Chapter 10

(O. Ba.)

GIRGA, orGirgeh, a town of Upper Egypt on the W. bank of the Nile, 313 m. S.S.E. of Cairo by rail and about 10 m. N.N.E. of the ruins of Abydos. Pop. (1907) 19,893, of whom about one-third are Copts. The town presents a picturesque appearance from the Nile, which at this point makes a sharp bend. A ruined mosque with a tall minaret stands by the river-brink. Many of the houses are of brick decorated with glazed tiles. The town is noted for the excellence of its pottery. Girga is the seat of a Coptic bishop. It also possesses a Roman Catholic monastery, considered the most ancient in the country. As lately as the middle of the 18th century the town stood a quarter of a mile from the river, but is now on the bank, the intervening space having been washed away, together with a large part of the town, by the stream continually encroaching on its left bank.

GIRGENTI(anc.Agrigentum,q.v.), a town of Sicily, capital of the province which bears its name, and an episcopal see, on the south coast, 58 m. S. by E. of Palermo direct and 84½ m. by rail. Population (1901) 25,024. The town is built on the western summit of the ridge which formed the northern portion of the ancient site; the main street runs from E. to W. on the level, but the side streets are steep and narrow. The cathedral occupies the highest point in the town; it was not founded till the 13th century, taking the place of the so-called temple of Concord. The campanile still preserves portions of its original architecture, but the interior has been modernized. In the chapter-house a famous sarcophagus, with scenes illustrating the myth of Hippolytus, is preserved. There are other scattered remains of 13th-century architecture in the town, while, in the centre of the ancient city, close to the so-called oratory of Phalaris, is the Norman church of S. Nicolo. A small museum in the town contains vases, terra-cottas, a few sculptures, &c. The port of Girgenti, 5½ m. S.W. by rail, now known as Porto Empedocle (population in 1901, 11,529), as the principal place of shipment for sulphur, the mining district beginning immediately north of Girgenti.

(T. As.)

GIRISHK, a village and fort of Afghanistan. It stands on the right bank of the Helmund 78 m. W. of Kandahar on the road to Herat; 3641 ft. above the sea. The fort, which is garrisoned from Kandahar and is the residence of the governor of the district (Pusht-i-Rud), has little military value. It commands the fords of the Helmund and the road to Seistan, from which it is about 190 m. distant; and it is the centre of a rich agricultural district. Girishk was occupied by the British during the first Afghan War; and a small garrison of sepoys, under a native officer, successfully withstood a siege of nine months by an overwhelming Afghan force. The Dasht-i-Bakwa stretches beyond Girishk towards Farah, a level plain of considerable width, which tradition assigns as the field of the final contest for supremacy between Russia and England.

GIRNAR, a sacred hill in Western India, in the peninsula of Kathiawar, 10 m. E. of Junagarh town. It consists of five peaks, rising about 3500 ft. above the sea, on which are numerous old Jain temples, much frequented by pilgrims. At the foot of the hill is a rock, with an inscription of Asoka (2nd centuryB.C.), and also two other inscriptions (dated 150 and 455A.D.) of great historical importance.

GIRODET DE ROUSSY, ANNE LOUIS(1767-1824), French painter, better known as Girodet-Trioson, was born at Montargis on the 5th of January 1767. He lost his parents in early youth, and the care of his fortune and education fell to the lot of his guardian, M. Trioson, “médecin de mesdames,” by whom he was in later life adopted. After some preliminary studies under a painter named Luquin, Girodet entered the school of David, and at the age of twenty-two he successfully competed for the Prix de Rome. At Rome he executed his “Hippocrate refusant les présents d’Artaxerxès” and “Endymion dormant” (Louvre), a work which was hailed with acclamation at the Salon of 1792. The peculiarities which mark Girodet’s position as the herald of the romantic movement are already evident in his “Endymion.” The firm-set forms, the grey cold colour, the hardness of the execution are proper to one trained in the school of David, but these characteristics harmonize ill with the literary, sentimental and picturesque suggestions which the painter has sought to render. The same incongruity marks Girodet’s “Danaë” and his “Quatre Saisons,” executed for the king of Spain (repeated for Compiègne), and shows itself to a ludicrous extent in his “Fingal” (St Petersburg, Leuchtenberg collection), executed for Napoleon I. in 1802. This work unites the defects of the classic and romantic schools, for Girodet’s imagination ardently and exclusively pursued the ideas excited by varied reading both of classic and of modern literature, and the impressions which he received from the external world afforded him little stimulus or check; he consequently retained the mannerisms of his master’s practice whilst rejecting all restraint on choice of subject. The credit lost by “Fingal” Girodet regained in 1806, when he exhibited “Scène de Déluge” (Louvre), to which (in competition with the “Sabines” of David) was awarded the decennial prize. This success was followed up in 1808 by the production of the “Reddition de Vienne” and “Atala au Tombeau”—a work which went far to deserve its immense popularity, by a happy choice of subject, and remarkable freedom from the theatricality of Girodet’s usual manner, which, however, soon came to the front again in his “Révolte de Caire” (1810). His powers now began to fail, and his habit of working at night and other excesses told upon his constitution; in the Salon of 1812 he exhibited only a “Tête de Vierge”; in 1819 “Pygmalion et Galatée” showed a still further decline of strength; and in 1824—the year in which he produced his portraits of Cathelineau and Bonchamps—Girodet died on the 9th of December.

He executed a vast quantity of illustrations, amongst which may be cited those to the DidotVirgil(1798) and to the LouvreRacine(1801-1805). Fifty-four of his designs forAnacreonwere engraved by M. Chatillon. Girodet wasted much time on literary composition, his poemLe Peintre(a string of commonplaces), together with poor imitations of classical poets, and essays onLe GénieandLa Grâce, were published after his death (1829), with a biographical notice by his friend M. Coupin de la Couperie; and M. Delécluze, in hisLouis David et son temps, has also a brief life of Girodet.

GIRONDE, a maritime department of south-western France, formed from four divisions of the old province of Guyenne, viz. Bordelais, Bazadais, and parts of Périgord and Agenais. Area, 4140 sq. m. Pop. (1906) 823,925. It is bounded N. by the department of Charente-Inférieure, E. by those of Dordogne and Lot-et-Garonne, S. by that of Landes, and W. by the Bay of Biscay. It takes its name from the river or estuary of the Gironde formed by the union of the Garonne and Dordogne. The department divides itself naturally into a western and an eastern portion. The former, which is termed theLandes(q.v.), occupies more than a third of the department, and consists chiefly of morass or sandy plain, thickly planted with pines and divided from the sea by a long line of dunes. These dunes are planted with pines, which, by binding the sand together with their roots, prevent it from drifting inland and afford a barrier against the sea. On the east the dunes are fringed for some distance by two extensive lakes, Carcans and Lacanau, communicating with each other and with the Bay of Arcachon, near the southern extremity of the department. The Bay of Arcachon contains numerous islands, and on the land side forms a vast shallow lagoon, a considerable portion of which, however, has been drained and converted into arable land. The eastern portion of the department consists chiefly of a succession of hill and dale, and, especially in the valley of the Gironde, is very fertile. The estuary of the Gironde is about 45 m. in length, and varies in breadth from 2 to 6 m. It presents a succession of islands and mud banks which divide it into two channels and render navigation somewhat difficult. It is, however, wellbuoyed and lighted, and has a mean depth of 21 ft. There are extensive marshes on the right bank to the north of Blaye, and the shores on the left are characterized, especially towards the mouth, by low-lying polders protected by dikes and composed of fertile salt marshes. At the mouth of the Gironde stands the famous tower of Cordouan, one of the finest lighthouses of the French coast. It was built between the years 1585 and 1611 by the architect and engineer Louis de Foix, and added to towards the end of the 18th century. The principal affluent of the Dordogne in this department is the Isle. The feeders of the Garonne are, with the exception of the Dropt, all small. West of the Garonne the only river of importance is the Leyre, which flows into the Bay of Arcachon. The climate is humid and mild and very hot in summer. Wheat, rye, maize, oats and tobacco are grown to a considerable extent. The corn produced, however, does not meet the wants of the inhabitants. The culture of the vine is by far the most important branch of industry carried on (see Wine), the vineyards occupying about one-seventh of the surface of the department. The wine-growing districts are the Médoc, Graves, Côtes, Palus, Entre-deux-Mers and Sauternes. The Médoc is a region of 50 m. in length by about 6 m. in breadth, bordering the left banks of the Garonne and the Gironde between Bordeaux and the sea. The Graves country forms a zone 30 m. in extent, stretching along the left bank of the Garonne from the neighbourhood of Bordeaux to Barsac. The Sauternes country lies to the S.E. of the Graves. The Côtes lie on the right bank of the Dordogne and Gironde, between it and the Garonne, and on the left bank of the Garonne. The produce of the Palus, the alluvial land of the valleys, and of the Entre-deux-Mers, situated on the left bank of the Dordogne, is inferior. Fruits and vegetables are extensively cultivated, the peaches and pears being especially fine. Cattle are extensively raised, the Bazadais breed of oxen and the Bordelais breed of milch-cows being well known. Oyster-breeding is carried on on a large scale in the Bay of Arcachon. Large supplies of resin, pitch and turpentine are obtained from the pine woods, which also supply vine-props, and there are well-known quarries of limestone. The manufactures are various, and, with the general trade, are chiefly carried on at Bordeaux (q.v.), the chief town and third port in France. Pauillac, Blaye, Libourne and Arcachon are minor ports. Gironde is divided into the arrondissements of Bordeaux, Blaye, Lesparre, Libourne, Bazas and La Réole, with 49 cantons and 554 communes. The department is served by five railways, the chief of which are those of the Orleans and Southern companies. It forms part of the circumscription of the archbishopric, the appeal-court and theacadémie(educational division) of Bordeaux, and of the region of the XVIII. army corps, the headquarters of which are at that city. Besides Bordeaux, Libourne, La Réole, Bazas, Blaye, Arcachon, St Emilion and St Macaire are the most noteworthy towns and receive separate treatment. Among the other places of interest the chief are Cadillac, on the right bank of the Garonne, where there is a castle of the 16th century, surrounded by fortifications of the 14th century; Labrède, with a feudal château in which Montesquieu was born and lived; Villandraut, where there is a ruined castle of the 13th century; Uzeste, which has a church begun in 1310 by Pope Clement V.; Mazères with an imposing castle of the 14th century; La Sauve, which has a church (11th and 12th centuries) and other remains of a Benedictine abbey; and Ste Foy-la-Grande, a bastide created in 1255 and afterwards a centre of Protestantism, which is still strong there. La Teste (pop. in 1906, 5699) was the capital in the middle ages of the famous lords of Buch.

GIRONDISTS(Fr.Girondins), the name given to a political party in the Legislative Assembly and National Convention during the French Revolution (1791-1793). The Girondists were, indeed, rather a group of individuals holding certain opinions and principles in common than an organized political party, and the name was at first somewhat loosely applied to them owing to the fact that the most brilliant exponents of their point of view were deputies from the Gironde. These deputies were twelve in number, six of whom—the lawyers Vergniaud, Guadet, Gensonné, Grangeneuve and Jay, and the tradesman Jean François Ducos—sat both in the Legislative Assembly and the National Convention. In the Legislative Assembly these represented a compact body of opinion which, though not as yet definitely republican, was considerably more advanced than the moderate royalism of the majority of the Parisian deputies. Associated with these views was a group of deputies from other parts of France, of whom the most notable were Condorcet, Fauchet, Lasource, Isnard, Kersaint, Henri Larivière, and, above all, Jacques Pierre Brissot, Roland and Pétion, elected mayor of Paris in succession to Bailly on the 16th of November 1791. On the spirit and policy of the Girondists Madame Roland, whosesalonbecame their gathering-place, exercised a powerful influence (seeRoland); but such party cohesion as they possessed they owed to the energy of Brissot (q.v.), who came to be regarded as their mouthpiece in the Assembly and the Jacobin Club. Hence the nameBrissotins, coined by Camille Desmoulins, which was sometimes substituted for that ofGirondins, sometimes closely coupled with it. As strictly party designations these first came into use after the assembling of the National Convention (September 20th, 1792), to which a large proportion of the deputies from the Gironde who had sat in the Legislative Assembly were returned. Both were used as terms of opprobrium by the orators of the Jacobin Club, who freely denounced “the Royalists, the Federalists, the Brissotins, the Girondins and all the enemies of the democracy” (F. Aulard,Soc. des Jacobins, vi. 531).

In the Legislative Assembly the Girondists represented the principle of democratic revolution within and of patriotic defiance to the European powers without. They were all-powerful in the Jacobin Club (seeJacobins), where Brissot’s influence had not yet been ousted by Robespierre, and they did not hesitate to use this advantage to stir up popular passion and intimidate those who sought to stay the progress of the Revolution. They compelled the king in 1792 to choose a ministry composed of their partisans—among them Roland, Dumouriez, Clavière and Servan; and it was they who forced the declaration of war against Austria. In all this there was no apparent line of cleavage between “La Gironde” and the Mountain.Montagnardsand Girondists alike were fundamentally opposed to the monarchy; both were democrats as well as republicans; both were prepared to appeal to force in order to realize their ideals; in spite of the accusation of “federalism” freely brought against them, the Girondists desired as little as the Montagnards to break up the unity of France. Yet from the first the leaders of the two parties stood in avowed opposition, in the Jacobin Club as in the Assembly. It was largely a question of temperament. The Girondists were idealists, doctrinaires and theorists rather than men of action; they encouraged, it is true, the “armed petitions” which resulted, to their dismay, in theémeuteof the 20th of June; but Roland, turning the ministry of the interior into a publishing office for tracts on the civic virtues, while in the provinces riotous mobs were burning the châteaux unchecked, is more typical of their spirit. With the ferocious fanaticism or the ruthless opportunism of the future organizers of the Terror they had nothing in common. As the Revolution developed they trembled at the anarchic forces they had helped to unchain, and tried in vain to curb them. The overthrow of the monarchy on the 10th of August and the massacres of September were not their work, though they claimed credit for the results achieved.

The crisis of their fate was not slow in coming. It was they who proposed the suspension of the king and the summoning of the National Convention; but they had only consented to overthrow the kingship when they found that Louis XVI. was impervious to their counsels, and, the republic once established, they were anxious to arrest the revolutionary movement which they had helped to set in motion. As Daunou shrewdly observes in hisMémoires, they were too cultivated and too polished to retain their popularity long in times of disturbance, and were therefore the more inclined to work for the establishment of order, which would mean the guarantee of their ownpower.1Thus the Girondists, who had been the Radicals of the Legislative Assembly, became the Conservatives of the Convention. But they were soon to have practical experience of the fate that overtakes those who attempt to arrest in mid-career a revolution they themselves have set in motion. The ignorant populace, for whom the promised social millennium had by no means dawned, saw in an attitude seemingly so inconsistent obvious proof of corrupt motives, and there were plenty of prophets of misrule to encourage the delusion—orators of the clubs and the street corners, for whom the restoration of order would have meant well-deserved obscurity. Moreover, theSeptembriseurs—Robespierre, Danton, Marat and their lesser satellites—realized that not only their influence but their safety depended on keeping the Revolution alive. Robespierre, who hated the Girondists, whose lustre had so long obscured his own, had proposed to include them in the proscription lists of September; the Mountain to a man desired their overthrow.

The crisis came in March 1793. The Girondists, who had a majority in the Convention, controlled the executive council and filled the ministry, believed themselves invincible. Their orators had no serious rivals in the hostile camp; their system was established in the purest reason. But the Montagnards made up by their fanatical, or desperate, energy and boldness for what they lacked in talent or in numbers. They had behind them the revolutionary Commune, the Sections and the National Guard of Paris, and they had gained control of the Jacobin club, where Brissot, absorbed in departmental work, had been superseded by Robespierre. And as the motive power of this formidable mechanism of force they could rely on the native suspiciousness of the Parisian populace, exaggerated now into madness by famine and the menace of foreign invasion. The Girondists played into their hands. At the trial of Louis XVI. the bulk of them had voted for the “appeal to the people,” and so laid themselves open to the charge of “royalism”; they denounced the domination of Paris and summoned provincial levies to their aid, and so fell under suspicion of “federalism,” though they rejected Buzot’s proposal to transfer the Convention to Versailles. They strengthened the revolutionary Commune by decreeing its abolition, and then withdrawing the decree at the first sign of popular opposition; they increased the prestige of Marat by prosecuting him before the Revolutionary Tribunal, where his acquittal was a foregone conclusion. In the suspicious temper of the times this vacillating policy was doubly fatal. Marat never ceased his denunciations of the “faction des hommes d’État,” by which France was being betrayed to her ruin, and his parrot cry of “Nous sommes trahis!” was re-echoed from group to group in the streets of Paris. The Girondists, for all their fine phrases, were sold to the enemy, as Lafayette, Dumouriez and a hundred others—once popular favourites—had been sold.

The hostility of Paris to the Girondists received a fateful advertisement by the election, on the 15th of February 1793, of the ex-Girondist Jean Nicolas Pache (1746-1823) to the mayoralty. Pache had twice been minister of war in the Girondist government; but his incompetence had laid him open to strong criticism, and on the 4th of February he had been superseded by a vote of the Convention. This was enough to secure him the suffrages of the Paris electors ten days later, and the Mountain was strengthened by the accession of an ally whose one idea was to use his new power to revenge himself on his former colleagues. Pache, with Chaumette,procureurof the Commune, and Hébert, deputyprocureur, controlled the armed organization of the Paris Sections, and prepared to turn this against the Convention. The abortiveémeuteof the 10th of March warned the Girondists of their danger, but the Commission of Twelve appointed on the 18th of May, the arrest of Marat and Hébert, and other precautionary measures, were defeated by the popular risings of the 27th and 31st of May, and, finally, on the 2nd of June, Hanriot with the National Guards purged the Convention of the Girondists. Isnard’s threat, uttered on the 25th of May, to march France upon Paris had been met by Paris marching upon the Convention.

The list drawn up by Hanriot, and endorsed by a decree of the intimidated Convention, included twenty-two Girondist deputies and ten members of the Commission of Twelve, who were ordered to be detained at their lodgings “under the safeguard of the people.” Some submitted, among them Gensonné, Guadet, Vergniaud, Pétion, Birotteau and Boyer-Fonfrède. Others, including Brissot, Louvet, Buzot, Lasource, Grangeneuve, Larivière and Bergoing, escaped from Paris and, joined later by Guadet, Pétion and Birotteau, set to work to organize a movement of the provinces against the capital. This attempt to stir up civil war determined the wavering and frightened Convention. On the 13th of June it voted that the city of Paris had deserved well of the country, and ordered the imprisonment of the detained deputies, the filling up of their places in the Assembly by theirsuppléants, and the initiation of vigorous measures against the movement in the provinces. The excuse for the Terror that followed was the imminent peril of France, menaced on the east by the advance of the armies of the Coalition, on the west by the Royalist insurrection of La Vendée, and the need for preventing at all costs the outbreak of another civil war. The assassination of Marat by Charlotte Corday (q.v.) only served to increase the unpopularity of the Girondists and to seal their fate. On the 28th of July a decree of the Convention proscribed, as traitors and enemies of their country, twenty-one deputies, the final list of those sent for trial comprising the names of Antiboul, Boilleau the younger, Boyer-Fonfrède, Brissot, Carra, Duchastel, the younger Ducos, Dufriche de Valazé, Duprat, Fauchet, Gardien, Gensonné, Lacaze, Lasource, Lauze-Deperret, Lehardi, Lesterpt-Beauvais, the elder Minvielle, Sillery, Vergniaud and Viger, of whom five were deputies from the Gironde. The names of thirty-nine others were included in the finalacte d’accusation, accepted by the Convention on the 24th of October, which stated the crimes for which they were to be tried as their perfidious ambition, their hatred of Paris, their “federalism” and, above all, their responsibility for the attempt of their escaped colleagues to provoke civil war.

The trial of the twenty-one, which began before the Revolutionary Tribunal on the 24th of October, was a mere farce, the verdict a foregone conclusion. On the 31st they were borne to the guillotine in five tumbrils, the corpse of Dufriche de Valazé—who had killed himself—being carried with them. They met death with great courage, singing the refrain “Plutôt la mort que l’esclavage!” Of those who escaped to the provinces the greater number, after wandering about singly or in groups, were either captured and executed or committed suicide, among them Barbaroux, Buzot, Condorcet, Grangeneuve, Guadet, Kersaint, Pétion, Rabaut de Saint-Étienne and Rebecqui. Roland had killed himself at Rouen on the 15th of November, a week after the execution of his wife. Among the very few who finally escaped was Jean Baptiste Louvet, whoseMémoiresgive a thrilling picture of the sufferings of the fugitives. Incidentally they prove, too, that the sentiment of France was for the time against the Girondists, who were proscribed even in their chief centre, the city of Bordeaux. The survivors of the party made an effort to re-enter the Convention after the fall of Robespierre, but it was not until the 5th of March 1795 that they were formally reinstated. On the 3rd of October of the same year (11 Vendémiaire, year III.) a solemn fête in honour of the Girondist “martyrs of liberty” was celebrated in the Convention. See also the articleFrench Revolutionand separate biographies.

Of the special works on the Girondists Lamartine’sHistoire des Girondins(2 vols., Paris, 1847, new ed. 1902, in 6 vols.) is rhetoric rather than history and is untrustworthy; theHistoire des Girondins, by A. Gramier de Cassagnac (Paris, 1860) led to thepublicationof aProtestationby J. Guadet, a nephew of the Girondist orator, which was followed by hisLes Girondins, leur vie privée, leur vie publique, leur proscription et leur mort(2 vols., Paris, 1861, new ed. 1890); with which cf. Alary,Les Girondins par Guadet(Bordeaux, 1863); also Charles Vatel,Charlotte de Corday et les Girondins: pièces classées et annotées(3 vols., Paris, 1864-1872);Recherches historiquessur les Girondins(2 vols., ib. 1873); Ducos,Les Trois Girondines(Madame Roland, Charlotte Corday, Madame Bouquey)et les Girondins(ib.1896); Edmond Biré,La Légende des Girondins(Paris, 1881, new ed. 1896); also Helen Maria Williams,State of Manners and Opinions in the French Republic towards the close of the 18th Century(2 vols., London, 1801). Memoirs or fragments of memoirs also exist by particular Girondists,e.g.Barbaroux, Pétion, Louvet, Madame Roland. See, further, the bibliography to the articleFrench Revolution.

(W. A. P.)

1Daunou, “Mémoires pour servir à l’hist. de la Convention Nationale,” p. 409, vol. xii. of M. Fr. Barrière,Bibl. des mém. rel à l’hist. de la France, &c. (Paris, 1863).

GIRTIN, THOMAS(1775-1802), English painter and etcher, was the son of a well-to-do cordage maker in Southwark, London. His father died while Thomas was a child, and his widow married Mr Vaughan, a pattern-draughtsman. Girtin learnt drawing as a boy, and was apprenticed to Edward Doyes (1763-1804), the mezzotint engraver, and he soon made J. M. W. Turner’s acquaintance. His architectural and topographical sketches and drawings soon established his reputation, his use of water-colour for landscapes being such as to give him the credit of having created modern water-colour painting, as opposed to mere “tinting.” His etchings also were characteristic of his artistic genius. His early death from consumption (9th of November 1802) led indeed to Turner saying that “had Tom Girtin lived I should have starved.” From 1794 to his death he was an exhibitor at the Royal Academy; and some fine examples of his work have been bequeathed by private owners to the British Museum and the Victoria and Albert Museum.

GIRVAN,a police burgh, market and fishing town of Ayrshire, Scotland, at the mouth of the Girvan, 21 m. S.W. of Ayr, and 63 m. S.W. of Glasgow by the Glasgow & South-Western railway. Pop. (1901) 4024. The principal industry was weaving, but the substitution of the power-loom for the hand-loom nearly put an end to it. The herring fishery has developed to considerable proportions, the harbour having been enlarged and protected by piers and a breakwater. Moreover, the town has grown in repute as a health and holiday resort, its situation being one of the finest in the west of Scotland. There is excellent sea-bathing, and a good golf-course. The vale of Girvan, one of the most fertile tracts in the shire, is made so by the Water of Girvan, which rises in the loch of Girvan Eye, pursues a very tortuous course of 36 m. and empties into the sea. Girvan is the point of communication with Ailsa Craig. About 13 m. S.W. at the mouth of the Stinchar is the fishing village of Ballantrae (pop. 511).

GIRY(Jean Marie Joseph),ARTHUR(1848-1899), French historian, was born at Trévoux (Ain) on the 29th of February 1848. After rapidly completing his classical studies at thelycéeat Chartres, he spent some time in the administrative service and in journalism. He then entered the École des Chartes, where, under the influence of J. Quicherat, he developed a strong inclination to the study of the middle ages. The lectures at the École des Hautes Études, which he attended from its foundation in 1868, revealed his true bent; and henceforth he devoted himself almost entirely to scholarship. He began modestly by the study of the municipal charters of St Omer. Having been appointed assistant lecturer and afterwards full lecturer at the École des Hautes Études, it was to the town of St Omer that he devoted his first lectures and his first important work,Histoire de la ville de Saint-Omer et de ses institutions jusqu’au XIVesiècle(1877). He, however, soon realized that the charters of one town can only be understood by comparing them with those of other towns, and he was gradually led to continue the work which Augustin Thierry had broadly outlined in his studies on theTiers État. A minute knowledge of printed books and a methodical examination of departmental and communal archives furnished him with material for a long course of successful lectures, which gave rise to some important works on municipal history and led to a great revival of interest in the origins and significance of the urban communities in France. Giry himself publishedLes Établissements de Rouen(1883-1885), a study, based on very minute researches, of the charter granted to the capital of Normandy by Henry II., king of England, and of the diffusion of similar charters throughout the French dominions of the Plantagenets; a collection ofDocuments sur les relations de la royauté avec les villes de France de 1180 à 1314(1885); andÉtude sur les origines de la commune de Saint-Quentin(1887).

About this time personal considerations induced Giry to devote the greater part of his activity to the study of diplomatic, which had been much neglected at the École des Chartes, but had made great strides in Germany. As assistant (1883) and successor (1885) to Louis de Mas Latrie, Giry restored the study of diplomatic, which had been founded in France by Dom Jean Mabillon, to its legitimate importance. In 1894 he published hisManuel de diplomatique, a monument of lucid and well-arranged erudition, which contained the fruits of his long experience of archives, original documents and textual criticism; and his pupils, especially those at the École des Hautes Études, soon caught his enthusiasm. With their collaboration he undertook the preparation of an inventory and, subsequently, of a critical edition of the Carolingian diplomas. By arrangement with E. Mühlbacher and the editors of theMonumenta Germaniae historica, this part of the joint work was reserved for Giry. Simultaneously with this work he carried on the publication of the annals of the Carolingian epoch on the model of the GermanJahrbücher, reserving for himself the reign of Charles the Bald. Of this series his pupils produced in his lifetimeLes Derniers Carolingiens(by F. Lot, 1891),Eudes, comte de Paris et roi de France(by E. Favre, 1893), andCharles le Simple(by Eckel, 1899). The biographies of Louis IV. and Hugh Capet and the history of the kingdom of Provence were not published until after his death, and his own unfinished history of Charles the Bald was left to be completed by his pupils. The preliminary work on the Carolingian diplomas involved such lengthy and costly researches that the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres took over the expenses after Giry’s death.

In the midst of these multifarious labours Giry found time for extensive archaeological researches, and made a special study of the medieval treatises dealing with the technical processes employed in the arts and industries. He prepared a new edition of the monk Theophilus’s celebrated treatise,Diversarum artium schedula, and for several years devoted his Saturday mornings to laboratory research with the chemist Aimé Girard at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers, the results of which were utilized by Marcellin Berthelot in the first volume (1894) of hisChimie au moyen âge. Giry took an energetic part in theCollection de textes relatifs à l’histoire du moyen âge, which was due in great measure to his initiative. He was appointed director of the section of French history inLa Grande Encyclopédie, and contributed more than a hundred articles, many of which,e.g.“Archives” and “Diplomatique,” were original works. In collaboration with his pupil André Réville, he wrote the chapters on “L’Émancipation des villes, les communes et les bourgeoisies” and “Le Commerce et l’industrie au moyen âge” for theHistoire généraleof Lavisse and Rambaud. Giry took a keen interest in politics, joining the republican party and writing numerous articles in the republican newspapers, mainly on historical subjects. He was intensely interested in the Dreyfus case, but his robust constitution was undermined by the anxieties and disappointments occasioned by the Zola trial and the Rennes court-martial, and he died in Paris on the 13th of November 1899.

For details of Giry’s life and works see the funeral orations published in theBibliothèque de l’École des Chartes, and afterwards in a pamphlet (1899). See also the biography by Ferdinand Lot in theAnnuaire de l’École des Hautes Étudesfor 1901; and the bibliography of his works by Henry Maistre in theCorrespondance historique et archéologique(1899 and 1900).

GISBORNE,a seaport of New Zealand, in Cook county, provincial district of Auckland, on Poverty Bay of the east coast of North Island. Pop. (1901) 2733; (1906) 5664. Wool, frozen mutton and agricultural produce are exported from the rich district surrounding. Petroleum has been discovered in the neighbourhood, and about 40 m. from the town there are warm medicinal springs. Near the site of Gisborne Captain Cook landed in 1769, and gave Poverty Bay its name from his inability to obtain supplies owing to the hostility of the natives. Young Nick’s Head, the southern horn of the bay, was named from Nicholas Young, his ship’s boy, who first observed it.

GISLEBERT(orGilbert)OF MONS(c.1150-1225), Flemish chronicler, became a clerk, and obtained the positions of provost of the churches of St Germanus at Mons and St Alban at Namur, in addition to several other ecclesiastical appointments. In official documents he is described as chaplain, chancellor or notary, of Baldwin V., count of Hainaut (d. 1195), who employed him on important business. After 1200 Gislebert wrote theChronicon Hanoniense, a history of Hainaut and the neighbouring lands from about 1050 to 1195, which is specially valuable for the latter part of the 12th century, and for the life and times of Baldwin V.

The chronicle is published in Band xxi. of theMonumenta Germaniae historica(Hanover, 1826 fol.); and separately with introduction by W. Arndt (Hanover, 1869). Another edition has been published by L. Vanderkindere in theRecueil de textes pour servir à l’étude de l’histoire de Belgique(Brussels, 1904); and there is a French translation by G. Menilglaise (Tournai, 1874).See W. Meyer,Das Werk des Kanzlers Gislebert von Mons als verfassungsgeschichtliche Quelle(Königsberg, 1888); K. Huygens,Sur la valeur historique de la chronique Gislebert de Mons(Ghent, 1889); and W. Wattenbach,Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen, Band ii. (Berlin, 1894).

See W. Meyer,Das Werk des Kanzlers Gislebert von Mons als verfassungsgeschichtliche Quelle(Königsberg, 1888); K. Huygens,Sur la valeur historique de la chronique Gislebert de Mons(Ghent, 1889); and W. Wattenbach,Deutschlands Geschichtsquellen, Band ii. (Berlin, 1894).

GISORS,a town of France, in the department of Eure, situated in the pleasant valley of the Epte, 44. m. N.W. of Paris on the railway to Dieppe. Pop. (1906) 4345. Gisors is dominated by a feudal stronghold built chiefly by the kings of England in the 11th and 12th centuries. The outer enceinte, to which is attached a cylindrical donjon erected by Philip Augustus, king of France, embraces an area of over 7 acres. On a mound in the centre of this space rises an older donjon, octagonal in shape, protected by another enceinte. The outer ramparts and the ground they enclose have been converted into promenades. The church of St Gervais dates in its oldest parts—the central tower, the choir and parts of the aisles—from the middle of the 13th century, when it was founded by Blanche of Castile. The rest of the church belongs to the Renaissance period. The Gothic and Renaissance styles mingle in the west façade, which, like the interior of the building, is adorned with a profusion of sculptures; the fine carving on the wooden doors of the north and west portals is particularly noticeable. The less interesting buildings of the town include a wooden house of the Renaissance era, an old convent now used as an hôtel de ville, and a handsome modern hospital. There is a statue of General de Blanmont, born at Gisors in 1770. Among the industries of Gisors are felt manufacture, bleaching, dyeing and leather-dressing.

In the middle ages Gisors was capital of the Vexin. Its position on the frontier of Normandy caused its possession to be hotly contested by the kings of England and France during the 12th century, at the end of which it and the dependent fortresses of Neaufles and Dangu were ceded by Richard Cœur de Lion to Philip Augustus. During the wars of religion of the 16th century it was occupied by the duke of Mayenne on behalf of the League, and in the 17th century, during the Fronde, by the duke of Longueville. Gisors was given to Charles Auguste Fouquet in 1718 in exchange for Belle-Ile-en-Mer and made a duchy in 1742. It afterwards came into the possession of the count of Eu and the duke of Penthièvre.

GISSING, GEORGE ROBERT(1857-1903), English novelist, was born at Wakefield on the 22nd of November 1857. He was educated at the Quaker boarding-school of Alderley Edge and at Owens College, Manchester. His life, especially its earlier period, was spent in great poverty, mainly in London, though he was for a time also in the United States, supporting himself chiefly by private teaching. He published his first novel,Workers in the Dawn, in 1880.The Unclassed(1884) andIsabel Clarendon(1886) followed.Demos(1886), a novel dealing with socialistic ideas, was, however, the first to attract attention. It was followed by a series of novels remarkable for their pictures of lower middle class life. Gissing’s own experiences had preoccupied him with poverty and its brutalizing effects on character. He made no attempt at popular writing, and for a long time the sincerity of his work was appreciated only by a limited public. Among his more characteristic novels were:Thyrza(1887),A Life’s Morning(1888),The Nether World(1889),New Grub Street(1891),Born in Exile(1892),The Odd Women(1893),In the Year of Jubilee(1894),The Whirlpool(1897). Others,e.g.The Town Traveller(1901), indicate a humorous faculty, but the prevailing note of his novels is that of the struggling life of the shabby-genteel and lower classes and the conflict between education and circumstances. The quasi-autobiographicalPrivate Papers of Henry Ryecroft(1903) reflects throughout Gissing’s studious and retiring tastes. He was a good classical scholar and had a minute acquaintance with the late Latin historians, and with Italian antiquities; and his posthumousVeranilda(1904), a historical romance of Italy in the time of Theodoric the Goth, was the outcome of his favourite studies. Gissing’s powers as a literary critic are shown in his admirable study on Charles Dickens (1898). A book of travel,By the Ionian Sea, appeared in 1901. He died at St Jean de Luz in the Pyrenees on the 28th of December 1903.

See also the introductory essay by T. Seccombe toThe House of Cobwebs(1906), a posthumous volume of Gissing’s short stories.

GITSCHIN(CzechJičin), a town of Bohemia, Austria, 65 m. N.E. of Prague by rail. Pop. (1900) 9790, mostly Czech. The parish church was begun by Wallenstein after the model of the pilgrims’ church of Santiago de Compostela in Spain, but not completed till 1655. The castle, which stands next to the church, was built by Wallenstein and finished in 1630. It was here that the emperor Francis I. of Austria signed the treaty of 1813 by which he threw in his lot with the Allies against Napoleon. Wallenstein was interred at the neighbouring Carthusian monastery, but in 1639 the head and right hand were taken by General Banér to Sweden, and in 1702 the other remains were removed by Count Vincent of Waldstein to his hereditary burying ground at Münchengrätz. Gitschin was originally the village of Zidinĕves and received its present name when it was raised to the dignity of a town by Wenceslaus II. in 1302. The place belonged to various noble Bohemian families, and in the 17th century came into the hands of Wallenstein, who made it the capital of the duchy of Friedland and did much to improve and extend it. His murder, and the miseries of the Thirty Years’ War, brought it very low; and it passed through several hands before it was bought by Prince Trauttmannsdorf, to whose family it still belongs. On the 29th of June 1866 the Prussians gained here a great victory over the Austrians. This victory made possible the junction of the first and second Prussian army corps, and had as an ultimate result the Austrian defeat at Königgrätz.

GIUDICI, PAOLO EMILIANO(1812-1872), Italian writer, was born in Sicily. HisHistory of Italian Literature(1844) brought him to the front, and in 1848 he became professor of Italian literature at Pisa, but after a few months was deprived of the chair on account of his liberal views in politics. On the re-establishment of the Italian kingdom he became professor of aesthetics (resigning 1862) and secretary of the Academy of Fine Arts at Florence, and in 1867 was elected to the chamber of deputies. He held a prominent place as an historian, his works including aStoria del teatro(1860), andStoria dei comuni italiani(1861), besides a translation of Macaulay’sHistory of England(1856). He died at Tonbridge in England, on the 8th of September 1872.

ALifeappeared at Florence in 1874.

GIULIO ROMANO,orGiulio Pippi(c.1492-1546), the head of the Roman school of painting in succession to Raphael. This prolific painter, modeller, architect and engineer receives his common appellation from the place of his birth—Rome, in the Macello de’ Corbi. His name in full was Giulio di Pietro de Filippo de’ Giannuzzi—Giannuzzi being the true family name, and Pippi (which has practically superseded Giannuzzi) being an abbreviation from the name of his grandfather Filippo. The date of Giulio’s birth is a little uncertain. Vasari (who knew him personally) speaks of him as fifty-four years old at the date of his death, 1st November 1546; thus he would have been born in 1492. Other accounts assign 1498 as the date of birth. This would make Giulio young indeed in the early and in such case most precocious stages of his artistic career, andwould show him as dying, after an infinity of hard work, at the comparatively early age of forty-eight.

Giulio must at all events have been quite youthful when he first became the pupil of Raphael, and at Raphael’s death in 1520 he was at the utmost twenty-eight years of age. Raphael had loved him as a son, and had employed him in some leading works, especially in the Loggie of the Vatican; the series there popularly termed “Raphael’s Bible” is done in large measure by Giulio,—as for instance the subjects of the “Creation of Adam and Eve,” “Noah’s Ark,” and “Moses in the Bulrushes.” In the saloon of the “Incendio del Borgo,” also, the figures of “Benefactors of the Church” (Charlemagne, &c.) are Giulio’s handiwork. It would appear that in subjects of this kind Raphael simply furnished the design, and committed the execution of it to some assistant, such as Giulio,—taking heed, however, to bring it up, by final retouching, to his own standard of style and type. Giulio at a later date followed out exactly the same plan; so that in both instances inferiorities of method, in the general blocking-out and even in the details of the work, are not to be precisely charged upon thecaposcuola. Amid the multitude of Raphael’s pupils, Giulio was eminent in pursuing his style, and showed universal aptitude; he did, among other things, a large amount of architectural planning for his chief. Raphael bequeathed to Giulio, and to his fellow-pupil Gianfrancesco Penni (“Il Fattore”), his implements and works of art; and upon them it devolved to bring to completion the vast fresco-work of the “Hall of Constantine” in the Vatican—consisting, along with much minor matter, of the four large subjects, the “Battle of Constantine,” the “Apparition of the Cross,” the “Baptism of Constantine” and the “Donation of Rome to the Pope.” The two former compositions were executed by Pippi, the two latter by Penni. The whole of this onerous undertaking was completed within a period of only three years,—which is the more remarkable as, during some part of the interval since Raphael’s decease, the Fleming, Adrian VI., had been pope, and his anti-aesthetic pontificate had left art and artists almost in a state of inanition. Clement VII. had now, however, succeeded to the popedom. By this time Giulio was regarded as the first painter in Rome; but his Roman career was fated to have no further sequel.

Towards the end of 1524 his friend the celebrated writer Baldassar Castiglione seconded with success the urgent request of the duke of Mantua, Federigo Gonzaga, that Giulio should migrate to that city, and enter the duke’s service for the purpose of carrying out his projects in architecture and pictorial decoration. These projects were already considerable, and under Giulio’s management they became far more extensive still. The duke treated his painter munificently as to house, table, horses and whatever was in request; and soon a very cordial attachment sprang up between them. In Pippi’s multifarious work in Mantua three principal undertakings should be noted. (1) In the Castello he painted the “History of Troy,” along with other subjects. (2) In the suburban ducal residence named the Palazzo del Te (this designation being apparently derived from the form of the roads which led towards the edifice) he rapidly carried out a rebuilding on a vastly enlarged scale,—the materials being brick and terra-cotta, as there is no local stone,—and decorated the rooms with his most celebrated works in oil and fresco painting—the story of Psyche, Icarus, the fall of the Titans, and the portraits of the ducal horses and hounds. The foreground figures of Titans are from 12 to 14 ft. high; the room, even in its structural details, is made to subserve the general artistic purpose, and many of its architectural features are distorted accordingly. Greatly admired though these pre-eminent works have always been, and at most times even more than can now be fully ratified, they have suffered severely at the hands of restorers, and modern eyes see them only through a dull and deadening fog of renovation. The whole of the work on the Palazzo del Te, which is of the Doric order of architecture, occupied about five years. (3) Pippi recast and almost rebuilt the cathedral of Mantua; erected his own mansion, replete with numerous antiques and other articles of vertu; reconstructed the street architecture to a very large extent, and made the city, sapped as it is by the shallows of the Mincio, comparatively healthy; and at Marmiruolo, some 5 m. distant from Mantua, he worked out other important buildings and paintings. He was in fact, for nearly a quarter of a century, a sort of Demiurgus of the arts of design in the Mantuan territory.

Giulio’s activity was interrupted but not terminated by the death of Duke Federigo. The duke’s brother, a cardinal who became regent, retained him in full employment. For a while he went to Bologna, and constructed the façade of the church of S. Petronio in that city. He was afterwards invited to succeed Antonio Sangallo as architect of St Peter’s in Rome,—a splendid appointment, which, notwithstanding the strenuous opposition of his wife and of the cardinal regent, he had almost resolved to accept, when a fever overtook him, and, acting upon a constitution somewhat enfeebled by worry and labour, caused his death on the 1st of November 1546. He was buried in the church of S. Barnaba in Mantua. At the time of his death Giulio enjoyed an annual income of more than 1000 ducats, accruing from the liberalities of his patrons. He left a widow, and a son and daughter. The son, named Raffaello, studied painting, but died before he could produce any work of importance; the daughter, Virginia, married Ercole Malatesta.

Wide and solid knowledge of design, combined with a promptitude of composition that was never at fault, formed the chief motive power and merit of Giulio Romano’s art. Whatever was wanted, he produced it at once, throwing off, as Vasari says, a large design in an hour; and he may in that sense, though not equally so when an imaginative or ideal test is applied, be called a great inventor. It would be difficult to name any other artist who, working as an architect, and as the plastic and pictorial embellisher of his architecture, produced a total of work so fully and homogeneously his own; hence he has been named “the prince of decorators.” He had great knowledge of the human frame, and represented it with force and truth, though sometimes with an excess of movement; he was also learned in other matters, especially in medals, and in the plans of ancient buildings. In design he was more strong and emphatic than graceful, and worked a great deal from his accumulated stores of knowledge, without consulting nature direct. As a general rule, his designs are finer and freer than his paintings, whether in fresco or in oil—his easel pictures being comparatively few, and some of them the reverse of decent; his colouring is marked by an excess of blackish and heavy tints.

Giulio Romano introduced the style of Raphael into Mantua, and established there a considerable school of art, which surpassed in development that of his predecessor Mantegna, and almost rivalled that of Rome. Very many engravings—more than three hundred are mentioned—were made contemporaneously from his works; and this not only in Italy, but in France and Flanders as well. His plan of entrusting principally to assistants the pictorial execution of his cartoons has already been referred to; Primaticcio was one of the leading coadjutors. Rinaldo Mantovano, a man of great ability who died young, was the chief executant of the “Fall of the Giants”; he also co-operated with Benedetto Pagni da Pescia in painting the remarkable series of horses and hounds, and the story of Psyche. Another pupil was Fermo Guisoni, who remained settled in Mantua. The oil pictures of Giulio Romano are not generally of high importance; two leading ones are the “Martyrdom of Stephen,” in the church of that saint in Genoa, and a “Holy Family” in the Dresden Gallery. Among his architectural works not already mentioned is the Villa Madama in Rome, with a fresco of Polyphemus, and boys and satyrs; the Ionic façade of this building may have been sketched out by Raphael.

Vasari gives a pleasing impression of the character of Giulio. He was very loving to his friends, genial, affable, well-bred, temperate in the pleasures of the table, but liking fine apparel and a handsome scale of living. He was good-looking, of middle height, with black curly hair and dark eyes, and an ample beard; his portrait, painted by himself, is in the Louvre.

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