VOLUME X SLICE III Fenton, Edward to Finistere (continued 3)

1 The heights given by explorers vary from 9200 to 10,800 ft.

2 Some authorities maintain that another Portuguese seaman, Lopes Gonsalves, was the discoverer of the island. The years 1469, 1471 and 1486 are variously given as those of the date of the discovery.

FERNEL, JEAN FRANÇOIS (1497-1558), French physician, was born at Clermont in 1497, and after receiving his early education at his native town, entered the college of Sainte-Barbe, Paris. At first he devoted himself to mathematical and astronomical studies; his Cosmotheoria (1528) records a determination of a degree of the meridian, which he made by counting the revolutions of his carriage wheels on a journey between Paris and Amiens. But from 1534 he gave himself up entirely to medicine, in which he graduated in 1530. His extraordinary general erudition, and the skill and success with which he sought to revive the study of the old Greek physicians, gained him a great reputation, and ultimately the office of physician to the court. He practised with great success, and at his death in 1558 left behind him an immense fortune. He also wrote Monalosphaerium, sive astrolabii genus, generalis horarii structura et usus (1526); De proportionibus (1528); De evacuandi ratione (1545); De abditis rerum causis (1548); and Medicina ad Henricum II. (1554).

FERNIE, an important city in the east Kootenay district of British Columbia. Pop. about 4000. It is situated on the Crow’s Nest branch of the Canadian Pacific railway, at the junction of Coal Creek with the Elk river, and owes its importance to the extensive coal mines in its vicinity. There are about 500 coke ovens in operation at Fernie, which supply most of the smelting plants in southern British Columbia with fuel.

FERNOW, KARL LUDWIG (1763-1808), German art-critic and archaeologist, was born in Pomerania on the 19th of November 1763. His father was a servant in the household of the lord of Blumenhagen. At the age of twelve he became clerk to a notary, and was afterwards apprenticed to a druggist. While serving his time he had the misfortune accidentally to shoot a young man who came to visit him; and although through the intercession of his master he escaped prosecution, the untoward event weighed heavily on his mind, and led him at the close of his apprenticeship to quit his native place. He obtained a situation at Lübeck, where he had leisure to cultivate his natural taste for drawing and poetry. Having formed an acquaintance with the painter Carstens, whose influence was an important stimulus and help to him, he renounced his trade of druggist, and set up as a portrait-painter and drawing-master. At Ludwigslust he fell in love with a young girl, and followed her to Weimar; but failing in his suit, he went next to Jena. There he was introduced to Professor Reinhold, and in his house met the Danish poet Baggesen. The latter invited him to accompany him to Switzerland and Italy, a proposal which he eagerly accepted (1794) for the sake of the opportunity of furthering his studies in the fine arts. On Baggesen’s return to Denmark, Fernow, assisted by some of his friends, visited Rome and made some stay there. He now renewed his intercourse with Carstens, who had settled at Rome, and applied himself to the study of the history and theory of the fine arts and of the Italian language and literature. Making rapid progress, he was soon qualified to give a course of lectures on archaeology, which was attended by the principal artists then at Rome. Having married a Roman lady, he returned in 1802 to Germany, and was appointed in the following year professor extraordinary of Italian literature at Jena. In 1804 he accepted the post of librarian to Amelia, duchess-dowager of Weimar, which gave him the leisure he desired for the purpose of turning to account the literary and archaeological researches in which he had engaged at Rome. His most valuable work, the Römische Studien, appeared in 3 vols. (1806-1808). Among his other works are—Das Leben des Künstlers Carstens (1806), Ariosto’s Lebenslauf (1809), and Francesco Petrarca (1818). Fernow died at Weimar, December 4, 1808.

A memoir of his life by Johanna Schopenhauer, mother of the philosopher, Arthur Schopenhauer, appeared in 1810, and a complete edition of his works in 1829.

FEROZEPUR, or Firozpur, a town and district of British India, in the Jullundur division of the Punjab. The town is a railway junction connecting the North-Western and Rajputana railways, and is situated about 4 m. from the present south bank of the Sutlej. Pop. (1901) 49,341. The arsenal is the largest in India, and Ferozepur is the headquarters of a brigade in the 3rd division of the northern army corps. British rule was first established at Ferozepur in 1835, when, on the failure of heirs to the Sikh family who possessed it, a small territory 86 m. in extent became an escheat to the British government, and the present district has been gradually formed around this nucleus. The strategic importance of Ferozepur was at this time very great; and when, in 1839, Captain (afterwards Sir Henry) Lawrence took charge of the station as political officer, it was the outpost of British India in the direction of the Sikh power. Ferozepur accordingly became the scene of operations during the first Sikh War. The Sikhs crossed the Sutlej in December 1845, and were defeated successively at Mudki, Ferozepur, Aliwal and Sobraon; after which they withdrew into their own territory, and peace was concluded at Lahore. At the time of the mutiny Ferozepur cantonments contained two regiments of native infantry and a regiment of native cavalry, together with the 61st Foot and two companies of European artillery. One of the native regiments, the 57th, was disarmed; but the other, the 45th, broke into mutiny, and, after an unsuccessful attempt to seize the magazine, which was held by the Europeans, proceeded to join the rebel forces in Delhi. Throughout the mutiny Ferozepur remained in the hands of the English.

Ferozepur has rapidly advanced in material prosperity of late years, and is now a very important seat of commerce, trade being mainly in grain. The main streets of the city are wide and well paved, and the whole is enclosed by a low brick wall. Great improvements have been made in the surroundings of the city. The cantonment lies 2 m. to the south of the city, and is connected with it by a good metalled road.

The District of Ferozepur comprises an area of 4302 sq. m. The surface is level, with the exception of a few sand-hills in the south and south-east. The country consists of two distinct tracts, that liable to annual fertilizing inundations from the Sutlej, known as the bhet, and the rohi or upland tract. The only river is the Sutlej, which runs along the north-western boundary. The principal crops are wheat, barley, millet, gram, pulses, oil-seeds, cotton, tobacco, &c. The manufactures are of the humblest kind, consisting chiefly of cotton and wool-weaving, and are confined entirely to the supply of local wants. The Lahore and Ludhiāna road runs for 51 m. through the district, and forms an important trade route. The North-Western, the Southern Punjab, and a branch of the Rajputana-Malwa railways serve the district. The other important towns and seats of commerce are Fazilka (pop. 8505), Dharmkot (6731), Moga (6725), and Muktsar (6389). Owing principally to the dryness of its climate, Ferozepur has the reputation of being an exceptionally healthy district. In September and October, however, after the annual rains, the people suffer a good deal from remittent fever. In 1901 the population was 958,072. Distributaries of the Sirhind canal water the whole district.

FEROZESHAH, a village in the Punjab, India, notable as the scene of one of the chief battles in the first Sikh War. The battle immediately succeeded that of Mudki, and was fought on the 21st and 22nd of December 1845. During its course Sir Hugh Gough, the British commander, was overruled by the governor-general, Lord Hardinge, who was acting as his second in command (see Sikh Wars). At the end of the first day’s fighting the British had occupied the Sikh position, but had not gained an undisputed victory. On the following morning the battle was resumed, and the Sikhs were reinforced by a second army under Tej Singh; but through cowardice or treachery Tej Singh withdrew at the critical moment, leaving the field to the British. In the course of the fight the British lost 694 killed and 1721 wounded, the vast majority being British troops, while the Sikhs lost 100 guns and about 5000 killed and wounded.

FERRAND, ANTOINE FRANÇOIS CLAUDE, Comte (1751-1825), French statesman and political writer, was born in Paris on the 4th of July 1751, and became a member of the parlement of Paris at eighteen. He left France with the first party of emigrants, and attached himself to the prince of Condé; later he was a member of the council of regency formed by the comte de Provence after the death of Louis XVI. He lived at Regensburg until 1801, when he returned to France, though he still sought to serve the royalist cause. In 1814 Ferrand was made minister of state and postmaster-general. He countersigned the act of sequestration of Napoleon’s property, and introduced a bill for the restoration of the property of the emigrants, establishing a distinction, since become famous, between royalists of la ligne droite and those of la ligne courbe. At the second restoration Ferrand was again for a short time postmaster-general. He was also made a peer of France, member of the privy council, grand-officer and secretary of the orders of Saint Michel and the Saint Esprit, and in 1816 member of the Academy, He continued his active support of ultra-royalist views until his death, which took place in Paris on the 17th of January 1825.

Besides a large number of political pamphlets, Ferrand is the author of L’Esprit de l’histoire, ou Lettres d’un père à son fils sur la manière d’étudier l’histoire (4 vols., 1802), which reached seven editions, the last number in 1826 having prefixed to it a biographical sketch of the author by his nephew Héricart de Thury; Éloge historique de Madame Élisabeth de France (1814); Œuvres dramatiques (1817); Théorie des révolutions rapprochée des événements qui en ont été l’origine, le développement, ou la suite (4 vols., 1817); and Histoire des trois démembrements de la Pologne, pour faire suite à l’Histoire de l’anarchie de Pologne par Rulhière (3 vols., 1820).

FERRAR, NICHOLAS (1592-1637), English theologian, was born in London in 1592 and educated at Clare Hall, Cambridge, graduating in 1610. He was obliged for some years to travel for his health, but on returning to England in 1618 became actively connected with the Virginia Company. When this company was deprived of its patent in 1623 Ferrar turned his attention to politics, and was elected to parliament. But he soon decided to devote himself to a religious life; he purchased the manor of Little Gidding in Huntingdonshire, where he organized a small religious community. Here, in 1626, he was ordained a deacon by Laud, and declining preferment, he lived an austere, almost monastic life of study and good works. He died on the 4th of December 1637, and the house was despoiled and the community broken up ten years later. There are extant a number of “harmonies” of the Gospel, printed and bound by the community, two of them by Ferrar himself. One of the latter was made for Charles I. on his request, after a visit in 1633 to see the “Arminian Nunnery at Little Gidding,” which had been the subject of some scandalous—and undeserved—criticism.

FERRAR, ROBERT (d. 1555), bishop of St David’s and martyr, born about the end of the 15th century of a Yorkshire family, is said to have been educated at Cambridge, whence he proceeded to Oxford and became a canon regular of St Augustine. He came under the influence of Thomas Gerrard and Lutheran theology, and was compelled to bear a faggot with Anthony Dalaber and others in 1528. He graduated B.D. in 1533, accompanied Bishop Barlow on his embassy to Scotland in 1535, and was made prior of St Oswald’s at Nostell near Pontefract. At the dissolution he surrendered his priory without compunction to the crown, and received a liberal pension. For the rest of Henry’s reign his career is obscure; perhaps he fled abroad on the enactment of the Six Articles. He certainly married, and is said to have been made Cranmer’s chaplain, and bishop of Sodor and Man; but he was never consecrated to that see.

After the accession of Edward VI., Ferrar was, probably through the influence of Bishop Barlow, appointed chaplain to Protector Somerset, a royal visitor, and bishop of St David’s on Barlow’s translation to Bath and Wells in 1548. He was the first bishop appointed by letters patent under the act passed in 1547 without the form of capitular election; and the service performed at his consecration was also novel, being in English; he also preached at St Paul’s on the 11th of November clad only as a priest and not as a bishop, and inveighed against vestments and altars. At St David’s he had trouble at once with his singularly turbulent chapter, who, finding that he was out of favour at court since Somerset’s fall in 1549, brought a long list of fantastic charges against him. He had taught his child to whistle, dined with his servants, talked of “worldly things such as baking, brewing, enclosing, ploughing and mining,” preferred walking to riding, and denounced the debasement of the coinage. He seems to have been a kindly, homely, somewhat feckless person like many an excellent parish priest, who did not conceal his indignation at some of Northumberland’s deeds. He had voted against the act of November 1549 for a reform of the canon law, and on a later occasion his nonconformity brought him into conflict with the Council; he was also the only bishop who satisfied Hooper’s test of sacramental orthodoxy. The Council accordingly listened to the accusations of Ferrar’s chapter, and in 1552 he was summoned to London and imprisoned on a charge of praemunire incurred by omitting the king’s authority in a commission which he issued for the visitation of his diocese.

Imprisonment on such a charge under Northumberland might have been expected to lead to liberation under Mary. But Ferrar had been a monk and was married. Even so, it is difficult to see on what legal ground he was kept in the queen’s bench prison after July 1553; for Mary herself was repudiating the royal authority in religion. Ferrar’s marriage accounts for the loss of his bishopric in March 1554, and his opinions for his further punishment. As soon as the heresy laws and ecclesiastical jurisdiction had been re-established, Ferrar was examined by Gardiner, and then with signal indecency sent down to be tried by Morgan, his successor in the bishopric of St David’s. He appealed from Morgan’s sentence to Pole as papal legate, but in vain, and was burnt at Caermarthen on the 30th of March 1555. It was perhaps the most wanton of all Mary’s acts of persecution; Ferrar had been no such protagonist of the Reformation as Cranmer, Ridley, Hooper and Latimer; he had had nothing to do with Northumberland’s or Wyatt’s conspiracy. He had taken no part in politics, and, so far as is known, had not said a word or raised a hand against Mary. He was burnt simply because he could not change his religion with the law and would not pretend that he could; and his execution is a complete refutation of the idea that Mary only persecuted heretics because and when they were traitors.

See Dictionary of National Biography, xviii. 380-382, and authorities there cited. Also Acts of the Privy Council (1550-1554); H.A.L. Fisher, Political History of England, vol. vi.

(A. F. P.)

FERRARA, a city and archiepiscopal see of Emilia, Italy, capital of the province of Ferrara, 30 m. N.N.E. of Bologna, situated 30 ft. above sea-level on the Po di Vomano, a branch channel of the main stream of the Po, which is 3½ m. N. Pop. (1901) 32,968 (town), 86,392 (commune). The town has broad streets and numerous palaces, which date from the 16th century, when it was the seat of the court of the house of Este, and had, it is said, 100,000 inhabitants.

The most prominent building is the square castle of the house of Este, in the centre of the town, a brick building surrounded by a moat, with four towers. It was built after 1385 and partly restored in 1554; the pavilions on the top of the towers date from the latter year. Near it is the hospital of S. Anna, where Tasso was confined during his attack of insanity (1579-1586). The Palazzo del Municipio, rebuilt in the 18th century, was the earlier residence of the Este family. Close by is the cathedral of S. Giorgio, consecrated in 1135, when the Romanesque lower part of the main façade and the side façades were completed. It was built by Guglielmo degli Adelardi (d. 1146), who is buried in it. The upper part of the main façade, with arcades of pointed arches, dates from the 13th century, and the portal has recumbent lions and elaborate sculptures above. The interior was restored in the baroque style in 1712. The campanile, in the Renaissance style, dates from 1451-1493, but the last storey was added at the end of the 16th century. Opposite the cathedral is the Gothic Palazzo della Ragione, in brick (1315-1326), now the law-courts. A little way off is the university, which has faculties of law, medicine and natural science (hardly 100 students in all); the library has valuable MSS., including part of that of the Orlando Furioso and letters by Tasso. The other churches are of less interest than the cathedral, though S. Francesco, S. Benedetto, S. Maria in Vado and S. Cristoforo are all good early Renaissance buildings. The numerous early Renaissance palaces, often with good terra-cotta decorations, form quite a feature of Ferrara; few towns of Italy have so many of them proportionately, though they are mostly comparatively small in size. Among them may be noted those in the N. quarter (especially the four at the intersection of its two main streets), which was added by Ercole (Hercules) I. in 1492-1505, from the plans of Biagio Rossetti, and hence called the “Addizione Erculea.” The finest of these is the Palazzo de’ Diamanti, so called from the diamond points into which the blocks of stone with which it is faced are cut. It contains the municipal picture gallery, with a large number of pictures of artists of the school of Ferrara. This did not require prominence until the latter half of the 15th century, when its best masters were Cosimo Tura (1432-1495), Francesco Cossa (d. 1480) and Ercole dei Roberti (d. 1496). To this period are due famous frescoes in the Palazzo Schifanoia, which was built by the Este family; those of the lower row depict the life of Borso of Este, in the central row are the signs of the zodiac, and in the upper are allegorical representations of the months. The vestibule was decorated with stucco mouldings by Domenico di Paris of Padua. The building also contains fine choir-books with miniatures, and a collection of coins and Renaissance medals. The simple house of Ariosto, erected by himself after 1526, in which he died in 1532, lies farther west. The best Ferrarese masters of the 16th century of the Ferrara school were Lorenzo Costa (1460-1535), and Dosso Dossi (1479-1542), the most eminent of all, while Benvenuto Tisi (Garofalo, 1481-1559) is somewhat monotonous and insipid.

The origin of Ferrara is uncertain, and probabilities are against the supposition that it occupies the site of the ancient Forum Alieni. It was probably a settlement formed by the inhabitants of the lagoons at the mouth of the Po. It appears first in a document of Aistulf of 753 or 754 as a city forming part of the exarchate of Ravenna. After 984 we find it a fief of Tedaldo, count of Modena and Canossa, nephew of the emperor Otho I. It afterwards made itself independent, and in 1101 was taken by siege by the countess Matilda. At this time it was mainly dominated by several great families, among them the Adelardi.

In 1146 Guglielmo, the last of the Adelardi, died, and his property passed, as the dowry of his niece Marchesella, to Azzolino d’ Este. There was considerable hostility between the newly entered family and the Salinguerra, but after considerable struggles Azzo Novello was nominated perpetual podestà in 1242; in 1259 he took Ezzelino of Verona prisoner in battle. His grandson, Obizzo II. (1264-1293), succeeded him, and the pope nominated him captain-general and defender of the states of the Church; and the house of Este was from henceforth settled in Ferrara. Niccolò III. (1393-1441) received several popes with great magnificence, especially Eugene IV., who held a council here in 1438. His son Borso received the fiefs of Modena and Reggio from the emperor Frederick III. as first duke in 1452 (in which year Girolamo Savonarola was born here), and in 1470 was made duke of Ferrara by Pope Paul II. Ercole I. (1471-1505) carried on a war with Venice and increased the magnificence of the city. His son Alphonso I. married Lucrezia Borgia, and continued the war with Venice with success. In 1509 he was excommunicated by Julius II., and attacked the pontifical army in 1512 outside Ravenna, which he took. Gaston de Foix fell in the battle, in which he was supporting Alphonso. With the succeeding popes he was able to make peace. He was the patron of Ariosto from 1518 onwards. His son Ercole II. married Renata, daughter of Louis XII. of France; he too embellished Ferrara during his reign (1534-1559). His son Alphonso II. married Barbara, sister of the emperor Maximilian II. He raised the glory of Ferrara to its highest point, and was the patron of Tasso and Guarini, favouring, as the princes of his house had always done, the arts and sciences. He had no legitimate male heir, and in 1597 Ferrara was claimed as a vacant fief by Pope Clement VIII., as was also Comacchio. A fortress was constructed by him on the site of the castle of Tedaldo, at the W. angle of the town. The town remained a part of the states of the Church, the fortress being occupied by an Austrian garrison from 1832 until 1859, when it became part of the kingdom of Italy.

A considerable area within the walls of Ferrara is unoccupied by buildings, especially on the north, where, the handsome Renaissance church of S. Cristoforo, with the cemetery, stands; but modern times have brought a renewal of industrial activity. Ferrara is on the main line from Bologna to Padua and Venice, and has branches to Ravenna and Poggio Rusco (for Suzzara).

See G. Agnelli, Ferrara e Pomposa (Bergamo, 1902); E.G. Gardner, Dukes and Poets of Ferrara (London, 1904).

FERRARA-FLORENCE, COUNCIL OF (1438 ff.). The council of Ferrara and Florence was the culmination of a series of futile medieval attempts to reunite the Greek and Roman churches. The emperor, John VI. Palaeologus, had been advised by his experienced father to avoid all serious negotiations, as they had invariably resulted in increased bitterness; but John, in view of the rapid dismemberment of his empire by the Turks, felt constrained to seek a union. The situation was, however, complicated by the strife which broke out between the pope (Eugenius IV.) and the oecumenical council of Basel. Both sides sent embassies to the emperor at Constantinople, as both saw the importance of gaining the recognition and support of the East, for on this practically depended the victory in the struggle between papacy and council for the supreme jurisdiction over the church (see Councils). The Greeks, fearing the domination of the papacy, were at first more favourably inclined toward the conciliar party; but the astute diplomacy of the Roman representatives, who have been charged by certain Greek writers with the skilful use of money and of lies, won over the emperor. With a retinue of about 700 persons, entertained in Italy at the pope’s expense, he reached Ferrara early in March 1438. Here a council had been formally opened in January by the papal party, a bull of the previous year having promptly taken advantage of the death of the Emperor Sigismund by ordering the removal of the council of Basel to Ferrara; and one of the first acts of the assemblage at Ferrara had been to excommunicate the remnant at Basel. A month after the coming of the Greeks, the Union Synod was solemnly inaugurated on the 9th of April 1438. After six months of negotiation, the first formal session was held on the 8th of October, and on the 14th the real issues were reached. The time-honoured question of the filioque was still in the foreground when it seemed for several reasons advisable to transfer the council to Florence: Ferrara was threatened by condottieri, the pest was raging; Florence promised a welcome subvention, and a situation further inland would make it more difficult for uneasy Greek bishops to flee the synod.

The first session at Florence and the seventeenth of the union council took place on the 26th of February 1439; there ensued long debates and negotiations on the filioque, in which Markos Eugenikos, archbishop of Ephesus, spoke for the irreconcilables; but the Greeks under the leadership of Bessarion, archbishop of Nicaea, and Isidor, metropolitan of Kiev, at length made a declaration on the filioque (4th of June), to which all save Markos Eugenikos subscribed. On the next topic of importance, the primacy of the pope, the project of union nearly suffered shipwreck; but here a vague formula was finally constructed which, while acknowledging the pope’s right to govern the church, attempted to safeguard as well the rights of the patriarchs. On the basis of the above-mentioned agreements, as well as of minor discussions as to purgatory and the Eucharist, the decree of union was drawn up in Latin and in Greek, and signed on the 5th of July by the pope and the Greek emperor, and all the members of the synod save Eugenikos and one Greek bishop who had fled; and on the following day it was solemnly published in the cathedral of Florence. The decree explains the filioque in a manner acceptable to the Greeks, but does not require them to insert the term in their symbol; it demands that celebrants follow the custom of their own church as to the employment of leavened or unleavened bread in the Eucharist. It states essentially the Roman doctrine of purgatory, and asserts the world-wide primacy of the pope as the “true vicar of Christ and the head of the whole Church, the Father and teacher of all Christians”; but, to satisfy the Greeks, inconsistently adds that all the rights and privileges of the Oriental patriarchs are to be maintained unimpaired. After the consummation of the union the Greeks remained in Florence for several weeks, discussing matters such as the liturgy, the administration of the sacraments, and divorce; and they sailed from Venice to Constantinople in October.

The council, however, desirous of negotiating unions with the minor churches of the East, remained in session for several years, and seems never to have reached a formal adjournment. The decree for the Armenians was published on the 22nd of November 1439; they accepted the filioque and the Athanasian creed, rejected Monophysitism and Monothelitism, agreed to the developed scholastic doctrine concerning the seven sacraments, and conformed their calendar to the Western in certain points. On the 26th of April 1441 the pope announced that the synod would be transferred to the Lateran; but before leaving Florence a union was negotiated with the Oriental Christians known as Jacobites, through a monk named Andreas, who, at least as regards Abyssinia, acted in excess of his powers. The Decretum pro Jacobitis, published on the 4th of February 1442, is, like that for the Armenians, of high dogmatic interest, as it summarizes the doctrine of the great medieval scholastics on the points in controversy. The decree for the Syrians, published at the Lateran on the 30th of September 1444, and those for the Chaldeans (Nestorians) and the Maronites (Monothelites), published at the last known session of the council on the 7th of August 1445, added nothing of doctrinal importance. Though the direct results of these unions were the restoration of prestige to the absolutist papacy and the bringing of Byzantine men of letters, like Bessarion, to the West, the outcome was on the whole disappointing. Of the complicated history of the “United” churches of the East it suffices to say that Rome succeeded in securing but fragments, though important fragments, of the greater organizations. As for the Greeks, the union met with much opposition, particularly from the monks, and was rejected by three Oriental patriarchs at a synod of Jerusalem in 1443; and after various ineffective attempts to enforce it, the fall of Constantinople in 1453 put an end to the endeavour. As Turkish interests demanded the isolation of the Oriental Christians from their western brethren, and as the orthodox Greek nationalists feared Latinization more than Mahommedan rule, a patriarch hostile to the union was chosen, and a synod of Constantinople in 1472 formally rejected the decisions of Florence.

Authorities.—Hardouin, vol. 9; Mansi, vols. 31 A, 31 B, 35; Sylvester Sguropulus (properly Syropulus), Vera historia Unionis, transl. R. Creyghton (Hague, 1660); Cecconi, Studi storici sul concilio di Firenze (Florence, 1869), (appendix); J. Zhishman, Die Unionsverhandlungen ... bis zum Concil von Ferrara (Vienna, 1858); Gorski, of Moscow, 1847, The History of the Council of Florence, trans. from the Russian by Basil Popoff, ed. by J.M. Neale (London, 1861); C.J. von Hefele, Conciliengeschichte, vol. 7 (Freiburg i. B., 1874), 659-761, 793 ff., 814 ff.; H. Vast, Le Cardinal Bessarion (Paris, 1878), 53-113; A. Warschauer, Über die Quellen zur Geschichte des Florentiner Concils (Breslau, 1881), (Dissertation); M. Creighton, A History of the Papacy during the Period of the Reformation, vol. 2 (London, 1882), 173-194 (vivid); Knöpfler, in Wetzer and Welte’s Kirchenlexikon, vol. 4 (2nd ed., Freiburg i. B., 1885), 1363-1380 (instructive); L. Pastor, History of the Popes, vol. 1 (London, 1891), 315 ff.; F. Kattenbusch, Lehrbuch der vergleichenden Confessionskunde, vol. 1 (Freiburg i. B., 1892), 128 ff.; N. Kalogeras, archbishop of Patras, “Die Verhandlungen zwischen der orthodox-katholischen Kirche und dem Konzil von Basel über die Wiedervereinigung der Kirchen” (Internationale Theologische Zeitschrift), vol. 1 (Bern, 1893, 39-57); P. Tschackert, in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie, vol. 6 (3rd ed., Leipzig, 1899), 45-48 (good bibliography); Walter Norden, Das Papsttum und Byzanz: Die Trennung der beiden Mächte und das Problem ihrer Wiedervereinigung bis 1453 (Berlin, 1903), 712 ff.

(W. W. R.*)

FERRARI, GAUDENZIO (1484-1549), Italian painter and sculptor, of the Milanese, or more strictly the Piedmontese, school, was born at Valduggia, Piedmont, and is said (very dubiously) to have learned the elements of painting at Vercelli from Girolamo Giovenone. He next studied in Milan, in the school of Scotto, and some say of Luini; towards 1504 he proceeded to Florence, and afterwards (it used to be alleged) to Rome. His pictorial style may be considered as derived mainly from the old Milanese school, with a considerable tinge of the influence of Da Vinci, and later on of Raphael; in his personal manner there was something of the demonstrative and fantastic. The gentler qualities diminished, and the stronger intensified, as he progressed. By 1524 he was at Varallo in Piedmont, and here, in the chapel of the Sacro Monte, the sanctuary of the Piedmontese pilgrims, he executed his most memorable work. This is a fresco of the Crucifixion, with a multitude of figures, no less than twenty-six of them being modelled in actual relief, and coloured; on the vaulted ceiling are eighteen lamenting angels, powerful in expression. Other leading examples are the following. In the Royal Gallery, Turin, a “Pietà,” an able early work. In the Brera Gallery, Milan, “St Katharine miraculously preserved from the Torture of the Wheel,” a very characteristic example, hard and forcible in colour, thronged in composition, turbulent in emotion; also several frescoes, chiefly from the church of Santa Maria della Pace, three of them being from the history of Joachim and Anna. In the cathedral of Vercelli, the choir, the “Virgin with Angels and Saints under an Orange Tree.” In the refectory of San Paolo, the “Last Supper.” In the church of San Cristoforo, the transept (in 1532-1535), a series of paintings in which Ferrari’s scholar Lanini assisted him; by Ferrari himself are the “Birth of the Virgin,” the “Annunciation,” the “Visitation,” the “Adoration of the Shepherds and Kings,” the “Crucifixion,” the “Assumption of the Virgin,” all full of life and decided character, though somewhat mannered. In the Louvre, “St Paul Meditating.” In Varallo, convent of the Minorites (1507), a “Presentation in the Temple,” and “Christ among the Doctors,” and (after 1510) the “History of Christ,” in twenty-one subjects; also an ancona in six compartments, named the “Ancona di San Gaudenzio.” In Santa Maria di Loreto, near Varallo (after 1527), an “Adoration.” In the church of Saronno, near Milan, the cupola (1535), a “Glory of Angels,” in which the beauty of the school of Da Vinci alternates with bravura of foreshortenings in the mode of Correggio. In Milan, Santa Maria delle Grazie (1542), the “Scourging of Christ,” an “Ecce Homo” and a “Crucifixion.” The “Scourging,” or else a “Last Supper,” in the Passione of Milan (unfinished), is regarded as Ferrari’s latest work. He was a very prolific painter, distinguished by strong expression, animation and fulness of composition, and abundant invention; he was skilful in painting horses, and his decisive rather hard colour is marked by a partiality for shot tints in drapery. In general character, his work appertains more to the 15th than the 16th century. His subjects were always of the sacred order. Ferrari’s death took place in Milan. Besides Lanini, already mentioned, Andrea Solario, Giambattista della Cerva and Fermo Stella were three of his principal scholars. He is represented to us as a good man, attached to his country and his art, jovial and sometimes facetious, but an enemy of scandal. The reputation which he enjoyed soon after his death was very great, but it has not fully stood the test of time. Lomazzo went so far as to place him seventh among the seven prime painters of Italy.

See G. Bordiga, two works concerning Gaudenzio Ferrari (1821 and 1835); G. Colombo, Vita ed opere di Gaudenzio Ferrari (1881); Ethel Halsey, Gaudenzio Ferrari (in the series Great Masters, 1904).

There was another painter nearly contemporary with Gaudenzio, Difendente Ferrari, also of the Lombard school. His celebrity is by no means equal to that of Gaudenzio; but Kugler (1887, as edited by Layard) pronounced him to be “a good and original colourist, and the best artist that Piedmont has produced.”

(W. M. R.)

FERRARI, GIUSEPPE (1812-1876), Italian philosopher, historian and politician, was born at Milan on the 7th of March 1812, and died in Rome on the 2nd of July 1876. He studied law at Pavia, and took the degree of doctor in 1831. A follower of Romagnosi (d. 1835) and Giovan Battista Vico (q.v.), his first works were an article in the Biblioteca Italiana entitled “Mente di Gian Domenico Romagnosi” (1835), and a complete edition of the works of Vico, prefaced by an appreciation (1835). Finding Italy uncongenial to his ideas, he went to France and, in 1839, produced in Paris his Vico et l’Italie, followed by La Nouvelle Religion de Campanella and La Théorie de l’erreur. On account of these works he was made Docteur-ès-lettres of the Sorbonne and professor of philosophy at Rochefort (1840). His views, however, provoked antagonism, and in 1842 he was appointed to the chair of philosophy at Strassburg. After fresh trouble with the clergy, he returned to Paris and published a defence of his theories in a work entitled Idées sur la politique de Platon et d’Aristote. After a short connexion with the college at Bourges, he devoted himself from 1849 to 1858 exclusively to writing. The works of this period are Les Philosophes Salariés, Machiavel juge des révolutions de notre temps (1849), La Federazione repubblicana (1851), La Filosofia della rivoluzione (1851), L’ Italia dopo il colpo di Stato (1852), Histoire des révolutions, ou Guelfes et Gibelins (1858; Italian trans., 1871-1873). In 1859 he returned to Italy, where he opposed Cavour, and upheld federalism against the policy of a single Italian monarchy. In spite of this opposition, he held chairs of philosophy at Turin, Milan and Rome in succession, and during several administrations represented the college of Gavirate in the chamber. He was a member of the council of education and was made senator on the 15th of May 1876. Amongst other works may be mentioned Histoire de la raison d’état, La China et l’ Europa, Corso d’ istoria degli scrittori politici italiani. A sceptic in philosophy and a revolutionist in politics, rejoicing in controversy of all kinds, he was admired as a man, as an orator, and as a writer.

See Marro Macchi, Annuario istorico italiano (Milan, 1877); Mazzoleni, Giuseppe Ferrari; Werner, Die ital. Philosophie des 19. Jahrh. vol. 3 (Vienna, 1885); Überweg, History of Philosophy (Eng. trans. ii. 461 foll.).

FERRARI, PAOLO (1822-1889), Italian dramatist, was born at Modena. After producing some minor pieces, in 1852 he made his reputation as a playwright with Goldoni e le sue sedici commedie. Among numerous later plays his comedy Parini e la satira (1857) had considerable success. Ferrari may be regarded as a follower of Goldoni, modelling himself on the French theatrical methods. His collected plays were published in 1877-1880.

FERREIRA, ANTONIO (1528-1569), Portuguese poet, was a native of Lisbon; his father held the post of escrivão de fazenda in the house of the duke of Coimbra at Setubal, so that he must there have met the great adventurer Mendes Pinto. In 1547-1548 he went to the university of Coimbra, and on the 16th of July 1551 took his bachelor’s degree. The Sonnets forming the First Book in his collected works date from 1552 and contain the history of his early love for an unknown lady. They seem to have been written in Coimbra or during vacations in Lisbon; and if some are dry and stilted, others, like the admirable No. 45, are full of feeling and tears. The Sonnets in the Second Book were inspired by D. Maria Pimentel, whom he afterwards married, and they are marked by that chastity of sentiment, seriousness and ardent patriotism which characterized the man and the writer. Ferreira’s ideal, as a poet, was to win “the applause of the good,” and, in the preface to his poems, he says, “I am content with this glory, that I have loved my land and my people.” He was intimate with princes, nobles and the most distinguished literary men of the time, such as the scholarly Diogo de Teive and the poets Bernardes, Caminha and Corte-Real, as well as with the aged Sá de Miranda, the founder of the classical school of which Ferreira became the foremost representative.

The death in 1554 of Prince John, the heir to the throne, drew from him, as from Camoens, Bernardes and Caminha, a poetical lament, which consisted of an elegy and two eclogues, imitative of Virgil and Horace, and devoid of interest. On the 14th of July 1555 he took his doctor’s degree, an event which was celebrated, according to custom, by a sort of Roman triumph, and he stayed on as a professor, finding Coimbra with its picturesque environs congenial to his poetical tastes and love of a country life. The year 1557 produced his sixth elegy, addressed to the son of the great Albuquerque, a poem of noble patriotism expressed in eloquent and sonorous verse, and in the next year he married. After a short and happy married life, his wife died, and the ninth sonnet of Book 2 describes her end in moving words. This loss lent Ferreira’s verse an added austerity, and the independence of his muse is remarkable when he addresses King Sebastian and reminds him of his duties as well as his rights. On the 14th of October 1567 he became Disembargador da Casa do Civel, and had to leave the quiet of Coimbra for Lisbon. His verses tell how he disliked the change, and how the bustle of the capital, then a great commercial emporium, made him sad and almost tongue-tied for poetry. The intrigues and moral twists of the courtiers and traders, among whom he was forced to live, hurt his fine sense of honour, and he felt his mental isolation the more, because his friends were few and scattered in that great city which the discoveries and conquests of the Portuguese had made the centre of a world empire. In 1569 a terrible epidemic of carbunculous fever broke out and carried off 50,000 inhabitants of Lisbon, and, on the 29th of November, Ferreira, who had stayed there doing his duty when others fled, fell a victim.

Horace was his favourite poet, erudition his muse, and his admiration of the classics made him disdain the popular poetry of the Old School (Escola Velha) represented by Gil Vicente. His national feeling would not allow him to write in Latin or Spanish, like most of his contemporaries, but his Portuguese is as Latinized as he could make it, and he even calls his poetical works Poemas Lusitanos. Sá de Miranda had philosophized in the familiar redondilha, introduced the epistle and founded the comedy of learning. It was the beginning of a revolution, which Ferreira completed by abandoning the hendecasyllable for the Italian decasyllable, and by composing the noble and austere Roman poetry of his letters, odes and elegies. It was all done of set purpose, for he was a reformer conscious of his mission and resolved to carry it out. The gross realism of the popular poetry, its lack of culture and its carelessness of form, offended his educated taste, and its picturesqueness and ingenuity made no appeal to him. It is not surprising, however, that though he earned the applause of men of letters he failed to touch the hearts of his countrymen. Ferreira wrote the Terentian prose comedy Bristo, at the age of twenty-five (1553), and dedicated it to Prince John in the name of the university. It is neither a comedy of character nor manners, but its vis comica lies in its plot and situations. The Cioso, a later product, may almost be called a comedy of character. Castro is Ferreira’s most considerable work, and, in date, is the first tragedy in Portuguese, and the second in modern European literature. Though fashioned on the great models of the ancients, it has little plot or action, and the characters, except that of the prince, are ill-designed. It is really a splendid poem, with a chorus which sings the sad fate of Ignez in musical odes, rich in feeling and grandeur of expression. Her love is the chaste, timid affection of a wife and a vassal rather than the strong passion of a mistress, but Pedro is really the man history describes, the love-fettered prince whom the tragedy of Ignez’s death converted into the cruel tyrant. King Alfonso is little more than a shadow, and only meets Ignez once, his son never; while, stranger still, Pedro and Ignez never come on the stage together, and their love is merely narrated. Nevertheless, Ferreira merits all praise for choosing one of the most dramatic episodes in Portuguese history for his subject, and though it has since been handled by poets of renown in many different languages, none has been able to surpass the old master.

The Castro was first printed in Lisbon in 1587, and it is included in Ferreira’s Poemas, published in 1598 by his son. It has been translated by Musgrave (London, 1825), and the chorus of Act I. appeared again in English in the Savoy for July 1896. It has also been done into French and German. The Bristo and Cioso first appeared with the comedies of Sá de Miranda in Lisbon in 1622. There is a good modern edition of the Complete Works of Ferreira (2 vols., Paris, 1865). See Castilho’s Antonio Ferreira (3 vols., Rio, 1865), which contains a full biographical and critical study with extracts.

(E. Pr.)

FERREL’S LAW, in physical geography. “If a body moves in any direction on the earth’s surface, there is a deflecting force arising from the earth’s rotation, which deflects it to the right in the northern hemisphere and to the left in the southern hemisphere.” This law applies to every body that is set in motion upon the surface of the rotating earth, but usually the duration of the motion of any body due to a single impulse is so brief, and there are so many frictional disturbances, that it is not easy to observe the results of this deflecting force. The movements of the atmosphere, however, are upon a scale large enough to make this observation easy, and the simplest evidence is obtained from a study of the direction of the air movements in the great wind systems of the globe. (See Meteorology.)

FERRERS, the name of a great Norman-English feudal house, derived from Ferrières-St-Hilaire, to the south of Bernay, in Normandy. Its ancestor Walkelin was slain in a feud during the Conqueror’s minority, leaving a son Henry, who took part in the Conquest. At the time of the Domesday survey his fief extended into fourteen counties, but the great bulk of it was in Derbyshire and Leicestershire, especially the former. He himself occurs in Worcestershire as one of the royal commissioners for the survey. He established his chief seat at Tutbury Castle, Staffordshire, on the Derbyshire border, and founded there a Cluniac priory. As was the usual practice with the great Norman houses, his eldest son succeeded to Ferrières, and, according to Stapleton, he was ancestor of the Oakham house of Ferrers, whose memory is preserved by the horseshoes hanging in the hall of their castle. Robert, a younger son of Henry, inherited his vast English fief, and, for his services at the battle of the Standard (1138), was created earl of Derby by Stephen. He appears to have died a year after.

Both the title and the arms of the earls have been the subject of much discussion, and they seem to have been styled indifferently earls of Derby or Nottingham (both counties then forming one shrievalty) or of Tutbury, or simply (de) Ferrers. Robert, the 2nd earl, who founded Merevale Abbey, was father of William, the 3rd earl, who began the opposition of his house to the crown by joining in the great revolt of 1173, when he fortified his castles of Tutbury and Duffield and plundered Nottingham, which was held for the king. On his subsequent submission his castles were razed. Dying at the siege of Acre, 1190, he was succeeded by his son William, who attacked Nottingham on Richard’s behalf in 1194, but whom King John favoured and confirmed in the earldom of Derby, 1199. A claim that he was heir to the honour of Peveral of Nottingham, which has puzzled genealogists, was compromised with the king, whom the earl thenceforth stoutly supported, being with him at his death and witnessing his will, with his brother-in-law the earl of Chester, and with William Marshal, earl of Pembroke, whose daughter married his son. With them also he acted in securing the succession of the young Henry, joining in the siege of Mountsorrel and the battle of Lincoln. But he was one of those great nobles who looked with jealousy on the rising power of the king’s favourites. In 1227 he was one of the earls who rose against him on behalf of his brother Richard and made him restore the forest charters, and in 1237 he was one of the three counsellors forced on the king by the barons. His influence had by this time been further increased by the death, in 1232, of the earl of Chester, whose sister, his wife, inherited a vast estate between the Ribble and the Mersey. On his death in 1247, his son William succeeded as 5th earl, and inherited through his wife her share of the great possessions of the Marshals, earls of Pembroke. By his second wife, a daughter of the earl of Winchester, he was father of Robert, 6th and last earl. Succeeding as a minor in 1254, Robert had been secured by the king, as early as 1249, as a husband for his wife’s niece, Marie, daughter of Hugh, count of Angoulême, but, in spite of this, he joined the opposition in 1263 and distinguished himself by his violence. He was one of the five earls summoned to Simon de Montfort’s parliament, though, on taking the earl of Gloucester’s part, he was arrested by Simon. In spite of this he was compelled on the king’s triumph to forfeit his castles and seven years’ revenues. In 1266 he broke out again in revolt on his own estates in Derbyshire, but was utterly defeated at Chesterfield by Henry “of Almain,” deprived of his earldom and lands and imprisoned. Eventually, in 1269, he agreed to pay £50,000 for restoration, and to pledge all his lands save Chartley and Holbrook for its payment. As he was not able to find the money, the lands passed to the king’s son, Edmund, to whom they had been granted on his forfeiture.

The earl’s son John succeeded to Chartley, a Staffordshire estate long famous for the wild cattle in its chase, and was summoned as a baron in 1299, though he had joined the baronial opposition in 1297. On the death, in 1450, of the last Ferrers lord of Chartley, the barony passed with his daughter to the Devereux family and then to the Shirleys, one of whom was created Earl Ferrers in 1711. The barony has been in abeyance since 1855.

The line of Ferrers of Groby was founded by William, younger brother of the last earl, who inherited from his mother Margaret de Quinci her estate of Groby in Leicestershire, and some Ferrers manors from his father. His son was summoned as a baron in 1300, but on the death of his descendant, William, Lord Ferrers of Groby, in 1445, the barony passed with his granddaughter to the Grey family and was forfeited with the dukedom of Suffolk in 1554. A younger son of William, the last lord, married the heiress of Tamworth Castle, and his line was seated at Tamworth till 1680, when an heiress carried it to a son of the first Earl Ferrers. From Sir Henry, a younger son of the first Ferrers of Tamworth, descended Ferrers of Baddesley Clinton, seated there in the male line till towards the end of the 19th century. The line of Ferrers of Wemme was founded by a younger son of Lord Ferrers of Chartley, who married the heiress of Wemme, Co. Salop, and was summoned as a baron in her right; but it ended with their son. There are doubtless male descendants of this great Norman house still in existence.

Higham Ferrers, Northants, and Woodham Ferrers, Essex, take their names from this family. It has been alleged that they bore horseshoes for their arms in allusion to Ferrières (i.e. ironworks); but when and why they were added to their coat is a moot point.

See Dugdale’s Baronage; J.R. Planché’s The Conqueror and his Companions; G.E. C(okayne)’s Complete Peerage; Chronicles and Memorials (Rolls Series); T. Stapleton’s Rotuli Scaccarii Normannie.

(J. H. R.)

FERRERS, LAURENCE SHIRLEY, 4th Earl (1720-1760), the last nobleman in England to suffer a felon’s death, was born on the 18th of August 1720. There was insanity in his family, and from an early age his behaviour seems to have been eccentric, and his temper violent, though he was quite capable of managing his business affairs. In 1758 his wife obtained a separation from him for cruelty. The Ferrers estates were then vested in trustees, the Earl Ferrers secured the appointment of an old family steward, Johnson, as receiver of rents. This man faithfully performed his duty as a servant to the trustees, and did not prove amenable to Ferrer’s personal wishes. On the 18th of January 1760, Johnson called at the earl’s mansion at Staunton Harold, Leicestershire, by appointment, and was directed to his lordship’s study. Here, after some business conversation, Lord Ferrers shot him. In the following April Ferrers was tried for murder by his peers in Westminster Hall. His defence, which he conducted in person with great ability, was a plea of insanity, and it was supported by considerable evidence, but he was found guilty. He subsequently said that he had only pleaded insanity to oblige his family, and that he had himself always been ashamed of such a defence. On the 5th of May 1760, dressed in a light-coloured suit, embroidered with silver, he was taken in his own carriage from the Tower of London to Tyburn and there hanged. It has been said that as a concession to his order the rope used was of silk.

See Peter Burke, Celebrated Trials connected with the Aristocracy in the Relations of Private Life (London, 1849); Edward Walford, Tales of our Great Families (London, 1877); Howell’s State Trials (1816), xix. 885-980.

FERRET, a domesticated, and frequently albino breed of quadruped, derived from the wild polecat (Putorius foetidus, or P. putorius), which it closely resembles in size, form, and habits, and with which it interbreeds. It differs in the colour of its fur, which is usually yellowish-white, and of its eyes, which are pinky-red. The “polecat-ferret” is a brown breed, apparently the product of the above-mentioned cross. The ferret attains a length of about 14 in., exclusive of the tail, which measures 5 in. Although exhibiting considerable tameness, it seems incapable of attachment, and when not properly fed, or when irritated, is apt to give painful evidence of its ferocity. It is chiefly employed in destroying rats and other vermin, and in driving rabbits from their burrows. The ferret is remarkably prolific, the female bringing forth two broods annually, each numbering from six to nine young. It is said to occasionally devour its young immediately after birth, and in this case produces another brood soon after. The ferret was well known to the Romans, Strabo stating that it was brought from Africa into Spain, and Pliny that it was employed in his time in rabbit-hunting, under the name Viverra; the English name is not derived from this, but from Fr. furet, Late Lat. furo, robber. The date of its introduction into Great Britain is uncertain, but it has been known in England for at least 600 years.

The ferret should be kept in dry, clean, well-ventilated hutches, and fed twice daily on bread, milk, and meat, such as rabbits’ and fowls’ livers. When used to hunt rabbits it is provided with a muzzle, or, better and more usual, a cope, made by looping and knotting twine about the head and snout, in order to prevent it killing its quarry, in which case it would gorge itself and go to sleep in the hole. As the ferret enters the hole the rabbits flee before it, and are shot or caught by dogs as they break ground. A ferret’s hold on its quarry is as obstinate as that of a bulldog, but can easily be broken by a strong pressure of the thumb just above the eyes. Only full-grown ferrets are “worked to” rats. Several are generally used at a time and without copes, as rats are fierce fighters.

See Ferrets, by Nicholas Everitt (London, 1897).

FERRI, CIRO (1634-1689), Roman painter, the chief disciple and successor of Pietro da Cortona. He was born in the Roman territory, studied under Pietro, to whom he became warmly attached, and, at an age a little past thirty, completed the painting of the ceilings and other internal decorations begun by his instructor in the Pitti palace, Florence. He also co-operated in or finished several other works by Pietro, both in Florence and in Rome, approaching near to his style and his particular merits, but with less grace of design and native vigour, and in especial falling short of him in colour. Of his own independent productions, the chief is an extensive series of scriptural frescoes in the church of S. Maria Maggiore in Bergamo; also a painting (rated as Ferri’s best work) of St Ambrose healing a sick person, the principal altarpiece in the church of S. Ambrogio della Massima in Rome. The paintings of the cupola of S. Agnese in the same capital might rank even higher than these; but this labour remained uncompleted at the death of Ferri, and was marred by the performances of his successor Corbellini. He executed also a large amount of miscellaneous designs, such as etchings and frontispieces for books; and he was an architect besides. Ferri was appointed to direct the Florentine students in Rome, and Gabbiani was one of his leading pupils. As regards style, Ferri ranks as chief of the so-called Machinists, as opposed to the school founded by Sacchi, and continued by Carlo Maratta. He died in Rome—his end being hastened, as it is said, by mortification at his recognized inferiority to Bacciccia in colour.

FERRI, LUIGI (1826-1895), Italian philosopher, was born at Bologna on the 15th of June 1826. His education was obtained mainly at the École Normale in Paris, where his father, a painter and architect, was engaged in the construction of the Théâtre Italien. From his twenty-fifth year he began to lecture in the colleges of Evreux, Dieppe, Blois and Toulouse. Later, he was lecturer at Annecy and Casal-Montferrat, and became head of the education department under Mamiani in 1860. Three years later he was appointed to the chair of philosophy at the Istituto di Perfezionamento at Florence, and, in 1871, was made professor of philosophy in the university of Rome. On the death of Mamiani in 1885 he became editor of the Filosofia delle scuole italiane, the title of which he changed to Rivista italiana di filosofia. He wrote both on psychology and on metaphysics, but is known especially as a historian of philosophy. His original work is eclectic, combining the psychology of his teachers, Jules Simon, Saisset and Mamiani, with the idealism of Rosmini and Gioberti. Among his works may be mentioned Studii sulla coscienza; Il Fenomeno nelle sue relazioni con la sensazione; Della idea del vero; Della filosofia del diritto presso Aristotile (1885); Il Genio di Aristotile; La Psicologia di Pietro Pomponazzi (1877), and, most important, Essai sur l’histoire de la philosophie en Italie au XIXe siècle (Paris, 1869), and La Psychologie de l’association depuis Hobbes jusqu’à nos jours.

FERRIER, ARNAUD DU (c. 1508-1585), French jurisconsult and diplomatist, was born at Toulouse about 1508, and practised as a lawyer first at Bourges, afterwards at Toulouse. Councillor to the parlement of the latter town, and then to that of Rennes, he later became president of the parlement of Paris. He represented Charles IX., king of France, at the council of Trent in 1562, but had to retire in consequence of the attitude he had adopted, and was sent as ambassador to Venice, where he remained till 1567, returning again in 1570. On his return to France he came into touch with the Calvinists whose tenets he probably embraced, and consequently lost his place in the privy council and part of his fortune. As compensation, Henry, king of Navarre, appointed him his chancellor. He died in the end of October 1585.

See also E. Frémy, Un Ambassadeur libéral sous Charles IX et Henri III, Arnaud du Ferrier (Paris, 1880).

FERRIER, JAMES FREDERICK (1808-1864), Scottish metaphysical writer, was born in Edinburgh on the 16th of June 1808, the son of John Ferrier, writer to the signet. His mother was a sister of John Wilson (Christopher North). He was educated at the university of Edinburgh and Magdalen College, Oxford, and subsequently, his metaphysical tastes having been fostered by his intimate friend, Sir William Hamilton, spent some time at Heidelberg studying German philosophy. In 1842 he was appointed professor of civil history in Edinburgh University, and in 1845 professor of moral philosophy and political economy at St Andrews. He was twice an unsuccessful candidate for chairs in Edinburgh, for that of moral philosophy on Wilson’s resignation in 1852, and for that of logic and metaphysics in 1856, after Hamilton’s death. He remained at St Andrews till his death on the 11th of June 1864. He married his cousin, Margaret Anne, daughter of John Wilson. He had five children, one of whom became the wife of Sir Alexander Grant.

Ferrier’s first contribution to metaphysics was a series of articles in Blackwood’s Magazine (1838-1839), entitled An Introduction to the Philosophy of Consciousness. In these he condemns previous philosophers for ignoring in their psychological investigations the fact of consciousness, which is the distinctive feature of man, and confining their observation to the so-called “states of the mind.” Consciousness comes into manifestation only when the man has used the word “I” with full knowledge of what it means. This notion he must originate within himself. Consciousness cannot spring from the states which are its object, for it is in antagonism to them. It originates in the will, which in the act of consciousness puts the “I” in the place of our sensations. Morality, conscience, and responsibility are necessary results of consciousness. These articles were succeeded by a number of others, of which the most important were The Crisis of Modern Speculation (1841), Berkeley and Idealism (1842), and an important examination of Hamilton’s edition of Reid (1847), which contains a vigorous attack on the philosophy of common sense. The perception of matter is pronounced to be the ne plus ultra of thought, and Reid, for presuming to analyse it, is declared to be a representationist in fact, although he professed to be an intuitionist. A distinction is made between the “perception of matter” and “our apprehension of the perception of matter.” Psychology vainly tries to analyse the former. Metaphysic shows the latter alone to be analysable, and separates the subjective element, “our apprehension,” from the objective element, “the perception of matter,”—not matter per se, but the perception of matter is the existence independent of the individual’s thought. It cannot, however, be independent of thought. It must belong to some mind, and is therefore the property of the Divine Mind. There, he thinks, is an indestructible foundation for the a priori argument for the existence of God.

Ferrier’s matured philosophical doctrines find expression in the Institutes of Metaphysics (1854), in which he claims to have met the twofold obligation resting on every system of philosophy, that it should be reasoned and true. His method is that of Spinoza, strict demonstration, or at least an attempt at it. All the errors of natural thinking and psychology must fall under one or other of three topics:—Knowing and the Known, Ignorance, and Being. These are all-comprehensive, and are therefore the departments into which philosophy is divided, for the sole end of philosophy is to correct the inadvertencies of ordinary thinking.

The problems of knowing and the known are treated in the “Epistemology or Theory of Knowing.” The truth that “along with whatever any intelligence knows it must, as the ground or condition of its knowledge, have some cognizance of itself,” is the basis of the whole philosophical system. Object + subject, thing + me, is the only possible knowable. This leads to the conclusion that the only independent universe which any mind can think of is the universe in synthesis with some other mind or ego.

The leading contradiction which is corrected in the “Agnoiology or Theory of Ignorance” is this: that there can be an ignorance of that of which there can be no knowledge. Ignorance is a defect. But there is no defect in not knowing what cannot be known by any intelligence (e.g. that two and two make five), and therefore there can be an ignorance only of that of which there can be a knowledge, i.e. of some-object-plus-some-subject. The knowable alone is the ignorable. Ferrier lays special claim to originality for this division of the Institutes.

The “Ontology or Theory of Being” forms the third and final division. It contains a discussion of the origin of knowledge, in which Ferrier traces all the perplexities and errors of philosophers to the assumption of the absolute existence of matter. The conclusion arrived at is that the only true real and independent existences are minds-together-with-that-which-they-apprehend, and that the one strictly necessary absolute existence is a supreme and infinite and everlasting mind in synthesis with all things.

Ferrier’s works are remarkable for an unusual charm and simplicity of style. These qualities are especially noticeable in the Lectures on Greek Philosophy, one of the best introductions on the subject in the English language. A complete edition of his philosophical writings was published in 1875, with a memoir by E.L. Lushington; see also monograph by E.S. Haldane in the Famous Scots Series.

FERRIER, PAUL (1843- ), French dramatist, was born at Montpellier on the 29th of March 1843. He had already produced several comedies when in 1873 he secured real success with two short pieces, Chez l’avocat and Les Incendies de Massoulard. Others of his numerous plays are Les Compensations (1876); L’Art de tromper les femmes (1890), with M. Najac. One of Ferrier’s greatest triumphs was the production with Fabrice Carré of Joséphine vendue par ses sœurs (1886), an opéra bouffe with music by Victor Roger. His opera libretti include La Marocaine (1879), music of J. Offenbach; Le Chevalier d’Harmental (1896) after the play of Dumas père, for the music of A. Messager; La Fille de Tabarin (1901), with Victorien Sardou, music of Gabriel Pierné.

FERRIER, SUSAN EDMONSTONE (1782-1854), Scottish novelist, born in Edinburgh on the 7th of September 1782, was the daughter of James Ferrier, for some years factor to the duke of Argyll, and at one time one of the clerks of the court of session with Sir Walter Scott. Her mother was a Miss Coutts, the beautiful daughter of a Forfarshire farmer. James Frederick Ferrier, noticed above, was Susan Ferrier’s nephew.

Miss Ferrier’s first novel, Marriage, was begun in concert with a friend, Miss Clavering, a niece of the duke of Argyll; but this lady only wrote a few pages, and Marriage, completed by Miss Ferrier as early as 1810, appeared in 1818. It was followed in 1824 by The Inheritance, a better constructed and more mature work; and the last and perhaps best of her novels, Destiny, dedicated to Sir Walter Scott (who himself undertook to strike the bargain with the publisher Cadell), appeared in 1831. All these novels were published anonymously; but, with their clever portraiture of contemporary Scottish life and manners, and even recognizable caricatures of some social celebrities of the day, they could not fail to become popular north of the Tweed. “Lady MacLaughlan” represents Mrs Seymour Damer in dress and Lady Frederick Campbell, whose husband, Lord Ferrier, was executed in 1760, in manners. Mary, Lady Clark, well known in Edinburgh, figured as “Mrs Fox” and the three maiden aunts were the Misses Edmonstone. Many were the conjectures as to the authorship of the novels. In the Noctes Ambrosianae (November 1826), James Hogg is made to mention The Inheritance, and adds, “which I aye thought was written by Sir Walter, as weel’s Marriage, till it spunked out that it was written by a leddy.” Scott himself gave Miss Ferrier a very high place indeed among the novelists of the day. In his diary (March 27, 1826), criticizing a new work which he had been reading, he says, “The women do this better. Edgeworth, Ferrier, Austen, have all given portraits of real society far superior to anything man, vain man, has produced of the like nature.” Another friendly recognition of Miss Ferrier is to be found at the conclusion of his Tales of my Landlord, where Scott calls her his “sister shadow,” the still anonymous author of “the very lively work entitled Marriage.” Lively, indeed, all Miss Ferrier’s works are,—written in clear, brisk English, and with an inexhaustible fund of humour. It is true her books portray the eccentricities, the follies, and foibles of the society in which she lived, caricaturing with terrible exactness its hypocrisy, boastfulness, greed, affectation, and undue subservience to public opinion. Yet Miss Ferrier wrote less to reform than to amuse. In this she is less like Miss Edgeworth than Miss Austen. Miss Edgeworth was more of a moralist; her wit is not so involuntary, her caricatures not always so good-natured. But Miss Austen and Miss Ferrier were genuine humorists, and with Miss Ferrier especially a keen sense of the ludicrous was always dominant. Her humorous characters are always her best. It was no doubt because she felt this that in the last year of her life she regretted not having devoted her talents more exclusively to the service of religion. But if she was not a moralist, neither was she a cynic; and her wit, even where it is most caustic, is never uncharitable.

Miss Ferrier’s mother died in 1797, and from that date she kept house for her father until his death in 1829. She lived quietly at Morningside House and in Edinburgh for more than twenty years after the publication of her last work. The pleasantest picture that we have of her is in Lockhart’s description of her visit to Scott in May 1831. She was asked there to help to amuse the dying master of Abbotsford, who, when he was not writing Count Robert of Paris, would talk as brilliantly as ever. Only sometimes, before he had reached the point in a narrative, “it would seem as if some internal spring had given way.” He would pause, and gaze blankly and anxiously round him. “I noticed,” says Lockhart, “the delicacy of Miss Ferrier on such occasions. Her sight was bad, and she took care not to use her glasses when he was speaking; and she affected to be also troubled with deafness, and would say, ‘Well, I am getting as dull as a post; I have not heard a word since you said so-and-so,’—being sure to mention a circumstance behind that at which he had really halted. He then took up the thread with his habitual smile of courtesy—as if forgetting his case entirely in the consideration of the lady’s infirmity.”

Miss Ferrier died on the 5th of November 1854, at her brother’s house in Edinburgh. She left among her papers a short unpublished article, entitled “Recollections of Visits to Ashestiel and Abbotsford.” This is her own very interesting account of her long friendship with Sir Walter Scott, from the date of her first visit to him and Lady Scott at Ashestiel, where she went with her father in the autumn of 1811, to her last sad visit to Abbotsford in 1831. It contains some impromptu verses written by Scott in her album at Ashestiel.

Miss Ferrier’s letters to her sister, which contained much interesting biographical matter, were destroyed at her particular request, but a volume of her correspondence with a memoir by her grand-nephew, John Ferrier, was published in 1898.

FERROL [El Ferrol], a seaport of north-western Spain, in the province of Corunna; situated 12 m. N.E. of the city of Corunna, and on the Bay of Ferrol, an inlet of the Atlantic Ocean. Pop. (1900) 25,281. Together with San Fernando, near Cadiz, and Cartagena, Ferrol is governed by an admiral, with the special title of captain-general; and it ranks beside these two ports as one of the principal naval stations of Spain. The town is beautifully situated on a headland overlooking the bay, and is surrounded by rocky hills which render it invisible from the sea. Its harbour, naturally one of the best in Europe, and the largest in Spain except those of Vigo and Corunna, is deep, capacious and secure; but the entrance is a narrow strait about 2 m. long, which admits only one vessel at a time, and is commanded by modern and powerfully armed forts, while the neighbouring heights are also crowned by defensive works. Ferrol is provided with extensive dockyards, quays, warehouses and an arsenal; most of these, with the palace of the captain-general, the bull-ring, theatres, and other principal buildings, were built or modernized between 1875 and 1905. The local industries are mainly connected with the shipping trade, or the refitting of warships. Owing to the lack of railway communication, and the competition of Corunna at so short a distance, Ferrol is not a first-class commercial port; and in the early years of the 20th century its trade, already injured by the loss to Spain of Cuba and Porto Rico in 1898, showed little prospect of improvement. The exports are insignificant, and consist chiefly of wooden staves and beams for use as pit-props; the chief imports are coal, cement, timber, iron and machinery. In 1904, 282 vessels of 155,881 tons entered the harbour. In the same year the construction of a railway to the neighbouring town of Betanzos was undertaken, and in 1909 important shipbuilding operations were begun.

Ferrol was a mere fishing village until 1752, when Ferdinand VI. began to fit it for becoming an arsenal. In 1799 the British made a fruitless attempt to capture it, but on the 4th of November 1805 they defeated the French fleet in front of the town, which they compelled to surrender. On the 27th of January 1809 it was through treachery delivered over to the French, but it was vacated by them on the 22nd of July. On the 15th of July 1823 another blockade was begun by the French, and Ferrol surrendered to them on the 27th of August.

FERRUCCIO, or Ferrucci, FRANCESCO (1489-1530), Florentine captain. After spending a few years as a merchant’s clerk he took to soldiering at an early age, and served in the Bande Nere in various parts of Italy, earning a reputation as a daring fighter and somewhat of a swashbuckler. When Pope Clement VII. and the emperor Charles V. decided to reinstate the Medici in Florence, they made war on the Florentine republic, and Ferruccio was appointed Florentine military commissioner at Empoli, where he showed great daring and resource by his rapid marches and sudden attacks on the Imperialists. Early in 1530 Volterra had thrown off Florentine allegiance and had been occupied by an Imperialist garrison, but Ferruccio surprised and recaptured the city. During his absence, however, the Imperialists captured Empoli by treachery, thus cutting off one of the chief avenues of approach to Florence. Ferruccio proposed to the government of the republic that he should march on Rome and terrorize the pope by the threat of a sack into making peace with Florence on favourable terms, but although the war committee appointed him commissioner-general for the operations outside the city, they rejected his scheme as too audacious. Ferruccio then decided to attempt a diversion by attacking the Imperialists in the rear and started from Volterra for the Apennines. But at Pisa he was laid up for a month with a fever—a misfortune which enabled the enemy to get wind of his plan and to prepare for his attack. At the end of July Ferruccio left Pisa at the head of about 4000 men, and although the besieged in Florence, knowing that a large part of the Imperialists under the prince of Orange had gone to meet Ferruccio, wished to co-operate with the latter by means of a sortie, they were prevented from doing so by their own traitorous commander-in-chief, Malatesta Baglioni. Ferruccio encountered a much larger force of the enemy on the 3rd of August at Gavinana; a desperate battle ensued, and at first the Imperialists were driven back by Ferruccio’s fierce onslaught and the prince of Orange himself was killed, but reinforcements under Fabrizio Maramaldo having arrived, the Florentines were almost annihilated and Ferruccio was wounded and captured. Maramaldo out of personal spite despatched the wounded man with his own hand. This defeat sealed the fate of the republic, and nine days later Florence surrendered. Ferruccio was one of the great soldiers of the age, and his enterprise is the finest episode of the last days of the Florentine republic. See also under Florence and Medici.

Bibliography.—F. Sassetti, Vita di Francesco Ferrucci, written in the 16th century and published in the Archivio storico, vol. iv. pt. ii. (Florence, 1853), with an introduction by C. Monzani; E. Aloisi, La Battaglia di Gavinana (Bologna, 1881); cf. P. Villari’s criticism of the latter work, “Ferruccio e Maramaldo,” in his Arte, storia, e filosofia (Florence, 1884); Gino Capponi, Storia della repubblica di Firenze, vol. ii. (Florence, 1875).

FERRULE, a small metal cap or ring used for holding parts of a rod, &c., together, and for giving strength to weakened materials, or especially, when attached to the end of a stick, umbrella, &c., for preventing wearing or splitting. The word is properly verrel or verril, in which form it was used till the 18th century, and is derived through the O. Fr. virelle, modern virole, from a diminutive Latin viriola of viriae, bracelets. The form in which the word is now known is due to the influence of Latin ferrum, iron. “Ferrule” must be distinguished from “ferule” or “ferula,” properly the Latin name of the “giant fennel.” From the use of the stalk of this plant as a cane or rod for punishment, comes the application of the word to many instruments used in chastisement, more particularly a short flat piece of wood or leather shaped somewhat like the sole of a boot, and applied to the palms of the hand. It is the common form of disciplinary instrument in Roman Catholic schools; the pain inflicted is exceedingly sharp and immediate, but the effects are momentary and leave no chance for any dangerous results. The word is sometimes applied to the ordinary cane as used by schoolmasters.

FERRY, JULES FRANÇOIS CAMILLE (1832-1893), French statesman, was born at Saint Dié (Vosges) on the 5th of April 1832. He studied law, and was called to the bar at Paris, but soon went into politics, contributing to various newspapers, particularly to the Temps. He attacked the Empire with great violence, directing his opposition especially against Baron Haussmann, prefect of the Seine. Elected republican deputy for Paris in 1869, he protested against the declaration of war with Germany, and on the 6th of September 1870 was appointed prefect of the Seine by the government of national defence. In this position he had the difficult task of administering Paris during the siege, and after the Commune was obliged to resign (5th of June 1871). From 1872-1873 he was sent by Thiers as minister to Athens, but returned to the chamber as deputy for the Vosges, and became one of the leaders of the republican party. When the first republican ministry was formed under W.H. Waddington on the 4th of February 1879, he was one of its members, and continued in the ministry until the 30th of March 1885, except for two short interruptions (from the 10th of November 1881 to the 30th of January 1882, and from the 29th of July 1882 to the 21st of February 1883), first as minister of education and then as minister of foreign affairs. He was twice premier (1880-1881 and 1883-1885). Two important works are associated with his administration, the non-clerical organization of public education, and the beginning of the colonial expansion of France. Following the republican programme he proposed to destroy the influence of the clergy in the university. He reorganized the committee of public education (law of the 27th of February 1880), and proposed a regulation for the conferring of university degrees, which, though rejected, aroused violent polemics because the 7th article took away from the unauthorized religious orders the right to teach. He finally succeeded in passing the great law of the 28th of March 1882, which made primary education in France free, non-clerical and obligatory. In higher education the number of professors doubled under his ministry. After the military defeat of France by Germany in 1870, he formed the idea of acquiring a great colonial empire, not to colonize it, but for the sake of economic exploitation. He directed the negotiations which led to the establishment of a French protectorate in Tunis (1881), prepared the treaty of the 17th of December 1885 for the occupation of Madagascar; directed the exploration of the Congo and of the Niger region; and above all he organized the conquest of Indo-China. The excitement caused at Paris by an unimportant reverse of the French troops at Lang-son caused his downfall (30th of March 1885), but the treaty of peace with China (9th of June 1885) was his work. He still remained an influential member of the moderate republican party, and directed the opposition to General Boulanger. After the resignation of President Grévy (2nd of December 1887), he was a candidate for the presidency of the republic, but the radicals refused to support him, and he withdrew in favour of Sadi Carnot. The violent polemics aroused against him at this time caused a madman to attack him with a revolver, and he died from the wound, on the 17th of March 1893. The chamber of deputies voted him a state funeral.

See Edg. Zevort, Histoire de la troisième République; A. Rambaud, Jules Ferry (Paris, 1903).

FERRY (from the same root as that of the verb “to fare,” to journey or travel, common to Teutonic languages, cf. Ger. fahren; it is connected with the root of Gr. πόρος, way, and Lat. portare, to carry), a place where boats ply regularly across a river or arm of the sea for the conveyance of goods and persons. The word is also applied to the boats employed (ferry boats). In a car-ferry or train-ferry railway cars or complete trains are conveyed across a piece of water in vessels which have railway lines laid on their decks, so that the vehicles run on and off them on their own wheels. In law the right of ferrying persons or goods across a particular river or strait, and of exacting a reasonable toll for the service, belongs, like the right of fair and market, to the class of rights known as franchises. Its origin must be by statute, royal grant, or prescription. It is wholly unconnected with the ownership or occupation of land, so that the owner of the ferry need not be proprietor of the soil on either side of the water over which the right is exercised. He is bound to maintain safe and suitable boats ready for the use of the public, and to employ fit persons as ferrymen. As a correlative of this duty he has a right of action, not only against those who evade or refuse payment of toll when it is due, but also against those who disturb his franchise by setting up a new ferry, so as to diminish his custom, unless a change of circumstances, such as an increase of population near the ferry, justify other means of passage, whether of the same kind or not. See also Water Rights.

FERSEN, FREDRIK AXEL, Count von (1719-1794), Swedish politician, was a son of Lieutenant-General Hans Reinhold Fersen and entered the Swedish Life Guards in 1740, and from 1743 to 1748 was in the French service (Royal-Suédois), where he rose to the rank of brigadier. In the Seven Years’ War Fersen distinguished himself during the operations round Usedom and Wollin (1759), when he inflicted serious loss on the Prussians. But it is as a politician that he is best known. At the diet of 1755-1756 he was elected landtmarskalk, or marshal of the diet, and from henceforth, till the revolution of 1772, led the Hat party (see Sweden: History). In 1756 he defeated the projects of the court for increasing the royal power; but, after the disasters of the Seven Years’ War, gravitated towards the court again and contributed, by his energy and eloquence, to uphold the tottering Hats for several years. On the accession of the Caps to power in 1766, Fersen assisted the court in its struggle with them by refusing to employ the Guards to keep order in the capital when King Adolphus Frederick, driven to desperation by the demands of the Caps, publicly abdicated, and a seven days’ interregnum ensued. At the ensuing diet of 1769, when the Hats returned to power, Fersen was again elected marshal of the diet; but he made no attempt to redeem his pledges to the crown prince Gustavus, as to a very necessary reform of the constitution, which he had made before the elections, and thus involuntarily contributed to the subsequent establishment of absolutism. When Gustavus III. ascended the throne in 1772, and attempted to reconcile the two factions by a composition which aimed at dividing all political power between them, Fersen said he despaired of bringing back, in a moment, to the path of virtue and patriotism a people who had been running riot for more than half a century in the wilderness of political licence and corruption. Nevertheless he consented to open negotiations with the Caps, and was the principal Hat representative on the abortive composition committee. During the revolution of August 1772, Fersen remained a passive spectator of the overthrow of the constitution, and was one of the first whom Gustavus summoned to his side after his triumph. Yet his relations with the king were never cordial. The old party-leader could never forget that he had once been a power in the state, and it is evident, from his Historiska Skrifter, how jealous he was of Gustavus’s personal qualities. There was a slight collision between them as early as the diet of 1778; but at the diet of 1786 Fersen boldly led the opposition against the king’s financial measures (see Gustavus III.) which were consequently rejected; while in private interviews, if his own account of them is to be trusted, he addressed his sovereign with outrageous insolence. At the diet of 1789 Fersen marshalled the nobility around him for a combat à outrance against the throne and that, too, at a time when Sweden was involved in two dangerous foreign wars, and national unity was absolutely indispensable. This tactical blunder cost him his popularity and materially assisted the secret operations of the king. Obstruction was Fersen’s chief weapon, and he continued to postpone the granting of subsidies by the house of nobles for some weeks. But after frequent stormy scenes in the diet, which were only prevented from becoming mêlées by Fersen’s moderation, or hesitation, at the critical moment, he and twenty of his friends of the nobility were arrested (17th February 1789) and the opposition collapsed. Fersen was speedily released, but henceforth kept aloof from politics, surviving the king two years. He was a man of great natural talent, with an imposing presence, and he always bore himself like the aristocrat he was. But his haughtiness and love of power are undeniable, and he was perhaps too great a party-leader to be a great statesman. Yet for seventeen years, with very brief intervals, he controlled the destinies of Sweden, and his influence in France was for some time pretty considerable. His Historiska Skrifter, which are a record of Swedish history, mainly autobiographical, during the greater part of the 18th century, is excellent as literature, but somewhat unreliable as an historical document, especially in the later parts.

See C.G. Malmström, Sveriges politiska Historia (Stockholm, 1855-1865); R.N. Bain, Gustavus III. (London, 1895); C.T. Odhner, Sveriges politiska Historia under Gustaf III.’s Regering (Stockholm, 1885, &c.); F.A. Fersen, Historiska Skrifter (Stockholm, 1867-1872).

(R. N. B.)

FERSEN, HANS AXEL, Count von (1755-1810), Swedish statesman, was carefully educated at home, at the Carolinum at Brunswick and at Turin. In 1779 he entered the French military service (Royal-Bavière), accompanied General Rochambeau to America as his adjutant, distinguished himself during the war with England, notably at the siege of Yorktown, 1781, and in 1785 was promoted to be colonel propriétaire of the regiment Royal-Suédois. The young nobleman was, from the first, a prime favourite at the French court, owing, partly to the recollection of his father’s devotion to France, but principally because of his own amiable and brilliant qualities. The queen, Marie Antoinette, was especially attracted by the grace and wit of le beau Fersen, who had inherited his full share of the striking handsomeness which was hereditary in the family.

It is possible that Fersen would have spent most of his life at Versailles, but for a hint from his own sovereign, then at Pisa, that he desired him to join his suite. He accompanied Gustavus III. in his Italian tour and returned home with him in 1784. When the war with Russia broke out, in 1788, Fersen accompanied his regiment to Finland, but in the autumn of the same year was sent to France, where the political horizon was already darkening. It was necessary for Gustavus to have an agent thoroughly in the confidence of the French royal family, and, at the same time, sufficiently able and audacious to help them in their desperate straits, especially as he had lost all confidence in his accredited minister, the baron de Stael. With his usual acumen, he fixed upon Fersen, who was at his post early in 1790. Before the end of the year he was forced to admit that the cause of the French monarchy was hopeless so long as the king and queen of France were nothing but captives in their own capital, at the mercy of an irresponsible mob. He took a leading part in the flight to Varennes. He found most of the requisite funds at the last moment. He ordered the construction of the famous carriage for six, in the name of the baroness von Korff, and kept it in his hotel grounds, rue Matignon, that all Paris might get accustomed to the sight of it. He was the coachman of the fiacre which drove the royal family from the Carrousel to the Porte Saint-Martin. He accompanied them to Bondy, the first stage of their journey.

In August 1791, Fersen was sent to Vienna to induce the emperor Leopold to accede to a new coalition against revolutionary France, but he soon came to the conclusion that the Austrian court meant to do nothing at all. At his own request, therefore, he was transferred to Brussels, where he could be of more service to the queen of France. In February 1792, at his own mortal peril, he once more succeeded in reaching Paris with counterfeit credentials as minister plenipotentiary to Portugal. On the 13th he arrived, and the same evening contrived to steal an interview with the queen unobserved. On the following day he was with the royal family from six o’clock in the evening till six o’clock the next morning, and convinced himself that a second flight was physically impossible. On the afternoon of the 21st he succeeded in paying a third visit to the Tuileries, stayed there till midnight and succeeded, with great difficulty, in regaining Brussels on the 27th. This perilous expedition, a monumental instance of courage and loyalty, had no substantial result. In 1797 Fersen was sent to the congress of Rastatt as the Swedish delegate, but in consequence of a protest from the French government, was not permitted to take part in it.

During the regency of the duke of Sudermania (1792-1796) Fersen, like all the other Gustavians, was in disgrace; but, on Gustavus IV. attaining his majority in 1796, he was welcomed back to court with open arms, and reinstated in all his offices and dignities. In 1801 he was appointed Riksmarskalk (= earl-marshal). On the outbreak of the war with Napoleon, Fersen accompanied Gustavus IV. to Germany to assist him in gaining fresh allies. He prevented Gustavus from invading Prussia in revenge for the refusal of the king of Prussia to declare war against France, and during the rest of the reign was in semi-disgrace, though generally a member of the government when the king was abroad.

Fersen stood quite aloof from the revolution of 1809. (See Sweden: History.) His sympathies were entirely with Prince Gustavus, son of the unfortunate Gustavus IV., and he was generally credited with the desire to see him king. When the newly elected successor to the throne, the highly popular prince Christian Augustus of Augustenburg, died suddenly in Skåne in May 1810, the report spread that he had been poisoned, and that Fersen and his sister, the countess Piper, were accessories. The source of this equally absurd and infamous libel has never been discovered. But it was eagerly taken up by the anti-Gustavian press, and popular suspicion was especially aroused by a fable called “The Foxes” directed against the Fersens, which appeared in Nya Posten. When, then, on the 20th of June 1810, the prince’s body was conveyed to Stockholm, and Fersen, in his official capacity as Riksmarskalk, received it at the barrier and led the funeral cortège into the city, his fine carriage and his splendid robes seemed to the people an open derision of the general grief. The crowd began to murmur and presently to fling stones and cry “murderer!” He sought refuge in a house in the Riddarhus Square, but the mob rushed after him, brutally maltreated him and tore his robes to pieces. To quiet the people and save the unhappy victim, two officers volunteered to conduct him to the senate house and there place him in arrest. But he had no sooner mounted the steps leading to the entrance than the crowd, which had followed him all the way beating him with sticks and umbrellas, made a rush at him, knocked him down, and kicked and trampled him to death. This horrible outrage, which lasted more than an hour, happened, too, in the presence of numerous troops, drawn up in the Riddarhus Square, who made not the slightest effort to rescue the Riksmarskalk from his tormentors. In the circumstances, one must needs adopt the opinion of Fersen’s contemporary, Baron Gustavus Armfelt, “One is almost tempted to say that the government wanted to give the people a victim to play with, just as when one throws something to an irritated wild beast to distract its attention. The more I consider it all, the more I am certain that the mob had the least to do with it.... But in God’s name what were the troops about? How could such a thing happen in broad daylight during a procession, when troops and a military escort were actually present?” The responsibility certainly rests with the government of Charles XIII., which apparently intended to intimidate the Gustavians by the removal of one of their principal leaders. Armfelt escaped in time, so Fersen fell the victim.

See R.M. Klinckowström, Le Comte de Fersen et la cour de France (Paris, 1877; Eng. ed., London, 1902); Historia om Axel von Fersens mord (Stockholm, 1844); R.N. Bain, Gustavus III., vol. ii. (London, 1895); P. Gaulot, Un Ami de la reine (Paris, 1892); F.F. Flach, Grefve Hans Axel von Fersen (Stockholm, 1896); E. Tegner, Gustaf Mauritz Armfelt, vol. iii. (Stockholm, 1883-1887).

(R. N. B.)

FESCA, FREDERIC ERNEST (1789-1826), German violinist and composer of instrumental music, was born on the 15th of February 1789 at Magdeburg, where he received his early musical education. He completed his studies at Leipzig under Eberhard Müller, and at the early age of fifteen appeared before the public with several concerti for the violin, which were received with general applause, and resulted in his being appointed leading violinist of the Leipzig orchestra. This position he occupied till 1806, when he became concert-master to the duke of Oldenburg. In 1808 he was appointed solo-violinist by King Jerome of Westphalia at Cassel, and there he remained till the end of the French occupation (1814), when he went to Vienna, and soon afterwards to Carlsruhe, having been appointed concert-master to the grand-duke of Baden. His failing health prevented him from enjoying the numerous and well-deserved triumphs he owed to his art, and in 1826 he died of consumption at the early age of thirty-seven. As a virtuoso Fesca ranks amongst the best masters of the German school of violinists, the school subsequently of Spohr and of Joachim. Especially as leader of a quartet he is said to have been unrivalled with regard to classic dignity and simplicity of style. Amongst his compositions, his quartets for stringed instruments and other pieces of chamber music are the most remarkable. His two operas, Cantemira and Omar and Leila, were less successful, lacking dramatic power and originality. He also wrote some sacred compositions, and numerous songs and vocal quartets.