His son, Sir Edward Hoby (1560-1617), enjoyed Elizabeth’s favour, and he was employed on various confidential missions. He was constable of Queenborough Castle, Kent, where he died on the 1st of March 1617. He took part in the religious controversies of the time, publishing many pamphlets against Theophilus Higgons and John Fludd or Floyd. He translated, from the French of Mathieu Coignet, Politique Discourses on Trueth and Lying (1586).
The authority for Thomas Hoby’s biography is a MS. “Booke of the Travaile and lief of me Thomas Hoby, with diverse things worth the noting.” This was edited for the Royal Historical Society by Edgar Powell in 1902. Hoby’s translation of The Courtyer was edited (1900) by Professor Walter Raleigh for the “Tudor Translations” series.
HOCHE, LAZARE (1768-1797), French general, was born of poor parents near Versailles on the 24th of June 1768. At sixteen years of age he enlisted as a private soldier in the Gardes françaises. He spent his entire leisure in earning extra pay by civil work, his object being to provide himself with books, and this love of study, which was combined with a strong sense of duty and personal courage, soon led to his promotion. When the Gardes françaises were broken up in 1789 he was a corporal, and thereafter he served in various line regiments up to the time of his receiving a commission in 1792. In the defence of Thionville in that year Hoche earned further promotion, and he served with credit in the operations of 1792-1793 on the northern frontier of France. At the battle of Neerwinden he was aide-de-camp to General le Veneur, and when Dumouriez deserted to the Austrians, Hoche, along with le Veneur and others, fell under suspicion of treason; but after being kept under arrest and unemployed for some months he took part in the defence of Dunkirk, and in the same year (1793) he was promoted successively chef de brigade, general of brigade, and general of division. In October 1793 he was provisionally appointed to command the Army of the Moselle, and within a few weeks he was in the field at the head of his army in Lorraine. His first battle was that of Kaiserslautern (28th-30th of November) against Prussians. The French were defeated, but even in the midst of the Terror the Committee of Public Safety continued Hoche in his command. Pertinacity and fiery energy in their eyes outweighed everything else, and Hoche soon showed that he possessed these qualities. On the 22nd of December he stormed the lines of Fröschweiler, and the representatives of the Convention with his army at once added the Army of the Rhine to his sphere of command. On the 26th of December the French carried by assault the famous lines of Weissenburg, and Hoche pursued his success, sweeping the enemy before him to the middle Rhine in four days. He then put his troops into winter quarters. Before the following campaign opened, he married Anne Adelaïde Dechaux at Thionville (March 11th, 1794). But ten days later he was suddenly arrested, charges of treason having been preferred by Pichegru, the displaced commander of the Army of the Rhine, and by his friends. Hoche escaped execution, however, though imprisoned in Paris until the fall of Robespierre. Shortly after his release he was appointed to command against the Vendéans (21st of August 1794). He completed the work of his predecessors in a few months by the peace of Jaunaye (15th of February 1795), but soon afterwards the war was renewed by the Royalists. Hoche showed himself equal to the crisis and inflicted a crushing blow on the Royalist cause by defeating and capturing de Sombreuil’s expedition at Quiberon and Penthièvre (16th-21st of July 1795). Thereafter, by means of mobile columns (which he kept under good discipline) he succeeded before the summer of 1796 in pacifying the whole of the west, which had for more than three years been the scene of a pitiless civil war. After this he was appointed to organize and command the troops destined for the invasion of Ireland, and he started on this enterprise in December 1796. A tempest, however, separated Hoche from the expedition, and after various adventures the whole fleet returned to Brest without having effected its purpose. Hoche was at once transferred to the Rhine frontier, where he defeated the Austrians at Neuwied (April), though operations were soon afterwards brought to an end by the Preliminaries of Leoben. Later in 1797 he was minister of war for a short period, but in this position he was surrounded by obscure political intrigues, and, finding himself the dupe of Barras and technically guilty of violating the constitution, he quickly laid down his office, returning to his command on the Rhine frontier. But his health grew rapidly worse, and he died at Wetzlar on the 19th of September 1797 of consumption. The belief was widely spread that he had been poisoned, but the suspicion seems to have been without foundation. He was buried by the side of his friend Marceau in a fort on the Rhine, amidst the mourning not only of his army but of all France.
See Privat, Notions historiques sur la vie morale, politique et militaire du général Hoche (Strassburg, 1798); Daunou, Éloge du général Hoche (1798), delivered on behalf of the Institut at Hoche’s funeral; Rousselin, Vie de Lazare Hoche, général des armées de la république française (Paris, 1798; this work was printed at the public expense and distributed to the schools); Dubroca, Éloge funèbre du général Hoche (Paris, 1800); Vie et pensées du général Hoche (Bern); Champrobert, Notice historique sur Lazare Hoche, le pacificateur de la Vendée (Paris, 1840); Dourille, Histoire de Lazare Hoche (Paris, 1844); Desprez, Lazare Hoche d’après sa correspondance (Paris, 1858; new ed., 1880); Bergounioux, Essai sur la vie de Lazare Hoche (1852); É. de Bonnechose, Lazare Hoche (1867); H. Martin, Hoche et Bonaparte (1875); Dutemple, Vie politique et militaire du général Hoche (1879); Escaude, Hoche en Irlande (1888); Cunéo d’Ornano, Hoche (1892); A. Chuquet, Hoche et la lutte pour l’Alsace (a volume of this author’s series on the campaigns of the Revolution, 1893); E. Charavaray, Le Général Hoche (1893); A. Duruy, Hoche et Marceau (1885).
HOCHHEIM, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau, situated on an elevation not far from the right bank of the Main, 3 m. above its influx into the Rhine and 3 m. E. of Mainz by the railway from Cassel to Frankfort-on-Main. Pop. (1905) 3779. It has an Evangelical and a Roman Catholic church, and carries on an extensive trade in wine, the English word “Hock,” the generic term for Rhine wine, being derived from its name. Hochheim is mentioned in the chronicles as early as the 7th century. It is also memorable as the scene of a victory gained here, on the 7th of November 1813 by the Austrians over the French.
See Schüler, Geschichte der Stadt Hochheim am Main (Hochheim, 1888).
HÖCHST, a town of Germany, in the Prussian province of Hesse-Nassau on the Main, 6 m. by rail W. of Frankfort-on-Main. Pop. (1905) 14,121. It is a busy industrial town with large dye-works and manufactures of machinery, snuff, tobacco, waxcloth, gelatine, furniture and biscuits. Brewing is carried on and there is a considerable river trade. The Roman Catholic church of St Justinus is a fine basilica originally built in the 9th century; it has been restored several times, and a Gothic choir was added in the 15th century. The town has also an Evangelical church and a synagogue, and a statue of Bismarck by Alois Mayer. Höchst belonged formerly to the electors of Mainz who had a palace here; this was destroyed in 1634 with the exception of one fine tower which still remains. In 1622 Christian, duke of Brunswick, was defeated here by Count Tilly, and in 1795 the Austrians gained a victory here over the French.