With the exception of Charles V. the Habsburgs have produced no statesmen of great ability, while several members of the family have displayed marked traces of insanity. Nevertheless they secured, and for over 350 years they kept, the first place among the potentates of Europe; a dignity in origin and theory elective becoming in practice hereditary in their house. This position they owe to some extent to the tenacity with which they have clung to the various lands and dignities which have passed into their possession, but they owe it much more to a series of fortunate marriages and opportune deaths. The union of Maximilian and Mary of Burgundy, of Philip the Handsome and Joanna of Spain, of Ferdinand and Anna of Hungary and Bohemia; the death of Ottakar of Bohemia, of John, the only son of Ferdinand and Isabella of Spain, of Louis of Hungary and Bohemia—these are the corner-stones upon which the Habsburg monarchy has been built.
For the origin and early history of the Habsburgs see G. de Roo, Annales rerum ab Austriacis Habsburgicae gentis principibus a Rudolpho I. usque ad Carolum V. gestarum (Innsbruck, 1592, fol.); M. Herrgott, Genealogia diplomatica augustae gentis Habsburgicae (Vienna, 1737-1738); E. M. Fürst von Lichnowsky, Geschichte des Hauses Habsburg (Vienna, 1836-1844); A. Schulte, Geschichte der Habsburger in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten (Innsbruck, 1887); T. von Liebenau, Die Anfänge des Hauses Habsburg (Vienna, 1883); W. Merz, Die Habsburg (Aarau, 1896); W. Gisi, Der Ursprung der Häuser Zähringen und Habsburg (1888); and F. Weihrich, Stammtafel zur Geschichte des Hauses Habsburg (Vienna, 1893). For the history of the Habsburg monarchy see Langl, Die Habsburg und die denkwürdigen Stätten ihrer Umgebung (Vienna, 1895); and E. A. Freeman, Historical Geography of Europe (1881). Two English books on the subject are J. Gilbart-Smith, The Cradle of the Hapsburgs (1907); and A. R. and E. Colquhoun, The Whirlpool of Europe, Austria-Hungary and the Hapsburgs (1906).
(A. W. H.*)
HACHETTE, JEAN NICOLAS PIERRE (1769-1834), French mathematician, was born at Mézières, where his father was a bookseller, on the 6th of May 1769. For his early education he proceeded first to the college of Charleville, and afterwards to that of Reims. In 1788 he returned to Mézières, where he was attached to the school of engineering as draughtsman to the professors of physics and chemistry. In 1793 he became professor of hydrography at Collioure and Port-Vendre. While there he sent several papers, in which some questions of navigation were treated geometrically, to Gaspard Monge, at that time minister of marine, through whose influence he obtained an appointment in Paris. Towards the close of 1794, when the École Polytechnique was established, he was appointed along with Monge over the department of descriptive geometry. There he instructed some of the ablest Frenchmen of the day, among them S. D. Poisson, F. Arago and A. Fresnel. Accompanying Guyton de Morveau in his expedition, earlier in the year, he was present at the battle of Fleurus, and entered Brussels with the French army. In 1816, on the accession of Louis XVIII., he was expelled from his chair by government. He retained, however, till his death the office of professor in the faculty of sciences in the École Normale, to which he had been appointed in 1810. The necessary royal assent was in 1823 refused to the election of Hachette to the Académie des Sciences, and it was not till 1831, after the Revolution, that he obtained that honour. He died at Paris on the 16th of January 1834. Hachette was held in high esteem for his private worth, as well as for his scientific attainments and great public services. His labours were chiefly in the field of descriptive geometry, with its application to the arts and mechanical engineering. It was left to him to develop the geometry of Monge, and to him also is due in great measure the rapid advancement which France made soon after the establishment of the École Polytechnique in the construction of machinery.
Hachette’s principal works are his Deux Supplements à la Géométrie descriptive de Monge (1811 and 1818); Éléments de géométrie à trois dimensions (1817); Collection des épures de géométrie, &c. (1795 and 1817); Applications de géométrie descriptive (1817); Traité de géométrie descriptive, &c. (1822); Traité élémentaire des machines (1811); Correspondance sur l’École Polytechnique (1804-1815). He also contributed many valuable papers to the leading scientific journals of his time.
For a list of Hachette’s writings see the Catalogue of Scientific Papers of the Royal Society of London; also F. Arago, Œuvres (1855); and Silvestre, Notice sur J. N. P. Hachette (Bruxelles, 1836).
HACHETTE, JEANNE, French heroine. Jeanne Lainé, or Fourquet, called Jeanne Hachette, was born about 1454. We have no precise information about her family or origin. She is known solely for her act of heroism which on the 27th of June 1472 saved Beauvais when it was on the point of being taken by the troops of Charles the Bold, duke of Burgundy. The town was defended by only 300 men-at-arms, commanded by Louis de Balagny. The Burgundians were making an assault, and one of their number had actually planted a flag upon the battlements, when Jeanne, axe in hand, flung herself upon him, hurled him into the moat, tore down the flag, and revived the drooping courage of the garrison. In gratitude for this heroic deed, Louis XI. instituted a procession in Beauvais called the Procession of the Assault, and married Jeanne to her chosen lover Colin Pilon, loading them with favours.
See Georges Vallat, Jeanne Hachette (Abbeville, 1898).