Chapter 12

(H. F. G.)

In astronomy, “Chamaeleon” is a constellation situated near the south pole and surrounded by the constellations of Octans, Mensa, Piscis volans, Carina (Nauta), Musca and Apus. In chemistry, “chameleon mineral” is a name applied to the green mass which is obtained when pyrolusite (manganese dioxide) is fused with nitre, since a solution in water assumes a purple tint on exposure to the air; this change is due to the oxidation of the manganate, which is first formed, to a permanganate.

CHAMFER,ChampferorChaumfer(Fr.chanfrein; possibly from Lat.cantus, corner, andfrangere, to break), an architectural term; when the edge or arris of any work is cut off at an angle of 45° in a small degree, it is said to be “chamfered,” while it would be “canted” if on a large scale. The chamfer is much used in medieval work, and is sometimes plain, sometimes hollowed out and sometimes moulded. Chamfers are sometimes “stopped” by a bead or some moulding, but when cut short by a slope they are generally known as “stop chamfer.”

CHAMFORT, SEBASTIEN ROCH NICOLAS(1741-1794), French man of letters, was born at a little village near Clermont in Auvergne in 1741. He was, according to a baptismal certificate found among his papers, the son of a grocer named Nicolas. A journey to Paris resulted in the boy’s obtaining a bursary at the Collège des Grassins. He worked hard, although he wrote later in one of his most contemptuous epigrams—”Ce que j’ai appris je ne le sais plus; le peu que je sais je l’ai diviné.”His college career ended, Chamfort assumed the dress of apetit abbé. “C’est un costume, et non point un état,”he said; and to the principal of his college who promised him a benefice, he replied that he would never be a priest, inasmuch as he preferred honour to honours—”j’aime l’honneur et non les honneurs.”About this time he assumed the name of Chamfort.

For some time he contrived to exist by teaching and as a booksellers’ hack. His good looks and ready wit, however, soon brought him into notice; but though endowed with immense strength—“Hercule sous la figure d’Adonis,” Madame de Craon called him—he lived so hard that he was glad of the chance of doing a “cure” at Spa when the Belgian minister in Paris, M. van Eyck, took him with him to Germany in 1761. On his return to Paris he produced a comedy,La Jeune Indienne(1764), which was performed with some success, and this was followed by a series of “epistles” in verse, essays and odes. It was not, however, until 1769, when he won the prize of the French Academy for hisÉlogeon Molière, that his literary reputation was established.

Meanwhile he had lived from hand to mouth, mainly on the hospitality of people who were only too glad to give him board and lodging in exchange for the pleasure of the conversation for which he was famous. Thus Madame Helvétius entertained him at Sèvres for some years. In 1770 another comedy,Le Marchand de Smyrne, brought him still further into notice, and he seemed on the road to fortune, when he was suddenly smitten with a horrible disease. His distress was relieved by the generosity of a friend, who made over to him a pension of 1200 livres charged on theMercure de France. With this assistance he was able to go to the baths of Contrexéville and to spend some time in the country, where he wrote anÉlogeon La Fontaine which won the prize of the Academy of Marseilles (1774). In 1775, while taking the waters at Barèges, he met the duchesse de Grammont, sister of Choiseul, through whose influence he was introduced at court. In 1776 his poor tragedy,Mustapha et Zeangir, was played at Fontainebleau before Louis XVI. and Marie Antoinette; the king gave him a further pension of 1200 livres, and the prince de Condé made him his secretary. But he was a Bohemian naturally and by habit, the restraints of the court irked him, and with increasing years he was growing misanthropical. After a year he resigned his post in the prince’s household and retired into solitude at Auteuil. There, comparing the authors of old with the men of his own time, he uttered the famousmotthat proclaims the superiority of the dead over the living as companions; and there too he presently fell in love. The lady, attached to the household of the duchesse du Maine, was forty-eight years old, but clever, amusing, a woman of the world; and Chamfort married her. They left Auteuil, and went to Vaucouleurs, where in six months Madame Chamfort died. Chamfort lived in Holland for a time with M. de Narbonne, and returning to Paris received in 1781 the place at the Academy left vacant by the death of La Curne de Sainte-Palaye, the author of theDictionnaire des antiquités françaises. In 1784, through the influence of Calonne, he became secretary to the king’s sister, Madame Elizabeth, and in 1786 he received a pension of 2000 livres from the royal treasury. He was thus once more attached to the court, and made himself friends in spite of the reach and tendency of his unalterable irony; but he quitted it for ever after an unfortunate and mysterious love affair, and was received into the house of M. de Vaudreuil. Here in 1783 he had met Mirabeau, with whom he remained to the last on terms of intimate friendship.whom he assisted with money and influence, and one at least of whose speeches—that on the Academies—he wrote.

The outbreak of the Revolution made a profound change in the relations of Chamfort’s life. Theoretically he had long been a republican, and he now threw himself into the new movement with almost fanatical ardour, devoting all his small fortune to the revolutionary propaganda. His old friends of the court he forgot. “Those who pass the river of revolutions,” he said, “have passed the river of oblivion.” Until the 31st of August 1791 he was secretary of the Jacobin club; he became a street orator and entered the Bastille among the first of the storming party. He worked for theMercure de France, collaborated with Ginguené in theFeuille villageoise, and drew up for Talleyrand hisAdresse au peuple français.

With the reign of Marat and Robespierre, however, his uncompromising Jacobinism grew critical, and with the fall of the Girondins his political life came to an end. But he could not restrain the tongue that had made him famous; he no more spared the Convention than he had spared the court. His notorious republicanism failed to excuse the sarcasms he lavished on the new order of things, and denounced by an assistant in the Bibliothèque Nationale, to a share in the direction of which he had been appointed by Roland, he was taken to the Madelonnettes. Released for a moment, he was threatened again with arrest; but he had determined to prefer death to a repetition of the moral and physical restraint to which he had been subjected. He attempted suicide with pistol and with poniard; and, horribly hacked and shattered, dictated to those who came to arrest him the well-known declaration—”Moi, Sebastien-Roch-Nicolas Chamfort, déclare avoir voulu mourir en homme libre plutôt que d’être reconduit en esclave dans une maison d’arrêt”—which he signed in a firm hand and in his own blood. He did not die at once, but lingered on until the 13th of April 1794 in charge of a gendarme, for whose wardship he paid a crown a day. To the Abbé Sieyès Chamfort had given fortune in the title of a pamphlet (“Qu’est-ce que le Tiers-État? Tout. Qu’a-t-il? Rien”), and to Sieyès did Chamfort retail his supreme sarcasm, the famous “Je m’en vais enfin de ce monde où il faut que le cœur se brise ou se bronze.” The maker of constitutions followed the dead wit to the grave.

The writings of Chamfort, which include comedies, political articles, literary criticisms, portraits, letters, and verses, are colourless and uninteresting in the extreme. As a talker, however, he was of extraordinary force. HisMaximes et Pensées, highly praised by John Stuart Mill, are, after those of La Rochefoucauld, the most brilliant and suggestive sayings that have been given to the modern world. The aphorisms of Chamfort, less systematic and psychologically less important than those of La Rochefoucauld, are as significant in their violence and iconoclastic spirit of the period of storm and preparation that gave them birth as theRéflexionsin their exquisite restraint and elaborate subtlety are characteristic of the tranquil elegance of their epoch; and they have the advantage in richness of colour, in picturesqueness of phrase, in passion, in audacity. Sainte-Beuve compares them to “well-minted coins that retain their value,” and to keen arrows that “arrivent brusquement et sifflent encore.”

An edition of his works—Œuvres complètes de Nicolas Chamfort—Was published at Paris in five volumes in 1824-1825. Selections—Œuvres de Chamfort—in one volume, appeared in 1852, with a biographical and critical preface by Arsène Houssaye, reprinted from theRevue des deux mondes; andOeuvres choisies(2 vols.), with a preface and notes by M. de Lescure (1879). See also Sainte-Beuve,Causeries du Lundi.

CHAMIER, FREDERICK(1796-1870), English novelist, was the son of an Anglo-Indian official. In 1809 he entered the navy, and was in active service until 1827. He retired in 1833, and was promoted to be captain in 1856. On his retirement he settled near Waltham Abbey, and wrote several nautical novels on the lines popularized by Marryat, that had considerable success. These wereThe Life of a Sailor(1832),Ben Brace(1836),The Arethusa(1837),Jack Adams(1838),Tom Bowling(1841) andJack Malcolm’s Log(1846). He wrote a number of other books, and edited and brought down to 1827 James’sNaval History(1837).

CHAMILLART, MICHEL(1652-1721), French statesman, minister of Louis XIV., was born at Paris of a family of the noblesse of recent elevation. Following the usual career of a statesman of his time he became in turn councillor of the parlement of Paris (1676), master of requests (1686), and intendant of the generality of Rouen (January 1689). Affable, of polished manners, modest and honest, Chamillart won the confidence of Madame de Maintenon and pleased the king. In 1690 he was made intendant of finances, and on the 5th of September 1699 the king appointed him controller-general of finances, to which he added on the following 7th of January the ministry of war. From the first Chamillart’s position was a difficult one. The deficit amounted to more than 53 million livres, and the credit of the state was almost exhausted. He lacked the great intelligence and energy necessary for the situation, and was unable to moderate the king’s warlike tastes, or to inaugurate economic reforms. He could only employ the usual expedients of the time—the immoderate sale of offices, the debasement of the coinage (five times in six years), reduction of the rate of interest on state debts, and increased taxation. He attempted to force into circulation a kind of paper money,billets de monnaie, but with disastrous results owing to the state of credit. He studied Vauban’s project for the royal tithe and Boisguillebert’s proposition for thetaille, but did not adopt them. In October 1706 he showed the king that the debts immediately due amounted to 288 millions, and that the deficit already foreseen for 1707 was 160 millions. In October 1707 he saw with consternation that the revenue for 1708 was already entirely eaten up by anticipation, so that neither money nor credit remained for 1708. In these conditions Chamillart, who had often complained of the overwhelming burden he was carrying, and who had already wished to retire in 1706, resigned his office of controller-general. Public opinion attributed to him the ruin of the country, though he had tried in 1700 to improve the condition of commerce by the creation of a council of commerce. As secretary of state for war he had to place in the field the army for the War of the Spanish Succession, and to reorganize it three times, after the great defeats of 1704, 1706 and 1708. With an empty treasury he succeeded only in part, and he frankly warned the king that the enemy would soon be able to dictate the terms of peace. He was reproached with having secured the command of the army which besieged Turin (1706) for his son-in-law, the incapable duc de la Feuillade. Madame de Maintenon even became hostile to him, and he abandoned his position on the 10th of June 1709, retiring to his estates. He died on the 14th of April 1721.

Chamillart’s papers have been published by G. Esnault,Michel Chamillart, contrôleur général et secrétaire d’état de la guerre, correspondance et papiers inédits(2 vols., Paris, 1885); and by A. de Boislisle in vol. 2 of hisCorrespondance des contrôleurs généraux(1883). See D’Auvigny,Vies des hommes illustres(1739), tome vi. pp. 288-402; E. Moret,Quinze années du règne de Louis XIV(Paris, 1851); and the new edition of theMémoires de St-Simon, by A. de Boislisle.

CHAMINADE, CÉCILE(1861- ), French musical composer, was born at Paris on the 8th of August 1861. She studied in Paris, her musical talent being shown at the age of eight by the writing of some church music which attracted Bizet’s attention; and at eighteen she came out in public as a pianist. Her own compositions, both songs (in large numbers) and instrumental pieces, were soon produced in profusion: melodious and interesting, and often charming, they became very popular, without being entitled to rank with the greater style of music. Both in Paris and in England Mlle Chaminade and her works became well known at the principal concerts. In 1908 she visited America and was warmly welcomed.

CHAMISSO, ADELBERT VON[Louis Charles Adelaide de] (1781-1838), German poet and botanist, was born at the château of Boncourt in Champagne, France, the ancestral seat of his family, on the 30th of January 1781. Driven from France by the Revolution, his parents settled in Berlin, where in 1796 young Chamisso obtained the post of page-in-waiting to the queen, and in 1798 entered a Prussian infantry regiment as ensign.His family were shortly afterwards permitted to return to France; he, however, remained behind and continued his career in the army. He had but little education, but now sought distraction from the soulless routine of the Prussian military service in assiduous study. In collaboration with Varnhagen von Ense, he founded in 1803 theBerliner Musenalmanach, in which his first verses appeared. The enterprise was a failure, and, interrupted by the war, it came to an end in 1806. It brought him, however, to the notice of many of the literary celebrities of the day and established his reputation as a rising poet. He had become lieutenant in 1801, and in 1805 accompanied his regiment to Hameln, where he shared in the humiliations following the treasonable capitulation of that fortress in the ensuing year. Placed on parole he went to France, where he found that both his parents were dead; and, returning to Berlin in the autumn of 1807, he obtained his release from the service early in the following year. Homeless and without a profession, disillusioned and despondent, he lived in Berlin until 1810, when, through the services of an old friend of the family, he was offered a professorship at thelycéeat Napoléonville in La Vendée. He set out to take up the post, but drawn into the charmed circle of Madame de Staël, followed her in her exile to Coppet in Switzerland, where, devoting himself to botanical research, he remained nearly two years. In 1812 he returned to Berlin, where he continued his scientific studies. In the summer of the eventful year, 1813, he wrote the prose narrativePeter Schlemihl, the man who sold his shadow. This, the most famous of all his works, has been translated into most European languages (English by W. Howitt). It was written partly to divert his own thoughts and partly to amuse the children of his friend Hitzig. In 1815 Chamisso was appointed botanist to the Russian ship “Rurik,” which Otto von Kotzebue (son of August von Kotzebue) commanded on a scientific voyage round the world. His diary of the expedition (Tagebuch, 1821) affords some interesting glimpses of England and English life. On his return in 1818 he was made custodian of the botanical gardens in Berlin, and was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences, and in 1820 he married. Chamisso’s travels and scientific researches restrained for a while the full development of his poetical talent, and it was not until his forty-eighth year that he turned again to literature. In 1829, in collaboration with Gustav Schwab, and from 1832 in conjunction with Franz von Gaudy, he brought out theDeutsche Musenalmanach, in which his later poems were mainly published. He died on the 21st of August 1838.

As a scientist Chamisso has not left much mark, although hisBemerkungen und Ansichten, published in an incomplete form in O. von Kotzebue’sEntdeckungsreise(Weimar, 1821) and more completely in Chamisso’sGesammelte Werke(1836), and the botanical work,Übersicht der nutzbarsten und schädlichsten Gewächse in Norddeutschland(1829) are esteemed for their careful treatment of the subjects with which they deal. As a poet Chamisso’s reputation stands high,Frauen Liebe und Leben(1830), a cycle of lyrical poems, which was set to music by Schumann, being particularly famous. Noteworthy are alsoSchloss BoncourtandSalas y Gomez. In estimating his success as a writer, it should not be forgotten that he was cut off from his native speech and from his natural current of thought and feeling. He often deals with gloomy and sometimes with ghastly and repulsive subjects; and even in his lighter and gayerproductionsthere is an undertone of sadness or of satire. In the lyrical expression of the domestic emotions he displays a fine felicity, and he knew how to treat with true feeling a tale of love or vengeance.Die Löwenbrautmay be taken as a sample of his weird and powerful simplicity; andVergeltungis remarkable for a pitiless precision of treatment.

The first collected edition of Chamisso’s works was edited by J.E. Hitzig, 6 vols. (1836); 6th edition (1874); there are also excellent editions by M. Koch (1883) and O.F. Walzel (1892). On Chamisso’s life see J.E. Hitzig, “Leben und Briefe von Adelbert yon Chamisso” (in theGesammelte Werke); K. Fulda,Chamisso und seine Zeit(1881); G. Hofmeister,Adelbert von Chamisso(1884); and, for the scientific side of Chamisso’s life, E. du Bois-Raymond,Adelbert von Chamisso als Naturforscher(1889).

CHAMKANNI,a small Pathan tribe on the Kohat border of the North-West Province of India. They inhabit the western part of the Kurmana Valley in the Orakzai portion of Tirah, but are supposed to be a distinct race. They took part in the frontier risings of 1897, and during the Tirah expedition of that year a brigade under General Gaselee was sent to punish them.

CHAMOIS,the Franco-Swiss name of an Alpine ruminant known in the German cantons asGemse, and to naturalists asRupicapra tragusorR. rupicapra tragus. It is the only species of its genus, and typifies a subfamily,Rupicaprinae, of hollow-horned ruminants in some degree intermediate between antelopes and goats (seeAntelope). About equal in height to a roebuck, and with a short black tail, the chamois is readily distinguishable from all other ruminants by its vertical, backwardly-hooked, black horns, which are common to males and females, although smaller in the latter. Apart from black and white face-markings, and the black tail and dorsal stripe, the prevailing colour of the Alpine chamois is chestnut brown in summer, but lighter and greyer in winter. In the Pyrenees the species is represented by a small race locally known as the izard; a very brightly-coloured form,R.t. picta, inhabits the Apennines; the Carpathian chamois is very dark-coloured, and the one from the Caucasus is the representative of yet another race. A thick under-fur is developed in the winter-coat, as in all other ruminants dwelling at high altitudes. Chamois are gregarious, living in herds of 15 or 20, and feeding generally in the morning or evening. The old males, however, live alone except in the rutting season, which occurs in October, when they join the herds, driving off the younger bucks, and engaging in fierce contests with each other, that often end fatally for one at least of the combatants. The period of gestation is twenty weeks, when the female, beneath the shelter generally of a projecting rock, produces one and sometimes two young. In summer they ascend to the limits of perpetual snow, being only exceeded in the loftiness of their haunts by the ibex; and during that season they show their intolerance of heat by choosing such browsing-grounds as have a northern exposure. In winter they descend to the wooded districts that immediately succeed the region of glaciers, and it is there only they can be successfully hunted. Chamois are exceedingly shy; and their senses, especially those of sight and smell, very acute. The herd never feeds without having a sentinel posted on some prominence to give notice of the approach of danger; which is done by stamping on the ground with the forefeet, and uttering a shrill whistling note, thus putting the entire herd on the alert. No sooner is the object of alarm scented or seen than each one seeks safety in the most inaccessible situations, which are often reached by a series of astounding leaps over crevasses, up the faces of seemingly perpendicular rocks, or down the sides of equally precipitous chasms. The chamois will not hesitate, it is said, thus to leap down 20 or even 30 ft., and this it effects with apparent ease by throwing itself forward diagonally and striking its feet several times in its descent against the face of the rock. Chamois-shooting is most successfully pursued when a number of hunters form a circle round a favourite feeding ground, which they gradually narrow; the animals, scenting the hunters to windward, fly in the opposite direction, only to encounter those coming from leeward. Chamois-hunting, in spite of, or perhaps owing to the great danger attending it, has always been a favourite pursuit among the hardy mountaineers of Switzerland and Tirol, as well as of the amateur sportsmen of all countries, with the result that the animal is now comparatively rare in many districts where it was formerly common. Chamois feed in summer on mountain-herbs and flowers, and in winter chiefly on the young shoots and buds of fir and pine trees. They are particularly fond of salt, and in the Alps sandstone rocks containing a saline impregnation are often met with hollowed by the constant licking of these creatures. The skin of the chamois is very soft; made into leather it was the originalshammy, which is now made, however, from the skins of many other animals. The flesh is prized as venison.

(R. L.*)

CHAMOMILE,orCamomile Flowers, theflores anthemidisof the British Pharmacopoeia, the flower-heads ofAnthemis nobilis(Nat. Ord.Compositae), a herb indigenous to England and western Europe. It is cultivated for medicinal purposes in Surrey, at several places in Saxony, and in France and Belgium,—that grown in England being much more valuable than any of the foreign chamomiles brought into the market. In the wild plant the florets of the ray are ligulate and white, and contain pistils only, those of the disk being tubular and yellow; but under cultivation the whole of the florets tend to become ligulate and white, in which state the flower-heads are said to be double. The flower-heads have a warm aromatic odour, which is characteristic of the entire plant, and a very bitter taste. In addition to a bitter extractive principle, they yield about 2% of a volatile liquid, which on its first extraction is of a pale blue colour, but becomes a yellowish brown on exposure to light. It has the characteristic odour of the flowers, and consists of a mixture of butyl and amyl angelates and valerates. Angelate of potassium has been obtained by treatment of the oil with caustic potash, and angelic acid may be isolated from this by treatment with dilute sulphuric acid. Chamomile is used in medicine in the form of its volatile oil, of which the dose is ½-3 minims. There is an official extract which is never used. Like all volatile oils the drug is a stomachic and carminative. In large doses the infusion is a simple emetic.

Wild chamomile isMatricaria Chamomilla, a weed common in waste and cultivated ground especially in the southern counties of England. It has somewhat the appearance of true chamomile, but a fainter scent.

CHAMONIX,a mountain valley in south-east France, its chief village, of the same name, being the capital of a canton of the arrondissement of Bonneville in the department of Haute-Savoie. The valley runs from N.E. to S.W., and is watered by the Arve, which rises in the Mer de Glace. On the S.E. towers the snowclad chain of Mont Blanc, and on the N.W. the less lofty, but rugged chain of the Brévent and of the Aiguilles Rouges. Near the head of the valley is the village of Argentière (4101 ft.), which is connected with Switzerland by “char” (light carriage) roads over the Tête Noire and past Salvan, and by a mule path over the Col de Balme, which joins the Tête Noire route near Trient and then crosses by a “char” road the Col de la Forclaz to Martigny in the Rhone valley. The principal village, Chamonix (3416 ft.), is 6 m. below Argentière by electric railway (which continues via Finhaut to Martigny) and is visited annually by a host of tourists, as it is the best starting-point for the exploration of the glaciers of the Mont Blanc chain, as well as for the ascent of Mont Blanc itself. It is connected with Geneva by a railway (55 m.). In 1906 the population of the village was 806, of the commune 3482.

The valley is first heard of about 1091, when it was granted by the count of the Genevois to the great Benedictine house of St Michel de la Cluse, near Turin, which by the early 13th century established a priory therein. But in 1786 the inhabitants bought their freedom from the canons of Sallanches, to whom the priory had been transferred in 1519. In 1530 the inhabitants obtained from the count of the Genevois the privilege of holding two fairs a year, while the valley was often visited by the civil officials and by the bishops of Geneva (first recorded visit in 1411, while St Francis de Sales came thither in 1606). But travellers for pleasure were long rare. The first party to publish (1744) an account of their visit was that of Dr R. Pococke, Mr W. Windham and other Englishmen who visited the Mer de Glace in 1741. In 1742 came P. Martel and several other Genevese, in 1760 H.B. de Saussure, and rather later Bourrit.

See J.A. Bonnefoy and A. Perrin,Le Prieuré de Chamonix(2 vols., Chambery, 1879 and 1883); A. Perrin,Histoire de la vallée et du prieuré de Chamonix(Chambéry, 1887); L. Kurz and X. Imfeld,Carte de la chaîne du Mont Blanc(1896; new ed., 1905); L. Kurz,Climbers’ Guide to the Chain of Mont Blanc(London, 1892); also works referred to underBlanc, Mont.

(W. A. B. C.)

CHAMPAGNE,an ancient province of the kingdom of France, bounded N. by Liége and Luxemburg; E. by Lorraine; S. by Burgundy; and W. by Picardy and Isle de France. It now forms the departments of Ardennes, Marne, Aube and Haute Marne, with part of Aisne, Seine-et-Marne, Yonne and Meuse. Its name—in Latin Campania, “country of plains”—is derived from the immense plains near Reims, Châlons and Troyes. It was constituted towards the end of the middle ages by joining to the countship of Champagne the ecclesiastical duchies of Reims and Langres, together with the ecclesiastical countship of Châlons. Documents of the 12th and 13th centuries make it possible to determine the territorial configuration of the countship of Champagne with greater accuracy than in the case of any other fief of the crown of France. Formed at random by the acquisitions of the counts of the houses of Vermandois and Blois, Champagne reckoned among its dependencies, from 1152 to 1234, the countship of Blois and Chartres, of which Touraine was a fief, the countship of Sancerre, and various scattered fiefs in the Bourbonnais and in Burgundy. Officially called the “countship of Champagne and Brie” since 1217, this state was formed by the union of the countships of Troyes and Meaux, to which the greater part of the districts embraced in the country known, since the beginning of the middle ages, by the name of Champagne and Brie came in course of time to be attached. Placed under the authority of a single count in 960, the countships of Troyes and Meaux were not again separated after 1125. For the counts of Troyes before the 11th century seeTroyes. We confine ourselves here to the counts of Champagne of the house of Blois.

About 1020 Eudes or Odo I. (Odo II., count of Blois) became count of Champagne. He disputed the kingdom of Burgundy with the emperor Conrad, and died in 1037, in a battle near Bar-le-Duc. In 1037 he was succeeded by his younger son, Stephen II. About 1050 Odo II., son of Stephen II., became count. This prince, guilty of murder, found refuge in Normandy, where he received the castle of Aumale. He took part in 1066 in the conquest of England, and became earl of Holderness. About 1063 Theobald (Thibaud) I., count of Blois and Meaux, eldest son of Odo I., became count of Champagne. In 1077 he seized the countships of Vitry and Bar-sur-Aube, left vacant by Simon of Valois, who had retired to a monastery. In 1089 Odo III., second son of Theobald II., became count, and was succeeded about 1093 by his younger brother, Hugh, who became a templar in 1125, and gave up the countship to his suzerain, the count of Blois. In 1125 the countship of Champagne passed to Theobald II. the Great, already count of Blois and Meaux, and one of the most powerful French barons of his time. He was related to the royal house of England, and incurred the displeasure of the king of France, who in 1142 invaded Champagne and burnt the town of Vitry. After Theobald the Great the countship of Blois ceased to be the dominant fief of his house and became the appanage of a younger branch. In 1152 Henry the Liberal, eldest son of Theobald II., became count of Champagne; he married Mary, daughter of Louis VII. of France, and went to the crusade in 1178. He was taken prisoner by the Turks, recovered his liberty through the good offices of the emperor of the East, and died a few days after his return to Champagne. In 1181 his eldest son, Henry II., succeeded him under the tutelage of Mary of France. In 1190 he went to the Holy Land, and became king of Jerusalem in 1192 by his marriage with Isabelle, widow of the marquis of Montferrat. He died in 1197 in his town of Acre from the results of an accident. In 1197 Theobald III., younger son of Henry I., became count, and was succeeded in 1201 by Theobald IV., “le Chansonnier” (the singer), who was the son of Theobald III. and Blanche of Navarre, and was born some days after the death of his father. From 1201 to 1222 he remained under the tutelage of his mother, who governed Champagne with great sagacity. The reign of this prince was singularly eventful. The two daughters of count Henry II. successively claimed the countship, so that Theobald had to combat the claims of Philippa, wife of Erard of Brienne, seigneur of Rameru, from 1216 to 1222, and those of Alix, queen dowager of Cyprus, in 1233 and 1234. In 1226 he followed king Louis VII. to the siege of Avignon, and after the death of that monarch played a prominent part during the reign of St Louis. At first leagued with the malcontent barons, he allowed himself to be gained over by the queen-mother, andthus came into collision with his old allies. He became king of Navarre in 1234 by the death of his maternal uncle, Sancho VII. but by the onerous treaty which he concluded in that year with the queen of Cyprus he was compelled to cede to the king, in return for a large sum of money, the overlordship of the countships of Blois, Chartres and Sancerre, and the viscounty of Châteaudun. In 1239 and 1240 he took part in an expedition to the Holy Land, probably accompanied St Louis in 1242 in the campaign of Saintonge against the English, and died on the 14th of July 1254 at Pampeluna. If the author of theGrandes chroniques de Francecan be believed, Theobald IV. conceived a passion for Queen Blanche, the mother of St Louis,—a passion which she returned, and which explains the changes in his policy; but this opinion apparently must be relegated to the category of historical fables. The witty and courtly songs he composed place him in the front rank of the poets of that class, in which he showed somewhat more originality than his rivals. In 1254 Theobald V. the Young, eldest son of Theobald IV. and, like his father, king of Navarre, became count of Champagne. He married Isabelle of France, daughter of St Louis, and followed his father-in-law to Tunis to the crusade, dying on his return. In 1270 he was succeeded by Henry III. the Fat, king of Navarre. Henry was succeeded in 1274 by his only daughter, Joan of Navarre, under the tutelage of her mother, Blanche of Artois, and afterwards of Edmund, earl of Lancaster, her mother’s second husband. In 1284 she married the heir-presumptive to the throne of France, Philip the Fair, to whom she brought the countship of Champagne as well as the kingdom of Navarre. She became queen of France in 1285, and died on the 4th of April 1305, when her eldest son by King Philip, Louis Hutin, became count of Champagne. He was the last independent count of the province, which became attached to the French crown on his accession to the throne of France in 1314.

The celebrated fairs of Champagne, which flourished in the 12th and 13th centuries, were attended by merchants from all parts of civilized Europe. They were six in number: two at Troyes, two at Provins, one at Lagny-sur-Marne, and one at Bar-sur-Aube. They formed a kind of continuous market, divided into six periods, and passed in turn from Lagny to Bar, from Bar to Provins, from Provins to Troyes, from Troyes to Provins and from Provins to Troyes, to complete the year. It was, in fact, a perpetual fair, which had at once unity and variety, offering to the different parts of the countship the means of selling successively the special productions of their soil or their industry, and of procuring in exchange riches and comforts. These fairs had special legislation; and special magistrates, called “masters of the fairs,” had control of the police.

For the wine “champagne” seeWine.

Authorities.—H. d’Arbois de Jubainville,Histoire des ducs et des comtes de Champagne(1859-1866); A. Longnon,Documents relatifs au comté de Champagne et de Brie(1901 seq.; vol. i. with map); F. Bourquelot,Études sur les foires de Champagne(1865).

(A. Lo.)

CHAMPAGNY, JEAN BAPTISTE NOMPÈRE DE(1756-1834), French politician, was born at Roanne, and entered the navy in 1774. He fought through the war in America and resigned in 1787. Elected deputy by thenoblesseof Forex to the states-general in 1789, he went over to the third estate on the 21st of June and collaborated in the work of the Constituent Assembly, especially occupying himself with the reorganization of the navy. A political career seems to have attracted him little; he remained in private life from 1791 to 1799, when Napoleon named him member of the council of state. From July 1801 to August 1804 he was ambassador of France at Vienna, and directed with great intelligence the incessant negotiations between the two courts. In August 1804 Napoleon made him minister of the interior, and in this position, which he held for three years, he proved an administrator of the first order. In addition to the ordinary charges of his office, he had to direct the recruitment of the army, organize the industrial exhibition of 1808, and to complete the public works undertaken in Paris and throughout France. He was devoted to Napoleon, on whom he lavished adulation in his speeches. In August 1807 the emperor chose him to succeed Talleyrand as minister for foreign affairs. He directed the annexation of the Papal States in April 1808, worked to secure the abdication of Charles IV. of Spain in May 1808, negotiated the peace of Vienna (1809) and the marriage of Napoleon. In April 1811 a quarrel with the emperor led to his retirement, and he obtained the sinecure office of intendant general of the crown. In 1814, after the abdication, the empress sent him on a fruitless mission to the emperor of Austria. Then he went over to the Bourbons. During the Hundred Days he again joined Napoleon. This led to his exclusion by Louis XVIII., but in 1819 he recovered his dignity of peer. He died in Paris in 1834. He had three sons who became men of distinction. François (1804-1882) was a well-known author, who was made a member of the French Academy in 1869. His great work was a history of the Roman empire, in three parts, (1)Les Césars(1841-1843, 4 vols.), (2)Les Antonins(1863, 3 vols.), (3)Les Césars du IIIe siècle(1870, 3 vols.). Napoléon (1806-1872) published aTraité de la police municipalein 4 volumes (1844-1861), and was a deputy in the Corps Législatif from 1852 to 1870. Jérome Paul (1809-1886) was also deputy in the Corps Législatif from 1853 to 1870, and was made honorary chamberlain in 1859. He worked at the official publication of the correspondence of Napoleon I.

CHAMPAIGN,a city of Champaign county, Illinois, U.S.A., about 125 m. S. by W. of Chicago, on the head-waters of the Vermilion river. Pop. (1890) 5839; (1900) 9098, of whom 973 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 12,421. It is served by the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis, the Wabash, and the Illinois Central railways (the last having repair shops here), and by the Illinois (electric) Traction System from Danville, Illinois, to St Louis, Missouri. In 1906 the city covered 3.5 sq. m.; it is situated in a rich agricultural region, and has small manufacturing interests. Immediately east of Champaign is the city of Urbana, the county-seat of Champaign county, served by the Wabash and the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis railways, with repair shops of the latter. In 1890 the population of Urbana was 3511; in 1900, 5728 (300 foreign-born); in 1910, 8245. Partly in Urbana and partly in Champaign is the University of Illinois (seeIllinois); immediately south of its campus is the 400-acre farm of the university. Each city has a public library, and in Champaign are the Burnham Athenaeum, the Burnham hospital, the Garwood home for old ladies, and several parks, all gifts of former citizens. Champaign was founded in 1855, incorporated as a city in 1860, and re-chartered in 1883. Urbana secured a city charter in 1855.

CHAMPAIGNE, PHILIPPE DE(1602-1674), Belgian painter of the French school, was born at Brussels of a poor family. He was a pupil of J. Fouquières; and, going to Paris in 1621, was employed by N. Du Chesne to paint along with Nicholas Poussin in the palace of the Luxembourg. His best works are to be found at Vincennes, and in the church of the Carmelites at Paris, where is his celebrated Crucifix, a signal perspective success, on one of the vaultings. After the death of Du Chesne, Philippe became first painter to the queen of France, and ultimately rector of the Academy of Paris. As his age advanced and his health failed, he retired to Port Royal, where he had a daughter cloistered as a nun, of whom (along with Catherine Agnès Arnauld) he painted a celebrated picture, now in the Louvre, highly remarkable for its solid unaffected truth. This, indeed, is the general character of his work,—grave reality, without special elevation or depth of character, or charm of warm or stately colour. He produced an immense number of paintings, religious and other subjects as well as portraits, dispersed over various parts of France, and now over the galleries of Europe. Philippe was a good man, indefatigable, earnest and scrupulously religious. He died on the 12th of August 1674.

CHAMPARAN,orChumparun, a district of British India, in the Patna division of Bengal, occupying the north-west corner of Behar, between the two rivers Gandak and Baghmati and the Nepal hills. It has an area of 3531 sq. m. In 1901 the population was 1,790,463, showing a decrease of 4% in the decade. A broad grass-covered road or embankment defines the Nepal frontier, except where rivers or streams form a naturalboundary. The district is a vast level except in the N. and N.W., where it undulates, and gradually assumes a rugged appearance as it approaches the mountains and forests of Nepal. Wide uncultivated tracts cover its north-western corner; the southern and western parts are carefully cultivated, and teem with an active agricultural population. The principal rivers are the Gandak, navigable all the year round, the Buri Gandak, Panch Nadi, Lalbagia, Koja and Teur. Old beds of rivers intersect Champaran in every direction, and one of these forms a chain of lakes which occupy an area of 139 sq. m. in the centre of the district. Champaran, with the rest of Bengal and Behar, was acquired by the British in 1765. Up to 1866 it remained a subdivision of Saran. In that year it was separated and formed into a separate district. The administrative headquarters are at Motihari (population, 13,730); Bettia is the centre of a very large estate; Segauli, still a small military station, was the scene of a massacre during the Mutiny. Champaran was the chief seat of indigo planting in Behar before the decline of that industry. There are about 40 saltpetre refineries. The district suffered severely from drought in 1866 and 1874, and again in 1897. In the last year a small government canal was opened, and a canal from the Gandak has also been constructed. The district is traversed almost throughout its length to Bettia by the Tirhoot state railway. A considerable trade is conducted with Nepal.

CHAMPEAUX, WILLIAM OF[Gulielmus Campellensis] (c. 1070-1121), French philosopher and theologian was born at Champeaux near Melun. After studying under Anselm of Laon and Roscellinus, he taught in the school of the cathedral of Notre Dame, of which he was made canon in 1103. Among his pupils was Abelard. In 1108 he retired into the abbey of St Victor, where he resumed his lectures. He afterwards became bishop of Châlons-sur-Marne, and took part in the dispute concerning investitures as a supporter of Calixtus II., whom he represented at the conference of Mousson. His only printed works are a fragment on the Eucharist (inserted by Jean Mabillon in his edition of the works of St Bernard), and theMoralia AbbreviataandDe Origine Animae(in E. Martène’sThesaurus novus Anecdotorum, 1717, vol. 5). In the last of these he maintains that children who die unbaptized must be lost, the pure soul being denied by the grossness of the body, and declares that God’s will is not to be questioned. He upholds the theory of Creatianism (that a soul is specially created for each human being). Ravaisson-Mollien has discovered a number of fragments by him, among which the most important is theDe Essentia Dei et de Substantia Dei; aLiber Sententiarum, consisting of discussions on ethics and Scriptural interpretation, is also ascribed to Champeaux. He is reputed the founder of Realism. For his views and his controversy with Abelard, seeScholasticismandAbelard.

See Victor Cousin, introduction to hisOuvrages inédits d’Abélard(1836), andFragments pour servir à l’histoire de la philosophie(1865); G.A. Patru,Wilhelmi Campellensis de natura et de origine rerum placita(1847); E. Michaud,Guillaume de Champeaux et les écoles de Paris au XIIe siècle(2nd ed., 1868); “William of Champeaux and his Times” inChristian Observer, lxxii. 843; B. Hauréau,De la philosophie scolastique(Paris, 1850); Opuscula in J.P. Migne’sPatrologia, clxiii.

CHAMPERTY,orChamparty(Lat.campi partitio, O. Fr.champ parti), in English law, a bargain between a plaintiff or defendant in a cause and another person, to divide the land (campum partiri) or other matter sued for, if they prevail, in consideration of that person carrying on or defending the suit at his own expense. It is a misdemeanour punishable by fine or imprisonment. It differs only from maintenance (q.v.), in that the recompense for the service which has been given is always part of the matter in suit, or some profit growing out of it. So an agreement by a solicitor not to charge costs on condition of retaining for himself a share of the sums recovered would be illegal and void. It is not, however, champerty to charge the subject-matter of a suit in order to obtain the means of prosecuting it.

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