(G. W. T.)
LABIENUS, the name of a Roman family, said (without authority) to belong to the gens Atia. The most important member was Titus Labienus. In 63 B.C., at Caesar’s instigation, he prosecuted Gaius Rabirius (q.v.) for treason; in the same year, as tribune of the plebs, he carried a plebiscite which indirectly secured for Caesar the dignity of pontifex maximus (Dio Cassius xxxvii. 37). He served as a legatus throughout Caesar’s Gallic campaigns and took Caesar’s place whenever he went to Rome. His chief exploits in Gaul were the defeat of the Treviri under Indutiomarus in 54, his expedition against Lutetia (Paris) in 52, and his victory over Camulogenus and the Aedui in the same year. On the outbreak of the civil war, however, he was one of the first to desert Caesar, probably owing to an overweening sense of his own importance, not adequately recognized by Caesar. He was rapturously welcomed on the Pompeian side; but he brought no great strength with him, and his ill fortune under Pompey was as marked as his success had been under Caesar. From the defeat at Pharsalus, to which he had contributed by affecting to despise his late comrades, he fled to Corcyra, and thence to Africa. There he was able by mere force of numbers to inflict a slight check upon Caesar at Ruspina in 46. After the defeat at Thapsus he joined the younger Pompey in Spain, and was killed at Munda (March 17th, 45).
LABLACHE, LUIGI (1794-1858), Franco-Italian singer, was born at Naples on the 6th of December 1794, the son of a merchant of Marseilles who had married an Irish lady. In 1806 he entered the Conservatorio della Pieta de Turchini, where he studied music under Gentili and singing under Valesi, besides learning to play the violin and violoncello. As a boy he had a beautiful alto voice, and by the age of twenty he had developed a magnificent bass with a compass of two octaves from E♭ below to E♭ above the bass stave. After making his first appearance at Naples he went to Milan in 1817, and subsequently travelled to Turin, Venice and Vienna. His first appearances in London and Paris in 1830 led to annual engagements in both the English and French capitals. His reception at St Petersburg a few years later was no less enthusiastic. In England he took part in many provincial musical festivals, and was engaged by Queen Victoria to teach her singing. On the operatic stage he was equally successful in comic or tragic parts, and with his wonderfully powerful voice he could express either humour or pathos. Among his friends were Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti and Mercadante. He was one of the thirty-two torch-bearers chosen to surround the coffin at Beethoven’s funeral in 1827. He died at Naples on the 23rd of January 1858 and was buried at Maison Lafitte, Paris. Lablache’s Leporello in Don Giovanni was perhaps his most famous impersonation; among his principal other rôles were Dandini in Cenerentola (Rossini), Assur in Semiramide (Rossini), Geronimo in La Gazza Ladra (Rossini), Henry VIII. in Anna Bolena (Donizetti), the Doge in Marino Faliero (Donizetti), the title-rôle in Don Pasquale (Donizetti), Geronimo in Il Matrimonio Segreto (Cimarosa), Gritzenko in L’Étoile du Nord (Meyerbeer), Caliban in The Tempest (Halévy).
LABOR DAY, in the United States, a legal holiday in nearly all of the states and Territories, where the first Monday in September is observed by parades and meetings of labour organizations. In 1882 the Knights of Labor paraded in New York City on this day; in 1884 another parade was held, and it was decided that this day should be set apart for this purpose. In 1887 Colorado made the first Monday in September a legal holiday; and in 1909 Labor Day was observed as a holiday throughout the United States, except in Arizona and North Dakota; in Louisiana it is a holiday only in New Orleans (Orleans parish), and in Maryland, Wyoming and New Mexico it is not established as a holiday by statute, but in each may be proclaimed as such in any year by the governor.
LA BOURBOULE, a watering-place of central France, in the department of Puy-de-Dôme, 4½ m. W. by N. of Mont-Dore by road. Pop. (1906) 1401. La Bourboule is situated on the right bank of the Dordogne at a height of 2790 ft. Its waters, of which arsenic is the characteristic constituent, are used in cases of diseases of the skin and respiratory organs, rheumatism, neuralgia, &c. Though known to the Romans they were not in much repute till towards the end of the 19th century. The town has three thermal establishments and a casino.