CAMACHO, JUAN FRANCISCO (1824-1896), Spanish statesman and financier, was born in Cadiz in 1824. The first part of his life was devoted to mercantile and financial pursuits at Cadiz and then in Madrid, where he managed the affairs of and liquidated a mercantile and industrial society to the satisfaction and profit of the shareholders. In 1837 he became a captain in the national militia, in 1852 Conservative deputy in the Cortes for Alcoy, in 1853 secretary of congress, and was afterwards elected ten times deputy, twice senator and life senator in 1877. Camacho took a prominent part in all financial debates and committees, was offered a seat in the Mon cabinet of 1864, and was appointed under-secretary of state finances in 1866 under Canovas and O’Donnell. After the revolution of 1868 he declined the post of minister of finance offered by Marshal Serrano, but served in that capacity in 1872 and 1874 in Sagasta’s cabinets. When the restoration took place, Camacho sat in the Cortes among the dynastic Liberals with Sagasta as leader, and became finance minister in 1881 at a critical moment when Spain had to convert, reduce, and consolidate her treasury and other debts with a view to resuming payment of coupons. Camacho drew up an excellent budget and collected taxation with a decidedly unpopular vigour. A few years later Sagasta again made him finance minister under the regency of Queen Christina, but had to sacrifice him when public opinion very clearly pronounced against his too radical financial reforms and his severity in collection of taxes. He was for the same reasons unsuccessful as a governor of the Tobacco Monopoly Company. He then seceded from the Liberals, and during the last years of his life he affected to vote with the Conservatives, who made him governor of the Bank of Spain. He died in Madrid on the 23rd of January 1896.
(A. E. H.)
CAMALDULIANS, or Camaldolese, a religious order founded by St Romuald. Born of a noble family at Ravenna c. 950, he retired at the age of twenty to the Benedictine monastery of S. Apollinare in Classe; but being strongly drawn to the eremitical life, he went to live with a hermit in the neighbourhood of Venice and then again near Ravenna. Here a colony of hermits grew up around him and he became the superior. As soon as they were established in their manner of life, Romuald moved to another district and there formed a second settlement of hermits, only to proceed in the same way to the establishment of other colonies of hermits or “deserts” as they were called. In this way during the course of his life Romuald formed a great number of “deserts” throughout central Italy. His chief foundation was at Camaldoli on the heights of the Tuscan Apennines not far from Arezzo, in a vale snow-covered during half the year. Romuald’s idea was to reintroduce into the West the primitive eremitical form of monachism, as practised by the first Egyptian and Syrian monks. His monks dwelt in separate huts around the oratory, and came together only for divine service and on certain days for meals. The life was one of extreme rigour in regard to food, clothing, silence and general observance. Besides the hermits there were lay brothers to help in carrying out the field work and rougher occupations. St Romuald and the early Camaldolese exercised considerable influence on the religious movements of their time; the emperors Otto III. and Henry II. esteemed him highly and sought his advice on religious questions. Disciples of St Romuald went on missions to the still heathen parts of Russia, Poland and Prussia, where some of them suffered martyrdom. In his extreme old age St Romuald with twenty-five of his monks started on a missionary expedition to Hungary, but he was unable to accomplish the journey. He died in 1027. After his death mitigations were gradually introduced into the rule and manner of life; and in the monastery of St Michael in Murano, Venice, the life became cenobitical. From that time to the present day there have always been both eremitical and cenobitical Camaldolese, the latter approximating to ordinary Benedictine life. The Camaldolese spread all over Italy, and into Germany, Poland and France. Camaldoli itself exists as a “desert,” the primitive observance of the institute being strictly maintained. There are a few other “deserts,” all in Italy, except one in Poland; and there are about 90 hermits. The chief monastery of the cenobitical Camaldolese is S. Gregorio on the Caelian Hill in Rome; they number less than forty. Since the 11th century there have been Camaldolese nuns; at present there are five nunneries with 150 nuns, all belonging to the cenobitical branch of the order. The habit of the Camaldulians is white.
See Helyot, Hist. des ordres religieux (1792) v. cc. 21-25; Max Heimbucher, Orden und Kongregationen (1896) i. § 29; and the art. “Camaldulenser” in Wetzer and Welte, Kirchenlexikon (2nd ed.), and Herzog, Realencyklopädie (3rd ed.).
(E. C. B.)
CAMARGO, MARIE ANNE DE CUPIS DE (1710-1770), French dancer, of Spanish descent, was born in Brussels on the 15th of April 1710. Her father, Ferdinand Joseph de Cupis, earned a scanty living as violinist and dancing-master, and from childhood she was trained for the stage. At ten years of age she was given lessons by Mlle Françoise Prévost (1680-1741), then the first dancer at the Paris Opéra, and at once obtained an engagement as première danseuse, first at Brussels and then at Rouen. Under her grandmother’s family name of Camargo she made her Paris début in 1726, and at once became the rage. Every new fashion bore her name; her manner of doing her hair was copied by all at court; her shoemaker—she had a tiny foot—made his fortune. She had many titled adorers whom she nearly ruined by her extravagances, among others Louis de Bourbon, comte de Clermont. At his wish she retired from the stage from 1736 to 1741. In her time she appeared in seventy-eight ballets or operas, always to the delight of the public. She was the first ballet-dancer to shorten the skirt to what afterwards became the regulation length. There is a charming portrait of her by Nicolas Lancret in the Wallace collection, London.
CAMARGUE (Insula Camaria), a thinly-populated region of southern France contained wholly in the department of Bouches-du-Rhône, and comprising the delta of the Rhone. The Camargue is a marshy plain of alluvial formation enclosed between the two branches of the river, the Grand Rhône to the east and the Petit Rhône to the west. Its average elevation is from 6½ to 8 ft. The Camargue has a coast-line some 30 m. in length and an area of 290 sq. m., of which about a quarter consists of cultivated and fertile land. This is in the north and on the banks of the rivers. The rest consists of rough pasture grazed by the black bulls and white horses of the region and by large flocks of sheep, or of marsh, stagnant water and waste land impregnated with salt. The region is inhabited by flocks of flamingoes, bustards, partridge, and by sea-birds of various kinds. The Étang de Vaccarès, the largest of the numerous lagoons and pools, covers about 23 sq. m.; it receives three main canals constructed to drain off the minor lagoons. The Camargue is protected by dikes from the inundations both of the sea and of the rivers. Inlets in the sea-dike let in water for the purposes of the lagoon fisheries and the salt-pans; and the river-water is used for irrigation and for the submersion of vines. The climate is characterized by hard winters and scorching summers. Rain falls in torrents, but at considerable intervals. The mistral, blowing from the north and north-west, is the prevailing wind. The south-eastern portion of the Camargue is known as the Ile du Plan du Bourg. A secondary delta to the west of the Petit Rhône goes by the name of Petite Camargue.