CREUSE, a department of central France, comprising the greater portion of the old province of Marche, together with portions of Berry, Bourbonnais, Auvergne, Limousin and Poitou. Area, 2164 sq. m. Pop. (1906) 274,094. It lies on the north-western border of the central plateau and is bounded N. by the departments of Indre and Cher, E. by Allier and Puy-de-Dôme, S. by Corrèze and W. by Haute-Vienne. The surface is hilly, with a general inclination north-westward in the direction of the valley of the Creuse, sloping from the mountains of Auvergne and Limousin, branches of which project into the south of the department. The chief of these starts from the Plateau de Gentioux, and under the name of the Mountains of Marche extends along the left bank of the Creuse. The highest point is in the forest of Châteauvert (3050 ft.) in the extreme south-east of the department. Rivers, streams and lakes are numerous, but none are navigable; the principal is the Creuse, which rises on the north side of the mass of Mount Odouze on the border of the department of Corrèze, and passes through the department, dividing it into two nearly equal portions, receiving the Petite Creuse from the right, and afterwards flowing on to join the Vienne. The valleys of the head-streams of the Cher and of its tributary the Tardes, which near Évaux passes under a fine viaduct 300 ft. in height, occupy the eastern side; those of the heads of the Vienne and its tributary the Thaurion, and of the Gartempe joining the Creuse, are in the west of the department. The climate is in general cold, moist and variable; the rigorous winter covers the higher cantons with snow; rain is abundant in spring, and storms are frequent in summer, but the autumn is fine. Except in the valleys the soil is poor and infertile, and agriculture is also handicapped by the dearness of labour, due to the annual emigration of from 15,000 to 20,000 of the inhabitants to other parts of France, where they serve as stonemasons, &c. The produce of cereals, chiefly rye, wheat, oats and buckwheat, is not sufficient for home consumption. The chestnut abounds in the north and west; hemp and potatoes are also grown. Cattle-rearing and sheep-breeding are the chief industries of the department, which supplies Poitou and Vendée with draught oxen. Coal is mined to some extent, chiefly in the basin of Ahun. There are thermal springs at Évaux in the east of the department, where remains of Roman baths are preserved. The chief industrial establishments are the manufactories of carpets and hangings and the dyeworks of Aubusson and Felletin. Saw-mills and the manufacture of wooden shoes and hats have some importance. Exports include carpets, coal, live-stock and hats; imports comprise raw materials for the manufactures and food-supplies. The department is served by the Orléans railway company, whose line from Montluçon to Périgueux traverses it from east to west. It is divided into the four arrondissements of Guéret, the capital Aubusson, Bourganeuf, and Boussac, and further into 25 cantons and 266 communes. With Haute-Vienne, Creuse forms the diocese of Limoges, where also is its court of appeal. It forms part of the académie (educational division) of Clermont and of the region of the XII. army corps. The principal towns are Guéret and Aubusson. La Souterraine, Chambon-sur-Voueize and Bénévent-l’Abbaye possess fine churches of the 12th century. At Moutier-d’Ahun there is a church, which has survived from a Benedictine abbey. The nave of the 15th century with a fine portal, and the choir with its carved stalls of the 17th century, are of considerable interest. The small industrial town of Bourganeuf has remains of a priory, including a tower (15th century) in which Zizim, brother of the sultan Bajazet II., is said to have been imprisoned.
CREUTZ, GUSTAF FILIP, Count (1729-1785), Swedish poet, was born in Finland in 1729. After concluding his studies in Åbo he received a post in the court of chancery at Stockholm in 1751. Here he met Count Gyllenborg, with whom his name is indissolubly connected. They were closely allied with Fru Nordenflycht, and their works were published in common; to their own generation they seemed equal in fame, but posterity has given the palm of genius to Creutz. His greatest work is contained in the 1762 volume, the idyll of Atis och Camilla; the exquisite little pastoral entitled “Daphne” was published at the same time, and Gyllenborg was the first to proclaim the supremacy of his friend. In 1763 Creutz practically closed his poetical career; he went to Spain as ambassador, and after three years to Paris in the same capacity. In 1783 Gustavus III. recalled him and heaped honours upon him, but he died soon after, on the 30th of October 1785. Atis och Camilla was long the most admired poem in the Swedish language; it is written in a spirit of pastoral which is now to some degree faded, but in comparison with most of the other productions of the time it is freshness itself. Creutz introduced a melody and grace into the Swedish tongue which it lacked before, and he has been styled “the last artificer of the language.”
See Creutz och Gyllenborgs Vitterhetsarbeten (Stockholm, 1795).
CREUZER, GEORG FRIEDRICH (1771-1858), German philologist and archaeologist, was born on the 10th of March 1771, at Marburg, the son of a bookbinder. Having studied at Marburg and Jena, he for some time lived at Leipzig as a private tutor; but in 1802 he was appointed professor at Marburg, and two years later professor of philology and ancient history at Heidelberg. The latter position he held for nearly forty-five years, with the exception of a short time spent at the university of Leiden, where his health was affected by the Dutch climate. He was one of the principal founders of the Philological Seminary established at Heidelberg in 1807. The Academy of Inscriptions of Paris appointed him one of its members, and from the grand-duke of Baden he received the dignity of privy councillor. He died on the 16th of February 1858. Creuzer’s first and most famous work was his Symbolik und Mythologie der alten Völker, besonders der Griechen (1810-1812), in which he maintained that the mythology of Homer and Hesiod came from an Eastern source through the Pelasgians, and was the remains of the symbolism of an ancient revelation. This work was vigorously attacked by Hermann in his Briefen über Homer und Hesiod, and in his letter, addressed to Creuzer, Über das Wesen und die Behandlung der Mythologie; by J. H. Voss in his Antisymbolik; and by Lobek in his Aglaophamos. Of Creuzer’s other works the principal are an edition of Plotinus; a partial edition of Cicero, in preparing which he was assisted by Moser; Die historische Kunst der Griechen (1803); Epochen der griech. Literaturgeschichte (1802); Abriss der römischen Antiquitäten (1824); Zur Geschichte altrömischer Cultur am Oberrhein und Neckar (1833); Zur Gemmenkunde (1834); Das Mithreum von Neuenheim (1838); Zur Galerie der alten Dramatiker (1839); Zur Geschichte der classischen Philologie (1854).
See the autobiographical Aus dem Leben eines alten Professors (Leipzig and Darmstadt, 1848), to which was added in the year of his death Paralipomena der Lebenskizze eines alten Professors (Frankfort, 1858); also Starck, Friederich Kreuzer, sein Bildungsgang und seine bleibende Bedeutung (Heidelberg, 1875).
CREVASSE, a French word used in two senses. (1) In French Switzerland, and thence universally in high mountain regions, it designates a fissure in a glacier caused by gigantic cracks in the ice-mass, sometimes of great depth, into which climbers frequently fall through a light bridge of snow which conceals the crevasse. (2) Adopted from the French of Louisiana, it signifies locally a wide crack or breach in the bank of a canal or river, and particularly of the “levee” of the Mississippi.