DUFOUR, WILHELM HEINRICH [Guillaume Henri] (1787-1875), Swiss general, was born at Constance of Genevese parents temporarily in exile, on the 15th of September 1787. In 1807 he went to the École Polytechnique at Paris, Switzerland being then under French rule, taking the 140th place only in his entrance examination. By two years’ close study he so greatly improved his position that he was ranked fifth in the exit examination. Immediately on leaving the school he received a commission in the engineers, and was sent to serve in Corfu, which was blockaded by the English. During the Hundred Days he attained the rank of captain, and was employed in raising fortifications at Grenoble. After the peace that followed Waterloo he resumed his status as a Swiss citizen, and devoted himself to the military service of his native land. From 1819 to 1830 he was chief instructor in the military school of Thun, which had been founded mainly through his instrumentality. Among other distinguished foreign pupils he instructed Louis Napoleon, afterwards emperor of the French. In 1827 he was raised to the rank of colonel, and commanded the Federal army in a series of field manœuvres. In 1831 he became chief of the staff, and soon afterwards he was appointed quartermaster-general. Two years later the diet commissioned him to superintend the execution of a complete trigonometrical survey of Switzerland. He had already made a cadastral survey of the canton of Geneva, and published a map of the canton on the scale of 1⁄25000. The larger work occupied thirty-two years, and was accomplished with complete success. The map in 25 sheets on the scale of 1⁄100000 was published at intervals between 1842 and 1865, and is an admirable specimen of cartography. In recognition of the ability with which Dufour had carried out his task, the Federal Council in 1868 ordered the highest peak of Monte Rosa to be named Dufour Spitze. In 1847 Dufour was made general of the Federal Army, which was employed in reducing the revolted Catholic cantons. The quickness and thoroughness with which he performed the painful task, and the wise moderation with which he treated his vanquished fellow-countrymen, were acknowledged by a gift of 60,000 francs from the diet and various honours from different cities and cantons of the confederation. In politics he belonged to the moderate conservative party, and he consequently lost a good deal of his popularity in 1848. In 1864 he presided over the international conference which framed the Geneva Convention as to the treatment of the wounded in time of war, &c. He died on the 14th of July 1875. His De la fortification permanente (1850) is an important and original contribution to the science of fortification, and he was also the author of a Mémoire sur l’artillerie des anciens et sur celle du moyen âge (1840), Manuel de tactique pour les officiers de toutes armes (1842), and various other works in military science. His memoir, La Campagne du Sonderbund (Paris, 1876), is prefaced by a biographical notice. An equestrian statue of General Dufour was erected after his death at Geneva by national subscription.
DUFRÉNOY, OURS PIERRE ARMAND PETIT (1792-1857), French geologist and mineralogist, was born at Sevran, in the department of Seine-et-Oise, in France, on the 5th of September 1792. After leaving the Imperial Lyceum, in 1811, he studied till 1813 at the École Polytechnique, and then entered the Corps des Mines. He subsequently assisted in the management of the École des Mines, of which he was professor of mineralogy and afterwards director. He was also professor of geology at the École des Ponts et Chaussés. In conjunction with Élie de Beaumont he in 1841 published a great geological map of France, the result of investigations carried on during thirteen years (1823-1836). Five years (1836-1841) were spent in writing the text to accompany the map, the publication of the work with two quarto vols. of text extending from 1841-1848; a third volume was issued in 1873. The two authors had already together published Voyage métallurgique en Angleterre (1827, 2nd ed. 1837-1839), Mémoires pour servir à une description géologique de la France, in four vols. (1830-1838), and a Mémoire on Cantal and Mont-Dore (1833). Other literary productions of Dufrénoy are an account of the iron mines of the eastern Pyrenees (1834), and a treatise on mineralogy (3 vols. and atlas, 1844-1845; 2nd ed., 4 vols. and atlas, 1856-1859), in which the geological relations as well as the physical and chemical properties of minerals were dealt with; he likewise contributed numerous papers to the Annales des mines and other scientific publications, one of the most interesting of which is entitled Des terrains volcaniques des environs de Naples. Dufrénoy was a member of the Academy of Sciences, a commander of the Legion of Honour, and an inspector-general of mines. He died in Paris on the 20th of March 1857.
DUFRESNY, CHARLES, Sieur de la Rivière (1648-1724), French dramatist, was born in Paris in 1648. The allegation that his grandfather was an illegitimate son of Henry IV. procured him the liberal patronage of Louis XIV., who gave him the post of valet de chambre, and affixed his name to many lucrative privileges. Dufresny’s expensive habits neutralized all efforts to enrich him, and as if to furnish a piquant commentary on the proverb that poverty makes us acquainted with strange bedfellows, he married, as his second wife, a washerwoman, in discharge of her bill—a whimsicality which supplied Le Sage with an episode in the Diable boiteux, and was made the subject of a comedy by J.M. Deschamps (Charles Rivière Dufresny, ou le mariage impromptu). He died in Paris on the 6th of October 1724. His plays, destitute for the most part of all higher qualities, abound in sprightly wit and pithy sayings. In the six volumes of his Théâtre (Paris, 1731), some of the best are L’Esprit de contradiction (1700), Le Double Veuvage (1701), La Joueuse (1709), La Coquette de village (1715), La Réconciliation normande (1719) and Le Mariage fait et rompu (1721). A volume of Poésies diverses, two volumes of Nouvelles historiques (1692), and Les Amusements sérieux et comiques d’un Siamois (1705), a work to which Montesquieu was indebted for the idea of his Lettres persanes, complete the list of Dufresny’s writings. The best edition of his works is that of 1747 (4 vols.). His Théâtre was edited (1882) by Georges d’Heylli.
DUGAZON [Jean Henri Gourgaud] (1746-1809), French actor, was born in Marseilles on the 15th of November 1746, the son of the director of military hospitals there. He began his career in the provinces, making his début in 1770 at the Comédie Française, where he aspired to leading comedy roles. He pleased the public at once and was made sociétaire in 1772. Dugazon was an ardent revolutionist, helped the schism which divided the company, and went with Talma and the others to what became the Théâtre de la République. After the closing of this theatre, and the dissolution of the Comédie Française, he took refuge at the Théâtre Feydeau until (1799) he returned to the restored Comédie. He retired in 1807, and died insane at Sandillon in 1809. Dugazon wrote three mediocre comedies of a political character, performed at the Théâtre de la République. He married, in 1776, Louis Rose Lefèvre, but was soon divorced and then married again. The first Madame Dugazon (1755-1821), the daughter of a Berlin dancing master, was a charming actress. Her first appearance on the stage was made at the age of twelve as a dancer. It was as an actress “with songs” that she made her début at the Comédie Italienne in 1774 in Grétry’s Sylvain. She was at once admitted pensionnaire and in 1776 sociétaire. Madame Dugazon delighted all Paris, and nightly crowded the Comédie Italienne for more than twenty years. The two kinds of parts with which she was especially identified—young mothers and women past their first youth—are still called “dugazons” and “mères dugazons.” Examples of the first are Jenny in La Dame blanche and Berthe de Simiane in Les Mousquetaires de la reine; of the second, Marguerite in Le Pré aux clercs and the queen in La Part du diable.
Dugazon’s sister, Marie Rose Gourgaud (1743-1804), was an actress who first played at Stuttgart, where she married Angelo, brother of Gaétano Vestris, the dancer. Under the protection of the dukes of Choiseul and Duras, she was commanded to make her début at the Comédie Française in 1768, where she created important parts in a number of tragedies.
DUGDALE, SIR WILLIAM (1605-1686), English antiquary, was born at Shustoke, near Coleshill, in Warwickshire, on the 12th of September 1605, the son of a country gentleman of an old Lancashire stock; he was educated at Coventry. To please his father, who was old and infirm, he married at seventeen. He lived with his wife’s family until his father’s death in 1624, when he went to live at Fillongley, near Shustoke, an estate formerly purchased for him by his father. In 1625 he purchased the manor of Blythe, Shustoke, and removed thither in 1626. He had early shown an inclination for antiquarian studies, and in 1635, meeting Sir Symon Archer (1581-1662), himself a learned antiquary, who was then employed in collecting materials for a history of Warwickshire, he accompanied him to London. There he made the acquaintance of Sir Christopher (afterwards Lord) Hatton, comptroller of the household, and Thomas, earl of Arundel, then earl marshal of England. In 1638 Dugdale was created a pursuivant of arms extraordinary by the name of Blanch Lyon, and in 1639 rouge croix pursuivant in ordinary. He now had a lodging in the Heralds’ Office, and spent much of his time in London examining the records in the Tower and the Cottonian and other collections of MSS. In 1641 Sir Christopher Hatton, foreseeing the war and dreading the ruin and spoliation of the Church, commissioned him to make exact drafts of all the monuments in Westminster Abbey and the principal churches in England, including Peterborough, Ely, Norwich, Lincoln. Newark, Beverley, Southwell, Kingston-upon-Hull, York, Selby, Chester, Lichfield, Tamworth and Warwick. In June 1642 he was summoned to attend the king at York. When war broke out Charles deputed him to summon to surrender the castles of Banbury and Warwick, and other strongholds which were being rapidly filled with ammunition and rebels. He went with Charles to Oxford, remaining there till its surrender in 1646. He witnessed the battle of Edgehill, where he made afterwards an exact survey of the field, noting how the armies were drawn up, and where and in what direction the various movements took place, and marking the graves of the slain. In November 1642 he was admitted M.A. of the university, and in 1644 the king created him Chester herald. During his leisure at Oxford he collected material at the Bodleian and college libraries for his books. In 1646 Dugdale returned to London and compounded for his estates, which had been sequestrated, by a payment of £168. After a visit to France in 1648 he continued his antiquarian researches in London, collaborating with Richard Dodsworth in his Monasticon Anglicanum, which was published successively in single volumes in 1655, 1664 and 1673. At the Restoration he obtained the office of Norroy king-at-arms, and in 1677 was created garter principal king-at-arms, and was knighted. He died “in his chair” at Blythe Hall on the 10th of February 1686.