CRAUFURD, QUINTIN (1743-1819), British author, was born at Kilwinnock on the 22nd of September 1743. In early life he went to India, where he entered the service of the East India Company. Returning to Europe before the age of forty with a handsome fortune, he settled in Paris, where he gave himself to the cultivation of literature and art, and formed a good library and collection of paintings, coins and other objects of antiquarian interest. Craufurd was on intimate terms with the French court, especially with Marie Antoinette, and was one of those who arranged the flight to Varennes. He escaped to Brussels, but in 1792 he returned to Paris in the hope of rescuing the royal prisoners. He lived among the French émigrés until the peace of Amiens made it possible to return to Paris. Through Talleyrand’s influence he was able to remain in Paris after the war was renewed, and he died there on the 23rd of November 1819.
He wrote, among other works, The History, Religion, Learning and Manners of the Hindus (1790), Secret History of the King of France and his Escape from Paris (first published in 1885), Researches concerning the Laws, Theology, Learning and Commerce of Ancient and Modern India (1817), History of the Bastille (1798), On Pericles and the Arts in Greece (1815), Essay on Swift and his Influence on the British Government (1808), Notice sur Marie Antoinette (1809), Mémoires de Mme du Hausset (1808).
CRAUFURD, ROBERT (1764-1812), British major-general, was born at Newark, Ayrshire, on the 5th of May 1764, and entered the 25th Foot in 1779. As captain in the 75th regiment he first saw active service against Tippoo Sahib in 1790-92. The next year he was employed, under his brother Charles, with the Austrian armies operating against the French. Returning to England in 1797, he soon saw further service, as a lieutenant-colonel, on Lake’s staff in the Irish rebellion. A year later he was British commissioner on Suvarov’s staff when the Russians invaded Switzerland, and at the end of 1799 was in the Helder expedition. From 1801 to 1805 Lieutenant-Colonel Craufurd sat in parliament for East Retford, but in 1807 he resumed active service with Whitelock in the unfortunate Buenos Aires expedition. He was almost the only one of the senior officers who added to his reputation in this affair, and in 1808 he received a brigade command under Sir John Moore. His regiments were heavily engaged in the earlier part of the famous retreat, but were not present at Corunna, having been detached to Vigo, whence they returned to England. Later in 1809, once more in the Peninsula, Brigadier-General Craufurd was three marches or more in rear of Wellesley’s army when a report came in that a great battle was in progress. The march which followed is one almost unparalleled in military annals. The three battalions of the “Light Brigade” (43rd, 52nd and 95th) started in full marching order, and arrived at the front on the day after the battle of Talavera, having covered 62 m. in twenty-six hours. Beginning their career with this famous march, these regiments and their chief, under whom served such men as Charles and William Napier, Shaw and Colborne, soon became celebrated as one of the best corps of troops in Europe, and every engagement added to their laurels. Craufurd’s operations on the Coa and Agueda in 1810 were daring to the point of rashness, but he knew the quality of the men he led better than his critics did, and though Wellington censured him for his conduct, he at the same time increased his force to a division by the addition of two picked regiments of Portuguese Caçadores. The conduct of the renowned “Light Division” at Busaco is described by Napier in one of his most vivid passages. The winter of 1810-1811 Craufurd spent in England, and his division was commanded in the interim by another officer, who did not display much ability. He reappeared on the field of the battle of Fuentes d’Onoro amidst the cheers of his men, and nothing could show his genius for war better than his conduct on this day, in covering the strange readjustment of his line which Wellington was compelled to make in the face of the enemy. A little later he obtained major-general’s rank; and on the 19th of January 1812, as he stood on the glacis of Ciudad Rodrigo, directing the stormers of the Light Division, he fell mortally wounded. His body was carried out of action by his staff officer, Lieutenant Shaw of the 43rd (see [Shaw Kennedy]), and, after lingering four days, he died. He was buried in the breach of the fortress where he had met his death, and a monument in St Paul’s cathedral commemorates Craufurd and Mackinnon, the two generals killed at the storming of Ciudad Rodrigo. The exploits of Craufurd and the Light Division are amongst the most cherished traditions of the British and Portuguese armies. One of the quickest and most brilliant, if not the very first, of Wellington’s generals, he had a fiery temper, which rendered him a difficult man to deal with, but to the day of his death he possessed the confidence and affection of his men in an extraordinary degree.
His elder brother, Lieutenant-General Sir Charles Craufurd (1761-1821), entered the 1st Dragoon Guards in 1778. Made captain in the Queen’s Bays in 1785, he became the equerry and intimate friend of the duke of York. He studied in Germany for some time, and, with his brother Robert’s assistance, translated Tielcke’s book on the Seven Years’ War (The Remarkable Events of the War between Prussia, Austria and Russia from 1756 to 1763). As aide-de-camp he accompanied the duke of York to the French War in 1793, and was at once sent as commissioner to the Austrian headquarters, with which he was present at Neerwinden, Caesar’s Camp, Famars, Landrecies, &c. Major in 1793, and lieutenant-colonel in 1794, he returned to the English army in the latter year, and on one occasion distinguished himself at the head of two squadrons, taking 3 guns and 1000 prisoners. When the British army left the continent Craufurd was again attached to the Austrian army, and was present at the actions on the Lahn, the combat of Neumarkt, and the battle of Amberg. At the last battle a severe wound rendered him incapable of further service, and cut short a promising career. He succeeded his brother Robert as member of parliament for East Retford (1806-1812). He died in 1821, having become a lieutenant-general and a G.C.B.
CRAVAT (from the Fr. cravate, a corruption of “Croat”), the name given by the French in the reign of Louis XIV. to the scarf worn by the Croatian soldiers enlisted in the royal Croatian regiment. Made of linen or muslin with broad edges of lace, it became fashionable, and the name was applied both in England and France to various forms of neckerchief worn at different times, from the loosely tied lace cravat with long flowing ends, called a “Steinkirk” from the battle of 1692 of that name, to the elaborately folded and lightly starched linen or cambric neckcloth worn during the period of Beau Brummell.
CRAVEN, PAULINE MARIE ARMANDE AGLAÉ (1808-1891), French author, the daughter of an émigré Breton nobleman, was born in London on the 12th of April 1808. Her father, the comte Auguste de la Ferronays, was a close friend of the duc de Berri, whom he accompanied on his return to France in 1814. He and his wife were attached to the court of Charles X. at the Tuileries, but a momentary quarrel with the duc de Berri made retirement imperative to the count’s sense of honour. He was appointed ambassador at St Petersburg, and in 1827 became foreign minister in Paris. Pauline was thus brought up in brilliant surroundings, but her strongest impressions were those which she derived from the group of Catholic thinkers gathered round Lamennais, and her ardent piety furnishes the key of her life. In 1828 her father was sent to Rome, and Pauline, at the suggestion of Alexis Rio, the art critic, made her first literary essay with a description of the emotions she experienced on a visit to the catacombs. At the revolution of July, M. de la Ferronays resigned his position, and retired with his family to Naples. Here Pauline met her future husband, Augustus Craven, who was then attaché to the British embassy. His father, Keppel Richard Craven, the well-known supporter of Queen Caroline, objected to his son’s marriage with a Catholic; but his scruples were overcome, and immediately after the marriage (1834) Augustus Craven was received into the Roman Catholic Church. Mrs Craven, whose family life as revealed in the Récit d’une sœur was especially tender and intimate, suffered several severe bereavements in the years following on her marriage. The Cravens lived abroad until 1851, when the death of Keppel Craven made his son practically independent of his diplomatic career, in which he had not been conspicuously successful. He stood unsuccessfully for election to parliament for Dublin in 1852, and from that time retired into private life. They went to live at Naples in 1853, and Mrs Craven began to write the history of the family life of the la Ferronays between 1830 and 1836, its incidents being grouped round the love story of her brother Albert and his wife Alexandrine. This book, the Récit d’une sœur (1866, Eng. trans. 1868), was enthusiastically received and was awarded a prize by the French Academy. Straitened circumstances made it desirable for Mrs Craven to earn money by her pen. Anne Sévérin appeared in 1868, Fleurange in 1871, Le Mot d’énigme in 1874, Le Valbriant (Eng. trans., Lucia) in 1886. Among her miscellaneous works may be mentioned La Sœur Natalie Narischkin (1876), Deux Incidents de la question catholique en Angleterre (1875), Lady Georgiana Fullerton, sa vie et ses œuvres (1888). Mrs Craven’s charming personality won her many friends. She was a frequent guest with Lord Palmerston, Lord Ellesmere and Lord Granville. She died in Paris on the 1st of April 1891. Her husband, who died in 1884, translated the correspondence of Lord Palmerston and of the Prince Consort into French.