CHEVALIER, MICHEL (1806-1879), French economist, was born at Limoges on the 13th of January 1806. In his early manhood, while employed as an engineer, he became a convert to the theories of Saint Simon; these he ardently advocated in the Globe, the organ of the Saint Simonians, which he edited until his arrest in 1832 on a charge of outraging public morality by its publication. He was sentenced to a year’s imprisonment, but was released in six months through the intervention of Thiers, who sent him on a special mission to the United States to study the question of land and water transport. In 1836 he published, in two volumes, the letters he wrote from America to the Journal des débats. These attracted so much attention that he was sent in the same year on an economic mission to England, which resulted in his publication (in 1838) of Des intérêts matériels de la France. The success of this made his position secure, and in 1840 he was appointed professor of political economy in the Collège de France. He sat for a short time (1845-1846) as a member of the Chamber of Deputies, but lost his seat owing to his enthusiastic adoption of the principles of free trade. Under Napoleon III. he was restored to the position of which the revolution of 1848 had temporarily deprived him. In 1850 he became a member of the Institute, and in the following year published an important work in favour of free trade, under the title of Examen du système commercial connu sous le nom de système protecteur. His chief public triumph was the important part he played in bringing about the conclusion of the commercial treaty between France and Great Britain in 1860. Previously to this he had served, in 1855, upon the commission for organizing the Exhibition of 1855, and his services there led to his forming one of the French jury of awards in the London Exhibition of 1862. He was created a member of the Senate in 1860, and continued for some years to take an active part in its discussions. He retired from public life in 1870, but was unceasingly industrious with his pen. He became grand officer of the Legion of Honour in 1861, and during the later years of his life received from many quarters public recognition of his eminence as a political economist. He died at his château near Montpellier (Hérault) on the 28th of November 1879. Many of his works have been translated into English and other languages. Besides those already mentioned the more important are: Cours d’économie politique (1842-1850); Essais de politique industrielle (1843); De la baisse probable d’or(1859, translated into English by Cobden, On the Probable Fall of the Value of Gold, Manchester, 1859); L’Expédition du Mexique (1862); Introduction aux rapports du jury international (1868).
CHEVALIER, ULYSSE (1841- ), French bibliographer, was born at Rambouillet on the 24th of February 1841. He published a great number of documents relating to the history of Dauphiné, e.g. the cartularies of the church and the town of Die (1868), of the abbey of St André le-Bas at Vienne (1869), of the abbey of Notre Dame at Bonnevaux in the diocese of Vienne (1889), of the abbey of St Chaffre at Le Monestier (1884), the inventories and several collections of archives of the dauphins of Viennais, and a Bibliothèque liturgique in six volumes (1893-1897), the third and fourth volumes of which constitute the Repertorium hymnologicum, containing more than 20,000 articles. But his principal work is the Répertoire des sources historiques du moyen âge. The first part, Bio-bibliographie (1877-1886; 2nd ed., 1905), contains the names of all the historical personages alive between the years 1 and 1500 who are mentioned in printed books, together with the precise indication of all the places where they are mentioned. The second part, Topo-bibliographie (1894-1903), contains not only the names of places mentioned in books on the history of the middle ages, but, in a general way, everything not included in the Bio-bibliographie. The Répertoire as a whole contains an enormous mass of useful information, and is one of the most important bibliographical monuments ever devoted to the study of medieval history. Though a Catholic priest and professor of history at the Catholic university of Lyons, the Abbé (afterwards Canon) Chevalier knew how to maintain an independent critical attitude even in religious questions. In the controversy on the authenticity of the Holy Shroud (sudario) at Turin, he worked in the true scientific spirit by tracing back the history of that piece of stuff, which was undoubtedly used as a shroud, but which was not produced before the 14th century and is probably no older (See Le Saint Suaire de Lirey-Chambéry-Turin et les défenseurs de son authenticité). Similarly, in Notre Dame de Lorette; étude critique sur l’authenticité de la Santa Casa (1906), he dissipated by the aid of authentic documents the legend which had embellished and falsified the primitive history of that sanctuary.
CHEVAUX-DE-FRISE (French for “Friesland horses”; the Dutch Vriesse ruyters, “Frisian horsemen,” and German Spanische Reiter, “Spanish horsemen”), a military obstacle, originating apparently in the Dutch War of Independence, and used to close the breach of a fortress, streets, &c. It was formerly often used in field operations as a defence against cavalry; hence the name, as the Dutch were weak in the mounted arm and had therefore to check the enemy’s cavalry by an artificial obstacle. Chevaux-de-frise consist of beams in which are fixed a number of spears, sword-blades, &c., with the points projecting outwards on all sides.
CHEVERUS, JEAN LOUIS ANNE MAGDELEINE LEFEBVRE DE (1768-1836), French ecclesiastic, was born on the 28th of January 1768, in Mayenne, France, where his father was general civil judge and lieutenant of police. He studied at the college of Mayenne, received the tonsure when twelve, became prior of Torbechet while still little more than a child, thence derived sufficient income for his education, entered the College of Louis le Grand in 1781, and after completing his theological studies at the Seminary of St Magloire, was ordained deacon in October 1790, and priest by special dispensation on the 18th of December. He was immediately made canon of the cathedral of Le Mans and began to act as vicar to his uncle in Mayenne, who died in 1792. Owing to the progress of the Revolution he emigrated in 1792 to England, and thence in 1796 to America, settling in Boston, Mass. His interest had been aroused by François Antoine Matignon, a former professor at Orleans, now in charge under Bishop John Carroll of all the Catholic churches and missions in New England. Cheverus, although at first appointed to an Indian mission in Maine, remained in Boston for nearly a year, and returned thither after several months in the Penobscot and Passamaquoddy missions and visits to scattered Catholic families along the way. During the epidemic of yellow fever in 1798 he won great praise and respect for his courage and charity; and his preaching was listened to by many Protestants—indeed the subscriptions for the Church of the Holy Cross which he founded in 1803 were largely from non-Catholics. In 1808 the papal brief was issued making Boston a bishopric, suffragan to Baltimore, and Cheverus its bishop. He was consecrated on All Saints’ day in 1810, at St Peter’s, Baltimore, by Archbishop Carroll. On the death of the latter his assistant bishop, Neale, urged the appointment of Cheverus as assistant to himself; Cheverus refused and warmly asserted his desire to remain in Boston; but, much broken by the death of Matignon in 1818 and with impaired health, he soon found it necessary to leave the seat of his bishopric. In 1823, Louis XVIII. having insisted on his return to France, Cheverus became bishop of Montauban, where his tolerance captivated the Protestant clergy and laymen of the city. He was made archbishop of Bordeaux in 1826; and on the 1st of February 1836, in accordance with the wish of Louis Philippe, he was made a cardinal. He died in Bordeaux on the 19th of July 1836. To Cheverus, more than to any other, is due the position that Boston now holds in the Roman Catholic Church of America, as well as the general growth of that church in New England. His character was essentially lovable: the Jews of Bordeaux and Protestants everywhere delighted to honour him.
See the rather extravagant biography by J. Huen-Dubourg, Vie du cardinal de Cheverus (Bordeaux, 1838; English version by E. Stewart, Boston, 1839).