He left valuable materials for a just comprehension of his career in the autobiography (Adventures while Prosecuting Researches and Inquiries on Polish Matters) printed in his Polska.
[1] I.e. the three first books of the Historia Polonica of Vincentius (Kadlbek), bishop of Cracow (d. 1223), wrongly ascribed by Lelewel to Matthaeus Cholewa, bishop of Cracow. See Potthast, Bibliotheca hist, med. aev., s.v. “Vincentius.”
LELONG, JACQUES (1665-1721), French bibliographer, was born at Paris on the 19th of April 1665. He was a priest of the Oratory, and was librarian to the establishment of the Order in Paris, where he spent his life in seclusion. He died at Paris on the 13th of August 1721. He first published a Bibliotheca sacra (1709), an index of all the editions of the Bible, then a Bibliothèque historique de la France (1719), a volume of considerable size, containing 17,487 items to which Lelong sometimes appends useful notes. His work is far from complete. He vainly hoped that his friend and successor Father Desmolets, would continue it; but it was resumed by Charles-Marie Fevret de Fontette, a councillor of the parlement of Dijon, who spent fifteen years of his life and a great deal of money in rewriting the Bibliothèque historique. The first two volumes (1768 and 1769) contained as many as 29,143 items. Fevret de Fontette died on the 16th of February 1772, leaving the third volume almost finished. It appeared in 1772, thanks to Barbaud de La Bruyère, who later brought out the 4th and 5th volumes (1775 and 1778). In this new edition the Bibliothèque historique is a work of reference of the highest order; it is still of great value.
LELY, SIR PETER (1617-1680) English painter, was born at Soest, Westphalia, in 1617. His father, a military captain and a native of Holland, was originally called van der Vaes; the nickname of Le Lys or Lely, by which he was generally known, was adopted by his son as a surname. After studying for two years under Peter de Grebber, an artist of some note at Haarlem, Lely, induced by the patronage of Charles I. for the fine arts, removed to England in 1641. There he at first painted historical subjects and landscape; he soon became so eminent in his profession as to be employed by Charles to paint his portrait shortly after the death of Vandyck. He afterwards portrayed Cromwell. At the Restoration his genius and agreeable manners won the favour of Charles II., who made him his state-painter, and afterwards knighted him. He formed a famous collection, the best of his time, containing drawings, prints and paintings by the best masters; it sold by auction for no less than £26,000. His great example, however, was Vandyck, whom, in some of his most successful pieces, he almost rivals. Lely’s paintings are carefully finished, warm and clear in colouring, and animated in design. The graceful posture of the heads, the delicate rounding of the hands, and the broad folds of the draperies are admired in many of his portraits. The eyes of the ladies are drowsy with languid sentiment, and allegory of a commonplace sort is too freely introduced. His most famous work is a collection of portraits of the ladies of the court of Charles II., known as “the Beauties,” formerly at Windsor Castle, and now preserved at Hampton Court Palace. Of his few historical pictures, the best is “Susannah and the Elders,” at Burleigh House. His “Jupiter and Europa,” in the duke of Devonshire’s collection, is also worthy of note. Lely was nearly as famous for crayon work as for oil-painting. Towards the close of his life he often retired to an estate which he had bought at Kew. He died of apoplexy in the Piazza, Covent Garden, London, and was buried in Covent Garden church, where a monument was afterwards erected to his memory. Pepys characterized Lely as “a mighty proud man and full of state.” The painter married an English lady of family, and left a son and daughter, who died young. His only disciples were J. Greenhill and J. Buckshorn; he did not, however, allow them to obtain an insight into his special modes of work.
(W. M. R.)
LE MAÇON (or Le Masson), ROBERT (c. 1365-1443), chancellor of France, was born at Château du Loir, Sarthe. He was ennobled in March 1401, and became six years later a councillor of Louis II., duke of Anjou and king of Sicily. A partisan of the house of Orleans, he was appointed chancellor to Isabella of Bavaria on the 29th of January 1414, on the 20th of July commissary of the mint, and in June 1416 chancellor to the count of Ponthieu, afterwards Charles VII. On the 16th of August he bought the barony of Trèves in Anjou, and henceforward bore the title of seigneur of Trèves. When Paris was surprised by the Burgundians on the night of the 29th of May 1418 he assisted Tanguy Duchâtel in saving the dauphin. His devotion to the cause of the latter having brought down on him the wrath of John the Fearless, duke of Burgundy, he was excluded from the political amnesty known as the peace of Saint Maur des Fossés, though he retained his seat on the king’s council. He was by the dauphin’s side when John the Fearless was murdered at the bridge of Montereau on the 10th of September 1419. He resigned the seals at the beginning of 1422; but he continued to exercise great influence, and in 1426 he effected a reconciliation between the king and the duke of Brittany. Having been captured by Jean de Langeac, seneschal of Auvergne, in August of the same year, he was shut up for three months in the château of Usson. When set at liberty he returned to court, where he staunchly supported Joan of Arc against all the cabals that menaced her. It was he who signed the patent of nobility for the Arc family in December 1429. In 1430 he was once more entrusted with an embassy to Brittany. Having retired from political life in 1436, he died on the 28th of January 1443, and was interred at Trèves, where his epitaph may still be seen.