LATTEN (from O. Fr. laton, mod. Fr. laiton, possibly connected with Span. lata, Ital. latta, a lath), a mixed metal like brass, composed of copper and zinc, generally made in thin sheets, and used especially for monumental brasses and effigies. A fine example is in the screen of Henry VII.’s tomb in Westminster Abbey. There are three forms of latten, “black latten,” unpolished and rolled, “shaven latten,” of extreme thinness, and “roll latten,” of the thickness either of black or shaven latten, but with both sides polished.
LATTICE LEAF PLANT, in botany, the common name for Ouvirandra fenestralis, an aquatic monocotyledonous plant belonging to the small natural order Aponogetonaceae and a native of Madagascar. It has a singular appearance from the structure of the leaves, which are oblong in shape, from 6 to 18 in. long and from 2 to 4 in. broad; they spread horizontally beneath the surface of the water, and are reduced to little more than a lattice-like network of veins. The tuberculate roots are edible. The plant is grown in cultivation as a stove-aquatic.
LATUDE, JEAN HENRI, often called Danry or Masers de Latude (1725-1805), prisoner of the Bastille, was born at Montagnac in Gascony on the 23rd of March 1725. He received a military education and went to Paris in 1748 to study mathematics. He led a dissipated life and endeavoured to curry favour with the marquise de Pompadour by secretly sending her a box of poison and then informing her of the supposed plot against her life. The ruse was discovered, and Mme de Pompadour, not appreciating the humour of the situation, had Latude put in the Bastille on the 1st of May 1749. He was later transferred to Vincennes, whence he escaped in 1750. Retaken and reimprisoned in the Bastille, he made a second brief escape in 1756. He was transferred to Vincennes in 1764, and the next year made a third escape and was a third time recaptured. He was put in a madhouse by Malesherbes in 1775, and discharged in 1777 on condition that he should retire to his native town. He remained in Paris and was again imprisoned. A certain Mme Legros became interested in him through chance reading of one of his memoirs, and, by a vigorous agitation in his behalf, secured his definite release in 1784. He exploited his long captivity with considerable ability, posing as a brave officer, a son of the marquis de la Tude, and a victim of Pompadour’s intrigues. He was extolled and pensioned during the Revolution, and in 1793 the convention compelled the heirs of Mme de Pompadour to pay him 60,000 francs damages. He died in obscurity at Paris on the 1st of January 1805.
The principal work of Latude is the account of his imprisonment, written in collaboration with an advocate named Thiéry, and entitled Le Despotisme dévoilé, ou Mémoires de Henri Masers de la Tude, détenu pendant trente-cinq ans dans les diverses prisons d’état (Amsterdam, 1787, ed. Paris, 1889). An Eng. trans. of a portion was published in 1787. The work is full of lies and misrepresentations, but had great vogue at the time of the French Revolution. Latude also wrote essays on all sorts of subjects.
See J. F. Barrière, Mémoires de Linguet et de Latude (1884); G. Bertin, Notice in edition of the Mémoires (1889); F. Funck-Brentano, “Latude,” in the Revue des deux mondes (1st October 1889).
LATUKA, a tribe of negroid stock inhabiting the mountainous country E. of Gondokoro on the upper Nile. They have received a tinge of Hamitic blood from the Galla people, and have high foreheads, large eyes, straight noses and thick but not pouting lips. They are believed by Sir H. H. Johnston to be the original and purest type of the great Masai people, and are assimilated to the Nilotic negro races in customs. Like their neighbours the Bari and Shilluk tribes, they despise clothing, though the important chiefs have adopted Arab attire. Their country is fertile, and they cultivate tobacco, durra and other crops. Their villages are numerous, and some are of considerable size. Tarangole, for instance, on the Khor Kohs, has upwards of three thousand huts, and sheds for many thousands of cattle. The Latuka are industrious and especially noted for skill as smiths. Emin Pasha stated that the lion was so little dreaded by the Latuka that on one being caught in a leopard trap they hastily set it free.