Chapter 15

See Wilhelm Bode,Die italienische Plastik(Berlin, 1893).

DESIDERIUS,the last king of the Lombards, is chiefly known through his connexion with Charlemagne. He was duke of Tuscany and became king of the Lombards after the death of Aistulf in 756. Seeking, like his predecessors, to extend the Lombard power in Italy, he came into collision with the papacy, and about 772 the new pope, Adrian I., implored the aid of Charlemagne against him. Other causes of quarrel already existed between the Frankish and the Lombard kings. In 770 Charlemagne had married a daughter of Desiderius; but he soon put this lady away, and sent her back to her father. Moreover, Gerberga, the widow of Charlemagne’s brother Carloman, had sought the protection of the Lombard king after her husband’s death in 771; and in return for the slight cast upon his daughter, Desiderius had recognized Gerberga’s sons as the lawful Frankish kings, and had attacked Adrian for refusing to crown them. Such was the position when Charlemagne led his troops across the Alps in 773, took the Lombard capital, Ticinum, the modern Pavia, in June 774, and added the kingdom of Lombardy to his own dominions. Desiderius was carried to France, where he died, and his son, Adalgis, spent his life in futile attempts to recover his father’s kingdom. The name of Desiderius appears in the romances of the Carolingian period.

See S. Abel,Untergang des Langobardenreichs(Göttingen, 1859); andJahrbücher des fränkischen Reiches unter Karl dem Grossen(Leipzig, 1865); L. M. Hartmann,Geschichte Italiens im Mittelalter(Gotha, 1903); and Paulus Diaconus,Historia Langobardorum, edited by L. Bethmann and G. Waitz (Hanover, 1878).

DESIGN(Fr.dessin, drawing; Lat.designare, to mark out), in the arts, a drawing, more especially when made as a guide for the execution of work; that side of drawing which deals with arrangement rather than representation; and generally, by analogy, a deliberate planning, scheming or purpose. Modern use has tended to associate design with the word “original” in the sense of new or abnormal. The end of design, however, is properly utility, fitness and delight. If a discovery, it should be a discovery of what seems inevitable, an inspiration arising out of the conditions, and parallel to invention in the sciences. The faculty of design has best flourished when an almost spontaneous development was taking place in the arts, and while certain classes of arts, more or less noble, were generally demanded and the demand copiously satisfied, as in the production of Greek vases, Byzantine mosaics, Gothic cathedrals, and Renaissance paintings. Thus where a “school of design” arises there is much general likeness in the products but also a general progress. The common experience—“tradition”—is a part of each artist’s stock in trade; and all are carried along in a stream of continuous exploration. Some of the arts, writing, for instance, have been little touched by conscious originality in design, all has been progress, or, at least, change, in response to conditions. Under such a system, in a time of progress, the proper limitations react as intensity; when limitations are removed the designer has less and less upon which to react, and unconditioned liberty gives him nothing at all to lean on. Design is response to needs, conditions and aspirations. The Greeks so well understood this that they appear to have consciously restrained themselves to the development of selected types, not only in architecture and literature, but in domestic arts, like pottery. Design with them was less the new than the true.

For the production of a school of design it is necessary that there should be a considerable body of artists working together, and a large demand from a sympathetic public. A process of continuous development is thus brought into being which sustains the individual effort. It is necessary for the designer to know familiarly the processes, the materials and the skilful use of the tools involved in the productions of a given art, and properly only one who practises a craft can design for it. It is necessary to enter into the traditions of the art, that is, to know past achievements. It is necessary, further, to be in relation with nature, the great reservoir of ideas, for it is from it that fresh thought will flow into all forms of art. These conditions being granted, the best and most useful meaning we can give to the word design is exploration, experiment, consideration of possibilities. Putting too high a value on originality other than this is to restrict natural growth from vital roots, in which true originality consists. To take design in architecture as an example, we have rested too much on definite precedent (a different thing from living tradition) and, on the other hand, hoped too much from newness. Exploration of the possibilities in arches, vaults, domes and the like, as a chemist or a mathematician explores, is little accepted as a method in architecture at this time, although in antiquity it was by such means that the great master-works were produced: the Pantheon, Santa Sophia, Durham and Amiens cathedrals. The same is true of all forms of design. Of course the genius and inspiration of the individual artist is not here ignored, but assumed. What we are concerned with is a mode of thought which shall make it most fruitful.

(W. R. L.)

DESIRE,in popular usage, a term for a wishing or longing for something which one has not got. For its technical use seePsychology. The word is derived through the French from Lat.desiderare, to long or wish for, to miss. The substantivedesideriumhas the special meaning of desire for something one has once possessed but lost, hence regret or grief. The usual explanation of the word is to connect it withsidus, star, as inconsiderare, to examine the stars with attention, hence, to look closely at. If this is so, the history of the transition in meaning is unknown. J. B. Greenough (Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, i. 96) has suggested that the word is a military slang term. According to this theorydesideraremeant originally to miss a soldier from the ranks at roll-call, the root being that seen insedere, to sit,sedes, seat, place, &c.

DESK(from Lat.discus, quoit, in med. sense of “table,” cf. “dish” and Ger.Tisch, table, from same source), any kind of flat or sloping table for writing or reading. Its earliest shape was probably that with which we are familiar in pictures of the monasticscriptorium—rather high and narrow with a sloping slab. The primitive desk had little accommodation for writing materials, and no storage room for papers; drawers, cupboards and pigeon-holes were the evolution of periods when writing grew common, and when letters and other documents requiring preservation became numerous. Itwas long the custom to secure papers in chests or cabinets, whereas the modern desk serves the double purpose of a writing-table and a storehouse for documents. The first development from the early stall-like desk consisted of the addition of a drawer; then the table came to be supported upon legs or columns, which, as in the many beautiful examples constructed by Boulle and his school, were often of elaborate grace. Eventually the legs were replaced by a series of superimposed drawers forming pedestals—hence the familiar pedestal writing-table.

For a long period there were two distinct contemporary forms of desk—the table and the bureau or escritoire. The latter shape attained a popularity so great that, especially in England and America, it was found even in houses in which there was little occasion for writing. The English-speaking people of the 18th century were amazingly fond of pieces of furniture which served a double or triple purpose. The bureau—the word is the French generic appellation for a desk—derives its name from the material with which it was originally covered (Fr.bure, woollen cloth). It consists of an upright carcass sloping inward at the top, and provided with long drawers below. The upper part is fitted with small drawers and pigeon-holes, and often with secret places, and the writing space is formed by a hinged slab supported on runners; when not in use this slab closes up the sloping top. During the 18th century innumerable thousands of these bureaux were made on both sides of the Atlantic—indeed, if we except tables and chairs, no piece of old furniture is more common. In the first part of that period they were usually of oak, but when mahogany was introduced into Europe it speedily ousted the heavier-looking wood. Its deep rich colour and the high polish of which it was capable added appreciably to its ornamental appearance. While the pigeon-holes and small drawers were used for papers, the long drawers were often employed for purposes other than literary. In time the bureau-secretaire became a bureau-bookcase, the glazed shelves, which were often a separate erection, resting upon the top of the bureau. The cabinetmakers of the second half of the 18th century, the period of the greatestfloraisonof this combination, competed with each other in devising elegant frets for the glass fronts. Solid and satisfying to the eye, if somewhat severe in form, the mahogany bureau was usually an exceedingly presentable piece of furniture. Occasionally it had abombéfront which mitigated its severity; this was especially the case in the Dutch varieties, which were in a measure free adaptations of the French Louis Quinzecommode. These Dutch bureaux, and the English ones made in imitation of them, were usually elaborately inlaid with floral designs in coloured woods; but whereas the Batavian marquetry was often rough and crude, the English work was usually of considerable excellence. Side by side with this form of writing apparatus was one variety or another of the writing-table proper. In so far as it is possible to generalize upon such a detail it would appear that the bureau was the desk of the yeoman and what we now call the lower middle class, and that the slighter and more table-like forms were preferred by those higher in the social scale. This probably means no more than that while the one class preserved the old English affection for the solid and heavy furniture which would last for generations, those who were more free to follow the fashions and fancies of their time were, as the pecuniarily easy classes always have been, ready to abandon the old for the new.

Just about the time when the flat table with its drawers in a single row, or in nests serving as pedestals, was finally assuming its familiar modern shape, an invention was introduced which was destined eventually, so far as numbers and convenience go, to supersede all other forms of desk. This was the cylinder-top writing-table. Nothing is known of the originator of this device, but it is certain that if not French himself he worked in France. The historians of French furniture agree in fixing its introduction about the year 1750, and we know that a desk worked on this principle was in the possession of the French crown in the year 1760. Even in its early days the cylinder took more than one form. It sometimes consisted of a solid piece of curved wood, and sometimes of a tambour frame—that is to say, of a series of narrow jointed strips of wood mounted on canvas; the revolving shutters of a shop-front are an adaptation of the idea. For a long period, however, the cylinder was most often solid, and remained so until the latter part of the 19th century, when the “American roll-top desk” began to be made in large numbers. This is indeed the old French form with a tambour cylinder, and it is now the desk that is most frequently met with all over the world for commercial purposes. Its popularity is due to its large accommodation, and to the facility with which the closing of the cylinder conceals all papers, and automatically locks every drawer. To France we owe not only the invention of this ubiquitous form, but the construction of many of the finest and most historic desks that have survived—the characteristic marquetry writing-tables of the Boulle period, and the gilded splendours of that of Louis Quinze have never been surpassed in the history of furniture. Indeed, the “Bureau du roi” which was made for Louis XV. is the most famous and magnificent piece of furniture that, so far as we know, was ever constructed. This desk, which is now one of the treasures of the Louvre, was the work of several artist-artificers, chief among whom were Oeben and Riesener—Oeben, it may be added here as a matter of artistic interest, became the grandfather of Eugene Delacroix. The bureau is signed “Riesener fa. 1769 à l’Arsenal de Paris,” but it has been established that, however great may have been the share of its construction which fell to him, the conception was that of Oeben. The work was ordered in 1760; it would thus appear that nine years were consumed in perfecting it, which is not surprising when we learn from the detailed account of its construction that the work began with making a perfect miniature model followed by one of full size. The “bureau du roi” is a large cylinder desk elaborately inlaid in marquetry of woods, and decorated with a wonderful and ornate series of mounts consisting of mouldings, plaques, vases and statuettes of gilt bronze cast and chased. These bronzes are the work of Duplessis, Winant and Hervieux. The desk, which shows plainly the transition between the Louis Quinze and Louis Seize styles, is as remarkable for the boldness of its conception as for the magnificent finish of its details. Its lines are large, flowing and harmonious, and although it is no longer exactly as it left the hands of its makers (Oeben died before it was finished) the alterations that have been made have hardly interfered with the general effect. For the head of the king for whom it was made that of Minerva in a helmet was substituted under his successor. The ciphers of Louis XV. have been removed and replaced by Sèvres plaques, and even the key which bore the king’s initial crowned with laurels and palm leaves, with his portrait on the one side, and the fleur de lys on the other, has been interfered with by an austere republicanism. Yet no tampering with details can spoil the monumental nobility of this great conception.

(J. P.-B.)

DESLONGCHAMPS, JACQUES AMAND EUDES-(1794-1867), French naturalist and palaeontologist, was born at Caen in Normandy on the 17th of January 1794. His parents, though poor, contrived to give him a good education, and he studied medicine in his native town to such good effect that in 1812 he was appointed assistant-surgeon in the navy, and in 1815 surgeon assistant major to the military hospital of Caen. Soon afterwards he proceeded to Paris to qualify for the degree of doctor of surgery, and there the researches and teachings of Cuvier attracted his attention to subjects of natural history and palaeontology. In 1822 he was elected surgeon to the board of relief at Caen, and while he never ceased to devote his energies to the duties of this post, he sought relaxation in geological studies. Soon he discovered remains ofTeleosaurusin one of the Caen quarries, and he became an ardent palaeontologist. He was one of the founders of the museum of natural history at Caen, and acted as honorary curator; he was likewise one of the founders of theSociétié linnéenne de Normandie(1823), to the transactions of which society he communicated papers onTeleosaurus,Poekilopleuron(Megalosaurus), on Jurassic mollusca and brachiopoda. In 1825 he became professor of zoology to the faculty of sciences, and in 1847, dean. He died on the 17th of January 1867.

His sonEugène Eudes-Deslongchamps(1830-1889), Frenchpalaeontologist, was born in 1830. He succeeded his father about the year 1856 as professor of zoology at the faculty of sciences at Caen, and in 1861 he became also professor of geology and dean. After the death of his father in 1867, he devoted himself to the completion of a memoir on the Teleosaurs: the joint labours being embodied in hisProdrome des Téléosauriens du Calvados. To the Société Linnéenne de Normandie he contributed memoirs on Jurassic brachiopods, on the geology of the department of La Manche (1856), of Calvados (1856-1863), on theTerrain callovien(1859), onNouvelle-Calédonie(1864), andÉtudes sur les étages jurassiques inférieurs de la Normandie(1864). His workLe Jura normandwas issued in 1877-1878 (incomplete). He died at Château Matthieu, Calvados, on the 21st of December 1889.

DESMAISEAUX, PIERRE(1673-1745); French writer, was born at Saillat, probably in 1673. His father, a minister of the reformed church, had to leave France on the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and took refuge in Geneva, where Pierre was educated. Bayle gave him an introduction to the 3rd Lord Shaftesbury, with whom, in 1699, he came to England, where he engaged in literary work. He remained in close touch with the religious refugees in England and Holland, and constantly in correspondence with the leading continental savants and writers, who were in the habit of employing him to conduct such business as they might have in England. In 1720 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. Among his works areVie de St Evremond(1711),Vie de Boileau-Despréaux(1712),Vie de Bayle(1730). He also took an active part in preparing theBibliothèque raisonnée des ouvrages de l’Europe(1728-1753), and theBibliothèque britannique(1733-1747), and edited a selection of St Evremond’s writings (1706). Part of Desmaiseaux’s correspondence is preserved in the British Museum, and other letters are in the royal library at Copenhagen. He died on the 11th of July 1745.

DESMAREST, NICOLAS(1725-1815), French geologist, was born at Soulaines, in the department of Aube, on the 16th of September 1725. Of humble parentage, he was educated at the college of the Oratorians of Troyes and Paris. Taking full advantage of the instruction he received, he was able to support himself by teaching, and to continue his studies independently. Buffon’sTheory of the Earthinterested him, and in 1753 he successfully competed for a prize by writing an essay on the ancient connexion between England and France. This attracted much attention, and ultimately led to his being employed in studying and reporting on manufactures in different countries, and in 1788 to his appointment as inspector-general of the manufactures of France. He utilized his journeys, travelling on foot, so as to add to his knowledge of the earth’s structure. In 1763 he made observations in Auvergne, recognizing that the prismatic basalts were old lava streams, comparing them with the columns of the Giant’s Causeway in Ireland, and referring them to the operations of extinct volcanoes. It was not, however, until 1774 that he published an essay on the subject, accompanied by a geological map, having meanwhile on several occasions revisited the district. He then pointed out the succession of volcanic outbursts and the changes the rocks had undergone through weathering and erosion. As remarked by Sir A. Geikie, the doctrine of the origin of valleys by the erosive action of the streams which flow through them was first clearly taught by Desmarest. An enlarged and improved edition of his map of the volcanic region of Auvergne was published after his death, in 1823, by his sonAnselme Gaëtan Desmarest(1784-1838), who was distinguished as a zoologist, and author of memoirs on recent and fossil crustacea. He died in Paris on the 20th of September 1815.

SeeThe Founders of Geology, by Sir A. Geikie (1897), pp. 48-78.

(H. B. Wo.)

DESMARETS(orDesmaretz),JEAN,Sieur de Saint-Sorlin(1595-1676), French dramatist and miscellaneous writer, was born in Paris in 1595. When he was about thirty he was introduced to Richelieu, and became one of the band of writers who carried out the cardinal’s literary ideas. Desmarets’s own inclination was to novel-writing, and the success of his romanceArianein 1631 led to his formal admission to the circle that met at the house of Valentine Conrart and later developed into the Académie Française. Desmarets was its first chancellor. It was at Richelieu’s request that he began to write for the theatre. In this kind he produced a comedy long regarded as a masterpiece,Les Visionnaires(1637); a prose-tragedy,Érigone(1638); andScipion(1639), a tragedy in verse. His success led to official preferment, and he was madeconseiller du roi,contrôleur-général de l’extraordinaire des guerres, and secretary-general of the fleet of the Levant. His long epicClovis(1657) is noteworthy because Desmarets rejected the traditional pagan background, and maintained that Christian imagery should supplant it. With this standpoint he contributed several works in defence of the moderns in the famous quarrel between the Ancients and Moderns. In his later years Desmarets devoted himself chiefly to producing a quantity of religious poems, of which the best-known is perhaps his verse translation of theOffice de la Vierge(1645). He was a violent opponent of the Jansenists, against whom he wrote aRéponse à l’insolente apologie de Port-Royal ...(1666). He died in Paris on the 28th of October 1676.

See also H. Rigault,Histoire de la querelle des anciens et des modernes(1856), pp. 80-103.

DESMARETS, NICOLAS,Sieur de Maillebois(1648-1721), French statesman, was born in Paris on the 10th of September 1648. His mother was the sister of J. B. Colbert, who took him into his offices as a clerk. He became counsellor to the parlement in 1672, master of requests in 1674 and intendant of finances in 1678. In these last functions he had to treat with the financiers for the coinage of new silver pieces of four sous. After Colbert’s death he was involved in the legal proceedings taken against those financiers who had manufactured coins of bad alloy. The prosecution, conducted by the members of the family of Le Tellier, rivals of the Colberts, presented no proof against Desmarets. Nevertheless he was stripped of his offices and exiled to his estates by the king, on the 23rd of December 1683. In March 1686 he was authorized to return to Paris, and again entered into relations with the controllers-general of finance, to whom he furnished for more than ten years remarkable memoirs on the economic situation in France. As early as 1687 he showed the necessity for radical reforms in the system of taxation, insisting on the ruin of the people and the excessive expenses of the king. By these memoirs he established his claim to a place among the great economists of the time, Vauban, Boisguilbert and the comte de Boulainvilliers. When in September 1699 Chamillart was named controller-general of finances, he took Desmarets for counsellor; and when he created the two offices of directors of finances, he gave one to Desmarets (October 22, 1703). Henceforth Desmarets was veritable minister of finance. Louis XIV. had long conversations with him. Madame de Maintenon protected him. The economists Vauban and Boisguilbert exchanged long conversations with him. When Chamillart found his double functions too heavy, and retaining the ministry of war resigned that of finance in 1708, Desmarets succeeded him. The situation was exceedingly grave. The ordinary revenues of the year 1708 amounted to 81,977,007 livres, of which 57,833,233 livres had already been spent by anticipation, and the expenses to meet were 200,251,447 livres. In 1709 a famine reduced still more the returns from taxes. Yet Desmarets’s reputation renewed the credit of the state, and financiers consented to advance money they had refused to the king. The emission of paper money, and a reform in the collection of taxes, enabled him to tide over the years 1709 and 1710. Then Desmarets decided upon an “extreme and violent remedy,” to use his own expression,—an income tax. His “tenth” was based on Vauban’s plan; but the privileged classes managed to avoid it, and it proved no better than other expedients. Nevertheless Louis XIV. managed to meet the most urgent expenses, and the deficit of 1715, about 350,000,000 livres, was much less than it would have been had it not been for Desmarets’s reforms. The honourable peace which Louis was enabled to conclude at Utrecht with his enemies was certainly due to the resources which Desmarets procured for him.

After the death of Louis XIV. Desmarets was dismissed by the regent along with all the other ministers. He withdrew tohis estates. To justify his ministry he addressed to the regent aCompte rendu, which showed clearly the difficulties he had to meet. His enemies even, like Saint Simon, had to recognize his honesty and his talent. He was certainly, after Colbert, the greatest finance minister of Louis XIV.

See Forbonnais,Recherches et considérations sur les finances de la France(2 vols., Basel, 1758); Montyon,Particularités et observations sur les ministres des finances de la France(Paris, 1812); De Boislisle,Correspondance des contrôleurs-généraux des finances(3 vols., Paris, 1873-1897); and the same author’s “Desmarets et l’affaire des pièces de quatre sols” in the appendix to the seventh volume of his edition of theMémoires de Saint-Simon.

(E. Es.)

DES MOINES,the capital and the largest city of Iowa, U.S.A., and the county-seat of Polk county, in the south central part of the state, at the confluence of the Raccoon with the Des Moines river. Pop. (1890) 50,093; (1900) 62,139, of whom 7946 were foreign-born, including 1907 from Sweden and 1432 from Germany; (1910 census) 86,368. Des Moines is served by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Chicago & North-Western, the Chicago Great Western, the Chicago, Milwaukee & St Paul, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, the Wabash, the Minneapolis & St Louis, and the Des Moines, Iowa Falls & Northern railways; also by several interurban electric lines. The chief building in Des Moines is the State Capitol, erected at a cost of about $3,000,000; other important buildings are the public library (containing, in 1908, 40,415 volumes), the court house, the post office, the Iowa State Historical building, a large auditorium and two hospitals. As a manufacturing centre the city has considerable importance. Among the leading products are those of the furnaces, foundries and machine shops, flour and grist mills, planing mills, creameries, bridge and iron works, publishing houses and a packing house; and brick, tile, pottery, patent medicines, furniture, caskets, tombstones, carriages, farm machinery, Portland cement, glue, gloves and hosiery. The value of the factory product in 1905 was $15,084,958, an increase of 79.7% in five years. The city is in one of the most productive coal regions of the state, has a large jobbing trade, and is an important centre for the insurance business. The Iowa state fair is held here annually. In 1908 this city had a park system of 750 acres. Des Moines is the seat of Des Moines College, a Baptist institution, co-educational, founded in 1865 (enrolment, 1907-1908, 214); of Drake University (co-educational; founded in 1881 by the Disciples of Christ; now non-sectarian), with colleges of liberal arts, law, medicine, dental surgery and of the Bible, a conservatory of music, and a normal school, in which are departments of oratory and commercial training, and having in 1907-1908 1764 students, of whom 520 were in the summer school only; of the Highland Park College, founded in 1890; of Grand View College (Danish Lutheran), founded in 1895; and of the Capital City commercial college (founded 1884). A new city charter, embodying what has become known as the “Des Moines Plan” of municipal government, was adopted in 1907. It centralizes power in a council of five (mayor and four councilmen), nominated at a non-partisan primary and voted for on a non-partisan ticket by the electors of the entire city, ward divisions having been abolished. Elections are biennial. Other city officers are chosen by the council, and city employees are selected by a civil service commission of three members, appointed by the council. The mayor is superintendent of the department of public affairs, and each of the other administrative departments (accounts and finances, public safety, streets and public improvements, and parks and public property) is under the charge of one of the councilmen. After petition signed by a number of voters not less than 25% of the number voting at the preceding municipal election, any member of the council may be removed by popular vote, to which all public franchises must be submitted, and by which the council may be compelled to pass any law or ordinance.

A fort called Fort Des Moines was established on the site of the city in 1843 to protect the rights of the Sacs and Foxes. In 1843 the site was opened to settlement by the whites; in 1851 Des Moines was incorporated as a town; in 1857 it was first chartered as a city, and, for the purpose of a more central location, the seat of government was removed hither from Iowa City. A fort was re-established here by act of Congress in 1900 and named Fort Des Moines. It is occupied by a full regiment of cavalry. The name of the city was taken from that of the river, which in turn is supposed to represent a corruption by the French of the original Indian name,Moingona,—the French at first using the abbreviation “moin,” and calling the river “la rivière des moins” and then, the name having become associated with the Trappist monks, changing it into “la rivière des moines.”

DESMOND, GERALD FITZGERALD,15th Earl of(d. 1583), Irish leader, was son of James, 14th earl, by his second wife More O’Carroll. His father had agreed in January 1541, as one of the terms of his submission to Henry VIII., to send young Gerald to be educated in England. At the accession of Edward VI. proposals to this effect were renewed; Gerald was to be the companion of the young king. Unfortunately for the subsequent peace of Munster these projects were not carried out. The Desmond estates were held by a doubtful title, and claims on them were made by the Butlers, the hereditary enemies of the Geraldines, the 9th earl of Ormonde having married Lady Joan Fitzgerald, daughter and heiress-general of the 11th earl of Desmond. On Ormonde’s death she proposed to marry Gerald Fitzgerald, and eventually did so, after the death of her second husband, Sir Francis Bryan. The effect of this marriage was a temporary cessation of open hostility between the Desmonds and her son, Thomas Butler, 10th earl of Ormonde.

Gerald succeeded to the earldom in 1558; he was knighted by the lord deputy Sussex, and did homage at Waterford. He soon established close relations with his namesake Gerald Fitzgerald, 11th earl of Kildare (1525-1585), and with Shane O’Neill. In spite of an award made by Sussex in August 1560 regulating the matters in dispute between Ormonde and the Fitzgeralds, the Geraldine outlaws were still plundering their neighbours. Desmond neglected a summons to appear at Elizabeth’s court for some time on the plea that he was at war with his uncle Maurice. When he did appear in London in May 1562 his insolent conduct before the privy council resulted in a short imprisonment in the Tower. He was detained in England until 1564, and soon after his return his wife’s death set him free from such restraint as was provided by her Butler connexion. He now raided Thomond, and in Waterford he sought to enforce his feudal rights on Sir Maurice Fitzgerald of Decies, who invoked the help of Ormonde. The two nobles thereupon resorted to open war, fighting a battle at Affane on the Blackwater, where Desmond was defeated and taken prisoner. Ormonde and Desmond were bound over in London to keep the peace, being allowed to return early in 1566 to Ireland, where a royal commission was appointed to settle the matters in dispute between them. Desmond and his brother Sir John of Desmond were sent over to England, where they surrendered their lands to the queen after a short experience of the Tower. In the meanwhile Desmond’s cousin, James Fitzmaurice Fitzgerald, caused himself to be acclaimed captain of Desmond in defiance of Sidney, and in the evident expectation of usurping the earldom. He sought to give the movement an ultra-Catholic character, with the idea of gaining foreign assistance, and allied himself with John Burke, son of the earl of Clanricarde, with Connor O’Brien, earl of Thomond, and even secured Ormonde’s brother, Sir Edmund Butler, whom Sidney had offended. Piers and Edward Butler also joined the rebellion, but the appearance of Sidney and Ormonde in the south-west was rapidly followed by the submission of the Butlers. Most of the Geraldines were subjugated by Humphrey Gilbert, but Fitzmaurice remained in arms, and in 1571 Sir John Perrot undertook to reduce him. Perrot hunted him down, and at last on the 23rd of February 1573 he made formal submission at Kilmallock, lying prostrate on the floor of the church by way of proving his sincerity.

Against the advice of the queen’s Irish counsellors Desmond was allowed to return to Ireland in 1573, the earl promising not to exercise palatinate jurisdiction in Kerry until his rights to it were proved. He was detained for six months in Dublin, but in November slipped through the hands of the government, andwithin a very short time had reduced to a state of anarchy the province which Perrot thought to have pacified by his severities. Edward Fitzgerald, brother of the earl of Kildare, and lieutenant of the queen’s pensioners in London, was sent to remonstrate with Desmond, but accomplished nothing. Desmond asserted that none but Brehon law should be observed between Geraldines; and Fitzmaurice seized Captain George Bourchier, one of Elizabeth’s officers in the west. Essex met the earl near Waterford in July, and Bourchier was surrendered, but Desmond refused the other demands made in the queen’s name. A document offering £500 for his head, and £1000 to any one who would take him alive, was drawn up but was vetoed by two members of the council. On the 18th of July 1574 the Geraldine chiefs signed the “Combination” promising to support the earl unconditionally; shortly afterwards Ormonde and the lord deputy, Sir William Fitzwilliam, marched on Munster, and put Desmond’s garrison at Derrinlaur Castle to the sword. Desmond submitted at Cork on the 2nd of September, handing over his estates to trustees. Sir Henry Sidney visited Munster in 1575, and affairs seemed to promise an early restoration of order. But Fitzmaurice had fled to Brittany in company with other leading Geraldines, John Fitzgerald, seneschal of Imokilly, who had held Ballymartyr against Sidney in 1567, and Edmund Fitzgibbon, the son of the White Knight who had been attainted in 1571. He intrigued at the French and Spanish courts for a foreign invasion of Ireland, and at Rome met the adventurer Stucley, with whom he projected an expedition which was to make a nephew of Gregory XIII. king of Ireland. In 1579 he landed in Smerwick Bay, where he was joined later by some Spanish soldiers at the Fort del Ore. His ships were captured on the 29th of July and he himself was slain in a skirmish while on his way to Tipperary. Nicholas Sanders, the papal legate who had accompanied Fitzmaurice, worked on Desmond’s weakness, and sought to draw him into open rebellion. Desmond had perhaps been restrained before by jealousy of Fitzmaurice; his indecisions ceased when on the 1st of November Sir William Pelham proclaimed him a traitor. The sack of Youghal and Kinsale by the Geraldines was speedily followed by the successes of Ormonde and Pelham acting in concert with Admiral Winter. In June 1581 Desmond had to take to the woods, but he maintained a considerable following for some time, which, however, in June 1583, when Ormonde set a price on his head, was reduced to four persons. Five months later, on the 11th of November, he was seized and murdered by a small party of soldiers. His brother Sir John of Desmond had been caught and killed in December 1581, and the seneschal of Imokilly had surrendered on the 14th of June 1583. After his submission the seneschal acted loyally, but his lands excited envy; he was arrested in 1587, and died in Dublin Castle two days later.

By his second marriage with Eleanor Butler, the 15th earl left two sons, the elder of whom, James, 16th earl (1570-1601), spent most of his life in prison. After an unsuccessful attempt in 1600-1601 to recover his inheritance he returned to England, where he died, the title becoming extinct.

See G. E. C(okayne,)Complete Peerage; R. Bagwell,Ireland under the Tudors(1885-1890);Annals of Ireland by the Four Masters(ed. J. O’Donovan, 1851); and the articleFitzgerald.

DESMOND(Des-Mumha), an ancient territorial division of Ireland, covering the eastern part of the modern Co. Kerry and the western part of Co. Cork. Its creation as a kingdom is placed in the year 248, when Oliol Olum, king of Munster, divided his territory between his two sons, giving Desmond to Eoghan, and Thomond or North Munster to Cormac. In 1329 Maurice Fitzthomas or Fitzgerald (d. 1356), lord of Decies and Desmond, was created 1st earl of Desmond by Edward III.; like other earls created about that time he ruled his territory as a palatinate, and his family acquired enormous powers and a large measure of independence. Meanwhile native kings continued to reign in a restricted territory until 1596. In 1583 came the attainder ofGerald Fitzgerald, 15th earl of Desmond (q.v.), and in 1586 an act of parliament declared the forfeiture of the Desmond estates to the crown. In 1571 a commission provided for the formation of Desmond into a county, and it was regarded as such for a few years, but by the beginning of the 17th century it was joined to Co. Kerry.

In 1619 the title of earl of Desmond was conferred on Richard Preston, Lord Dingwall, at whose death in 1628 it again became extinct. It was then bestowed on George Feilding, second son of William, earl of Denbigh, who had held the reversion of the earldom from 1622. His son William Feilding succeeded as earl of Denbigh in 1675, and thenceforward the title of Desmond was held in conjunction with that honour.

FromCambridge Natural History, vol. ii., “Worms,” &c., by permission of Macmillian & Co. Ltd.

FemaleDesmoscolex elongatusPanceri, ventral view. a, Ovary. (From Panceri.)

DESMOSCOLECIDA,a group of minute marine worm-like creatures. The body tapers towards each end and is marked by a number of well-defined ridges. These ridges resemble on a small scale those which surround the body of aPorocephalus(Linguatulida), and like them have no segmental significance. Their number varies in the different species. The head bears four setae, and some of the ridges bear a pair either dorsally or ventrally. The setae are movable. Two pigment spots between the fourth and fifth ridges are regarded as eyes. The Desmoscolecida move by looping their bodies like geometrid caterpillars or leeches, as well as by creeping on their setae. The mouth is terminal, and leads into a muscular oesophagus which opens into a straight intestine terminating in an anus, which is said to be dorsal in position. The sexes are distinct. The testis is single, and its duct opens into the intestine and is provided with two chitinous spicules. The ovary is also single, opening independently and anterior to the anus. The nervous system is as yet unknown.

There are several species.D. minutusClap. has been met with in the English Channel. Others areD. nematoidesGreef,D. adelphusGreef,D. chaetogasterGreef,D. elongatusPanceri,D. lanuginosaPanceri.Trichoderma oxycaudatumGreef is 0.3 mm. long, and is also a “ringed creature with long hair-like bristles.” The male has two spicules, and there is some doubt as to whether it should be placed with the Desmoscolecida or with the Nematoda. With regard to the systematic position of the group, it certainly comes nearest—especially in the structure of its reproductive organs—to the Nematoda. We still, however, are very ignorant of the internal anatomy of these forms, and until we know more it is impossible to arrive at a very definite conclusion as to their position in the animal kingdom.

See Panceri,Atti Acc. Napoli.vii. (1878); Greef,Arch. Naturg.35 (i.) (1869), p. 112.

(A. E. S.)

DESMOULINS, LUCIE SIMPLICE CAMILLE BENOIST(1760-1794), French journalist and politician, who played an important part in the French Revolution, was born at Guise, in Picardy, on the 2nd of March 1760. His father was lieutenant-general of thebailliageof Guise, and through the efforts of a friend obtained aboursefor his son, who at the age of fourteen left home for Paris, and entered the college of Louis le Grand. In this school, in which Robespierre was also a bursar and a distinguished student, Camille Desmoulins laid the solid foundation of his learning. Destined by his father for the law, at the completion of his legal studies he was admitted an advocate of the parlement of Paris in 1785. His professional success was not great; his manner was violent, his appearance unattractive, and his speech impaired by a painful stammer. He indulged, however, his love for literature, was closely observant of public affairs, and thus graduallyprepared himself for the main duties of his life—those of a politicallittérateur.

In March 1789 Desmoulins began his political career. Having been nominated deputy from thebailliageof Guise, he appeared at Laon as one of the commissioners for the election of deputies to the States-General summoned by royal edict of January 24th. Camille heralded its meeting by hisOde to the States-General. It is, moreover, highly probable that he was the author of a radical pamphlet entitledLa Philosophie au peuple français, published in 1788, the text of which is not known. His hopes of professional success were now scattered, and he was living in Paris in extreme poverty. He, however, shared to the full the excitement which attended the meeting of the States-General. As appears from his letters to his father, he watched with exultation the procession of deputies at Versailles, and with violent indignation the events of the latter part of June which followed the closing of the Salle des Menus to the deputies who had named themselves the National Assembly. It is further evident that Desmoulins was already sympathizing, not only with the enthusiasm, but also with the fury and cruelty, of the Parisian crowds.

The sudden dismissal of Necker by Louis XVI. was the event which brought Desmoulins to fame. On the 12th of July 1789 Camille, leaping upon a table outside one of the cafés in the garden of the Palais Royal, announced to the crowd the dismissal of their favourite. Losing, in his violent excitement, his stammer, he inflamed the passions of the mob by his burning words and his call “To arms!” “This dismissal,” he said, “is the tocsin of the St Bartholomew of the patriots.” Drawing, at last, two pistols from under his coat, he declared that he would not fall alive into the hands of the police who were watching his movements. He descended amid the embraces of the crowd, and his cry “To arms!” resounded on all sides. This scene was the beginning of the actual events of the Revolution. Following Desmoulins the crowd surged through Paris, procuring arms by force; and on the 13th it was partly organized as the Parisian militia which was afterwards to be the National Guard. On the 14th the Bastille was taken.

Desmoulins may be said to have begun on the following day that public literary career which lasted till his death. In May and June 1789 he had writtenLa France libre, which, to his chagrin, his publisher refused to print. The taking of the Bastille, however, and the events by which it was preceded, were a sign that the times had changed; and on the 18th of July Desmoulins’s work was issued. Considerably in advance of public opinion, it already pronounced in favour of a republic. By its erudite, brilliant and courageous examination of the rights of king, of nobles, of clergy and of people, it attained a wide and sudden popularity; it secured for the author the friendship and protection of Mirabeau, and the studied abuse of numerous royalist pamphleteers. Shortly afterwards, with his vanity and love of popularity inflamed, he pandered to the passions of the lower orders by the publication of hisDiscours de la lanterne aux Parisienswhich, with an almost fiendish reference to the excesses of the mob, he headed by a quotation from St John,Qui male agit odit lucem. Camille was dubbed “Procureur-général de la lanterne.”

In November 1789 Desmoulins began his career as a journalist by the issue of the first number of a weekly publication,Les Révolutions de France et de Brabant. The title of the publication changed after the 73rd number. It ceased to appear at the end of July 1791.1

Success attended theRévolutionsfrom its first to its last number, Camille was everywhere famous, and his poverty was relieved. These numbers are valuable as an exhibition not so much of events as of the feelings of the Parisian people; they are adorned, moreover, by the erudition, the wit and the genius of the author, but they are disfigured, not only by the most biting personalities and the defence and even advocacy of the excesses of the mob, but by the entire absence of the forgiveness and pity for which the writer was afterwards so eloquently to plead.

Desmoulins was powerfully swayed by the influence of more vigorous minds; and for some time before the death of Mirabeau, in April 1791, he had begun to be led by Danton, with whom he remained associated during the rest of his life. In July 1791 Camille appeared before the municipality of Paris as head of a deputation of petitioners for the deposition of the king. In that month, however, such a request was dangerous; there was excitement in the city over the presentation of the petition, and the private attacks to which Desmoulins had often been subject were now followed by a warrant for the arrest of himself and Danton. Danton left Paris for a little; Desmoulins, however, remained there, appearing occasionally at the Jacobin club. Upon the failure of this attempt of his opponents, Desmoulins published a pamphlet,Jean Pierre Brissot démasqué, which abounded in the most violent personalities. This pamphlet, which had its origin in a petty squabble, was followed in 1793 by aFragment de l’histoire secrète de la Révolution, in which the party of the Gironde, and specially Brissot, were most mercilessly attacked. Desmoulins took an active part on the 10th of August and became secretary to Danton, when the latter became minister of justice. On the 8th of September he was elected one of the deputies for Paris to the National Convention, where, however, he was not successful as an orator. He was of the party of the “Mountain,” and voted for the abolition of royalty and the death of the king. With Robespierre he was now more than ever associated, and theHistoire des Brissotins, the fragment above alluded to, was inspired by the arch-revolutionist. The success of thebrochure, so terrible as to send the leaders of the Gironde to the guillotine, alarmed Danton and the author. Yet the role of Desmoulins during the Convention was of but secondary importance.

In December 1793 was issued the first number of theVieux Cordelier, which was at first directed against the Hébertists and approved of by Robespierre, but which soon formulated Danton’s idea of a committee of clemency. Then Robespierre turned against Desmoulins and took advantage of the popular indignation roused against the Hébertists to send them to death. The time had come, however, when Saint Just and he were to turn their attention not only toles enragés, but toles indulgents—the powerful faction of the Dantonists. On the 7th of January 1794 Robespierre, who on a former occasion had defended Camille when in danger at the hands of the National Convention, in addressing the Jacobin club counselled not the expulsion of Desmoulins, but the burning of certain numbers of theVieux Cordelier. Camille sharply replied that he would answer with Rousseau,—“burning is not answering,” and a bitter quarrel thereupon ensued. By the end of March not only were Hébert and the leaders of the extreme party guillotined, but their opponents, Danton, Desmoulins and the best of the moderates, were arrested. On the 31st the warrant of arrest was signed and executed, and on the 3rd, 4th and 5th of April the trial took place before the Revolutionary Tribunal. It was a scene of terror not only to the accused but to judges and to jury. The retorts of the prisoners were notable. Camille on being asked his age, replied, “I am thirty-three, the age of thesans-culotteJesus, a critical age for every patriot.” This was false; he was thirty-four.2The accused were prevented from defending themselves; a decree of the Convention denied them the right of speech. Armed with this and the false report of a spy, who charged the wife of Desmoulins with conspiring for the escape of her husband and the ruin of the republic, Fouquier-Tinville by threats and entreaties obtained from the jury a sentence of death. It was passed in absence of the accused, and their execution was appointed for the same day.

Since his arrest the courage of Camille had miserably failed. He had exhibited in the numbers of theVieux Cordelieralmost a disregard of the death which he must have known hovered over him. He had with consummate ability exposed the terrors ofthe Revolution, and had adorned his pages with illustrations from Tacitus, the force of which the commonest reader could feel. In his last number, the seventh, which his publisher refused to print, he had dared to attack even Robespierre, but at his trial it was found that he was devoid of physical courage. He had to be torn from his seat ere he was removed to prison, and as he sat next to Danton in the tumbrel which conveyed them to the guillotine, the calmness of the great leader failed to impress him. In his violence, bound as he was, he tore his clothes into shreds, and his bare shoulders and breast were exposed to the gaze of the surging crowd. Of the fifteen guillotined together, including among them Marie Jean Hérault de Séchelles, François Joseph Westermann and Pierre Philippeaux, Desmoulins died third; Danton, the greatest, died last.

On the 29th of December 1790 Camille had married Lucile Duplessis, and among the witnesses of the ceremony are observed the names of Brissot, Pétion and Robespierre. The only child of the marriage, Horace Camille, was born on the 6th of July 1792. Two days afterwards Desmoulins brought it into notice by appearing with it before the municipality of Paris to demand “the formal statement of the civil estate of his son.” The boy was afterwards pensioned by the French government, and died in Haiti in 1825. Lucile, Desmoulins’s accomplished and affectionate wife, was, a few days after her husband, and on a false charge, condemned to the guillotine. She astonished all onlookers by the calmness with which she braved death (April 13, 1794).

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