LA FARGE, JOHN (1835-1910), American artist, was born in New York, on the 31st of March 1835, of French parentage. He received instruction in drawing from his grandfather, Binsse de St Victor, a painter of miniatures; studied law and architecture; entered the atelier of Thomas Couture in Paris, where he remained a short time, giving especial attention to the study and copying of old masters at the Louvre; and began by making illustrations to the poets (1859). An intimacy with the artist William M. Hunt had a strong influence on him, the two working together at Newport, Rhode Island. La Farge painted landscape, still life and figure alike in the early sixties. But from 1866 on he was for some time incapacitated for work, and when he regained strength he did some decorative work for Trinity church, Boston, in 1876, and turned his attention to stained glass, becoming president of the Society of Mural Painters. Some of his important commissions include windows for St Thomas’s church (1877), St Peter’s church, the Paulist church, the Brick church (1882), the churches of the Incarnation (1885) and the Ascension (1887), New York; Trinity church, Buffalo, and the “Battle Window” in Memorial Hall at Harvard; ceilings and windows for the house of Cornelius Vanderbilt, windows for the houses of W. H. Vanderbilt and D. O. Mills, and panels for the house of Whitelaw Reid, New York; panels for the Congressional Library, Washington; Bowdoin College, the Capitol at St Paul, Minn., besides designs for many stained glass windows. He was also a prolific painter in oil and water colour, the latter seen notably in some water-colour sketches, the result of a voyage in the South Seas, shown in 1895. His influence on American art was powerfully exhibited in such men as Augustus St Gaudens, Wilton Lockwood, Francis Lathrop and John Humphreys Johnston. He became president of the Society of American Artists, a member of the National Academy of Design in 1869; an officer of the Legion of Honour of France; and received many medals and decorations. He published Considerations on Painting (New York, 1895), Hokŭsai: A Talk about Hokŭsai (New York, 1897), and An Artist’s Letters from Japan (New York, 1897).
See Cecilia Waern, John La Farge, Artist and Writer (London, 1896, No. 26 of The Portfolio).
LA FARINA, GIUSEPPE (1815-1863), Italian author and politician, was born at Messina. On account of the part he took in the insurrection of 1837 he had to leave Sicily, but returning in 1839 he conducted various newspapers of liberal tendencies, until his efforts were completely interdicted, when he removed to Florence. In 1840 he had published Messina ed i suoi monumenti, and after his removal to Florence he brought out La Germania coi suoi monumenti (1842), L’ Italia coi suoi monumenti (1842), La Svizzera storica ed artistica (1842-1843), La China, 4 vols. (1843-1847), and Storia d’ Italia, 7 vols. (1846-1854). In 1847 he established at Florence a democratic journal, L’ Alba, in the interests of Italian freedom and unity, but on the outbreak of the revolution in Sicily in 1848 he returned thither and was elected deputy and member of the committee of war. In August of that year he was appointed minister of public instruction and later of war and marine. After vigorously conducting a campaign against the Bourbon troops, he was forced into exile, and repaired to France in 1849. In 1850 he published his Storia documentata della Rivoluzione Siciliana del 1848-1849, and in 1851-1852 his Storia d’ Italia dal 1815 al 1848, in 6 vols. He returned to Italy in 1854 and settled at Turin, and in 1856 he founded the Piccolo Corriere d’ Italia, an organ which had great influence in propagating the political sentiments of the Società Nazionale Italiana, of which he ultimately was chosen president. With Daniele Manin (q.v.), one of the founders of that society, he advocated the unity of Italy under Victor Emmanuel even before Cavour, with whom at one time he had daily interviews, and organized the emigration of volunteers from all parts of Italy into the Piedmontese army. He also negotiated an interview between Cavour and Garibaldi, with the result that the latter was appointed commander of the Cacciatori delle Alpi in the war of 1859. Later he supported Garibaldi’s expedition to Sicily, where he himself went soon after the occupation of Palermo, but he failed to bring about the immediate annexation of the island to Piedmont as Cavour wished. In 1860 he was chosen a member of the first Italian parliament and was subsequently made councillor of state. He died on the 5th of September 1863.
See A. Franchi, Epistolario di Giuseppe La Farina (2 vols., 1869) and L. Carpi, Il Risorgimento Italiano, vol. i. (Milan, 1884).
LA FAYETTE, GILBERT MOTIER DE (1380-1462), marshal of France, was brought up at the court of Louis II., 3rd duke of Bourbon. He served under Marshal Boucicaut in Italy, and on his return to France after the evacuation of Genoa in 1409 became seneschal of the Bourbonnais. In the English wars he was with John I., 4th duke of Bourbon, at the capture of Soubise in 1413, and of Compiègne in 1415. The duke then made him lieutenant-general in Languedoc and Guienne. He failed to defend Caen and Falaise in the interest of the dauphin (afterwards Charles VII.) against Henry V. in 1417 and 1418, but in the latter year he held Lyons for some time against Jean sans Peur, duke of Burgundy. A series of successes over the English and Burgundians on the Loire was rewarded in 1420 with the government of Dauphiny and the office of marshal of France. La Fayette commanded the Franco-Scottish troops at the battle of Baugé (1422), though he did not, as has been sometimes stated, slay Thomas, duke of Clarence, with his own hand. In 1424 he was taken prisoner by the English at Verneuil, but was released shortly afterwards, and fought with Joan of Arc at Orleans and Patay in 1429. The marshal had become a member of the grand council of Charles VII., and with the exception of a short disgrace about 1430, due to the ill-will of Georges de la Trémouille, he retained the royal favour all his life. He took an active part in the army reform initiated by Charles VII., and the establishment of military posts for the suppression of brigandage. His last campaign was against the English in Normandy in 1449. He died on the 23rd of February 1462. His line was continued by Gilbert IV. de La Fayette, son of his second marriage with Jeanne de Joyeuse.
LA FAYETTE, LOUISE DE (c. 1616-1665), was one of the fourteen children of John, comte de La Fayette, and Marguerite de Bourbon-Busset. Louise became maid of honour to Anne of Austria, and Richelieu sought to attract the attention of Louis XIII. to her in the hope that she might counterbalance the influence exercised over him by Marie de Hautefort. The affair did not turn out as the minister wished. The king did indeed make her the confidante of his affairs and of his resentment against the cardinal, but she, far from repeating his confidences to the minister, set herself to encourage the king in his resistance to Richelieu’s dominion. She refused, nevertheless, to become Louis’s mistress, and after taking leave of the king in Anne of Austria’s presence retired to the convent of the Filles de Sainte-Marie in 1637. Here she was repeatedly visited by Louis, with whom she maintained a correspondence. Richelieu intercepted the letters, and by omissions and falsifications succeeded in destroying their mutual confidence. The cessation of their intercourse was regretted by the queen, who had been reconciled with her husband through the influence of Louise. At the time of her death in January 1665 Mlle de La Fayette was superior of a convent of her order which she had founded at Chaillot.
See Mémoires de Madame de Motteville; Victor Cousin, Madame de Hautefort (Paris, 1868); L’Abbé Sorin, Louise-Angèle de La Fayette (Paris, 1893).