Chapter 22

(M. Br.)

1For his career, see Paul Durrieu,Les Gascons en Italie(Auch, 1885, pp. 107-71).2For the legend of the Sibyl current in Italy at the time, given by La Sale, and its inter-relation with the Tannhäuser story, see W. Soederhjelm, “A. de la Salle et la légende de Tannhäuser” inMémoires de la soc. néo-philologique d’Helsingfors(1897, vol. ii.); and Gaston Paris, “Le Paradis de la Reine Sibylle,” and “La Légende du Tannhäuser,” in theRevue de Paris(Dec. 1897 and March 1898).

1For his career, see Paul Durrieu,Les Gascons en Italie(Auch, 1885, pp. 107-71).

2For the legend of the Sibyl current in Italy at the time, given by La Sale, and its inter-relation with the Tannhäuser story, see W. Soederhjelm, “A. de la Salle et la légende de Tannhäuser” inMémoires de la soc. néo-philologique d’Helsingfors(1897, vol. ii.); and Gaston Paris, “Le Paradis de la Reine Sibylle,” and “La Légende du Tannhäuser,” in theRevue de Paris(Dec. 1897 and March 1898).

LASALLE, ANTOINE CHEVALIER LOUIS COLLINET,Count(1775-1809), French soldier, belonged to a noble family in Lorraine. His grandfather was Abraham Fabert, marshal of France. Entering the French army at the age of eleven, he had reached the rank of lieutenant when the Revolution broke out. As an aristocrat, he lost his commission, but he enlisted in the ranks, where his desperate bravery and innate power of command soon distinguished him. By 1795 he had won back his grade, and was serving as a staff-officer in the army of Italy. On one occasion, at Vicenza, he rivalled Seydlitz’s feat of leaping his horse over the parapet of a bridge to avoid capture, and, later, in Egypt, he saved Davout’s life in action. By 1800 he had become colonel, and in one combat in that year he had two horses killed under him, and broke seven swords. Five years later, having attained the rank of general of brigade, he was present with his brigade of light cavalry at Austerlitz. In the pursuit after Jena in 1806, though he had but 600 hussars and not one piece of artillery with him, he terrified the commandant of the strong fortress of Stettin into surrender, a feat rarely equalled save by that of Cromwell on Bletchingdon House. Made general of division for this exploit, he was next in the Polish campaign, and at Heilsberg saved the life of Murat, grand duke of Berg. When the Peninsular War began, Lasalle was sent out with one of the cavalry divisions, and at Medina de Rio Seco, Gamonal and Medellin broke every body of troops which he charged. A year later, at the head of one of the cavalry divisions of theGrande Arméehe took part in the Austrian war. At Wagram he was killed at the head of his men. With the possible exception of Curély, who was in 1809 still unknown, Napoleon never possessed a better leader of light horse. Wild and irregular in his private life, Lasalle was far more than abeau sabreur. To talent and experience he added that power of feeling the pulse of the battle which is the true gift of a great leader. A statue of him was erected in Lunéville in 1893. His remains were brought from Austria to the Invalides in 1891.

LA SALLE, RENÉ ROBERT CAVELIER,Sieur de(1643-1687), French explorer in North America, was born at Rouen on the 22nd of November 1643. He taught for a time in a school (probably Jesuit) in France, and seems to have forfeited his claim to his father’s estate by his connexion with the Jesuits. In 1666 he became a settler in Canada, whither his brother, a Sulpician abbé, had preceded him. From the Seminary of St Sulpice in Montreal La Salle received a grant on the St Lawrence about 8 m. above Montreal, where he built a stockade and established a fur-trading post. In 1669 he sold this post (partly to the Sulpicians who had granted it to him) to raise funds for an expedition to China1by way of the Ohio,2which he supposed, from the reports of the Indians, to flow into the Pacific. He passed up the St Lawrence and through Lake Ontario to a Seneca village on the Genesee river; thence with an Iroquois guide he crossed the mouth of the Niagara (where he heard the noise of the distant falls) to Ganastogue, an Iroquois colony at the head of Lake Ontario, where he met Louis Joliet and received from him a map of parts of the Great Lakes. La Salle’s missionary comrades now gave up the quest for China to preach among the Indians. La Salle discovered the Ohio river, descended it at least as far as the site of Louisville, Kentucky, and possibly, though not probably, to its junction with the Mississippi, and in 1669-1670, abandoned by his few followers, made his way back to Lake Erie. Apparently he passed through Lake Erie, Lake Huron and Lake Michigan, and some way down the Illinois river. Little is known of these explorations, for his journals are lost, and the description of his travels rests only on the testimony of the anonymous author of aHistoire de M. de la Salle. Before 1673 La Salle had returned to Montreal. Becoming convinced, after the explorations of Marquette and Joliet in 1673, that the Mississippi flowed into the Gulf of Mexico, he conceived a vast project for exploring that river to its mouth and extending the French power to the lower Mississippi Valley. He secured the support of Count Frontenac, then governor of Canada, and in 1674 and 1677 visited France, obtaining from Louis XIV. on his first visit a patent of nobility and a grant of lands about Fort Frontenac, on the site of the present Kingston, Ontario, and on his second visit a patent empowering him to explore the West at his own expense, and giving him the buffalo-hide monopoly. Late in the year 1678, at the head of a small party, he started from Fort Frontenac. He established a post above Niagara Falls, where he spent the winter, and where, his vessel having been wrecked, he built a larger ship, the “Griffon,” in which he sailed up the Great Lakes to Green Bay (Lake Michigan), where he arrived in September 1679. Sending back the “Griffon” freighted with furs, by which he hoped to satisfy the claims of his creditors, he proceeded to the Illinois river, and near what is now Peoria, Illinois, built a fort, which he called Fort Crèvecœur. Thence he detached Father Hennepin, with one companion, to explore the Illinois to its mouth, and, leaving his lieutenant, Henri de Tonty (c.1650-c.1702),3with about fifteen men, at Fort Crèvecœur, he returned by land, afoot, to Canada to obtain needed supplies, discovering the fate of the “Griffon” (which proved to have been lost), thwarting the intrigues of his enemies and appeasing his creditors. In July 1680 news reached him at Fort Frontenac that nearly all Tonty’s men had deserted, after destroying or appropriating most of the supplies; and that twelve of them were on their way to kill him as the surest means of escaping punishment.These he met and captured or killed. He then returned to the Illinois, to find the country devastated by the Iroquois, and his post abandoned. He formed a league of the Western Indians to fight the Iroquois, then went to Michilimackinac, where he found Tonty, proceeded again to Fort Frontenac to obtain supplies and organize his expedition anew, and returned in December 1681 to the Illinois. Passing down the Illinois to the Mississippi, which he reached in February 1682, he floated down that stream to its mouth, which he reached on the 9th of April, and, erecting there a monument and a cross, took formal possession in the name of Louis XIV., in whose honour he gave the name “Louisiana” to the region. He then returned to Michilimackinac, whence, with Tonty, he went again to the Illinois and established a fort, Fort St Louis, probably on Starved Rock (near the present Ottawa, Illinois), around which nearly 20,000 Indians (Illinois, Miamis and others seeking protection from the Iroquois) had been gathered. La Salle then went to Quebec, and La Barre, who had succeeded Frontenac, being unfriendly to him, again visited France (1684), where he succeeded in interesting the king in a scheme to establish a fort at the mouth of the Mississippi and to seize the Spanish posts in the vicinity. On the 24th of July 1684, with four vessels under the command of himself and Captain Beaujeu, a naval officer, he sailed from La Rochelle. Mistaking, it appears, the inlets of Matagorda Bay (which La Salle called St Louis’s Bay) in the present state of Texas, for the mouth of an arm of the Mississippi, he landed there, and Beaujeu, soon afterwards returned to France. The expedition had met with various misfortunes; one vessel had been captured by the Spaniards and another had been wrecked; and throughout La Salle and Beaujeu had failed to work in harmony. Soon finding that he was not at the mouth of the Mississippi, La Salle established a settlement and built a fort, Fort St Louis, on the Lavaca (he called it La Vache) river, and leaving there the greater part of his force, from October 1685 to March 1686 he vainly sought for the Mississippi. He also made two attempts to reach the Illinois country and Canada, and during the second, after two months of fruitless wanderings, he was assassinated, on the 19th of March 1687, by several of his followers, near the Trinity river in the present Texas.

His colony on the Lavaca, after suffering terribly from privation and disease and being attacked by the Indians, was finally broken up, and a force of Spaniards sent against it in 1689 found nothing but dead bodies and a dismantled fort; the few survivors having become domesticated in the Indian villages near by. Some writers, notably J. G. Shea, maintain that La Salle never intended to fortify the mouth of the Mississippi, but was instructed to establish an advanced post near the Spanish possessions, where he was to await a powerful expedition under a renegade Spaniard, Peñalosa, with whom he was to co-operate in expelling the Spaniards from this part of the continent.4

La Salle was one of the greatest of the explorers in North America. Besides discovering the Ohio and probably the Illinois, he was the first to follow the Mississippi from its upper course to its mouth and thus to establish the connexion between the discoveries of Radisson, Joliet and Marquette in the north with those of De Soto in the south. He was stern, indomitable and full of resource.

The best accounts of La Salle’s explorations may be found in Francis Parkman’sLa Salle and the Discovery of the Great West(Boston, 1879; later revised editions), in Justin Winsor’sCartier to Frontenac(Boston, 1894), and in J. G. Shea’sDiscovery and Exploration of the Mississippi Valley(New York, 1852); see also P. Chesnel,Histoire de Cavelier de La Salle, explorations et conquête du bassin du Mississippi(Paris, 1901). Of the early narratives see Louis Hennepin,Description de la Louisiane(1683); Joutel,Journal historique du dernier voyage que feu M. de la Salle fit dans le Golfe de Mexique, &c.(Paris, 1713); and Henri de Tonty,Derniers Découvertes dans l’Amérique septentrionale de M. de La Salle(Paris, 1697). Original narratives may be found, translated into English, inThe Journeys of René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, as related by his Faithful Lieutenant, Henri de Tonty, &c.(2 vols., New York, 1905), edited by I. J. Cox; in Benjamin E. French’sHistorical Collections of Louisiana(6 series, New York, 1846-1853), and in Shea’sEarly Voyages Up and Down the Mississippi(Albany, 1861); and an immense collection of documents relating to La Salle may be found in Pierre Margry’sDécouvertes et établissements des Français dans l’ouest et dans le sud de l’Amérique septentrionale, 1614-1754; Mémoires et documents originaux recueillis et publiés(6 vols., Paris, 1875-1886), especially in vol. ii.

(C. C. W.)

1The name La Chine was sarcastically applied to La Salle’s settlement on the St Lawrence.2The Iroquois seem to have used the name Ohio for the Mississippi, or at least for its lower part; and this circumstance makes the story of La Salle’s exploration peculiarly difficult to disentangle.3Tonty (or Tonti), an Italian, born at Gaeta, was La Salle’s principal lieutenant, and was the equal of his chief in intrepidity. Before his association with La Salle he had engaged in military service in Europe, during which he had lost a hand. He accompanied La Salle to the mouth of the Mississippi, and was in command of Fort St Louis from the time of its erection until 1702, except during his journeys down the Mississippi in search of his chief. In 1702 he joined d’Iberville in lower Louisiana, and soon after was despatched on a mission to the Chickasaw Indians. This is the last authentic trace of him.4Although La Salle and Don Diego de Peñalosa (1624-1687) presented to the French government independent plans for an expedition against the Spaniards and Peñalosa afterwards proposed their co-operation, there is no substantial evidence that this project was adopted. Parkman is of the opinion that La Salle proposed his expedition against the Spaniards in the hope that the conclusion of peace between France and Spain would prevent its execution and that he might then use the aid he had thus received in establishing a fortified commercial colony at the mouth of the Mississippi. See E. T. Miller, “The Connection of Peñalosa with the La Salle Expedition,” in theQuarterlyof the Texas State Historical Association, vol. v. (Austin, Tex., 1902).

1The name La Chine was sarcastically applied to La Salle’s settlement on the St Lawrence.

2The Iroquois seem to have used the name Ohio for the Mississippi, or at least for its lower part; and this circumstance makes the story of La Salle’s exploration peculiarly difficult to disentangle.

3Tonty (or Tonti), an Italian, born at Gaeta, was La Salle’s principal lieutenant, and was the equal of his chief in intrepidity. Before his association with La Salle he had engaged in military service in Europe, during which he had lost a hand. He accompanied La Salle to the mouth of the Mississippi, and was in command of Fort St Louis from the time of its erection until 1702, except during his journeys down the Mississippi in search of his chief. In 1702 he joined d’Iberville in lower Louisiana, and soon after was despatched on a mission to the Chickasaw Indians. This is the last authentic trace of him.

4Although La Salle and Don Diego de Peñalosa (1624-1687) presented to the French government independent plans for an expedition against the Spaniards and Peñalosa afterwards proposed their co-operation, there is no substantial evidence that this project was adopted. Parkman is of the opinion that La Salle proposed his expedition against the Spaniards in the hope that the conclusion of peace between France and Spain would prevent its execution and that he might then use the aid he had thus received in establishing a fortified commercial colony at the mouth of the Mississippi. See E. T. Miller, “The Connection of Peñalosa with the La Salle Expedition,” in theQuarterlyof the Texas State Historical Association, vol. v. (Austin, Tex., 1902).

LA SALLE, ST JEAN BAPTISTE DE(1651-1719), founder of the order of Christian Brothers, was born at Reims. The son of a rich lawyer, his father’s influence early secured him a canonry in the cathedral; there he established a school, where free elementary instruction was given to poor children. The enterprise soon broadened in scope; a band of enthusiastic assistants gathered round him; he resolved to resign his canonry, and devote himself entirely to education. His assistants were organized into a community, which gradually rooted itself all over France; and a training-school for teachers, the Collège de Saint-Yon, was set up at Rouen. In 1725, six years after the founder’s death, the society was recognized by the pope, under the official title of “Brothers of the Christian Schools”; its members took the usual monastic vows, but did not aspire to the priesthood. During the first hundred years of its existence its activities were mainly confined to France; during the 19th century it spread to most of the countries of western Europe, and has been markedly successful in the United States. When La Salle was canonized in 1900, the total number of brothers was estimated at 15,000. Although the order has been chiefly concerned with elementary schools, it undertakes most branches of secondary and technical education; and it has served as a model for other societies, in Ireland and elsewhere, slightly differing in character from the original institute.

LA SALLE,a city of La Salle county, Illinois, U.S.A., on the Illinois river, near the head of navigation, 99 m. S.W. of Chicago. Pop. (1900) 10,446, of whom 3471 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 11,537. The city is served by the Chicago, Burlington & Quincy, the Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific, and the Illinois Central railways, and by the Illinois & Michigan Canal, of which La Salle is the western terminus. The city has a public library. The principal industries are the smelting of zinc and the manufacture of cement, rolled zinc, bricks, sulphuric acid and clocks; in 1905 the city’s factory products were valued at $3,158,173. In the vicinity large quantities of coal are mined, for which the city is an important shipping point. The municipality owns and operates the waterworks and the electric lighting plant. The first settlement was made here in 1830; and the place which was named in honour of the explorer, René Robert Cavelier, Sieur de La Salle, was chartered as a city in 1852 and rechartered in 1876.

LASAULX, ARNOLD CONSTANTIN PETER FRANZ VON(1839-1886), German mineralogist and petrographer, was born at Castellaun near Coblenz on the 14th of June 1839. He was educated at Berlin, where he took his Ph. D. in 1868. In 1875 he became professor of mineralogy at Breslau, and in 1880 professor of mineralogy and geology at Bonn. He was distinguished for his researches on minerals and on crystallography, and he was one of the earlier workers on microscopic petrography. He described in 1878 the eruptive rocks of the district of Saar and Moselle. In 1880 he editedDer Aetnafrom the MSS. of Dr W. Sartorius von Waltershausen, the results of observations made between the years 1834-1869. He was author ofElemente der Petrographie(1875),Einführung in die Gesteinslehre(1885), andPrécis de pétrographie(1887). He died at Bonn on the 25th of January 1886.

LASCAR,the name in common use for all oriental, and especially Indian, sailors, which has been adopted in England into the Merchant Shipping Acts, though without any definition. It is derived from the Persianlashkar= army, or camp, in which sense it is still used in India,e.g.Lashkar, originally the camp, now the permanent capital, of Sindhia at Gwalior. It would seem to have been applied by the Portuguese, first to an inferior class of men in military service (cf. “gun-lascars”), and then to sailors as early as the 17th century. The formaskarion the east coast of Africa, equivalent to “sepoy,” comes from the Arabic ‘askar= army, which is believed to be itself taken from the Persian.

LASCARIS, CONSTANTINE(d. 1493 or 1500), Greek scholar and grammarian, one of the promoters of the revival of Greek learning in Italy, was born at Constantinople. He was a member of the noble Bithynian family, which had furnished three emperors of Nicaea during the 13th century. After the fall of Constantinople in 1453, he took refuge first in Corfu and then in Italy, where Francesco Sforza, duke of Milan, appointed him Greek tutor to his daughter. Here was published hisGrammatica Graeca, sive compendium octo orationis partium, remarkable as being the first book entirely in Greek issued from the printing press. After leaving Milan, Lascaris taught in Rome under the patronage of Cardinal Bessarion, and in Naples, whither he had been summoned by Ferdinand I. to deliver a course of lectures on Greece. Ultimately, on the invitation of the inhabitants, he settled in Messina, Sicily, where he continued to teach publicly until his death. Among his numerous pupils here was Pietro Bembo. Lascaris bequeathed his library of valuable MSS. to the senate of Messina; the collection was afterwards carried to Spain and lodged in the Escurial.

TheGrammatica, which has often been reprinted, is the only work of value produced by Lascaris. Some of his letters are given by J. Iriarte in theRegiae Bibliothecae Matritensis codices Graeci manuscripti, i. (Madrid, 1769). His name is known to modern readers in the romance of A. F. Villemain,Lascaris, ou les Grecs du quinzième siècle(1825). See also J. E. Sandys,Hist. Class. Schol., ed. 2, vol. ii. (1908), pp. 76 foll.

LASCARIS, JOANNES[John], orJanus(c.1445-1535), Greek scholar, probably the younger brother of Constantine Lascaris, surnamed Rhyndacenus from the river Rhyndacus in Bithynia, his native province. After the fall of Constantinople he was taken to the Peloponnese, thence to Crete, and ultimately found refuge in Florence at the court of Lorenzo de’ Medici, whose intermediary he was with the sultan Bayezid II. in the purchase of Greek MSS. for the Medicean library. On the expulsion of the Medici from Florence, at the invitation of Charles VIII. of France, Lascaris removed to Paris (1495), where he gave public instruction in Greek. By Louis XII. he was several times employed on public missions, amongst others to Venice (1503-1508), and in 1515 he appears to have accepted the invitation of Leo X. to take charge of the Greek college he had founded at Rome. We afterwards (1518) find Lascaris employed along with Budaeus (Budé) by Francis I. in the formation of the royal library at Fontainebleau, and also again sent in the service of the French crown to Venice. He died at Rome, whither he had been summoned by Pope Paul III., in 1535. Among his pupils was Musurus.

Amongst other works, Lascaris edited or wrote:Anthologia epigrammatum Graecorum(1494), in which he ascribed the collection of the Anthology to Agathias, not to Planudes;Didymi Alexandrini scholia in Iliadem(1517); Porphyrius of Tyre’sHomericarum quaestionum liber(1518);De veris Graecarum litterarum formis ac causis apud antiquos(Paris, 1556). See H. Hody,De Graecis illustribus(London, 1742); W. Roscoe,Life of Leo X.ii. (1846); C. F. Börner,De doctis hominibus Graecis(Leipzig, 1750); A. Horawitz in Ersch & Gruber’sAllgemeine Encyclopädie; J. E. Sandys,Hist. Class. Schol., ed. 2, vols. ii. (1908), p. 78.

LAS CASAS, BARTOLOMÉ DE(1474-1566), for some time bishop of Chiapa in Mexico, and known to posterity as “The Apostle of the Indies,” was a native of Seville. His father, one of the companions of Columbus in the voyage which resulted in the discovery of the New World, sent him to Salamanca, where he graduated. In 1498 he accompanied his father in an expedition under Columbus to the West Indies, and in 1502 he went with Nicolás de Ovando, the governor, to Hayti, where in 1510 he was admitted to holy orders, being the first priest ordained in the American colonies. In 1511 he passed over to Cuba to take part in the work of “population and pacification,” and in 1513 or 1514 he witnessed and vainly endeavoured to check the massacre of Indians at Caonao. Soon afterwards there was assigned to him and his friend Renteria a large village in the neighbourhood of Zagua, with a number of Indians attached to it in what was known asrepartimiento(allotment); like the rest of his countrymen he made the most of this opportunity for growing rich, but occasionally celebrated mass and preached. Soon, however, having become convinced of the injustice connected with therepartimientosystem, he began to preach against it, at the same time giving up his own slaves. With the consent of his partner he resolved to go to Spain on behalf of the oppressed natives, and the result of his representations was that in 1516 Cardinal Jimenes caused a commission to be sent out for the reform of abuses, Las Casas himself, with the title of “protector of the Indians,” being appointed to advise and report on them. This commission had not been long at San Domingo before Las Casas perceived the indifference of his coadjutors to the cause which he himself had at heart, and July 1517 found him again in Spain, where he developed his scheme for the complete liberation of the Indians—a scheme which not only included facilities for emigration from Spain, but was intended to give to each Spanish resident in the colonies the right of importing twelve negro slaves. The emigration movement proved a failure, and Las Casas lived long enough to express his shame for having been so slow to see that Africans were as much entitled to freedom as were the natives of the New World. Overwhelmed with disappointment, he retired to the Dominican monastery in Haiti; he joined the order in 1522 and devoted eight years to study. About 1530 he appears to have revisited the Spanish court, but on what precise errand is not known; the confusion concerning this period of his life extends to the time when, after visits to Mexico, Nicaragua, Peru and Guatemala, he undertook an expedition in 1537 into Tuzulutlan, the inhabitants of which were, chiefly through his tact, peaceably converted to Christianity, mass being celebrated for the first time amongst them in the newly founded town of Rabinal in 1538. In 1539 Las Casas was sent to Spain to obtain Dominican recruits, and through Loaysa, general of the order, and confessor of Charles V., he was successful in obtaining royal orders and letters favouring his enterprise. During this stay in Europe, which lasted more than four years, he visited Germany to see the emperor; he also (1542) wrote hisVeynte Razones, in defence of the liberties of the Indians and theBrevisima Relacion de la Destruycion des las Indias occidentales, the latter of which was published some twelve years later. In 1543 he refused the Mexican bishopric of Cuzco, but was prevailed upon to accept that of Chiapa, for which he sailed in 1544. Thwarted at every point by the officials, and outraged by his countrymen in his attempt to carry out the new laws which his humanity had procured, he returned to Spain and resigned his dignity (1547). In 1550 he met Sepúlveda in public debate on the theses drawn from the recently publishedApologia pro libro de justis belli causis, in which the latter had maintained the lawfulness of waging unprovoked war upon the natives of the New World. The course of the discussion may be traced in the account of theDisputacontained in theObras(1552). In 1565 Las Casas successfully remonstrated with Philip II. against the financial project for selling the reversion of theencomiendas—a project which would have involved the Indians in hopeless bondage. In July of the following year he died at Madrid, whither he had gone to urge (and with success) the necessity of restoring a court of justice which had been suppressed in Guatemala. HisHistoria de las Indiaswas not published till 1875-1876.

Sir Arthur Helps’Life of Las Casas(London, 1868) has not been superseded; but see also F. A. MacNutt,Bartholomew de Las Casas(1909).

LAS CASES, EMMANUEL AUGUSTIN DIEUDONNÉ MARIN JOSEPH,Marquis(1766-1842), French official, was born at the castle of Las Cases near Revel in Languedoc. He was educated at the military schools of Vendôme and Paris; he entered the navy and took part in various engagements of the years 1781-1782. The outbreak of the Revolution in 1789 caused him to “emigrate,” and he spent some years in Germany and England, sharing in the disastrous Quiberon expedition (1795). He was one of the few survivors and returned to London, where he lived in poverty. He returned to France during the Consulate with other royalists who rallied to the side of Napoleon, and stated afterwards to the emperor that he was “conquered by his glory.” Not until 1810 did he receive much notice from Napoleon, who then made him a chamberlain and created him a count of the empire (he was marquis by hereditary right). After the first abdication of the emperor (11th of April 1814), Las Cases retired to England, but returned to serve Napoleon during the Hundred Days. The second abdication opened up for Las Cases the most noteworthy part of his career. He withdrew with the ex-emperor and a few other trusty followers to Rochefort; and it was Las Cases who first proposed and strongly urged the emperor to throw himself on the generosity of the British nation. Las Cases made the first overtures to Captain Maitland of H.M.S. “Bellerophon” and received a guarded reply, the nature of which he afterwards misrepresented. Las Cases accompanied the ex-emperor to St Helena and acted informally but very assiduously as his secretary, taking down numerous notes of his conversations which thereafter took form in the famousMémorial de Ste Hélène. The limits of this article preclude an attempt at assessing the value of this work. It should be read with great caution, as the compiler did not scruple to insert his own thoughts and to colour the expressions of his master. In some cases he misstated facts and even fabricated documents. It is far less trustworthy than the record penned by Gourgaud in hisJournal. Disliked by Montholon and Gourgaud, Las Cases seems to have sought an opportunity to leave the island when he had accumulated sufficient literary material. However that may be, he infringed the British regulations in such a way as to lead to his expulsion by the governor, Sir Hudson Lowe (November, 1816). He was sent first to the Cape of Good Hope and thence to Europe, but was not at first allowed by the government of Louis XVIII. to enter France. He resided at Brussels; but, gaining permission to come to Paris after the death of Napoleon, he took up his residence there, published theMémorial, and soon gained an enormous sum from it. He died in 1842 at Passy.

SeeMémoires de E. A. D., comte de Las Cases(Brussels, 1818);Mémorial de Ste Hélène(4 vols., London and Paris, 1823; often republished and translated);Suite au mémorial de Ste Hélène, ou observations critiques, &c. (2 vols., Paris, 1824), anonymous, but known to be by Grille and Musset-Pathay. See tooGourgaud,Montholon, andLowe, Sir Hudson.

(J. Hl. R.)

LASHIO,the headquarters of the superintendent, northern Shan States, Burma, situated in 22° 56′ N. and 97° 45′ E. at an altitude of 3100 ft., on a low spur overlooking the valley of the Nam Yao. It is the present terminus of the Mandalay-Kun Long railway and of the government cart road from Mandalay, from which it is 178 m. distant. It consists of the European station, with court house and quarters for the civil officers; the military police post, the headquarters of the Lashio battalion of military police; the native station, in which the various nationalities, Shans, Burmans, Hindus and Mahommedans, are divided into separate quarters, with reserves for government servants and for the temporary residences of the five sawbwas of the northern Shan States; and a bazaar. Under Burmese rule Lashio was also the centre of authority for the northern Shan States, but the Burmese post in the valley was close to the Nam Yao, in an old Chinese fortified camp. The Lashio valley was formerly very populous; but a rebellion, started by the sawbwa of Hsenwi, about ten years before the British occupation, ruined it, and it is only slowly approaching the prosperity it formerly enjoyed; pop. (1901) 2565. The annual rainfall averages 54 in. The average maximum temperature is 80.5° and the average minimum 55.5°.

LASKER, EDUARD(1829-1884), German publicist, was born on the 14th of October 1829, at Jarotschin, a village in Posen, being the son of a Jewish tradesman. He attended the gymnasium, and afterwards the university of Breslau. In 1848, after the outbreak of the revolution, he went to Vienna and entered the students’ legion which took so prominent a part in the disturbances; he fought against the imperial troops during the siege of the city in October. He then continued his legal studies at Breslau and Berlin, and after a visit of three years to England, then the model state for German liberals, entered the Prussian judicial service. In 1870 he left the government service, and in 1873 was appointed to an administrative post in the service of the city of Berlin. He had been brought to the notice of the political world by some articles he wrote from 1861 to 1864, which were afterwards published under the titleZur Verfassungsgeschichte Preussens(Leipzig, 1874), and in 1865 he was elected member for one of the divisions of Berlin in the Prussian parliament. He joined the radical orFortschrittsparty, and in 1867 was also elected to the German parliament, but he helped to form the national liberal party, and in consequence lost his seat in Berlin, which remained faithful to the radicals; after this he represented Magdeburg and Frankfort-on-Main in the Prussian, and Meiningen in the German, parliament. He threw himself with great energy into his parliamentary duties, and quickly became one of its most popular and most influential members. An optimist and idealist, he joined to a fervent belief in liberty an equal enthusiasm for German unity and the idea of the German state. His motion that Baden should be included in the North German Confederation in January 1870 caused much embarrassment to Bismarck, but was not without effect in hastening the crisis of 1870. His great work, however, was the share he took in the judicial reform during the ten years 1867-1877. To him more than to any other single individual is due the great codification of the law. While he again and again was able to compel the government to withdraw or amend proposals which seemed dangerous to liberty, he opposed those liberals who, unable to obtain all the concessions which they called for, refused to vote for the new laws as a whole. A speech made by Lasker on the 7th of February 1873, in which he attacked the management of the Pomeranian railway, caused a great sensation, and his exposure of the financial mismanagement brought about the fall of Hermann Wagener, one of Bismarck’s most trusted assistants. By this action he caused, however, some embarrassment to his party. This is generally regarded as the beginning of the reaction against economic liberalism by which he and his party were to be deprived of their influence. He refused to follow Bismarck in his financial and economic policy after 1878; always unsympathetic to the chancellor, he was now selected for his most bitter attacks. Between the radicals and socialists on the one side and the government on the other, like many of his friends, he was unable to maintain himself. In 1879 he lost his seat in the Prussian parliament; he joined theSezession, but was ill at ease in his new position. Broken in health and spirits by the incessant labours of the time when he did “half the work of the Reichstag,” he went in 1883 for a tour in America, and died suddenly in New York on the 5th of January 1884.

Lasker’s death was the occasion of a curious episode, which caused much discussion at the time. The American House of Representatives adopted a motion of regret, and added to it these words: “That his loss is not alone to be mourned by the people of his native land, where his firm and constant exposition of, and devotion to, free and liberal ideas have materially advanced the social, political and economic conditions of these people, but by the lovers of liberty throughout the world.” This motion was sent through the American minister at Berlin to the German foreign office, with a request that it might be communicated to the president of the Reichstag. It was to ask Bismarck officially to communicate a resolution in which a foreign parliament expressed an opinion in German affairs exactly opposed to that which the emperor at his advice had always followed. Bismarck therefore refused to communicate the resolution, and returned it through the German minister at Washington.Among Lasker’s writings may be mentioned:Zur Geschichte der parlamentarischen Entwickelung Preussens(Leipzig, 1873),Die Zukunft des Deutschen Reichs(Leipzig, 1877) andWege und Ziele derKulturentwickelung(Leipzig, 1881). After his death hisFünfzehn Jahre parlamentarischer Geschichte 1866-1880appeared edited by W. Cahn (Berlin, 1902). See also L. Bamberger,Eduard Lasker, Gedenkrede(Leipzig, 1884); A. Wolff,Zur Erinnerung an Eduard Lasker(Berlin, 1884); Freund,Einiges über Eduard Lasker(Leipzig, 1885); andEduard Lasker, seine Biographie und letzte öffentliche Rede, by various writers (Stuttgart, 1884).

Among Lasker’s writings may be mentioned:Zur Geschichte der parlamentarischen Entwickelung Preussens(Leipzig, 1873),Die Zukunft des Deutschen Reichs(Leipzig, 1877) andWege und Ziele derKulturentwickelung(Leipzig, 1881). After his death hisFünfzehn Jahre parlamentarischer Geschichte 1866-1880appeared edited by W. Cahn (Berlin, 1902). See also L. Bamberger,Eduard Lasker, Gedenkrede(Leipzig, 1884); A. Wolff,Zur Erinnerung an Eduard Lasker(Berlin, 1884); Freund,Einiges über Eduard Lasker(Leipzig, 1885); andEduard Lasker, seine Biographie und letzte öffentliche Rede, by various writers (Stuttgart, 1884).

(J. W. He.)

LASKI,the name of a noble and powerful Polish family, is taken from the town of Lask, the seat of their lordship.

Jan Laski, the elder (1456-1531), Polish statesman and ecclesiastic, appears to have been largely self-taught and to have owed everything to the remarkable mental alertness which was hereditary in the Laski family. He took orders betimes, and in 1495 was secretary to the Polish chancellor Zawisza Kurozwecki, in which position he acquired both influence and experience. The aged chancellor entrusted the sharp-witted young ecclesiastic with the conduct of several important missions. Twice, in 1495 and again in 1500, he was sent to Rome, and once on a special embassy to Flanders, of which he has left an account. On these occasions he had the opportunity of displaying diplomatic talent of a high order. On the accession to the Polish throne in 1501 of the indolent Alexander, who had little knowledge of Polish affairs and chiefly resided in Lithuania, Laski was appointed by the senate the king’s secretary, in which capacity he successfully opposed the growing separatist tendencies of the grand-duchy and maintained the influence of Catholicism, now seriously threatened there by the Muscovite propaganda. So struck was the king by his ability that on the death of the Polish chancellor in 1503 he passed over the vice-chancellor Macics Dzewicki and confided the great seal to Laski. As chancellor Laski supported theszlachta, or country-gentlemen, against the lower orders, going so far as to pass an edict excluding henceforth all plebeians from the higher benefices of the church. Nevertheless he approved himself such an excellent public servant that the new king, Sigismund I., made him one of his chief counsellors. In 1511 the chancellor, who ecclesiastically was still only a canon of Cracow, obtained the coveted dignity of archbishop of Gnesen which carried with it the primacy of the Polish church. In the long negotiations with the restive and semi-rebellious Teutonic Order, Laski rendered Sigismund most important political services, proposing as a solution of the question that Sigismund should be elected grand master, while he, Laski, should surrender the primacy to the new candidate of the knights, Albert of Brandenburg, a solution which would have been far more profitable to Poland than the ultimate settlement of 1525. In 1513 Laski was sent to the Lateran council, convened by Pope Julius II., to plead the cause of Poland against the knights, where both as an orator and as a diplomatist he brilliantly distinguished himself. This mission was equally profitable to his country and himself, and he succeeded in obtaining from the pope for the archbishops of Gnesen the title oflegati nati. In his old age Laski’s partiality for his nephew, Hieronymus, led him to support the candidature of John Zapolya, the protégé of the Turks, for the Hungarian crown so vehemently against the Habsburgs that Clement VII. excommunicated him, and the shock of this disgrace was the cause of his sudden death in 1531. Of his numerous works the most noteworthy are his collection of Polish statutes entitled:Statuta provinciae gnesnensis antiqua, &c.(Cracow, 1525-1528) andDe Ruthenorum nationibus eorumque erroribus, printed at Nuremberg.

See Heinrich R. von Zeissberg,Joh. Laski, Erzbischof in Gnesen(Vienna, 1874); and Jan Korytkowski,Jan Laski, Archbishop of Gnesen(Gnesen, 1880).

Hieronymus Jaroslaw Laski(1496-1542), Polish diplomatist, nephew of Archbishop Laski, was successively palatine of Inowroclaw and of Sieradia. His first important mission was to Paris in 1524, ostensibly to contract an anti-Turkish league with the French king, but really to bring about a matrimonial alliance between the dauphin, afterwards Henry II., and the daughter of King Sigismund I., a project which failed through no fault of Laski’s. The collapse of the Hungarian monarchy at Mohacs (1526) first opened up a wider career to Laski’s adventurous activity. Contrary to the wishes of his own sovereign, Sigismund I., whose pro-Austrian policy he detested, Laski entered the service of John Zapolya, the Magyar competitor for the Hungarian throne, thereby seriously compromising Poland both with the emperor and the pope. Zapolya despatched him on an embassy to Paris, Copenhagen and Munich for help, but on his return he found his patron a refugee in Transylvania, whither he had retired after his defeat by the German king Ferdinand I. at Tokay in 1527. In his extremity Zapolya placed himself under the protection of the sultan, Laski being sent to Constantinople as his intermediary. On his way thither he was attacked and robbed of everything, including his credentials and the rich presents without which no negotiations were deemed possible at the Porte. But Laski was nothing if not audacious. Proceeding on his way to the Turkish capital empty-handed, he nevertheless succeeded in gaining the confidence of Gritti, the favourite of the grand vizier, and ultimately persuaded the sultan to befriend Zapolya and to proclaim him king of Hungary. He went still further, and without the slightest authority for his action concluded a ten years’ truce between his old master King Sigismund of Poland and the Porte. He then returned to Hungary at the head of 10,000 men, with whose aid he enabled Zapolya to re-establish his position and defeat Ferdinand at Saros-Patak. He was rewarded with the countship of Zips and the governor-generalship of Transylvania. But his influence excited the jealousy of the Magyars, and Zapolya was persuaded to imprison him. On being released by the interposition of the Polish grand hetman, Tarnowski, he became the most violent opponent of Zapolya. Shortly after his return to Poland, Laski died suddenly at Cracow, probably poisoned by one of his innumerable enemies.

See Alexander Hirschberg,Hieronymus Laski(Pol.) (Lemberg, 1888).

Jan Laski, the younger (1499-1560), also known asJohannes a Lasco, Polish reformer, son of Jaroslaw (d. 1523), voivode of Sieradia and nephew of the famous Archbishop Laski. During his academical course abroad he made the acquaintance of Zwingli and Erasmus and returned to Poland in 1526 saturated with the new doctrines. Nevertheless he took orders, and owing to the influence of his uncle obtained the bishopric of Veszprem in Hungary from King John Zapolya, besides holding a canonry of Cracow and the office of royal secretary. In 1531 he resigned all his benefices rather than give up a woman whom he had secretly married, and having incurred general reprobation and the lasting displeasure of his uncle the archbishop, he fled to Germany, where ultimately (1543) he adopted the Augsburg Confession. For the next thirteen years Laski was a wandering apostle of the new doctrines. He was successively superintendent at Emden and in Friesland, passed from thence to London where he became a member of the so-calledecclesia peregrinorum, a congregation of foreign Protestants exiled in consequence of the Augsburg Interim of 1548 and, on being expelled by Queen Mary, took refuge first in Denmark and subsequently at Frankfort-on-Main, where he was greatly esteemed. From Frankfort he addressed three letters (printed at Basel) to King Sigismund, Augustus, and the Polish gentry and people, urging the conversion of Poland to Protestantism. In 1556, during the brief triumph of the anti-catholics, he returned to his native land, took part in the synod of Brzesc, and published a number of polemical works, the most noteworthy of which wereForma ac ratio tota ecclesiastici ministerii in peregrinorum Ecclesiae instituta(Pinczow, 1560), and in Polish,History of the Cruel Persecution of the Church of God in 1567, republished in hisOpera, edited by A. Kuyper at Amsterdam in 1866. He died at Pinczow in January 1560 and was buried with great pomp by the Polish Protestants, who also struck a medal in his honour. Twice married, he left two sons and two daughters. His nephew (?) Albert Laski, who visited England in 1583, wasted a fortune in aid of Dr Dee’s craze for the “philosopher’s stone.” Laski’s writings are important for the organization of theecclesia peregrinorum, and he was concerned in the Polish version of the Bible, not published till 1563.

See H. Dalton,Johannes a Lasco(1881), English version of the earlier portion by J. Evans (1886); Bartels,Johannes a Lasco(1860); Harboe,Schicksale des Johannes a Lasco(1758); R. Wallace,Antitrinitarian Biography(1850); Bonet-Maury,Early Sources of Eng. Unit. Christianity(1884); W. A. J. Archbold inDict. Nat. Biog.(1892) under “Laski,” George Pascal,Jean de Lasco(Paris, 1894);Lifein Polish by Antoni Walewski (Warsaw, 1872); and Julian Bukowski,History of the Reformation in Poland(Pol.) (Cracow, 1883).

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