LANGTON, WALTER(d. 1321), bishop of Lichfield and treasurer of England, was probably a native of Langton West in Leicestershire. Appointed a clerk in the royal chancery, he became a favourite servant of Edward I., taking part in the suit over the succession to the Scottish throne in 1292, and visiting France more than once on diplomatic business. He obtained several ecclesiastical preferments, became treasurer in 1295, and in 1296 bishop of Lichfield. Having become unpopular, the barons in 1301 vainly asked Edward to dismiss him; about the same time he was accused of murder, adultery and simony. Suspended from his office, he went to Rome to be tried before Pope Boniface VIII., who referred the case to Winchelsea, archbishop of Canterbury; the archbishop, although Langton’s lifelong enemy, found him innocent, and this sentence was confirmed by Boniface in 1303. Throughout these difficulties, and also during a quarrel with the prince of Wales, afterwards Edward II., the treasurer was loyally supported by the king. Visiting Pope Clement V. on royal business in 1305, Langton appears to have persuaded Clement to suspend Winchelsea; after his return to England he was the chief adviser of Edward I., who had already appointed him the principal executor of his will. His position, however, was changed by the king’s death in July 1307. The accession of Edward II. and the return of Langton’s enemy, Piers Gaveston, were quickly followed by the arrest of the bishop and his removal from office. His lands, together with a great hoard of movable wealth, were seized, and he was accused of misappropriation and venality. In spite of the intercession of Clement V. and even of the restored archbishop, Winchelsea, who was anxious to uphold the privileges of his order, Langton, accused again by the barons in 1309, remained in prison after Edward’s surrender to the “ordainers” in 1310. He was released in January 1312 and again became treasurer; but he was disliked by the “ordainers,” who forbade him to discharge the duties of his office. Excommunicated by Winchelsea, he appealed to the pope, visited him at Avignon, and returned to England after the archbishop’s death in May 1313. He was a member of the royal council from this time until his dismissal at the request of parliament in 1315. He died in November 1321, and was buried in Lichfield cathedral, which was improved and enriched at his expense. Langton appears to have been no relation of his contemporary, John Langton, bishop of Chichester.
LANGTRY, LILLIE(1852- ), English actress, was the daughter of the Rev. W. C. le Breton, dean of Jersey, and married in 1874 Edward Langtry (d. 1897). For many years she was famous as one of the most beautiful women in England. It was not till 1881 that she definitely went on the stage, appearing from that time under her own management both in London and in America. In 1899 she married Sir Hugo de Bathe, Bart.
LANGUAGE(adapted from the Fr.langage, fromlangue, tongue, Lat.lingua), the whole body of words and combinations of words as used in common by a nation, people or race, for the purpose of expressing or communicating their thoughts; also, more widely, the power of expressing thought by verbal utterance. See generally underPhilology,Phonetics,Voice,Writing,Grammar, &c.; and the articles on the various languages, or under headings of countries and races.
LANGUEDOC, one of the old provinces of France, the name of which dates from the end of the 13th century. In 1290 it was used to refer to the country in whose tongue (langue) the word for “yes” wasoc, as opposed to the centre and north of France, thelangue d’oil(theouiof to-day). Territorially Languedoc varied considerably in extent, but in general from 1360 until the French Revolution it included the territory of the following departments of modern France: part of Tarn et Garonne, Tarn, most of Haute-Garonne, Ariège, Aude, Pyrénées-Orientales, Hérault, Gard, Lozère, part of Ardèche and Haute-Loire. The country had no natural geographical unity. Stretching over the Cevennes into the valleys of the upper Loire on the north and into that of the upper Garonne on the west, it reached the Pyrenees on the south and the rolling hills along the Rhone on the east. Its unity was entirely a political creation, but none the less real, as it was the great state of the Midi, the representative of its culture and, to some degree, the defence of its peculiar civilization. Its climate, especially in Hérault (Montpellier), is especially delightful in spring and early summer, and the scenery still holds enough ruined remains of Roman and feudal times to recall the romance and the tragedy of its history.
Although the name is of comparatively late medieval origin, the history of Languedoc, which had little in common with that of northern France, begins with the Roman occupation. Toulouse was an important place as early as 119B.C.; the next year Narbonne, the seaport, became a Roman colony. By the time of Julius Caesar the country was sufficiently Romanized to furnish him with men and money, and though at first involved in the civil wars which followed, it prospered under Roman rule as perhaps no other part of the empire did. While it corresponded exactly to no administrative division of the Roman empire, it was approximately the territory included inGallia Narbonensis, one of the seventeen provinces into which the empire was divided at the death of Augustus. It was rich and flourishing, crowded with great and densely populated towns, Nîmes, Narbonne, Béziers, Toulouse; with schools of rhetoric and poetry still vigorous in the 5th century; theatres, amphitheatres and splendid temples. In the 5th century this high culture was an open prize for the barbarians; and after the passing of the Vandals, Suebi and Visigoths into Spain, the Visigoths returned under Wallia, who made his capital at Toulouse in 419. This was the foundation of the Visigothic kingdom which Clovis dismembered in 507, leaving the Visigoths only Septimania—the country of seven cities, Narbonne, Carcassonne, Elne, Béziers, Maguelonne, Lodève and Agde—that is, very nearly the area occupied later by the province of Languedoc. At the council of Narbonne in 589 five races are mentioned as living in the province, Visigoths, Romans, Jews—of whom there were a great many—Syrians and Greeks. The repulse of the Arabs by Charles Martel in 732 opened up the country for the Frankish conquest, which was completed by 768. Under the Carolingians Septimania became part of the kingdom of Aquitaine, but became a separate duchy in 817.
Until the opening of the 13th century there is no unity in the history of Languedoc, the great houses of Toulouse and Carcassonne and the swarm of warlike counts and barons practically ignoring the distant king of France, and maintaining a chronic state of civil war. The feudal régime did not become at all universal in the district, as it tended to become in the north of France. Allodial tenures survived in sufficient numbers to constitute a considerable class of non-vassal subjects of the king, with whose authority they were little troubled. By the end of the 11th century the house of the counts of Toulouse began to play the predominant rôle; but their court had been famous almost a century before for its love of art and literature and its extravagance in dress and fashions, all of which denoted its wealth. Constance, wife of King Robert II. and daughter of the count of Toulouse, gave great offence to the monks by her following of gallant gentlemen. They owed their tastes, not only to their Roman blood, and the survival of their old love for rhetoric and poetry, but also to their intercourse with the Mahommedans, their neighbours and enemies, and their friends when they were not fighting. Under Raymond of Saint Gilles, at the end of the 11th century, the county of Toulouse began its great career, but Raymond’s ambition to become an Oriental prince, which led him—and the hundred thousand men who, according to the chroniclers, followed him—away on the first crusade, left a troubled heritage to his sons Bertrand and Alphonse Jourdain. The latter successfully beat off William IX., duke of Aquitaine, and won from the count of Barcelona that part of Provence between the Drôme and the Durance. The reign of Alphonse lasted from 1109 to 1148. By the opening of the 13th century the sovereignty of the counts of Toulouse was recognized through about half of Provence, and they held the rich cities of the most cultured and wealthiest portion of France,cities which had a high degree of local independence. Their local governments, with their consuls at the head, show, at least in name, the influence of Roman ideas. It is still an open question how much of their autonomy had remained untouched by the barbarian invasions from the Roman period. The citizens of these free cities were in continual intercourse with Saracens of Palestine and Moors of Spain; they had never entirely abandoned pagan customs; their poetry—the poetry of the troubadours—taught them the joys of life rather than the fear of death, the licence of their chivalry with its courts of love led to the other extreme of asceticism in such as were of religious temperament; all things combined to make Languedoc the proper soil for heresy. The Church never had the hold upon the country that it had in the north, the people of the Midi were always lukewarm in the faith; there was no noteworthy ecclesiastical literature in Languedoc from the end of the Carolingian period until after the Albigensian crusade, no theological centre like Paris, Bec or Laon. Yet Languedoc furnished the most heroic martyrs for the ascetic Manichaean creed. The era of heresy began with the preaching of Peter de Brueys and his follower, Henry of Lausanne, who emptied the churches and taught contempt for the clergy. Saint Bernard himself was able to make but temporary headway against this rebellion from a sacramental and institutionalized Christianity. In the first decade of the 13th century came the inevitable conflict. The whole county of Toulouse, with its fiefs of Narbonne, Béziers, Foix, Montpellier and Quercy, was in open and scornful secession from the Catholic Church, and the suppression of this Manichaean or Cathar religion was the end of the brilliant culture of Languedoc. (SeeAlbigenses,Cathars,Inquisition.) The crusade against the Albigenses, as the Cathars were locally termed, in 1209, resulted in the union to the crown of France in 1229 of all the country from Carcassonne to the Rhone, thus dividing Languedoc into two. The western part left to Raymond VII., by the treaty of 1229, included the Agenais, Quercy, Rouergue, the Toulousain and southern Albigeois. He had as well the Venaissin across the Rhone. From 1229 to his death in 1249 Raymond VII. worked tirelessly to bring back prosperity to his ruined country, encouraging the foundation of new cities, and attempting to gain reconciliation with the Church. He left only a daughter, Jeanne, who was married to Alphonse of Poitiers. Alphonse, a sincere Catholic, upheld the Inquisition, but, although ruling the country from Paris, maintained peace. Jeanne died without heirs four days after her husband, upon their return from the crusade in Africa, in 1271, and although she attempted by will to prevent the reversion of her lands to the crown, they were promptly seized by King Philip III., who used the opposition of Roger Bernard, count of Foix, as an excuse to appear with a formidable army, which had little to do to secure entire submission. Thus the county of Toulouse passed to the crown, though Philip III. turned over the Agenais to Edward I. of England in 1279. In 1274 he ceded the county of Venaissin to Pope Gregory X., the papacy having claimed it, without legal grounds, since the Albigensian crusade (seeAvignon).
Such was the fate of the reduced county of Toulouse. At the division of Languedoc in 1229 Louis IX. was given all the country from Carcassonne to the Rhone. This royal Languedoc was at first subject to much trickery on the part of northern speculators and government officials. In 1248 Louis IX. sent royalenquêteurs, much like Charlemagne’smissi dominici, to correct all abuses, especially to inquire concerning peculation by royal agents. On the basis of their investigations the king issued royal edicts in 1254 and 1259 which organized the administration of the province. Twosénéchausséeswere created—one at Nîmes, the other at Carcassonne—each with its lesser divisions ofvigueriesandbailliages. During the reign of Philip III. theenquêteurswere busily employed securing justice for the conquered, preventing the seizure of lands, and in 1279 a supreme court of justice was established at Toulouse. In 1302 Philip IV. convoked the estates of Languedoc, but in the century which followed they were less an instrument for self-government than one for securing money, thus aiding theenquêteurs, who during the Hundred Years’ War became mere revenue hunters for the king. In 1355 the Black Prince led a savage plundering raid across the country to Narbonne. After the battle of Poitiers, Languedoc supported the count of Armagnac, but there was no enthusiasm for a national cause. Under Charles V., Louis of Anjou, the king’s brother, was governor of Languedoc, and while an active opponent of the English, he drained the country of money. But his extortions were surpassed by those of another brother, the duc de Berry, after the death of Charles V. In 1382 and 1383 the infuriated peasantry, abetted by some nobles, rose in a rebellion—known as the Tuchins—which was put down with frightful butchery, while still greater sums were demanded from the impoverished country. In the anarchy which followed brigandage increased. Redress did not come until 1420, when the dauphin, afterwards Charles VII., came to Languedoc and reformed the administration. Then the country he saved furnished him with the means for driving out the English in the north. For the first time, in the climax of its miseries, Languedoc was genuinely united to France. But Charles VII. was not able to drive out the brigands, and it was not until after the English were expelled in 1453 that Languedoc had even comparative peace. Charles VII. united Comminges to the crown; Louis XI. Roussillon and Cerdagne, both of which were ceded to Aragon by Charles VIII. as the price of its neutrality during his expedition into Italy. From the reign of Louis XI. until 1523 the governorship of Languedoc was held by the house cf Bourbon. After the treason of the constable Bourbon it was held by the Montmorency family with but slight interruption until 1632.
The Reformation found Languedoc orthodox. Persecution had succeeded. The Inquisition had had no victims since 1340, and the cities which had been centres of heresy were now strongly orthodox. Toulouse was one of the most fanatically orthodox cities in Europe, and remained so in Voltaire’s day. But Calvinism gained ground rapidly in the other parts of Languedoc, and by 1560 the majority of the population was Protestant. It was, however, partly a political protest against the misrule of the Guises. The open conflict came in 1561, and from that until the edict of Nantes (1598) there was intermittent civil war, accompanied with iconoclasm on the one hand, massacres on the other and ravages on both.
The main figure in this period is that of Henri de Montmorency, seigneur de Damville, later duc de Montmorency, governor of the province from 1563, who was, at first, hostile to the Protestants, then from 1574 to 1577, as leader of the “Politiques,” an advocate of compromise. But peace was hardly ever established, although there was a yearly truce for the ploughing. By the edict of Nantes, the Protestants were given ten places of safety in Languedoc; but civil strife did not come to an end, even under Henry IV. In 1620 the Protestants in Languedoc rose under Henri, duc de Rohan (1579-1638), who for two years defied the power of Louis XIII. When Louis took Montpellier in 1622, he attempted to reconcile the Calvinists by bribes of money and office, and left Montauban as a city of refuge. Richelieu’s extinction of Huguenotism is less the history of Languedoc than of the Huguenots (q.v.). By 1629 Protestantism was crushed in the Midi as a political force. Then followed the tragic episode of the rebellion of Henri II., duc de Montmorency, son of the old governor of Languedoc. As a result, Languedoc lost its old provincial privilege of self-assessment until 1649, and was placed under the governorship of Marshal Schomberg. During Louis XIV.’s reign Languedoc prospered until the revocation of the edict of Nantes. Industries and agriculture were encouraged, roads and bridges were built, and the great canal giving a water route from the Atlantic to the Mediterranean increased the trade of its cities. Colbert especially encouraged its manufactures. The religious persecutions which accompanied the revocation of the edict of Nantes bore hardest on Languedoc, and resulted in a guerilla warfare known as the rebellion of the Camisards (q.v.). On the eve of the Revolution some of the brightest scenes of contentment and prosperity which surprisedArthur Young, the English traveller in France, were those of the grape harvests in Languedoc vineyards.
In 1790 Languedoc disappeared from the map of France, with the other old provinces; and the departments mentioned took its place. But the peculiar characteristics of the men of the Midi remain as clearly distinct from those of the north as the Scottish type is distinct from the English. The “peaceful insurrection” of the Languedoc vine-growers in the summer of 1907 revealed to the astonished Parisians the same spirit of independence as had underlain the resistance to Simon de Montfort and Richelieu.
The one monumental history of Languedoc is that of the Benedictines, Dom Claude Devic and Dom J. J. Vaissete,Histoire générale de la province de Languedoc(5 vols., Paris, 1730-1745). This has been re-edited, and continued and increased by the addition of important monographs, to 15 volumes (Toulouse, 1872-1892). It is the great library of sources, critical apparatus and bibliographies concerning Languedoc, and carries the history up to 1790. The fine article “Languedoc” inLa Grande Encyclopédieis by A. Molinier, perhaps the greatest modern authority on Languedoc.
The one monumental history of Languedoc is that of the Benedictines, Dom Claude Devic and Dom J. J. Vaissete,Histoire générale de la province de Languedoc(5 vols., Paris, 1730-1745). This has been re-edited, and continued and increased by the addition of important monographs, to 15 volumes (Toulouse, 1872-1892). It is the great library of sources, critical apparatus and bibliographies concerning Languedoc, and carries the history up to 1790. The fine article “Languedoc” inLa Grande Encyclopédieis by A. Molinier, perhaps the greatest modern authority on Languedoc.
(J. T. S.*)
LANGUET, HUBERT(1518-1581), French Huguenot writer and diplomat, was born at Vitteaux in Burgundy, of which town his father was governor. He received his early education from a distinguished Hellenist, Jean Perelle, and displayed remarkable ability in Greek and Latin. He studied law, theology and science at the university of Poitiers from 1536 to 1539; then, after some travel, attended the universities of Bologna and Padua, receiving the doctorate from the latter in 1548. At Bologna he read Melanchthon’sLoci communes theologiaeand was so impressed by it that in 1549 he went to Wittenberg to see the author, and shortly afterwards became a Protestant. He made his headquarters at Wittenberg until the death of Melanchthon in 1560, although during that period, as well as throughout the rest of his life, he travelled extensively in France, Italy, Spain, Germany, Sweden, and even Finland and Lapland. In 1557 he declined the invitation of Gustavus I. to enter the service of Sweden, but two years later accepted a similar invitation of Augustus I., elector of Saxony. He showed great ability in diplomacy, particularly in organizing the Protestants. He represented the elector at the French court from 1561 to 1572 except when the religious and political troubles in France occasionally compelled him temporarily to withdraw. He performed many minor diplomatic missions for the elector, and in 1567 accompanied him to the siege of Gotha. He delivered a violent harangue before Charles IX. of France in 1570 on behalf of the Protestant princes, and escaped death on St Bartholomew’s Day (1572) only through the intervention of Jean de Morvilliers, the moderate and influential bishop of Orleans. He represented the elector of Saxony at the imperial court from 1573 to 1577. Financial embarrassment and disgust at the Protestant controversies in which he was forced to participate caused him to seek recall from the imperial court. His request being granted, Languet spent the last years of his life mainly in the Low Countries, and though nominally still in the service of the elector, he undertook a mission to England for John Casimir of Bavaria and was a valuable adviser to William the Silent, prince of Orange. Languet died at Antwerp on the 30th of September 1581.
His correspondence is important for the history of the 16th century. Three hundred and twenty-nine letters to Augustus of Saxony dating from the 17th of November 1565 to the 8th of September 1581, and one hundred and eleven letters to the chancellor Mordeisen dating from November 1559 to the summer of 1565, are preserved in MS. in the Saxon archives, and were published by Ludovicus at Halle in 1699 under the titleArcana seculi decimi sexti. One hundred and eight letters to Camerarius were published at Groningen in 1646 under the titleLangueti Epistolae ad Joach. Camerarium, patrem et filium; and ninety-six to his great friend Sir Philip Sidney, dating from the 22nd of April 1573 to the 28th of October 1580, appeared at Frankfort in 1633 and have been translated into English by S. A. Pears (London, 1845). TheHistorica Descriptioof the siege and capture of Gotha appeared in 1568 and has been translated into French and German. The authorship of the work by which Languet is best known has been disputed. It is entitledVindiciae contra tyrannos, sive de principis in populum populique in principem legitima potestate, Stephano Junio Bruto Celta auctore, and is thought to have been published at Basel (1579) although it bears the imprint of Edinburgh. It has been attributed to Beza, Hotman, Casaubon and Duplessis-Mornay, by divers writers on various grounds—to the last-named on the very respectable authority of Grotius. The authorship of Languet was supported by Peter Bayle (for reasons stated in the form of a supplement to theDictionnaire) and confirmed by practically all later writers. The work has been frequently reprinted, the Leipzig edition (1846) containing a life of Languet by Treitschke. A French translation appeared in 1581 and an English translation in 1689. The work upholds the doctrine of resistance, but affirms that resistance must come from properly constituted authorities and objects to anything which savours of anabaptism or other extreme views. TheApologie ou défence du très illustre Prince Guillaume contre le ban et l’édit du roi d’Espagne(Leiden, 1581) is sometimes attributed to Languet. There seems little doubt, however, that it was really the work of the prince himself, with the help either of Languet (Groen van Prinsterer,Archives) or of Pierre de Villiers (Motley,Rise of the Dutch Republic; and Blok,History of the People of the Netherlands).See Ph. de la Mare,Vie d’Hubert Languet(Halle, 1700); E. and E. Haag,La France protestante; H. Chevreul,Hubert Languet(Paris, 1852); J. Blasel,Hubert Languet(Breslau, 1872); O. Scholz,Hubert Languet als kursächsischer Berichterstatter u. Gesandter in Frankreich während 1560-1572(Halle, 1875); G. Touchard,De politica Huberti Langueti(Paris, 1898). There is a good article on Languet by P. Tschackert in Hauck’sReal-Encyklopädie, 3rd ed., xi. 274-280.
His correspondence is important for the history of the 16th century. Three hundred and twenty-nine letters to Augustus of Saxony dating from the 17th of November 1565 to the 8th of September 1581, and one hundred and eleven letters to the chancellor Mordeisen dating from November 1559 to the summer of 1565, are preserved in MS. in the Saxon archives, and were published by Ludovicus at Halle in 1699 under the titleArcana seculi decimi sexti. One hundred and eight letters to Camerarius were published at Groningen in 1646 under the titleLangueti Epistolae ad Joach. Camerarium, patrem et filium; and ninety-six to his great friend Sir Philip Sidney, dating from the 22nd of April 1573 to the 28th of October 1580, appeared at Frankfort in 1633 and have been translated into English by S. A. Pears (London, 1845). TheHistorica Descriptioof the siege and capture of Gotha appeared in 1568 and has been translated into French and German. The authorship of the work by which Languet is best known has been disputed. It is entitledVindiciae contra tyrannos, sive de principis in populum populique in principem legitima potestate, Stephano Junio Bruto Celta auctore, and is thought to have been published at Basel (1579) although it bears the imprint of Edinburgh. It has been attributed to Beza, Hotman, Casaubon and Duplessis-Mornay, by divers writers on various grounds—to the last-named on the very respectable authority of Grotius. The authorship of Languet was supported by Peter Bayle (for reasons stated in the form of a supplement to theDictionnaire) and confirmed by practically all later writers. The work has been frequently reprinted, the Leipzig edition (1846) containing a life of Languet by Treitschke. A French translation appeared in 1581 and an English translation in 1689. The work upholds the doctrine of resistance, but affirms that resistance must come from properly constituted authorities and objects to anything which savours of anabaptism or other extreme views. TheApologie ou défence du très illustre Prince Guillaume contre le ban et l’édit du roi d’Espagne(Leiden, 1581) is sometimes attributed to Languet. There seems little doubt, however, that it was really the work of the prince himself, with the help either of Languet (Groen van Prinsterer,Archives) or of Pierre de Villiers (Motley,Rise of the Dutch Republic; and Blok,History of the People of the Netherlands).
See Ph. de la Mare,Vie d’Hubert Languet(Halle, 1700); E. and E. Haag,La France protestante; H. Chevreul,Hubert Languet(Paris, 1852); J. Blasel,Hubert Languet(Breslau, 1872); O. Scholz,Hubert Languet als kursächsischer Berichterstatter u. Gesandter in Frankreich während 1560-1572(Halle, 1875); G. Touchard,De politica Huberti Langueti(Paris, 1898). There is a good article on Languet by P. Tschackert in Hauck’sReal-Encyklopädie, 3rd ed., xi. 274-280.
LANGUR, one of the two Hindu names (the other beinghanuman) of the sacred Indian monkey scientifically known asSemnopithecus entellus, and hence sometimes called the entellus monkey. A prodigiously long tail, beetling eyebrows with long black hairs, black ears, face, feet and hands, and a general greyish-brown colour of the fur are the distinctive characteristics of the langur. These monkeys roam at will in the bazaars of Hindu cities, where they help themselves freely from the stores of the grain-dealers, and they are kept in numbers at the great temple in Benares. In a zoological sense the term is extended to embrace all the monkeys of the Asiatic genusSemnopithecus, which includes a large number of species, ranging from Ceylon, India and Kashmir to southern China and the Malay countries as far east as Borneo and Sumatra. These monkeys are characterized by their lank bodies, long slender limbs and tail, well-developed thumbs, absence of cheek-pouches, and complex stomachs. They feed on leaves and young shoots.
(R. L.*)
LANG VON WELLENBURG, MATTHÄUS(1469-1540), German statesman and ecclesiastic, was the son of a burgher of Augsburg. He afterwards assumed the name of Wellenburg from a castle that came into his possession. After studying at Ingolstadt, Vienna and Tübingen he entered the service of the emperor Frederick III. and quickly made his way to the front. He was also one of the most trusted advisers of Frederick’s son and successor Maximilian I., and his services were rewarded in 1500 with the provostship of the cathedral at Augsburg and in the following year with the bishopric of Gurk. In 1511 he was made a cardinal by Pope Julius II., and in 1514 he became coadjutor to the archbishop of Salzburg, whom he succeeded in 1519. He also received the bishopric of Cartagena in Murcia in 1521, and that of Albano in 1535. Lang’s adherence to the older faith, together with his pride and arrogance, made him very unpopular in his diocese of Salzburg; in 1523 he was involved in a serious struggle with his subjects, and in 1525, during the Peasants’ War, he had again to fight hard to hold his own. He was one of the chief ministers of Charles V.; he played an important part in the tangled international negotiations of his time; and he was always loyal to his imperial masters. Not without reason has he been compared with Cardinal Wolsey. He died on the 30th of March 1540.
LANIER, SIDNEY(1842-1881), American poet, was born at Macon, Georgia, on the 3rd of February 1842. He was of Huguenot descent on his father’s side, and of Scottish and Virginian on his mother’s. From childhood he was passionately fond of music. His subsequent mastery of the flute helped to support him and greatly increased his reputation. At the age of fourteen he entered Oglethorpe College, where, after graduating with distinction, he held a tutorship. He enlisted in the Confederate army in April 1861, serving first in Virginia, and finding opportunities to continue his studies. After the Seven Days’ battles around Richmond, he was transferred to the signal service.About this time the first symptoms of consumption appeared. He subsequently served in a blockade-runner, but his vessel was captured, and he was confined for five months in a Federal prison, his flute proving the best of companions. Exchanged early in 1865, he started home on foot, arriving in a state of exhaustion that led to a severe illness. In 1867 he visited New York in connexion with his novelTiger Lilies—an immature work, dealing in part with his war experiences, and now difficult to obtain. Later in the same year he took charge of a country school in Alabama, and was married to Miss Mary Day of his native town. The next year he returned to Macon in low health, and began to study and practise law with his father. In 1872 he went to Texas for his health, but was forced to return, and he secured an engagement as first flute in the Peabody concerts at Baltimore (December 1873). He wrote a guide-book to Florida (1876), and tales for boys from Froissart, Malory, the Mabinogion and Percy’sReliques(1878-1882). He now made congenial friends, such as Bayard Taylor, his reputation gradually increased, and he was enabled to study music and literature, especially Anglo-Saxon poetry. In 1876 he wrote his ambitious cantata for the Centennial Exhibition, and brought his family north. A small volume of verse appeared in the next year. In 1879 he was made lecturer on English literature at Johns Hopkins University. His lectures became the basis of hisScience of English Verse(1880)—his most important prose work, and an admirable discussion of the relations of music and poetry—and also of hisEnglish Novel(New York, 1883), which, devoted largely to George Eliot, is suggestive, but one-sided. Work had to be abandoned on account of growing feebleness, and in the spring of 1881 he was carried to Lynn, North Carolina, to try camp life, and died there on the 7th of September. Since his death his fame has grown steadily and greatly, an enlarged and final edition (1884) of his poems, prepared by his wife, hisLetters, 1866-1881(1899), and several volumes of miscellaneous prose having assisted in keeping his name before the public. A posthumous work onShakspere and his Forerunners(London, 2 vols., 1902) was edited by H. W. Lanier. Among his more noteworthy poems are “Corn,” “The Revenge of Hamish,” “Song of the Chattahoochee” and “The Marshes of Glynn.” By some his genius is regarded as musical rather than poetic, and his style is considered hectic; by others he is held to be one of the most original and most talented of modern American poets. He is considered the leading writer of the New South, the greatest Southern poet since Poe, and a man of heroic and exquisite character.
See a “Memorial,” by William Hayes Ward, prefixed to thePoems(1884);Letters of Sidney Lanier 1866-1881(1899), edited by H. W. Lanier and Mrs Sidney Lanier; E. Mims,Sidney Lanier(1905). There is a bibliography of Lanier’s scattered writings inSelect Poems(New York, 1896; Toronto, 1900) edited by Morgan Callaway.
See a “Memorial,” by William Hayes Ward, prefixed to thePoems(1884);Letters of Sidney Lanier 1866-1881(1899), edited by H. W. Lanier and Mrs Sidney Lanier; E. Mims,Sidney Lanier(1905). There is a bibliography of Lanier’s scattered writings inSelect Poems(New York, 1896; Toronto, 1900) edited by Morgan Callaway.
(W. P. T.)
LANJUINAIS, JEAN DENIS,Comte(1753-1827), French politician, was born at Rennes (Ille-et-Vilaine) on the 12th of March 1753. After a brilliant college career, which made him doctor of laws and a qualified barrister at nineteen, he was appointed counsel to the Breton estates and in 1775 professor of ecclesiastical law at Rennes. At this period he wrote two important works which, owing to the distracted state of public affairs, remained unpublished,Institutiones juris ecclesiasticiandPraelectiones juris ecclesiastici. He had begun his career at the bar by pleading against the feudaldroit du colombier, and when he was sent by his fellow-citizens to the states-general of 1789 he demanded the abolition of nobility and the substitution of the title of king of the French and the Navarrese for king of France and Navarre, and helped to establish the civil constitution of the clergy. Returned to the Convention in September 1792 he developed moderate, even reactionary views, becoming one of the fiercest opponents of the Mountain, though he never wavered in his support of republican principles. He refused to vote for the death of Louis XVI., alleging that the nation had no right to despatch a vanquished prisoner. His daily attacks on the Mountain resulted, on the 15th of April 1793, in a demand by the commune for his exclusion from the assembly, but, undaunted, when the Parisian populace invaded the Chamber on the 2nd of June, Lanjuinais renewed his defiance of the victorious party. Placed under arrest with the Girondins, he escaped to Rennes where he drew up a pamphlet denouncing the constitution of 1793 under the curious titleLe Dernier Crime de Lanjuinais(Rennes, 1793). Pursued by J. B. Carrier, who was sent to stamp out resistance in the west, he lay hidden until some time after the revolution of Thermidor (July 1794), but he was readmitted to the Convention on the 8th of March 1795. He maintained his liberal and independent attitude in the Conseil des Anciens, the Senate and the Chamber of Peers, being president of the upper house during the Hundred Days. Together with G. J. B. Target, J. E. M. Portalis and others he founded under the empire an academy of legislation in Paris, himself lecturing on Roman law. Closely associated with oriental scholars, and a keen student of oriental religions, he entered the Academy of Inscriptions in 1808. After the Bourbon restoration Lanjuinais consistently defended the principles of constitutional monarchy, but most of his time was given to religious and political subjects. Besides many contributions to periodical literature he wrote, among other works,Constitutions de la nation française(1819);Appréciation du projet de loi relatif aux trois concordats(1806, 6th ed. 1827), in defence of Gallicanism; andÉtudes biographiques et littéraires sur Antoine Arnauld, P. Nicole et Jacques Necker(1823). He died in Paris on the 13th of January 1827.
His son,Victor Ambroise, Vicomte de Lanjuinais(1802-1869), was also a politician, becoming a deputy in 1838. His interests lay chiefly in financial questions and in 1849 he became minister of commerce and agriculture in the cabinet of Odilon Barrot. He wrote aNotice historique sur la vie et les ouvrages du comte de Lanjuinais, which was prefixed to an edition of his father’sŒuvres(4 vols., 1832).
For the life of the comte de Lanjuinais see also A. Robert and G. Cougny,Dictionnaire des parlementaires, vol. ii. (1890); and F. A. Aulard,Les Orateurs de la Législative et de la Convention(Paris, 1885-1886). For a bibliography of his works see J. M. Quérard,La France littéraire, vol. iii. (1829).
For the life of the comte de Lanjuinais see also A. Robert and G. Cougny,Dictionnaire des parlementaires, vol. ii. (1890); and F. A. Aulard,Les Orateurs de la Législative et de la Convention(Paris, 1885-1886). For a bibliography of his works see J. M. Quérard,La France littéraire, vol. iii. (1829).
LANMAN, CHARLES ROCKWELL(1850- ), American Sanskrit scholar, was born in Norwich, Connecticut, on the 8th of July 1850. He graduated at Yale in 1871, was a graduate student there (1871-1873) under James Hadley and W. D. Whitney, and in Germany (1873-1876) studied Sanskrit under Weber and Roth and philology under Georg Curtius and Leskien. He was professor of Sanskrit at Johns Hopkins University in 1876-1880 and subsequently at Harvard University. In 1889 he travelled in India and bought for Harvard University Sanskrit and Prākrit books and manuscripts, which, with those subsequently bequeathed to the university by Fitzedward Hall, make the most valuable collection of its kind in America, and made possible theHarvard Oriental Series, edited by Professor Lanman. In 1879-1884 he was secretary and editor of theTransactions, and in 1889-1890 president of the American Philological Association, and in 1884-1894 he was corresponding secretary of the American Oriental Society, in 1897-1907 vice-president, and in 1907-1908 president. In theHarvard Oriental Serieshe translated (vol. iv.) into English Rājaçekhara’s Karpūra-Mañjarī (1900), a Prākrit drama, and (vols. vii. and viii.) revised and edited Whitney’s translation of, and notes on, theAtharva-Veda Samhitā(2 vols., 1905); he publishedA Sanskrit Reader, with Vocabulary and Notes(2 vols., 1884-1888); and he wrote on early Hindu pantheism and contributed the section on Brahmanism toMessages of the World’s Religions.
LANNES, JEAN, duke of Montebello (1769-1809), marshal of France, was born at Lectoure (Gers) on the 11th of April 1769. He was the son of a livery stables keeper, and was apprenticed to a dyer. He had had little education, but his great strength and proficiency in all manly sports caused him in 1792 to be elected sergeant-major of the battalion of volunteers of Gers, which he had joined on the breaking out of war between Spain and the French republic. He served through the campaigns in the Pyrenees in 1793 and 1794, and rose by distinguishedconduct to the rank ofchef de brigade. However, in 1795, on the reform of the army introduced by the Thermidorians, he was dismissed from his rank. He re-enlisted as a simple volunteer in the army of Italy, and in the famous campaign of 1796 he again fought his way up to high rank, being eventually made a general of brigade by Bonaparte. He was distinguished in every battle, and was wounded at Arcola. He was chosen by Bonaparte to accompany him to Egypt as commander of one of Kléber’s brigades, in which capacity he greatly distinguished himself, especially on the retreat from Syria. He went with Bonaparte to France, assisted at the 18th Brumaire, and was appointed general of division, and commandant of the consular guard. He commanded the advanced guard in the crossing of the Alps in 1800, was instrumental in winning the battle of Montebello, from which he afterwards took his title, and bore the brunt of the battle of Marengo. In 1801 Napoleon sent him as ambassador to Portugal. Opinions differ as to his merits in this capacity; Napoleon never made such use of him again. On the establishment of the empire he was created a marshal of France, and commanded once more the advanced guard of a great French army in the campaign of Austerlitz. At Austerlitz he had the left of the Grand Army. In the 1806-07 campaign he was at his best, commanding his corps with the greatest credit in the march through the Thuringian Forest, the action of Saalfeld (which is studied as a model to-day at the French Staff College) and the battle of Jena. His leadership of the advanced guard at Friedland was even more conspicuous. He was now to be tried as a commander-in-chief, for Napoleon took him to Spain in 1808, and gave him a detached wing of the army, with which he won a victory over Castaños at Tudela on November 22. In January 1809 he was sent to attempt the capture of Saragossa, and by February 21, after one of the most stubborn defences in history, was in possession of the place. Napoleon then created him duc de Montebello, and in 1809, for the last time, gave him command of the advanced guard. He took part in the engagements around Eckmühl and the advance on Vienna. With his corps he led the French army across the Danube, and bore the brunt, with Masséna, of the terrible battle of Aspern-Essling (q.v.). On the 22nd of May he had to retreat. During the retreat Lannes exposed himself as usual to the hottest fire, and received a mortal wound, to which he succumbed at Vienna on the 31st of May. As he was being carried from the field to Vienna he met the emperor hurrying to the front. It was reported that the dying man reproached Napoleon for his ambition, but this rests on little evidence save the fact that Lannes was the most blunt and outspoken of all Napoleon’s marshals. He was one of the few men for whom the emperor felt a real and deep affection, and at this their last meeting Napoleon gave way to a passionate burst of grief, even in the midst of the battle. His eldest son was made a peer of France by Louis XVIII.
Lannes ranks with Davout and Masséna as the ablest of all Napoleon’s marshals, and consciously or unconsciously was the best exponent of the emperor’s method of making war. Hence his constant employment in tasks requiring the utmost resolution and daring, and more especially when the emperor’s combinations depended upon the vigour and self-sacrifice of a detachment or fraction of the army. It was thus with Lannes at Friedland and at Aspern as it was with Davout at Austerlitz and Auerstädt, and Napoleon’s estimate of his subordinates’ capacities can almost exactly be judged by the frequency with which he used them to prepare the way for his own shattering blow. Routine generals with the usual military virtue, or careful and exact troop leaders like Soult and Macdonald, Napoleon kept under his own hand for the final assault which he himself launched, but the long hours of preparatory fighting against odds of two to one, which alone made the final blow possible, he entrusted only to men of extraordinary courage and high capacity for command. In his own words, he found Lannes a pigmy, and lost him a giant. Lannes’s place in his affections was never filled.See R. Périn,Vie militaire de Jean Lannes(Paris, 1809).
Lannes ranks with Davout and Masséna as the ablest of all Napoleon’s marshals, and consciously or unconsciously was the best exponent of the emperor’s method of making war. Hence his constant employment in tasks requiring the utmost resolution and daring, and more especially when the emperor’s combinations depended upon the vigour and self-sacrifice of a detachment or fraction of the army. It was thus with Lannes at Friedland and at Aspern as it was with Davout at Austerlitz and Auerstädt, and Napoleon’s estimate of his subordinates’ capacities can almost exactly be judged by the frequency with which he used them to prepare the way for his own shattering blow. Routine generals with the usual military virtue, or careful and exact troop leaders like Soult and Macdonald, Napoleon kept under his own hand for the final assault which he himself launched, but the long hours of preparatory fighting against odds of two to one, which alone made the final blow possible, he entrusted only to men of extraordinary courage and high capacity for command. In his own words, he found Lannes a pigmy, and lost him a giant. Lannes’s place in his affections was never filled.
See R. Périn,Vie militaire de Jean Lannes(Paris, 1809).
LANNION,a town of north-western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Côtes-du-Nord, on the right bank of the Léguer, 45 m. W.N.W. of St Brieuc by rail. Pop. (1906) 5336. Lannion is 5 m. in direct line from the mouth of the Léguer; its port does a small trade (exports of agricultural produce, imports of wine, salt, timber, &c.), and there is an active fishing industry. The town contains many houses of the 15th and 16th centuries and other old buildings, the chief of which is the church of St Jean-du-Baly (16th and 17th centuries). On an eminence close to Lannion is the church of Brélevenez of the 12th century, restored in the 15th or 16th century; it has an interesting 16th-century Holy Sepulchre.
Some 6 m. S.E. of the town are the imposing ruins of the château of Tonquédec (c.1400) styled the “Pierrefonds of Brittany,” and there are other buildings of antiquarian interest in the vicinity. The coast north of Lannion at Trégastel and Ploumanac presents curious rock formations.
Lannion is the seat of a subprefect and has a tribunal of first instance and a communal college. Its industries include saw-milling, tanning and the manufacture of farm implements. The town was taken in 1346 by the English; it was defended against them by Geoffroy de Pontblanc whose valour is commemorated by a cross close to the spot where he was slain.
LANNOY, GUILLEBERT DE(1386-1462), Flemish diplomatist, was chamberlain to the duke of Burgundy, governor of the fort of Sluys, and a knight of the Golden Fleece. He discharged several diplomatic missions in France, England, Prussia, Poland and Lithuania, and was one of the negotiators of the treaty of Troyes (1420). In 1421 he was sent by Henry V. of England to Palestine to inquire into the possibility of reviving the kingdom of Jerusalem, and wrote an account of his travels,Les Pèlerinages de Surye et de Egipte, which was published in 1826 and again in 1842.
LANOLIN(Lat.lana, wool, andoleum, oil), the commercial name of the preparation styledadeps lanae hydrosusin the British Pharmacopoeia, and which consists of 7 oz. of neutral wool-fat (adeps lanae) mixed with 3 fluid oz. of water. The wool-fat is obtained by purification of the “brown grease,” “recovered grease” or dégras extracted from raw sheep’s wool in the process of preparing it for the spinner. It is a translucent unctuous substance which has the property of taking up large quantities of water and forming emulsions which are very slow to separate into their constituents. Owing to the ease with which it penetrates the skin, wool-fat both in the anhydrous form and as lanolin, sometimes mixed with such substances as vaseline or fatty oils, is largely employed as a basis for ointments. It is slightly antiseptic and does not become rancid.
LA NOUE, FRANÇOIS DE(1531-1591), called Bras-de-Fer, one of the Huguenot captains of the 16th century, was born near Nantes in 1531, of an ancient Breton family. He served in Italy under Marshal Brissac, and in the first Huguenot war, but his first great exploit was the capture of Orleans at the head of only fifteen cavaliers in 1567, during the second war. At the battle of Jarnac in March 1569 he commanded the rearguard, and at Moncontour in the following October he was taken prisoner; but he was exchanged in time to resume the governorship of Poitou, and to inflict a signal defeat on the royalist troops before Rochefort. At the siege of Fontenay (1570) his left arm was shattered by a bullet; but a mechanic of Rochelle made him an iron arm (hence his sobriquet) with a hook for holding his reins. When peace was made in France in the same year, La Noue carried his sword against the Spaniards in the Netherlands, but was taken at the recapture of Mons by the Spanish in 1572. Permitted to return to France, he was commissioned by Charles IX., after the massacre of St Bartholomew, to reconcile the inhabitants of La Rochelle, the great stronghold of the Huguenots, to the king. But the Rochellois were too much alarmed to come to terms; and La Noue, perceiving that war was imminent, and knowing that his post was on the Huguenot side, gave up his royal commission, and from 1574 till 1578 acted as general of La Rochelle. When peace was again concluded La Noue once more went to aid the Protestants of the Low Countries. He took several towns and captured Count Egmont in 1580; but a few weeks afterwards he fell into the hands of the Spaniards. Thrust into a loathsome prison at Limburg, La Noue, the admiration of all, of whatever faith, for his gallantry, honour and purity of character, was kept confined for five years by a powerful nation, whose reluctance to set himfree is one of the sincerest tributes to his reputation. It was in captivity that he wrote his celebratedDiscours politiques et militaires, a work which was published at Basel in 1587 [republished at La Rochelle 1590, Frankfurt on Main (in German) 1592 and 1612; and London (in English) 1597] and had an immense influence on the soldiers of all nations. The abiding value of La Noue’s “Discourses” lies in the fact that he wrote of war as a human drama, before it had been elaborated and codified. At length, in June 1585, La Noue was exchanged for Egmont and other prisoners of consideration, while a heavy ransom and a pledge not to bear arms against his Catholic majesty were also exacted from him. Till 1589 La Noue took no part in public matters, but in that year he joined Henry of Navarre against the Leaguers. He was present at both sieges of Paris, at Ivry and other battles. At the siege of Lamballe in Brittany he received a wound of which he died at Moncontour on the 4th of August 1591.