See C. Bourcier, “Robert le Masson,” in the Revue historique de l’Anjou (1873); and the Nouvelle biographie générale, vol. xxx.
(J. V.*)
LE MAIRE DE BELGES, JEAN (1473-c. 1525), French poet and historiographer, was born at Bavai in Hainault. He was a nephew of Jean Molinet, and spent some time with him at Valenciennes, where the elder writer held a kind of academy of poetry. Le Maire in his first poems calls himself a disciple of Molinet. In certain aspects he does belong to the school of the grands rhétoriqueurs, but his great merit as a poet is that he emancipated himself from the affectations and puerilities of his masters. This independence of the Flemish school he owed in part perhaps to his studies at the university of Paris and to the study of the Italian poets at Lyons, a centre of the French renascence. In 1503 he was attached to the court of Margaret of Austria, duchess of Savoy, afterwards regent of the Netherlands. For this princess he undertook more than one mission to Rome; he became her librarian and a canon of Valenciennes. To her were addressed his most original poems, Epistres de l’amand verd, the amant vert being a green parrot belonging to his patroness. Le Maire gradually became more French in his sympathies, eventually entering the service of Anne of Brittany. His prose Illustrations des Gaules et singularitez de Troye (1510-1512), largely adapted from Benoît de Sainte More, connects the Burgundian royal house with Hector. Le Maire probably died before 1525. Étienne Pasquier, Ronsard and Du Bellay all acknowledged their indebtedness to him. In his love for antiquity, his sense of rhythm, and even the peculiarities of his vocabulary he anticipated the Pléiade.
His works were edited in 1882-1885 by J. Stecher, who wrote the article on him in the Biographie nationale de Belgique.
LEMAÎTRE, FRANÇOIS ÉLIE JULES (1853- ), French critic and dramatist, was born at Vennecy (Loiret) on the 27th of April 1853. He became a professor at the university of Grenoble, but he had already become known by his literary criticisms, and in 1884 he resigned his position to devote himself entirely to literature. He succeeded J. J. Weiss as dramatic critic of the Journal des Débats, and subsequently filled the same office on the Revue des Deux Mondes. His literary studies were collected under the title of Les Contemporains (7 series, 1886-1899), and his dramatic feuilletons as Impressions de théâtre (10 series, 1888-1898). His sketches of modern authors are interesting for the insight displayed in them, the unexpectedness of the judgments and the gaiety and originality of their expression. He published two volumes of poetry: Les Médaillons (1880) and Petites orientales (1883); also some volumes of contes, among them En marge des vieux livres (1905). His plays are: Révoltée (1889), Le député Leveau, and Le Mariage blanc (1891), Les Rois (1893), Le Pardon and L’Age difficile (1895), La Massière (1905) and Bertrade (1906). He was admitted to the French Academy on the 16th of January 1896. His political views were defined in La Campagne nationaliste (1902), lectures delivered in the provinces by him and by G. Cavaignac. He conducted a nationalist campaign in the Écho de Paris, and was for some time president of the Ligue de la Patrie Française, but resigned in 1904, and again devoted himself to literature.
LE MANS, a town of north-western France, capital of the department of Sarthe, 77 m. S.W. of Chartres on the railway from Paris to Brest. Pop. (1906) town, 54,907, commune, 65,467. It is situated just above the confluence of the Sarthe and the Huisne, on an elevation rising from the left bank of the Sarthe. Several bridges connect the old town and the new quarters which have sprung up round it with the more extensive quarter of Pré on the right bank. Modern thoroughfares are gradually superseding the winding and narrow streets of old houses; a tunnel connects the Place des Jacobins with the river side. The cathedral, built in the highest part of the town, was originally founded by St Julian, to whom it is dedicated. The nave dates from the 11th and 12th centuries. In the 13th century the choir was enlarged in the grandest and boldest style of that period. The transepts, which are higher than the nave, were rebuilt in the 15th century, and the bell-tower of the south transept, the lower part of which is Romanesque, was rebuilt in the 15th and 16th centuries. Some of the stained glass in the nave, dating from the first half of the 12th century, is the oldest in France; the west window, representing the legend of St Julian, is especially interesting. The south lateral portal (12th century) is richly decorated, and its statuettes exhibit many costumes of the period. The austere simplicity of the older part of the building is in striking contrast with the lavish richness of the ornamentation in the choir, where the stained glass is especially fine. The rose-window (15th century) of the north transept, representing the Last Judgment, contains many historical figures. The cathedral also has curious tapestries and some remarkable tombs, including that of Berengaria, queen of Richard Cœur de Lion. Close to the western wall is a megalithic monument nearly 15 ft. in height. The church of La Couture, which belonged to an old abbey founded in the 7th century by St Bertrand, has a porch of the 13th century with fine statuary; the rest of the building is older. The church of Notre-Dame du Pré, on the right bank of the Sarthe, is Romanesque in style. The hôtel de ville was built in 1756 on the site of the former castle of the counts of Maine; the prefecture (1760) occupies the site of the monastery of La Couture, and contains the library, the communal archives, and natural history and art collections; there is also an archaeological museum. Among the old houses may be mentioned the Hôtel du Grabatoire of the Renaissance, once a hospital for the canons and the so-called house of Queen Berengaria (16th century), meeting place of the historical and archaeological society of Maine. A monument to General Chanzy commemorates the battle of Le Mans (1871). Le Mans is the seat of a bishopric dating from the 3rd century, of a prefect, and of a court of assizes, and headquarters of the IV. army corps. It has also tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a council of trade-arbitrators, a chamber of commerce, a branch of the Bank of France, an exchange, a lycée for boys, training colleges, a higher ecclesiastical seminary and a school of music. The town has a great variety of industries, carried on chiefly in the southern suburb of Pontlieue. The more important are the state manufacture of tobacco, the preparation of preserved vegetables, fish, &c., tanning, hemp-spinning, bell-founding, flour-milling, the founding of copper and other metals, and the manufacture of railway wagons, machinery and engineering material, agricultural implements, rope, cloth and stained glass. The fattening of poultry is an important local industry, and there is trade in cattle, wine, cloth, farm-produce, &c. The town is an important railway centre.
As the capital of the Aulerci Cenomanni, Le Mans was called Suindinum or Vindinum. The Romans built walls round it in the 3rd century, and traces of them are still to be seen close to the left bank of the river near the cathedral. In the same century the town was evangelized by St Julian, who became its first bishop. Ruled at first by his successors—notably St Aldric—Le Mans passed in the middle ages to the counts of Maine (q.v.), whose capital and residence it became. About the middle of the 11th century the citizens secured a communal charter, but in 1063 the town was seized by William the Conqueror, who deprived them of their liberties, which were recovered when the countship of Maine had passed to the Plantagenet kings of England. Le Mans was taken by Philip Augustus in 1189, recaptured by John, subsequently confiscated and later ceded to Queen Berengaria, who did much for its prosperity. It was several times besieged in the 15th and 16th centuries. In 1793 it was seized by the Vendeans, who were expelled by the Republican generals Marceau and Westermann after a stubborn battle in the streets. In 1799 it was again occupied by the Chouans.