CHAUVELIN, BERNARD FRANÇOIS, Marquis de (1766-1832), French diplomatist and administrator. Though master of the king’s wardrobe in 1789, he joined in the Revolution. He served in the army of Flanders, and then was sent to London in February 1792, to induce England to remain neutral in the war which was about to break out between France and “the king of Bohemia and Hungary.” He was well received at first, but after the 10th of August 1792 he was no longer officially recognized at court, and on the execution of Louis XVI. (21st of January 1793) he was given eight days to leave England. After an unsuccessful embassy in Tuscany, he was imprisoned as a suspect during the Terror, but freed after the 9th Thermidor. Under Napoleon he became a member of the council of state, and from 1812 to 1814 he governed Catalonia under the title of intendant-general, being charged to win over the Catalonians to King Joseph Bonaparte. He remained in private life during the Restoration and the Hundred Days. In 1816 he was elected deputy, and spoke in favour of liberty of the press and extension of the franchise. Though he was again deputy in 1827 he played no part in public affairs, and resigned in 1829.
See G. Pallain, La Mission de Talleyrand à Londres en 1792 (Paris, 1889).
CHAUVIGNY, a town of western France, in the department of Vienne, 20 m. E. of Poitiers by rail. Pop. (1906) 2326. The town is finely situated overlooking the Vienne and a small torrent, and has two interesting Romanesque churches, both restored in modern times. There are also ruins of a château of the bishops of Poitiers, and of other strongholds. Near Chauvigny is the curious bone-cavern of Jioux, the entrance to which is fortified by large blocks of stone. The town carries on lime-burning and plaster-manufacture, and there are stone quarries in the vicinity. Trade is in wool and feathers.
CHAUVIN, ÉTIENNE (1640-1725), French Protestant divine, was born at Nîmes on the 18th of April 1640. At the revocation of the Edict of Nantes he retired to Rotterdam, where he was for some years preacher at the Walloon church; in 1695 the elector of Brandenburg appointed him pastor and professor of philosophy, and later inspector of the French college at Berlin, where he enjoyed considerable reputation as a representative of Cartesianism and as a student of physics. His principal work is a laborious Lexicon Rationale, sive Thesaurus Philosophicus (Rotterdam, 1692; new and enlarged edition, Leuwarden, 1713). He also wrote Theses de Cognitione Dei (1662), and started the Nouveau Journal des Savans (1694-1698).
See E. and E. Haag, La France Protestante, vol. iv. (1884).
CHAUVINISM, a term for unreasonable and exaggerated patriotism, the French equivalent of “Jingoism.” The word originally signified idolatry of Napoleon, being taken from a much-wounded veteran, Nicholas Chauvin, who, by his adoration of the emperor, became the type of blind enthusiasm for national military glory.