DUBOS, JEAN-BAPTISTE (1670-1742), French author, was born at Beauvais in December 1670. After studying for the church, he renounced theology for the study of public law and politics. He was employed by M. de Torcy, minister of foreign affairs, and by the regent and Cardinal Dubois in several secret missions, in which he acquitted himself with great success. He was rewarded with a pension and several benefices. Having obtained these, he retired from political life, and devoted himself to history and literature. He gained such distinction as an author that in 1720 he was elected a member of the French Academy, of which, in 1723, he was appointed perpetual secretary in the room of M. Dacier. He died at Paris on the 23rd of March 1742, repeating as he expired the well-known remark of an ancient, “Death is a law, not a punishment.” His first work was L’Histoire des quatre Gordiens prouvée et illustrée par des médailles (Paris, 1695, 12mo), which, in spite of its ingenuity, did not succeed in altering the common opinion, which only admits three emperors of this name. About the commencement of the war of 1701, being charged with different negotiations both in Holland and in England, with the design to engage these powers if possible to adopt a pacific line of policy, he, in order to promote the objects of his mission, published a work entitled Les Intérêts de l’Angleterre mal entendus dans la guerre présente (Amsterdam, 1703, 12mo). But as this work contained indiscreet disclosures, of which the enemy took advantage, and predictions which were not fulfilled, a wag took occasion to remark that the title ought to be read thus: Les Intérêts de l’Angleterre mal entendus par l’abbé Dubos. It is remarkable as containing a distinct prophecy of the revolt of the American colonies from Great Britain. His next work was L’Histoire de la Ligue de Cambray (Paris, 1709, 1728 and 1785, 2 vols. 12mo), a full, clear and interesting history, which obtained the commendation of Voltaire. In 1734 he published his Histoire critique de l’établissement de la monarchie française dans les Gaules (3 vols. 4to)—a work the object of which was to prove that the Franks had entered Gaul, not as conquerors, but at the request of the nation, which, according to him, had called them in to govern it. But this system, though unfolded with a degree of skill and ability which at first procured it many zealous partisans, was victoriously refuted by Montesquieu at the end of the thirtieth book of the Esprit des lois. His Réflexions critiques sur la poésie et sur la peinture, published for the first time in 1719 (2 vols. 12mo), but often reprinted in three volumes, constitute one of the works in which the theory of the arts is explained with the utmost sagacity and discrimination. Like his history of the League of Cambray, it was highly praised by Voltaire. The work was rendered more remarkable by the fact that its author had no practical acquaintance with any one of the arts whose principles he discussed. Besides the works above enumerated, a manifesto of Maximilian, elector of Bavaria, against the emperor Leopold, relative to the succession in Spain, has been attributed to Dubos, chiefly, it appears, from the excellence of the style.
DUBUQUE, a city and the county-seat of Dubuque county, Iowa, U.S.A., on the Mississippi river, opposite the boundary line between Wisconsin and Illinois. Pop. (1890) 30,311; (1900) 36,297; (1905, state census) 41,941 (including 6835 foreign-born, the majority of whom were German and Irish); (1910 U.S. census) 38,494. Dubuque is served by the Illinois Central, the Chicago, Milwaukee & Saint Paul (which has repair shops here), the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, and the Chicago Great Western railways; it also has a considerable river traffic. The river is spanned here by a railway bridge and two wagon bridges. The business portion of the city lies on the low lands bordering the river; many of the residences are built on the slopes and summits of bluffs commanding extensive and picturesque views. Among the principal buildings are the Carnegie-Stout free public library (which in 1908 had 23,600 volumes, exclusive of the valuable Senator Allison collection of public documents), the public high school, and the house of the Dubuque Club. Dubuque is a Roman Catholic archiepiscopal see, and is the seat of St Joseph’s College (1873), a small Roman Catholic institution; of Wartburg Seminary (1854), a small Evangelical Lutheran theological school; of the German Presbyterian Theological School of the North-west (1852); of St Joseph’s Ladies’ Academy; and of Bayless Business College. Fifteen miles from Dubuque is a monastery of Trappist monks. Among the city’s charitable institutions are the Finley and the Mercy hospitals, a home for the friendless, a rescue home, a House of the Good Shepherd, and an insane asylum. In 1900 Dubuque ranked fourth and in 1905 fifth among the cities of the state as a manufacturing centre, the chief products being those of the planing mills and machine shops, and furniture, sashes and doors, liquors, carriages, wagons, coffins, clothing, boots and shoes, river steam boats, barges, torpedo boats, &c., and the value of the factory product being $9,279,414 in 1905 and $9,651,247 in 1900. The city lies in a region of lead and zinc mines, quantities of zinc ore in the form of black-jack being taken from the latter. Dubuque is important as a distributing centre for lumber, hardware, groceries and dry-goods.
As early as 1788 Julien Dubuque (1765-1810), attracted by the lead deposits in the vicinity, which were then being crudely worked by the Sauk and Fox Indians, settled here and carried on the mining industry until his death. In June 1829 miners from Galena, Illinois, attempted to make a settlement here in direct violation of Indian treaties, but were driven away by United States troops under orders from Colonel Zachary Taylor. Immediately after the Black Hawk War, white settlers began coming to the mines. Dubuque was laid out under an act of Congress approved on the 2nd of July 1836, and was incorporated in 1841.
DU CAMP, MAXIME (1822-1894), French writer, the son of a successful surgeon, was born in Paris on the 8th of February 1822. He had a strong taste for travel, which his father’s means enabled him to indulge as soon as his college days were over. Between 1844 and 1845, and again, in company with Gustave Flaubert, between 1849 and 1851, he travelled in Europe and the East, and made excellent use of his experiences in books published after his return. In 1851 he was one of the founders of the Revue de Paris (suppressed in 1858), and was a frequent contributor to the Revue des deux mondes. In 1853 he was made an officer of the Legion of Honour. He served as a volunteer with Garibaldi in 1860, and gave an account of his experiences in his Expédition des deux Siciles (1861). In 1870 he was nominated for the senate, but his election was frustrated by the downfall of the Empire. He was elected a member of the French Academy in 1880, mainly, it is said, on account of his history of the Commune, published under the title of Les Convulsions de Paris (1878-1880). His writings include among others the Chants modernes (1855), Convictions (1858); numerous works on travel, Souvenirs et paysages d’orient (1848), Égypte, Nubie, Palestine, Syrie (1852); works of art criticism, Les Salons de 1857, 1859, 1861; novels, L’Homme au bracelet d’or (1862), Une Histoire d’amour (1889); literary studies, Théophile Gautier (1890). Du Camp was the author of a valuable book on the daily life of Paris, Paris, ses organes, ses fonctions, sa vie dans la seconde moitié du XIXe siècle (1869-1875). He published several works on social questions, one of which, the Mœurs de mon temps, was to be kept sealed in the Bibliothèque Nationale until 1910. His Souvenirs littéraires (2 vols., 1882-1883) contain much information about contemporary writers, especially Gustave Flaubert, of whom Du Camp was an early and intimate friend. He died on the 9th of February 1894. Du Camp was one of the earliest amateur photographers, and his books of travel were among the first to be illustrated by means of what was then a new art.
DU CANGE, CHARLES DU FRESNE, Sieur (1610-1688), one of the lay members of the great 17th century group of French critics and scholars who laid the foundations of modern historical criticism, was born at Amiens on the 18th of December 1610. At an early age his father sent him to the Jesuits’ college at Amiens, where he greatly distinguished himself. Having completed the usual course at this seminary, he applied himself to the study of law at Orleans, and afterwards went to Paris, where in 1631 he was received as an advocate before the parliament. Meeting with very slight success in his profession, he returned to his native city, and in July 1638 married Catherine Dubois, daughter of a royal official, the treasurer in Amiens; and in 1647 he purchased the office of treasurer from his father-in-law, but its duties did not interfere with the literary and historical work to which he had devoted himself since returning to Amiens. Forced to leave his native city in 1668 in consequence of a plague, he settled in Paris, where he resided until his death on the 23rd of October 1688. In the archives of Paris Du Cange was able to consult charters, diplomas, manuscripts and a multitude of printed documents, which were not to be met with elsewhere. His industry was exemplary and unremitting, and the number of his literary works would be incredible, if the originals, all in his own handwriting, were not still extant. He was distinguished above nearly all the writers of his time by his linguistic acquirements, his accurate and varied knowledge, and his critical sagacity. Of his numerous works the most important are the Glossarium ad scriptores mediae et infimae latinitatis (Paris, 1678), and the Glossarium ad scriptores mediae et infimae graecitatis (Lyons, 1688), which are indispensable aids to the student of the history and literature of the middle ages. To the three original volumes of the Latin Glossarium, three supplementary volumes were added by the Benedictines of St Maur (Paris, 1733-1736), and a further addition of four volumes (Paris, 1766), by a Benedictine, Pierre Carpentier (1697-1767). There were other editions, and an abridgment with some corrections was brought out by J.C. Adelung (Halle, 1772-1784). The edition in seven volumes edited by G.A.L. Henschel (Paris, 1840-1850) includes these supplements and also further additions by the editor, and this has been improved and published in ten volumes by Léopold Favre (Niort, 1883-1887). An edition of the Greek Glossarium was published at Breslau in 1889.
Du Cange took considerable interest in the history of the later empire, and wrote Historia Byzantina duplici commentario illustrato (Paris, 1680), and an introduction to his edition and translation into modern French of Geoffrey de Villehardouin’s Histoire de l’empire de Constantinople sous les empereurs français (Paris, 1657). He also brought out editions of the Byzantine historians, John Cinnamus and John Zonaras, as Joannis Cinnami historiarum de rebus gestis a Joanne et Manuele Comnenis (Paris, 1670) and Joannis Zonarae Annales ab exordio mundi ad mortem Alexii Comneni (Paris, 1686). He edited Jean de Joinville’s Histoire de St Louis, roi de France (Paris, 1668), and his other works which may be mentioned are Traité historique du chef de St Jean Baptiste (Paris, 1666); Lettre du Sieur N., conseiller du roi (Paris, 1682); Cyrilli, Philoxeni, aliorumque veterum glossaria, and Mémoire sur le projet d’un nouveau recueil des historiens de France, avec le plan général de ce recueil, which has been inserted by Jacques Lelong in his Bibliothèque historique de la France (Paris, 1768-1778). His last work, Chronicon Paschale a mundo condito ad Heraclii imperatoris annum vigesimum (Paris, 1689), was passing through the press when Du Cange died, and consequently it was edited by Étienne Baluze, and published with an éloge of the author prefixed.
His autograph manuscripts and his large and valuable library passed to his eldest son, Philippe du Fresne, who died unmarried in 1692. They then came to his second son, François du Fresne, who sold the collection, the greater part of the manuscripts being purchased by the abbé du Champs. The abbé handed them over to a bookseller named Mariette, who resold part of them to Baron Hohendorf. The remaining part was acquired by a member of the family of Hozier, the French genealogists. The French government, however, aware of the importance of all the writings of Du Cange, succeeded, after much trouble, in collecting the greater portion of the manuscripts, which were preserved in the imperial library at Paris. Some of these were subsequently published, and the manuscripts are now found in various libraries. The works of Du Cange published after his death are: an edition of the Byzantine historian, Nicephorus Gregoras (Paris, 1702); De imperatorum Constantinopolitanorum seu inferioris aevi vel imperii uti vocant numismatibus dissertatio (Rome, 1755); Histoire de l’état de la ville d’Amiens et de ses comtes (Amiens, 1840); and a valuable work Des principautés d’outre-mer, published by E.G. Rey as Les Familles d’outre-mer (Paris, 1869).