göttingen, 1802).
BOUTHILLIER, CLAUDE, Sieur de Fouilletourte (1581-1652), French statesman, began life as an advocate. In 1613 he was councillor in the parlement of Paris, and in 1619 became councillor of state and a secretary to the queen-mother, Marie de’ Medici. The connexion of his father, Denis Bouthillier (d. 1622), with Cardinal Richelieu secured for him the title of secretary of state in 1628, and he was able to remain on good terms with both Marie de’ Medici and Richelieu, in spite of their rivalry. In 1632 he became superintendent of finances. But his great role was in diplomacy. Richelieu employed him on many diplomatic missions, and the success of his foreign policy was due in no small degree to Bouthillier’s ability and devotion. In 1630 he had taken part at Regensburg in arranging the abortive treaty between the emperor and France. From 1633 to 1640 he was continually busied with secret missions in Germany, sometimes alone, sometimes with Father Joseph. Following Richelieu’s instructions, he negotiated the alliances which brought France into the Thirty Years’ War. Meanwhile, at home, his tact and amiable disposition, as well as his reputation for straightforwardness, had secured for him a unique position of influence in a court torn by jealousies and intrigues. Trusted by the king, the confidant of Richelieu, the friend of Marie de’ Medici, and through his son, Léon Bouthillier, who was appointed in 1635 chancellor to Gaston d’Orléans, able to bring his influence to bear on that prince, he was an invaluable mediator; and the personal influence thus exercised, combined with the fact that he was at the head of both the finances and the foreign policy of France, made him, next to the cardinal, the most powerful man in the kingdom. Richelieu made him executor of his will, and Louis XIII. named him a member of the council of regency which he intended should govern the kingdom after his death. But the king’s last plans were not carried out, and Bouthillier was obliged to retire into private life, giving up his office of superintendent of finances in June 1643. He died in Paris on the 13th of March 1652.
His son, Léon Bouthillier (1608-1652), comte de Chavigny, was early associated with his father, who took him with him from 1629 to 1632 to all the great courts of Europe, instructing him in diplomacy. In 1632 he was named secretary of state and seconded his father’s work, so that it is not easy always to distinguish their respective parts. After the death of Louis XIII. he had to give up his office; but was sent as plenipotentiary to the negotiations at Munster. He showed himself incapable, however, giving himself up to pleasure and fêtes, and returned to France to intrigue against Mazarin. Arrested twice during the Fronde, and then for a short time in power during Mazarin’s exile (April 1651), he busied himself with small intrigues which came to nothing.