COLLÉ, CHARLES (1709-1783), French dramatist and song-writer, the son of a notary, was born at Paris in 1709. He was early interested in the rhymes of Jean Heguanier, then the most famous maker of couplets in Paris. From a notary’s office Collé was transferred to that of M. de Neulan, the receiver-general of finance, and remained there for nearly twenty years. When about seventeen, however, he made the acquaintance of Alexis Piron, and afterwards, through Gallet (d. 1757), of Panard. The example of these three masters of the vaudeville, while determining his vocation, made him diffident; and for some time he composed nothing but amphigouris—verses whose merit was measured by their unintelligibility. The friendship of the younger Crébillon, however, diverted him from this by-way of art, and the establishment in 1729 of the famous “Caveau” gave him a field for the display of his fine talent for popular song. In 1739 the Society of the Caveau, which numbered among its members Helvétius, Charles Duclos, Pierre Joseph Bernard, called Gentil-Bernard, Jean Philippe Rameau, Alexis Piron, and the two Crébillons, was dissolved, and was not reconstituted till twenty years afterwards. His first and his best comedy, La Vérité dans le vin, appeared in 1747. Meanwhile, the Regent Orleans, who was an excellent comic actor, particularly in representations of low life, and had been looking out for an author to write suitable parts for him, made Collé his reader. It was for the duke and his associates that Collé composed the greater part of his Théâtre de société. In 1763 Collé produced at the Théâtre Français Dupuis et Desronais, a successful sentimental comedy, which was followed in 1771 by La Veuve, which was a complete failure. In 1774 appeared La Partie de chasse de Henri Quatre (partly taken from Dodsley’s King and the Miller of Mansfield), Collé’s last and best play. From 1748 to 1772, besides these and a multitude of songs, Collé was writing his Journal, a curious collection of literary and personal strictures on his boon companions as well as on their enemies, on Piron as on Voltaire, on La Harpe as on Corneille. Collé died on the 3rd of November 1783. His lyrics are frank and jovial, though often licentious. The subjects are love and wine; occasionally, however, as in the famous lyric (1756) on the capture of Port Mahon, for which the author received a pension of 600 livres, the note of patriotism is struck with no unskilful hand, while in many others Collé shows himself possessed of considerable epigrammatic force.
See also H. Bonhomme’s edition (1868) of his Journal et Mémoires (1748-1772); Grimm’s Correspondance; and C. A. Sainte-Beuve, Nouveaux lundis, vol. vii.
COLLECTIVISM, a term used to denote the economic principle of the ownership by a community of all the means of production in order to secure to the people collectively an equitable distribution of the produce of their associated labour. Though often used in a narrow sense to express the economic basis of Socialism, the latter term is so generally employed in the same sense that collectivism is best discussed in connexion with it (see [Socialism]).
COLLECTOR, a term technically used for various officials, and particularly in India for the chief administrative official of a district. The word was in this case originally a translation of tahsildar, and indicates that the special duty of the office is the collection of revenue; but the collector has also magisterial powers and is a species of autocrat within the bounds of his district. The title is confined to the regulation provinces, especially Madras; in the non-regulation provinces the same duties are discharged by the deputy-commissioner (see [Commissioner]).
COLLE DI VAL D’ ELSA, a town and episcopal see of Italy, in the province of Siena, 5 m. by rail S. of Poggibonsi, which is 16 m. N.W. of Siena. Pop. (1901) town 1987; commune 9879. The old (upper) town (732 ft. above sea-level), contains the cathedral, dating from the 13th century, with a pulpit partly of this period; the façade has been modernized. There are also some old palaces of good architecture, and the old house where Arnolfo di Cambio, the first architect of the cathedral at Florence (1232-1301) was born. The lower town (460 ft.) contains glass-works; the paper and iron industries (the former as old as 1377) are less important.
COLLEGE (Collegium), in Roman law, a number of persons associated together by the possession of common functions,—a body of colleagues. Its later meaning applied to any union of persons, and collegium was the equivalent of ἑταιρεία. In many respects, e.g. in the distinction between the responsibilities and rights of the society and those of individual members thereof, the collegium was what we should now call a corporation (q.v.). Collegia might exist for purposes of trade like the English gilds, or for religious purposes (e.g. the college of augurs, of pontifices, &c.), or for political purposes, e.g. tribunorum plebis collegia. By the Roman law a collegium must have at least three members. The name is now usually applied to educational corporations, such as the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, with which, in the numerous English statutes relating to colleges, the colleges of Winchester and Eton are usually associated. These colleges are in the eye of the law eleemosynary corporations. In some of the earlier statutes of Queen Elizabeth they are spoken of as having an ecclesiastical character, but the doctrine of the common law since the Reformation has been that they are purely lay corporations, notwithstanding that most or all of their members may be persons in priest’s orders. This is said to have been settled by Dr Patrick’s case (Raymond’s Reports, p. 101).