VOLUME XVI SLICE IV Lefebvre, Tanneguy to Letronne, Jean Antoine (continued 11)

The history of Lerma’s tenure of office is in vol. xv. of the Historia General de España of Modesto Lafuente (Madrid, 1855)—with references to contemporary authorities.

LERMONTOV, MIKHAIL YUREVICH (1814-1841), Russian poet and novelist, often styled the poet of the Caucasus, was born in Moscow, of Scottish descent, but belonged to a respectable family of the Tula government, and was brought up in the village of Tarkhanui (in the Penzensk government), which now preserves his dust. By his grandmother—on whom the whole care of his childhood was devolved by his mother’s early death and his father’s military service—no cost nor pains was spared to give him the best education she could think of. The intellectual atmosphere which he breathed in his youth differed little from that in which Pushkin had grown up, though the domination of French had begun to give way before the fancy for English, and Lamartine shared his popularity with Byron. From the academic gymnasium in Moscow Lermontov passed in 1830 to the university, but there his career came to an untimely close through the part he took in some acts of insubordination to an obnoxious teacher. From 1830 to 1834 he attended the school of cadets at St Petersburg, and in due course he became an officer in the guards. To his own and the nation’s anger at the loss of Pushkin (1837) the young soldier gave vent in a passionate poem addressed to the tsar, and the very voice which proclaimed that, if Russia took no vengeance on the assassin of her poet, no second poet would be given her, was itself an intimation that a poet had come already. The tsar, however, seems to have found more impertinence than inspiration in the address, for Lermontov was forthwith sent off to the Caucasus as an officer of dragoons. He had been in the Caucasus with his grandmother as a boy of ten, and he found himself at home by yet deeper sympathies than those of childish recollection. The stern and rocky virtues of the mountaineers against whom he had to fight, no less than the scenery of the rocks and mountains themselves, proved akin to his heart; the emperor had exiled him to his native land. He was in St Petersburg in 1838 and 1839, and in the latter year wrote the novel, A Hero of Our Time, which is said to have been the occasion of the duel in which he lost his life in July 1841. In this contest he had purposely selected the edge of a precipice, so that if either combatant was wounded so as to fall his fate should be sealed.

Lermontov published only one small collection of poems in 1840. Three volumes, much mutilated by the censorship, were issued in 1842 by Glazounov; and there have been full editions of his works in 1860 and 1863. To Bodenstedt’s German translation of his poems (Michail Lermontov’s poetischer Nachlass, Berlin, 1842, 2 vols.), which indeed was the first satisfactory collection, he is indebted for a wide reputation outside of Russia. His novel has found several translators (August Boltz, Berlin, 1852, &c.). Among his best-known pieces are “Ismail-Bey,” “Hadji Abrek,” “Walerik,” “The Novice,” and, remarkable as an imitation of the old Russian ballad, “The song of the tsar Ivan Vasilivitch, his young bodyguard, and the bold merchant Kalashnikov.”

See Taillandier, “Le Poète du Caucase,” in Revue des deux mondes (February 1855), reprinted in Allemagne et Russie (Paris, 1856); Duduishkin’s “Materials for the Biography of Lermontov,” prefixed to the 1863 edition of his works. The Demon, translated by Sir Alexander Condie Stephen (1875), is an English version of one of his longer poems.

(W. R. S. R.)

LEROUX, PIERRE (1798-1871), French philosopher and economist, was born at Bercy near Paris on the 7th of April 1798, the son of an artisan. His education was interrupted by the death of his father, which compelled him to support his mother and family. Having worked first as a mason and then as a compositor, he joined P. Dubois in the foundation of Le Globe which became in 1831 the official organ of the Saint-Simonian community, of which he became a prominent member. In November of the same year, when Enfantin preached the enfranchisement of women and the functions of the couple-prêtre, Leroux separated himself from the sect. In 1838, with J. Regnaud, who had seceded with him, he founded the Encyclopédie nouvelle (eds. 1838-1841). Amongst the articles which he inserted in it were De l’égalité and Réfutation de l’éclectisme, which afterwards appeared as separate works. In 1840 he published his treatise De l’humanité (2nd ed. 1845), which contains the fullest exposition of his system, and was regarded as the philosophical manifesto of the Humanitarians. In 1841 he established the Revue indépendante, with the aid of George Sand, over whom he had great influence. Her Spiridion, which was dedicated to him, Sept cordes de la lyre, Consuelo, and La Comtesse de Rudolstadt, were written under the Humanitarian inspiration. In 1843 he established at Boussac (Creuse) a printing association organized according to his systematic ideas, and founded the Revue sociale. After the outbreak of the revolution of 1848 he was elected to the Constituent Assembly, and in 1849 to the Legislative Assembly, but his speeches on behalf of the extreme socialist wing were of so abstract and mystical a character that they had no effect. After the coup d’état of 1851 he settled with his family in Jersey, where he pursued agricultural experiments and wrote his socialist poem La Grève de Samarez. On the definitive amnesty of 1869 he returned to Paris, where he died in April 1871, during the Commune.

The writings of Leroux have no permanent significance in the history of thought. He was the propagandist of sentiments and aspirations rather than the expounder of a systematic theory. He has, indeed, a system, but it is a singular medley of doctrines borrowed, not only from Saint-Simonian, but from Pythagorean and Buddhistic sources. In philosophy his fundamental principle is that of what he calls the “triad”—a triplicity which he finds to pervade all things, which in God is “power, intelligence and love,” in man “sensation, sentiment and knowledge.” His religious doctrine is Pantheistic; and, rejecting the belief in a future life as commonly conceived, he substitutes for it a theory of metempsychosis. In social economy his views are very vague; he preserves the family, country and property, but finds in all three, as they now are, a despotism which must be eliminated. He imagines certain combinations by which this triple tyranny can be abolished, but his solution seems to require the creation of families without heads, countries without governments and property without rights of possession. In politics he advocates absolute equality—a democracy pushed to anarchy.

See Raillard, Pierre Leroux et ses œuvres (Paris, 1899); Thomas, Pierre Leroux: sa vie, son œuvre, sa doctrine (Paris, 1904); L. Reybaud, Études sur les réformateurs et socialistes modernes; article in R. H. Inglis Palgrave’s Dictionary of Pol. Econ.

LEROY-BEAULIEU, HENRI JEAN BAPTISTE ANATOLE (1842- ), French publicist, was born at Lisieux, on the 12th of February 1842. In 1866 he published Une troupe de comédiens, and afterwards Essai sur la restauration de nos monuments historiques devant l’art et devant le budget, which deals particularly with the restoration of the cathedral of Evreux. He visited Russia in order to collect documents on the political and economic organization of the Slav nations, and on his return published in the Revue des deux mondes (1882-1889) a series of articles, which appeared shortly afterwards in book form under the title L’Empire des tsars et les Russes (4th ed., revised in 3 vols., 1897-1898). The work entitled Un empereur, un roi, un pape, une restauration. published in 1879, was an analysis and criticism of the politics of the Second Empire. Un homme d’état russe (1884) gave the history of the emancipation of the serfs by Alexander II. Other works are Les Catholiques libéraux, l’église et le libéralisme (1890), La Papauté, le socialisme et la démocracie (1892), Les Juifs et l’antisémitisme; Israël chez les nations (1893), Les Arméniens et la question arménienne (1896), L’Antisémitisme (1897), Études russes et européennes (1897). These writings, mainly collections of articles and lectures intended for the general public, display enlightened views and wide information. In 1881 Leroy-Beaulieu was elected professor of contemporary history and eastern affairs at the École Libre des Sciences Politiques, becoming director of this institution on the death of Albert Sorel in 1906, and in 1887 he became a member of the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques.

Two of Leroy-Beaulieu’s works have been translated into English: one as the Empire of the Tsars and the Russians, by Z. A. Regozin (New York, 1893-1896), and another as Papacy, Socialism, Democracy, by B. L. O’Donnell (1892). See W. E. H. Lecky, Historical and Political Essays (1908).

LEROY-BEAULIEU, PIERRE PAUL (1843- ), French economist, brother of the preceding, was born at Saumur on the 9th of December 1843, and educated in Paris at the Lycée Bonaparte and the École de Droit. He afterwards studied at Bonn and Berlin, and on his return to Paris began to write for Le Temps, Revue nationale and Revue contemporaine. In 1867 he won a prize offered by the Academy of Moral Science with an essay entitled “L’Influence de l’état moral et intellectuel des populations ouvrières sur le taux des salaires.” In 1870 he gained three prizes for essays on “La Colonization chez les peuples modernes,” “L’Administration en France et en Angleterre,” and “L’Impôt foncier et ses conséquences économiques.” In 1872 Leroy-Beaulieu became professor of finance at the newly-founded École Libre des Sciences Politiques, and in 1880 he succeeded his father-in-law, Michel Chevalier, in the chair of political economy in the Collège de France. Several of his works have made their mark beyond the borders of his own country. Among these may be mentioned his Recherches économiques, historiques et statistiques sur les guerres contemporaines, a series of studies published between 1863 and 1869, in which he calculated the loss of men and capital caused by the great European conflicts. Other works by him are—La Question monnaie au dix-neuvième siècle (1861), Le Travail des femmes au dix-neuvième siècle (1873), Traité de la science des finances (1877), Essai sur la repartition des richesses (1882), L’Algérie et la Tunisie (1888), Précis d’économie politique (1888), and L’État moderne et ses fonctions (1889). He also founded in 1873 the Économiste français, on the model of the English Economist. Leroy-Beaulieu may be regarded as the leading representative in France of orthodox political economy, and the most pronounced opponent of protectionist and collectivist doctrines.

LERWICK, a municipal and police burgh of Shetland, Scotland, the most northerly town in the British Isles. Pop. (1901) 4281. It is situated on Brassay Sound, a fine natural harbour, on the east coast of the island called Mainland, 115 m. N.E. of Kirkwall, in Orkney, and 340 m. from Leith by steamer. The town dates from the beginning of the 17th century, and the older part consists of a flagged causeway called Commercial Street, running for 1 m. parallel with the sea (in which the gable ends of several of the quaint-looking houses stand), and so narrow in places as not to allow of two vehicles passing each other. At right angles to this street lanes ascend the hill-side to Hillhead, where the more modern structures and villas have been built. At the north end stands Fort Charlotte, erected by Cromwell, repaired in 1665 by Charles II. and altered in 1781 by George III., after whose queen it was named. It is now used as a depôt for the Naval Reserve, for whom a large drill hall was added. The Anderson Institute, at the south end, was constructed as a secondary school in 1862 by Arthur Anderson, a native, who also presented the Widows’ Asylum in the same quarter, an institution intended by preference for widows of Shetland sailors. The town-hall, built in 1881, contains several stained-glass windows, two of which were the gift of citizens of Amsterdam and Hamburg, in gratitude for services rendered by the islanders to fishermen and seamen of those ports. Lerwick’s main industries are connected with the fisheries, of which it is an important centre. Docks, wharves, piers, curing stations and warehouses have been provided or enlarged to cope with the growth of the trade, and an esplanade has been constructed along the front. The town is also the chief distributing agency for the islands, and carries on some business in knitted woollen goods. One mile west of Lerwick is Clickimin Loch, separated from the sea by a narrow strip of land. On an islet in the lake stands a ruined “broch” or round tower.

LE SAGE, ALAIN RENÉ (1668-1747), French novelist and dramatist, was born at Sarzeau in the peninsula of Rhuys, between the Morbihan and the sea, on the 13th of December 1668. Rhuys was a legal district, and Claude le Sage, the father of the novelist, held the united positions of advocate, notary and registrar of its royal court. His wife’s name was Jeanne Brenugat. Both father and mother died when Le Sage was very young, and his property was wasted or embezzled by his guardians. Little is known of his youth except that he went to school with the Jesuits at Vannes until he was eighteen. Conjecture has it that he continued his studies at Paris, and it is certain that he was called to the bar at the capital in 1692. In August 1694 he married the daughter of a joiner, Marie Elizabeth Huyard. She was beautiful but had no fortune, and Le Sage had little practice. About this time he met his old schoolfellow, the dramatist Danchet, and is said to have been advised by him to betake himself to literature. He began modestly as a translator, and published in 1695 a French version of the Epistles of Aristaenetus, which was not successful. Shortly afterwards he found a valuable patron and adviser in the abbé de Lyonne, who bestowed on him an annuity of 600 livres, and recommended him to exchange the classics for Spanish literature, of which he was himself a student and collector.

Le Sage began by translating plays chiefly from Rojas and Lope de Vega. Le Traitre puni and Le Point d’honneur from the former, Don Félix de Mendoce from the latter, were acted or published in the first two or three years of the 18th century. In 1704 he translated the continuation of Don Quixote by Avellaneda, and soon afterwards adapted a play from Calderon, Don César Ursin, which had a divided fate, being successful at court and damned in the city. He was, however, nearly forty before he obtained anything like decided success. But in 1707 his admirable farce of Crispin rival de son maître was acted with great applause, and Le Diable boiteux was published. This latter went through several editions in the same year, and was frequently reprinted till 1725, when Le Sage altered and improved it considerably, giving it its present form. Notwithstanding the success of Crispin, the actors did not like Le Sage, and refused a small piece of his called Les Étrennes (1707). He thereupon altered it into Turcaret, his theatrical masterpiece, and one of the best comedies in French literature. This appeared in 1709. Some years passed before he again attempted romance writing, and then the first two parts of Gil Blas de Santillane appeared in 1715. Strange to say, it was not so popular as Le Diable boiteux. Le Sage worked at it for a long time, and did not bring out the third part till 1724, nor the fourth till 1735. For this last he had been part paid to the extent of a hundred pistoles some years before its appearance. During these twenty years he was, however, continually busy. Notwithstanding the great merit and success of Turcaret and Crispin, the Théâtre Français did not welcome him, and in the year of the publication of Gil Blas he began to write for the Théâtre de la Foire—the comic opera held in booths at festival time. This, though not a very dignified occupation, was followed by many writers of distinction at this date, and by none more assiduously than by Le Sage. According to one computation he produced, either alone or with others, about a hundred pieces, varying from strings of songs with no regular dialogues, to comediettas only distinguished from regular plays by the introduction of music. He was also industrious in prose fiction. Besides finishing Gil Blas he translated the Orlando innamorato (1721), rearranged Guzman d’Alfarache (1732), published two more or less original novels, Le Bachelier de Salamanque and Estévanille Gonzales, and in 1733 produced the Vie et aventures de M. de Beauchesne, which is curiously like certain works of Defoe. Besides all this, Le Sage was also the author of La Valise trouvée, a collection of imaginary letters, and of some minor pieces, of which Une journée des parques is the most remarkable. This laborious life he continued until 1740, when he was more than seventy years of age. His eldest son had become an actor, and Le Sage had disowned him, but the second was a canon at Boulogne in comfortable circumstances. In the year just mentioned his father and mother went to live with him. At Boulogne Le Sage spent the last seven years of his life, dying on the 17th of November 1747. His last work, Mélange amusant de saillies d’esprit et de traits historiques les plus frappants, had appeared in 1743.

Not much is known of Le Sage’s life and personality, and the foregoing paragraph contains not only the most important but almost the only facts available for it. The few anecdotes which we have of him represent him as a man of very independent temper, declining to accept the condescending patronage which in the earlier part of the century was still the portion of men of letters. Thus it is said that, on being remonstrated with, as he thought impolitely, for an unavoidable delay in appearing at the duchess of Bouillon’s house to read Turcaret, he at once put the play in his pocket and retired, refusing absolutely to return. It may, however, be said that as in time so in position he occupies a place apart from most of the great writers of the 17th and 18th centuries respectively. He was not the object of royal patronage like the first, nor the pet of salons and coteries like the second. Indeed, he seems all his life to have been purely domestic in his habits, and purely literary in his interests.

The importance of Le Sage in French and in European literature is not entirely the same, and he has the rare distinction of being more important in the latter than in the former. His literary work may be divided into three parts. The first contains his Théâtre de la Foire and his few miscellaneous writings, the second his two remarkable plays Crispin and Turcaret, the third his prose fictions. In the first two he swims within the general literary current in France; he can be and must be compared with others of his own nation. But in the third he emerges altogether from merely national comparison. It is not with Frenchmen that he is to be measured. He formed no school in France; he followed no French models. His work, admirable as it is from the mere point of view of style and form, is a parenthesis in the general development of the French novel. That product works its way from Madame de la Fayette through Marivaux and Prévost, not through Le Sage. His literary ancestors are Spaniards, his literary contemporaries and successors are Englishmen. The position is almost unique; it is certainly interesting and remarkable in the highest degree.

Of Le Sage’s miscellaneous work, including his numerous farce-operettas, there is not much to be said except that they are the very best kind of literary hack-work. The pure and original style of the author, his abundant wit, his cool, humoristic attitude towards human life, which wanted only greater earnestness and a wider conception of that life to turn it into true humour, are discernible throughout. But this portion of his work is practically forgotten, and its examination is incumbent only on the critic. Crispin and Turcaret show a stronger and more deeply marked genius, which, but for the ill-will of the actors, might have gone far in this direction. But Le Sage’s peculiar unwillingness to attempt anything absolutely new discovered itself here. Even when he had devoted himself to the Foire theatre, it seems that he was unwilling to attempt, when occasion called for it, the absolute innovation of a piece with only one actor, a crux which Alexis Piron, a lesser but a bolder genius, accepted and carried through. Crispin and Turcaret are unquestionably Molièresque, though they are perhaps more original in their following of Molière than any other plays that can be named. For this also was part of Le Sage’s idiosyncrasy that, while he was apparently unable or unwilling to strike out an entirely novel line for himself, he had no sooner entered upon the beaten path than he left it to follow his own devices. Crispin rival de son maître is a farce in one act and many scenes, after the earlier manner of motion. Its plot is somewhat extravagant, inasmuch as it lies in the effort of a knavish valet, not as usual to further his master’s interests, but to supplant that master in love and gain. But the charm of the piece consists first in the lively bustling action of the short scenes which take each other up so promptly and smartly that the spectator has not time to cavil at the improbability of the action, and secondly in the abundant wit of the dialogue. Turcaret is a far more important piece of work and ranks high among comedies dealing with the actual society of their time. The only thing which prevents it from holding the very highest place is a certain want of unity in the plot. This want, however, is compensated in Turcaret by the most masterly profusion of character-drawing in the separate parts. Turcaret, the ruthless, dishonest and dissolute financier, his vulgar wife as dissolute as himself, the harebrained marquis, the knavish chevalier, the baroness (a coquette with the finer edge taken off her fine-ladyhood, yet by no means unlovable), are each and all finished portraits of the best comic type, while almost as much may be said of the minor characters. The style and dialogue are also worthy of the highest praise; the wit never degenerates into mere “wit-combats.”

It is, however, as a novelist that the world has agreed to remember Le Sage. A great deal of unnecessary labour has been spent on the discussion of his claims to originality. What has been already said will give a sufficient clue through this thorny ground. In mere form Le Sage is not original. He does little more than adopt that of the Spanish picaroon romance of the 16th and 17th century. Often, too, he prefers merely to rearrange and adapt existing work, and still oftener to give himself a kind of start by adopting the work of a preceding writer as a basis. But it may be laid down as a positive truth that he never, in any work that pretends to originality at all, is guilty of anything that can fairly be called plagiarism. Indeed we may go further, and say that he is very fond of asserting or suggesting his indebtedness when he is really dealing with his own funds. Thus the Diable boiteux borrows the title, and for a chapter or two the plan and almost the words, of the Diablo Cojuelo of Luis Velez de Guevara. But after a few pages Le Sage leaves his predecessor alone. Even the plan of the Spanish original is entirely discarded, and the incidents, the episodes, the style, are as independent as if such a book as the Diablo Cojuelo had never existed. The case of Gil Blas is still more remarkable. It was at first alleged that Le Sage had borrowed it from the Marcos de Obregon of Vincent Espinel, a curiously rash assertion, inasmuch as that work exists and is easily accessible, and as the slightest consultation of it proves that, though it furnished Le Sage with separate incidents and hints for more than one of his books, Gil Blas as a whole is not in the least indebted to it. Afterwards Father Isla asserted that Gil Blas was a mere translation from an actual Spanish book—an assertion at once incapable of proof and disproof, inasmuch as there is no trace whatever of any such book. A third hypothesis is that there was some manuscript original which Le Sage may have worked up in his usual way, in the same way, for instance, as he professes himself to have worked up the Bachelor of Salamanca. This also is in the nature of it incapable of refutation, though the argument from the Bachelor is strong against it, for there could be no reason why Le Sage should be more reticent of his obligations in the one case than in the other. Except, however, for historical reasons, the controversy is one which may be safely neglected, nor is there very much importance in the more impartial indication of sources—chiefly works on the history of Olivares—which has sometimes been attempted. That Le Sage knew Spanish literature well is of course obvious; but there is as little doubt (with the limitations already laid down) of his real originality as of that of any great writer in the world. Gil Blas then remains his property, and it is admittedly the capital example of its own style. For Le Sage has not only the characteristic, which Homer and Shakespeare have, of absolute truth to human nature as distinguished from truth to this or that national character, but he has what has been called the quality of detachment, which they also have. He never takes sides with his characters as Fielding (whose master, with Cervantes, he certainly was) sometimes does. Asmodeus and Don Cleofas, Gil Blas and the Archbishop and Doctor Sangrado, are produced by him with exactly the same impartiality of attitude. Except that he brought into novel writing this highest quality of artistic truth, it perhaps cannot be said that he did much to advance prose fiction in itself. He invented, as has been said, no new genre; he did not, as Marivaux and Prévost did, help on the novel as distinguished from the romance. In form his books are undistinguishable, not merely from the Spanish romances which are, as has been said, their direct originals, but from the medieval romans d’aventures and the Greek prose romances. But in individual excellence they have few rivals. Nor should it be forgotten, as it sometimes is, that Le Sage was a great master of French style, the greatest unquestionably between the classics of the 17th century and the classics of the 18th. He is perhaps the last great writer before the decadence (for since the time of Paul Louis Courier it has not been denied that the philosophe period is in point of style a period of decadence). His style is perfectly easy at the same time that it is often admirably epigrammatic. It has plenty of colour, plenty of flexibility, and may be said to be exceptionally well fitted for general literary work.

The dates of the original editions of Le Sage’s most important works have already been given. He published during his life a collection of his regular dramatic works, and also one of his pieces for the Foire, but the latter is far from exhaustive; nor is there any edition which can be called so, though the Œuvres choisies of 1782 and 1818 are useful, and there are so-called Œuvres complètes of 1821 and 1840. Besides critical articles by the chief literary critics and historians, the work of Eugène Lintilhac, in the Grands écrivains français (1893), should be consulted. The Diable boiteux and Gil Blas have been reprinted and translated numberless times. Both will be found conveniently printed, together with Estévanille Gonzales and Guzman d’Alfarache, the best of the minor novels, in four volumes of Garnier’s Bibliothèque amusante (Paris, 1865). Turcaret and Crispin are to be found in all collected editions of the French drama. There is a useful edition of them, with ample specimens of Le Sage’s work for the Foire, in two volumes (Paris, 1821).

(G. Sa.)

LES ANDELYS, a town of northern France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Eure about 30 m. S.E. of Rouen by rail. Pop. (1906) 3955. Les Andelys is formed by the union of Le Grand Andely and Le Petit Andely, the latter situated on the right bank of the Seine, the former about half a mile from the river. Grand Andely, founded, according to tradition, in the 6th century, has a church (13th, 14th and 15th centuries) parts of which are of fine late Gothic and Renaissance architecture. The works of art in the interior include beautiful stained glass of the latter period. Other interesting buildings are the hôtel du Grand Cerf dating from the first half of the 16th century, and the chapel of Sainte-Clotilde, close by a spring which, owing to its supposed healing powers, is the object of a pilgrimage. Grand Andely has a statue of Nicolas Poussin, a native of the place. Petit Andely sprang up at the foot of the eminence on which stands the château Gaillard, now in ruins, but formerly one of the strongest fortresses in France (see Fortification and Siegecraft and Castle). It was built by Richard Cœur de Lion at the end of the 12th century to protect the Norman frontier, was captured by the French in 1204 and passed finally into their possession in 1449. The church of St Sauveur at Petit Andely also dates from the end of the 12th century. Les Andelys is the seat of a sub-prefect and of a tribunal of first instance, has a preparatory infantry school; it carries on silk milling, and the manufacture of leather, organs and sugar. It has trade in cattle, grain, flour, &c.

LES BAUX, a village of south-eastern France, in the department of Bouches-du-Rhône, 11 m. N.E. of Arles by road. Pop. (1906) 111. Les Baux, which in the middle ages was a flourishing town, is now almost deserted. Apart from a few inhabited dwellings, it consists of an assemblage of ruined towers, fallen walls and other débris, which cover the slope of a hill crowned by the remains of a huge château, once the seat of a celebrated “court of love.” The ramparts, a medieval church, the château, parts of which date to the 11th century, and many of the dwellings are, in great part, hollowed out of the white friable limestone on which they stand. Here and there may be found houses preserving carved façades of Renaissance workmanship. Les Baux has given its name to the reddish rock (bauxite) which is plentiful in the neighbourhood and from which aluminium is obtained. In the middle ages Les Baux was the seat of a powerful family which owned the Terre Baussenques, extensive domains in Provence and Dauphiné. The influence of the seigneurs de Baux in Provence declined before the power of the house of Anjou, to which they abandoned many of their possessions. In 1632 the château and the ramparts were dismantled.

LESBONAX, of Mytilene, Greek sophist and rhetorician, flourished in the time of Augustus. According to Photius (cod. 74) he was the author of sixteen political speeches, of which two are extant, a hortatory speech after the style of Thucydides, and a speech on the Corinthian War. In the first he exhorts the Athenians against the Spartans, in the second (the title of which is misleading) against the Thebans (edition by F. Kiehr, Lesbonactis quae supersunt, Leipzig, 1907). Some erotic letters are also attributed to him.

The Lesbonax described in Suidas as the author of a large number of philosophical works is probably of much earlier date; on the other hand, the author of a small treatise Περὶ Σχημάτων on grammatical figures (ed. Rudolf Müller, Leipzig, 1900), is probably later.

LESBOS (Mytilene, Turk. Midullu), an island in the Aegean sea, off the coast of Mysia, N. of the entrance of the Gulf of Smyrna, forming the main part of a sanjak in the archipelago vilayet of European Turkey. It is divided into three districts, Mytilene or Kastro in the E., Molyvo in the N., and Calloni in the W. Since the middle ages it has been known as Mytilene, from the name of its principal town. Strabo estimated the circumference of the island at 1100 stadia, or about 138 m., and Scylax reckoned it seventh in size of the islands of the Mediterranean. The width of the channel between it and the mainland varies from 7 to 10 m. The island is roughly triangular in shape; the three points are Argennum on the N.E., Sigrium (Sigri) on the W., and Malea (Maria) on the S.E. The Euripus Pyrrhaeus (Calloni) is a deep gulf on the west between Sigrium and Malea. The country though mountainous is very fertile, Lesbos being celebrated in ancient times for its wine, oil and grain. Homer refers to its wealth. Its chief produce now is olives, which also form its principal export. Soap, skins and valonea are also exported, and mules and cattle are extensively bred. The sardine fishery is an important trade, and antimony, marble and coal are found on the island. The surface is rugged and mountainous, the highest point, Mount Olympus (Hagios Elias) being 3080 ft. The island has suffered from periodical earthquakes. The roads were remade in 1889, and there is telegraphic communication on the island, and to the mainland by cable. The ports are Sigri and Mytilene. The Gulf of Calloni and Hiera or Olivieri can only be entered by vessels of small draught.

The chief town, called Mytilene, is built in amphitheatre shape round a small hill crowned by remains of an ancient fortress. There are now 14 mosques and 7 churches, including a cathedral. It was originally built on an island close to the eastern coast of Lesbos, and afterwards when the town became too large for the island, it was joined to Lesbos by a causeway, and the city spread along the coast. There was a harbour on each side of the small island. Maloeis, by some surmised to be the northern of these, was not far away. Besides the five cities which gave the island the name of Pentapolis (Mytilene, Methymna, Antissa, Eresus, Pyrrha), there was a town called Arisba, destroyed by an earthquake in the time of Herodotus. Professor Conze thinks that this is the site now called Palaikastro, N.E. of Calloni. Pyrrha lay S.E. of Calloni, and is now also called Palaikastro. Antissa was on the N. coast near Sigri. It was destroyed by the Romans in 168 B.C. Eresus was also near Sigri on the S. coast. Methymna was on the N. coast, on the site of Molyvo, still the second city of the island. The name Methymna is derived from the wine (Gr. μέθυ) for which it was famous. Considerable remains of town walls and other buildings are to be seen on all these sites.

(E. Gr.)

History.—Although the position of Lesbos near the old-established trade-route to the Hellespont marks it out as an important site even in pre-historic days, no evidence on the early condition of the island is as yet obtainable, beyond the Greek tradition which represented it at the time of the Trojan war as inhabited by an original stock of Pelasgi and an immigrant population of Ionians. In historic times it was peopled by an “Aeolian” race who reckoned Boeotia as their motherland and claimed to have migrated about 1050 B.C.; its principal nobles traced their pedigree to Orestes, son of Agamemnon. Lesbos was the most prominent of Aeolian settlements, and indeed played a large part in the early development of Greek life. Its commercial activity is attested by several colonies in Thrace and the Troad, and by the participation of its traders in the settlement of Naucratis in Egypt; hence also the town of Mytilene, by virtue of its good harbour, became the political capital of the island. The climax of its prosperity was reached about 600 B.C., when a citizen named Pittacus was appointed as aesymnetes (dictator) to adjust the balance between the governing nobility and the insurgent commons and by his wise administration and legislation won a place among the Seven Sages of Greece. These years also constitute the golden age of Lesbian culture. The lyric poetry of Greece, which owed much to two Lesbians of the 7th century, the musician Terpander and the dithyrambist Arion, attained the standard of classical excellence under Pittacus’ contemporaries Alcaeus and Sappho. In the 6th century the importance of the island declined, partly through a protracted and unsuccessful struggle with Athens for the possession of Sigeum near the Hellespont, partly through a crushing naval defeat inflicted by Polycrates of Samos (about 550). The Lesbians readily submitted to Persia after the fall of Croesus of Lydia, and although hatred of their tyrant Coës, a Persian protégé, drove them to take part in the Ionic revolt (499-493), they made little use of their large navy and displayed poor spirit at the decisive battle of Lade. In the 5th century Lesbos for a long time remained a privileged member of the Delian League (q.v.), with full rights of self-administration, and under the sole obligation of assisting Athens with naval contingents. Nevertheless at the beginning of the Peloponnesian War the ruling oligarchy of Mytilene forced on a revolt, which was ended after a two years’ siege of that town (429-427). The Athenians, who had intended to punish the rebels by a wholesale execution, contented themselves with killing the ringleaders, confiscating the land and establishing a garrison. In the later years of the war Lesbos was repeatedly attacked by the Peloponnesians, and in 405 the harbour of Mytilene was the scene of a battle between the admirals Callicratidas and Conon. In 389 most of the island was recovered for the Athenians by Thrasybulus; in 377 it joined the Second Delian League, and remained throughout a loyal member, although in the second half of the century the dominant democracy was for a while supplanted by a tyranny. In 334 Lesbos served as a base for the Persian admiral Memnon against Alexander the Great. During the Third Macedonian war the Lesbians sided with Perseus against Rome; similarly in 88 they became eager allies of Mithradates VI. of Pontus, and Mytilene stood a protracted siege on his behalf. This town, nevertheless, was raised by Pompey to the status of a free community, thanks no doubt to his confidant Theophanes, a native of Mytilene.

Of the other towns on the island, Antissa, Eresus and Pyrrha possess no separate history. Methymna in the 5th and 4th centuries sometimes figures as a rival of Mytilene, with an independent policy. Among the distinguished Lesbians, in addition to those cited, may be mentioned the cyclic poet Lesches, the historian Hellanicus and the philosophers Theophrastus and Cratippus.

During the Byzantine age the island, which now assumes the name of Mytilene, continued to flourish. In 1091 it fell for a while into the hands of the Seljuks, and in the following century was repeatedly occupied by the Venetians. In 1224 it was recovered by the Byzantine emperors, who in 1354 gave it as a dowry to the Genoese family Gattilusio. After prospering under their administration Mytilene passed in 1462 under Turkish control, and has since had an uneventful history. The present population is about 130,000 of whom 13,000 are Turks and Moslems and 117,000 Greeks.

See Strabo xiii. pp. 617-619; Herodotus ii. 178, iii. 39, vi. 8, 14; Thucydides iii. 2-50; Xenophon, Hellenica, i., ii.; S. Plehn, Lesbiacorum Liber (Berlin, 1828); C. T. Newton, Travels and Discoveries in the Levant (London, 1865); B. V. Head, Historia Numorum (Oxford, 1887), pp. 487-488; E. L. Hicks and G. F. Hill, Greek Historical Inscriptions (Oxford, 1901), Nos. 61, 94, 101, 139, 164; Conze, Reise auf der Insel Lesbos (1865); Koldewey, Antike Baureste auf Lesbos (Berlin, 1890).

(M. O. B. C.)

LESCHES (Lescheos in Pausanias x. 25. 5), the reputed author of the Little Iliad (Ἰλιὰς μικρά), one of the “cyclic” poems. According to the usually accepted tradition, he was a native of Pyrrha in Lesbos, and flourished about 660 B.C. (others place him about 50 years earlier). The Little Iliad took up the story of the Homeric Iliad, and, beginning with the contest between Ajax and Odysseus for the arms of Achilles, carried it down to the fall of Troy (Aristotle, Poetics, 23). According to the epitome in the Chrestomathy of Proclus, it ended with the admission of the wooden horse within the walls of the city. Some ancient authorities ascribe the work to a Lacedaemonian named Cinaethon, and even to Homer.

See F. G. Welcker, Der epische Cyclus (1865-1882); Müller and Donaldson, Hist. of Greek Literature, i. ch. 6; G. H. Bode, Geschichte der hellenischen Dichtkunst, i.

LESCURE, LOUIS MARIE JOSEPH, Marquis de (1766-1793), French soldier and anti-revolutionary, was born near Bressuire. He was educated at the École Militaire, which he left at the age of sixteen. He was in command of a company of cavalry in the Régiment de Royal-Piémont, but being opposed to the ideas of the Revolution he emigrated in 1791; he soon, however, returned to France, and on the 10th of August 1792 took part in the defence of the Tuileries against the mob of Paris. The day after, he was forced to leave Paris, and took refuge in the château of Clisson near Bressuire. On the outbreak of the revolt of Vendée against the Republic, he was arrested and imprisoned with all his family, as one of the promoters of the rising. He was set at liberty by the Royalists, and became one of their leaders, fighting at Thouars, taking Fontenay and Saumur (May-June 1793), and, after an unsuccessful attack on Nantes, joining H. du Verger de la Rochejaquelein, another famous Vendean leader. Their peasant troops, opposed to the republican general F. J. Westermann, sustained various defeats, but finally gained a victory between Tiffauges and Cholet on the 19th of September 1793. The struggle was then concentrated round Chatillon, which was time after time taken and lost by the Republicans. Lescure was killed on the 15th of October 1793 near the château of La Tremblaye between Einée and Fougères.

See Marquise de la Rochejaquelein (Lescure’s widow, who afterwards married La Rochejaquelein), Mémoires (Paris, 1817); Jullien de Courcelles, Dictionnaire des généraux français, tome vii. (1823); T. Muret, Histoire des guerres de l’ouest (Paris, 1848); and J. A. M. Crétineau-Joly, Guerres de Vendée (1834).

LESDIGUIÈRES, FRANÇOIS DE BONNE, Duc de (1543-1626), constable of France, was born at Saint-Bonnet de Champsaur on the 1st of April 1543, of a family of notaries with pretensions to nobility. He was educated at Avignon under a Protestant tutor, and had begun the study of law in Paris when he enlisted as an archer. He served under the lieutenant-general of his native province of Dauphiné, Bertrand de Simiane, baron de Gordes, but when the Huguenots raised troops in Dauphiné Lesdiguières threw in his lot with them, and under his kinsman Antoine Rambaud de Furmeyer, whom he succeeded in 1570, distinguished himself in the mountain warfare that followed by his bold yet prudent handling of troops. He fought at Jarnac and Moncontour, and was a guest at the wedding of Henry IV. of Navarre. Warned of the impending massacre he retired hastily to Dauphiné, where he secretly equipped and drilled a determined body of Huguenots, and in 1575, after the execution of Montbrun, became the acknowledged leader of the Huguenot resistance in the district with the title of commandant general, confirmed in 1577 by Marshal Damville, by Condé in 1580, and by Henry of Navarre in 1582. He seized Gap by a lucky night attack on the 3rd of January 1577, re-established the reformed religion there, and fortified the town. He refused to acquiesce in the treaty of Poitiers (1578) which involved the surrender of Gap, and after two years of fighting secured better terms for the province. Nevertheless in 1580 he was compelled to hand the place over to Mayenne and to see the fortifications dismantled. He took up arms for Henry IV. in 1585, capturing Chorges, Embrun, Châteauroux and other places, and after the truce of 1588-1589 secured the complete submission of Dauphiné. In 1590 he beat down the resistance of Grenoble, and was now able to threaten the leaguers and to support the governor of Provence against the raids of Charles Emmanuel I. of Savoy. He defeated the Savoyards at Esparron in April 1591, and in 1592 began the reconquest of the marquessate of Saluzzo which had been seized by Charles Emmanuel. After his defeat of the Spanish allies of Savoy at Salebertrano in June 1593 there was a truce, during which Lesdiguières was occupied in maintaining the royal authority against Éperon in Provence. The war with Savoy proceeded intermittently until 1601, when Henry IV. concluded peace, much to the dissatisfaction of Lesdiguières. The king regarded his lieutenant’s domination in Dauphiné with some distrust, although he was counted among the best of his captains. Nevertheless he made him a marshal of France in 1609, and ensured the succession to the lieutenant-generalship of Dauphiné, vested in Lesdiguières since 1597, to his son-in-law Charles de Créquy. Sincerely devoted to the throne, Lesdiguières took no part in the intrigues which disturbed the minority of Louis XIII., and he moderated the political claims made by his co-religionists under the terms of the Edict of Nantes. After the death of his first wife, Claudine de Bérenger, he married the widow of Ennemond Matel, a Grenoble shopkeeper, who was murdered in 1617. Lesdiguières was then 73, and this lady, Marie Vignon, had long been his mistress. He had two daughters, one of whom, Françoise, married Charles de Créquy. In 1622 he formally abjured the Protestant faith, his conversion being partly due to the influence of Marie Vignon. He was already a duke and peer of France; he now became constable of France, and received the order of the Saint Esprit. He had long since lost the confidence of the Huguenots, but he nevertheless helped the Vaudois against the duke of Savoy. Lesdiguières had the qualities of a great general, but circumstances limited him to the mountain warfare of Dauphiné, Provence and Savoy. He had almost unvarying success through sixty years of fighting. His last campaign, fought in alliance with Savoy to drive the Spaniards from the Valtelline, was the least successful of his enterprises. He died of fever at Valence on the 21st of September 1626.

The life of the Huguenot captain has been written in detail by Ch. Dufuyard, Le Connétable de Lesdiguières (Paris, 1892). His first biographer was his secretary Louis Videl, Histoire de la vie du connestable de Lesdiguières (Paris, 1638). Much of his official correspondence, with an admirable sketch of his life, is contained in Actes et correspondance du connétable de Lesdiguières, edited by Comte Douglas and J. Roman in Documents historiques inédits pour servir à l’histoire de Dauphiné (Grenoble, 1878). Other letters are in the Lettres et mémoires (Paris, 1647) of Duplessis-Mornay.

LESGHIANS, or Lesghis (from the Persian Leksi, called Leki by the Grusians or Georgians, Armenians and Ossetes), the collective name for a number of tribes of the eastern Caucasus, who, with their kinsfolk the Chechenzes, have inhabited Daghestan from time immemorial. They spread southward into the Transcaucasian circles Kuba, Shemakha, Nukha and Sakataly. They are mentioned as Λῆχαι by Strabo and Plutarch along with the Γῆλαι (perhaps the modern Galgai, a Chechenzian tribe), and their name occurs frequently in the chronicles of the Georgians, whose territory was exposed to their raids for centuries, until, on the surrender (1859) to Russia of the Chechenzian chieftain Shamyl, they became Russian subjects. Moses of Chorene mentions a battle in the reign of the Armenian king Baba (A.D. 370-377), in which Shagir, king of the Lekians, was slain. The most important of the Lesghian tribes are the Avars (q.v.), the Kasimukhians or Lakians, the Darghis and the Kurins or Lesghians proper. Komarov1 gives the total number of the tribes as twenty-seven, all speaking distinct dialects. Despite this, the Lesghian peoples, with the exception of the Udi and Kubatschi, are held to be ethnically identical. The Lesghians are not usually so good-looking as the Circassians or the Chechenzes. They are tall, powerfully built, and their hybrid descent is suggested by the range of colouring, some of the tribes exhibiting quite fair, others quite dark, individuals. Among some there is an obvious mongoloid strain. In disposition they are intelligent, bold and persistent, and capable of reckless bravery, as was proved in their struggle to maintain their independence. They are capable of enduring great physical fatigue. They live a semi-savage life on their mountain slopes, for the most part living by hunting and stock-breeding. Little agriculture is possible. Their industries are mainly restricted to smith-work and cutlery and the making of felt cloaks, and the women weave excellent shawls. They are for the most part fanatical Mahommedans.

See Moritz Wagner, Schamyl (Leipzig, 1854); von Seidlitz, “Ethnographie des Kaukasus,” in Petermann’s Mitteilungen (1880); Ernest Chantre, Recherches anthropologiques dans le Caucase (Lyon, 1885-1887); J. de Morgan, Recherches sur les origines des peuples du Caucase (Paris, 1889).

1 Ethnological Map of Daghestan.

LESINA (Serbo-Croatian, Hvar), an island in the Adriatic Sea, forming part of Dalmatia, Austria. Lesina lies between the islands of Brazza on the north and Curzola on the south; and is divided from the peninsula of Sabbioncello by the Narenta channel. Its length is 41 m.; its greatest breadth less than 4 m. It has a steep rocky coast with a chain of thinly wooded limestone hills. The climate is mild, and not only the grape and olive, but dates, figs and the carob or locust-bean flourish. The cultivation of these fruits, boat-building, fishing and the preparation of rosemary essence and liqueurs are the principal resources of the islanders. Lesina (Hvar) and Cittavecchia (Starigrad) are the principal towns and seaports, having respectively 2138 and 3120 inhabitants. Lesina, the capital, contains an arsenal, an observatory and some interesting old buildings of the 16th century. It is a Roman Catholic bishopric, and the centre of an administrative district, which includes Cittavecchia, Lissa, and some small neighbouring islands. Pop. (1900) of island 18,091, of district 27,928.

To the primitive “Illyrian” race, whose stone cists and bronze implements have been disinterred from barrows near the capital, may perhaps be attributed the “Cyclopean” walls at Cittavecchia. About 385 B.C., a Greek colony from Paros built a city on the site of the present Lesina, naming it Paros or Pharos. The forms Phara, Pharia (common among Latin writers), and Pityeia, also occur. In 229 B.C. the island was betrayed to the Romans by Demetrius, lieutenant of the Illyrian queen Teuta; but in 219, as Demetrius proved false to Rome also, his capital was razed by Lucius Aemilius Paullus. Neos Pharos, now Cittavecchia, took its place, and flourished until the 6th century, when the island was laid waste by barbarian invaders. Constantine Porphyrogenitus mentions Lesina as a colony of pagan Slavs, in the 10th century. Throughout the middle ages it remained a purely Slavonic community; and its name, which appears in old documents as Lisna, Lesna or Lyesena, “wooded” is almost certainly derived from the Slavonic lyés, “forest,” not from the Italian lesina, “an awl.” But the old form Pharia persisted, as Far or Hvar, with the curious result that the modern Serbo-Croatian name is Greek, and the modern Italian name Slavonic in origin. Lesina became a bishopric in 1145, and received a charter from Venice in 1331. It was sacked by the enemies of Venice in 1354 and 1358; ceded to Hungary in the same year; held by Ragusa from 1413 to 1416; and incorporated in the Venetian dominions in 1420. During the 16th century Lesina city had a considerable maritime trade, and, though sacked and partly burned by the Turks in 1571, it remained the chief naval station of Venice, in these waters, until 1776, when it was superseded by Curzola. Passing to Austria in 1797, and to France in 1805, it withstood a Russian attack in 1807, but was surrendered by the French in 1813, and finally annexed to Austria in 1815.

LESION (through Fr. from Lat. laesio, injury, laedere, to hurt), an injury, hurt, damage. In Scots law the term is used of damage suffered by a party in a contract sufficient to enable him to bring an action for setting it aside. In pathology, the chief use, the word is applied to any morbid change in the structure of an organ, whether shown by visible changes or by disturbance of function.

LESKOVATS (Leskovatz or Leskovac), a town in Servia, between Nish and Vranya, on the railway line from Nish to Salonica. Pop. (1901) 13,707. It is the headquarters of the Servian hemp industry, the extensive plain in which the town lies growing the best flax and hemp in all the Balkan peninsula. The plain is not only the most fertile portion of Servia, but also the best cultivated. Besides flax and hemp, excellent tobacco is grown. Five valleys converge on the plain from different directions, and the inhabitants of the villages in these valleys are all occupied in growing flax and hemp, which they send to Leskovats to be stored or manufactured into ropes. After Belgrade and Nish, Leskovats is the most prosperous town in Servia.

LESLEY, JOHN (1527-1596), Scottish bishop and historian, was born in 1527. His father was Gavin Lesley, rector of Kingussie. He was educated at the university of Aberdeen, where he took the degree of M.A. In 1538 he obtained a dispensation permitting him to hold a benefice, notwithstanding his being a natural son, and in June 1546 he was made an acolyte in the cathedral church of Aberdeen, of which he was afterwards appointed a canon and prebendary. He also studied at Poitiers, at Toulouse and at Paris, where he was made doctor of laws in 1553. In 1558 he took orders and was appointed Official of Aberdeen, and inducted into the parsonage and prebend of Oyne. At the Reformation Lesley became a champion of Catholicism. He was present at the disputation held in Edinburgh in 1561, when Knox and Willox were his antagonists. He was one of the commissioners sent the same year to bring over the young Queen Mary to take the government of Scotland. He returned in her train, and was appointed a privy councillor and professor of canon law in King’s College, Aberdeen, and in 1565 one of the senators of the college of justice. Shortly afterwards he was made abbot of Lindores, and in 1565 bishop of Ross, the election to the see being confirmed in the following year. He was one of the sixteen commissioners appointed to revise the laws of Scotland, and the volume of the Actis and Constitutionis of the Realme of Scotland known as the Black Acts was, chiefly owing to his care, printed in 1566.

The bishop was one of the most steadfast friends of Queen Mary. After the failure of the royal cause, and whilst Mary was a captive in England, Lesley (who had gone to her at Bolton) continued to exert himself on her behalf. He was one of the commissioners at the conference at York in 1568. He appeared as her ambassador at the court of Elizabeth to complain of the injustice done to her, and when he found he was not listened to, he laid plans for her escape. He also projected a marriage for her with the duke of Norfolk, which ended in the execution of that nobleman. For this he was put under the charge of the bishop of London, and then of the bishop of Ely (in Holborn), and afterwards imprisoned in the Tower of London. During his confinement he collected materials for his history of Scotland, by which his name is now chiefly known. In 1571 he presented the latter portion of this work, written in Scots, to Queen Mary to amuse her in her captivity. He also wrote for her use his Piae Consolationes, and the queen devoted some of the hours of her captivity to translating a portion of it into French verse.

In 1573 he was liberated from prison, but was banished from England. For two years he attempted unsuccessfully to obtain the assistance of Continental princes in favour of Queen Mary. While at Rome in 1578 he published his Latin history De Origine, Moribus, et Rebus Gestis Scotorum. In 1579 he went to France, and was made suffragan and vicar-general of the archbishopric of Rouen. Whilst visiting his diocese, however, he was thrown into prison, and had to pay 3000 pistoles to prevent his being given up to Elizabeth. During the remainder of the reign of Henry III. he lived unmolested, but on the accession of the Protestant Henry IV. he again fell into trouble. In 1590 he was thrown into prison, and had to purchase his freedom at the same expense as before. In 1593 he was made bishop of Coutances in Normandy, and had licence to hold the bishopric of Ross till he should obtain peaceable possession of the former see. He retired to an Augustinian monastery near Brussels, where he died on the 31st of May 1596.

The chief works of Lesley are as follows: A Defence of the Honour of ... Marie, Queene of Scotland, by Eusebius Dicaeophile (London, 1569), reprinted, with alterations, at Liége in 1571, under the title, A Treatise concerning the Defence of the Honour of Marie, Queene of Scotland, made by Morgan Philippes, Bachelar of Divinitie, Piae afflicti animi consolationes, ad Mariam Scot. Reg. (Paris, 1574); De origine, moribus et rebus gestis Scotorum libri decem (Rome, 1578; re-issued 1675); De illustrium feminarum in republica administranda authoritate libellus (Reims, 1580; a Latin version of a tract on “The Lawfulness of the Regiment of Women”: cf. Knox’s pamphlet); De titulo et jure Mariae Scot. Reg., quo regni Angliae successionem sibi juste vindicat (Reims, 1580; translated in 1584). The history of Scotland from 1436 to 1561 owes much, in its earlier chapters, to the accounts of Hector Boece (q.v.) and John Major (q.v.), though no small portion of the topographical matter is first-hand. In the later sections he gives an independent account (from the Catholic point of view) which is a valuable supplement and a corrective in many details, to the works of Buchanan and Knox. A Scots version of the history was written in 1596 by James Dalrymple of the Scottish Cloister at Regensburg. It has been printed for the Scottish Text Society (2 vols., 1888-1895) under the editorship of the Rev. E. G. Cody, O.S.B. A slight sketch by Lesley of Scottish history from 1562 to 1571 has been translated by Forbes-Leith in his Narrative of Scottish Catholics (1885), from the original MS. now in the Vatican.

LESLEY, J. PETER (1819-1903), American geologist, was born in Philadelphia on the 17th of September 1819. It is recorded by Sir A. Geikie that “He was christened Peter after his father and grandfather, and at first wrote his name ‘Peter Lesley, Jr.,’ but disliking the Christian appellation that had been given to him, he eventually transformed his signature by putting the J. of ‘Junior’ at the beginning.” He was educated for the ministry at the university of Pennsylvania, where he graduated in 1838; but the effects of close study having told upon his health, he served for a time as sub-assistant on the first geological survey of Pennsylvania under Professor H. D. Rogers, and was afterwards engaged in a special examination of the coal regions. On the termination of the survey in 1841 he entered Princeton seminary and renewed his theological studies, at the same time giving his leisure time to assist Professor Rogers in preparing the final report and map of Pennsylvania. He was licensed to preach in 1844; he then paid a visit to Europe and entered on a short course of study at the university of Halle. Returning to America he worked during two years for the American Tract Society, and at the close of 1847 he joined Professor Rogers again in preparing geological maps and sections at Boston. He then accepted the pastorate of the Congregational church at Milton, a suburb of Boston, where he remained until 1851, when, his views having become Unitarian, he abandoned the ministry and entered into practice as a consulting geologist. In the course of his work he made elaborate surveys of the Cape Breton coalfield, and of other coal and iron regions. From 1855 to 1859 he was secretary of the American Iron Association; for twenty-seven years (1858-1885) he was secretary and librarian of the American Philosophical Society; from 1872 to 1878 he was professor of geology and dean of the faculty of science in the university of Pennsylvania, and from 1874-1893 he was in charge of the second geological survey of the state. He then retired to Milton, Mass., where he died on the 1st of June 1903. He published Manual of Coal and its Topography (1856); The Iron Manufacturer’s Guide to the Furnaces, Forges and Rolling Mills of the United States (1859).

See Memoir by Sir A. Geikie in Quart. Journ. Geol. Soc. (May 1904); and Memoir (with portrait) by B. S. Lyman, printed in advance with portrait, and afterwards in abstract only in Trans. Amer. Inst. Mining Engineers, xxxiv. (1904) p. 726.

LESLIE, CHARLES (1650-1722), Anglican nonjuring divine, son of John Leslie (1571-1671), bishop of Raphoe and afterwards of Clogher, was born in July 1650 in Dublin, and was educated at Enniskillen school and Trinity College, Dublin. Going to England he read law for a time, but soon turned his attention to theology, and took orders in 1680. In 1687 he became chancellor of the cathedral of Connor and a justice of the peace, and began a long career of public controversy by responding in public disputation at Monaghan to the challenge of the Roman Catholic bishop of Clogher. Although a vigorous opponent of Roman Catholicism, Leslie was a firm supporter of the Stuart dynasty, and, having declined at the Revolution to take the oath to William and Mary, he was on this account deprived of his benefice. In 1689 the growing troubles in Ireland induced him to withdraw to England, where he employed himself for the next twenty years in writing various controversial pamphlets in favour of the nonjuring cause, and in numerous polemics against the Quakers, Jews, Socinians and Roman Catholics, and especially in that against the Deists with which his name is now most commonly associated. He had the keenest scent for every form of heresy and was especially zealous in his defence of the sacraments. A warrant having been issued against him in 1710 for his pamphlet The Good Old Cause, or Lying in Truth, he resolved to quit England and to accept an offer made by the Pretender (with whom he had previously been in frequent correspondence) that he should reside with him at Bar-le-Duc. After the failure of the Stuart cause in 1715, Leslie accompanied his patron into Italy, where he remained until 1721, in which year, having found his sojourn amongst Roman Catholics extremely unpleasant, he sought and obtained permission to return to his native country. He died at Glaslough, Monaghan, on the 13th of April 1722.

The Theological Works of Leslie were collected and published by himself in 2 vols. folio in 1721; a later edition, slightly enlarged, appeared at Oxford in 1832 (7 vols. 8vo). Though marred by persistent arguing in a circle they are written in lively style and show considerable erudition. He had the somewhat rare distinction of making several converts by his reasonings, and Johnson declared that “Leslie was a reasoner, and a reasoner who was not to be reasoned against.” An historical interest in all that now attaches to his subjects and his methods, as may be seen when the promise given in the title of his best-known work is contrasted with the actual performance. The book professes to be A Short and Easy Method with the Deists, wherein the certainty of the Christian Religion is Demonstrated by Infallible Proof from Four Rules, which are incompatible to any imposture that ever yet has been, or that can possibly be (1697). The four rules which, according to Leslie, have only to be rigorously applied in order to establish not the probability merely but the absolute certainty of the truth of Christianity are simply these: (1) that the matter of fact be such as that men’s outward senses, their eyes and ears, may be judges of it; (2) that it be done publicly, in the face of the world; (3) that not only public monuments be kept up in memory of it, but some outward actions be performed; (4) that such monuments and such actions or observances be instituted and do commence from the time that the matter of fact was done. Other publications of Leslie are The Snake in the Grass (1696), against the Quakers; A Short Method with the Jews (1689); Gallienus Redivivus (an attack on William III., 1695); The Socinian Controversy Discussed (1697); The True Notion of the Catholic Church (1703); and The Case Stated between the Church of Rome and the Church of England (1713).

LESLIE, CHARLES ROBERT (1794-1859), English genre-painter, was born in London on the 19th of October 1794. His parents were American, and when he was five years of age he returned with them to their native country. They settled in Philadelphia, where their son was educated and afterwards apprenticed to a bookseller. He was, however, mainly interested in painting and the drama, and when George Frederick Cooke visited the city he executed a portrait of the actor, from recollection of him on the stage, which was considered a work of such promise that a fund was raised to enable the young artist to study in Europe. He left for London in 1811, bearing introductions which procured for him the friendship of West, Beechey, Allston, Coleridge and Washington Irving, and was admitted as a student of the Royal Academy, where he carried off two silver medals. At first, influenced by West and Fuseli, he essayed “high art,” and his earliest important subject depicted Saul and the Witch of Endor; but he soon discovered his true aptitude and became a painter of cabinet-pictures, dealing, not like those of Wilkie, with the contemporary life that surrounded him, but with scenes from the great masters of fiction, from Shakespeare and Cervantes, Addison and Molière, Swift, Sterne, Fielding and Smollett. Of individual paintings we may specify “Sir Roger de Coverley going to Church” (1819); “May-day in the Time of Queen Elizabeth” (1821); “Sancho Panza and the Duchess” (1824); “Uncle Toby and the Widow Wadman” (1831); La Malade Imaginaire, act iii. sc. 6 (1843); and the “Duke’s Chaplain Enraged leaving the Table,” from Don Quixote (1849). Many of his more important subjects exist in varying replicas. He possessed a sympathetic imagination, which enabled him to enter freely into the spirit of the author whom he illustrated, a delicate perception for female beauty, an unfailing eye for character and its outward manifestation in face and figure, and a genial and sunny sense of humour, guided by an instinctive refinement which prevented it from overstepping the bounds of good taste. In 1821 Leslie was elected A.R.A., and five years later full academician. In 1833 he left for America to become teacher of drawing in the military academy at West Point, but the post proved an irksome one, and in some six months he returned to England. He died on the 5th of May 1859.

In addition to his skill as an artist, Leslie was a ready and pleasant writer. His Life of his friend Constable, the landscape painter, appeared in 1843, and his Handbook for Young Painters, a volume embodying the substance of his lectures as professor of painting to the Royal Academy, in 1855. In 1860 Tom Taylor edited his Autobiography and Letters, which contain interesting reminiscences of his distinguished friends and contemporaries.

LESLIE, FRED [Frederick Hobson] (1855-1892), English actor, was born at Woolwich on the 1st of April 1855. He made his first stage appearance in London as Colonel Hardy in Paul Pry in 1878. He had a good voice, and in 1882 made a great hit as Rip Van Winkle in Planquette’s opera of that name at the Comedy. In 1885 he appeared at the Gaiety as Jonathan Wild in H. P. Stephens and W. Yardley’s burlesque Little Jack Sheppard. His extraordinary success in this part determined his subsequent career, and for some years he and Nelly Farren, with whom he played in perfect association, were the pillars of Gaiety burlesque. Leslie’s “Don Caesar de Bazan” in Ruy Blas, or the Blasé Roué, was perhaps the most popular of his later parts. In all of them it was his own versatility and entertaining personality which formed the attraction; whether he sang, danced, whistled or “gagged,” his performance was an unending flow of high spirits and ludicrous charm. Under the pseudonym of “A. C. Torr” he was acknowledged on the programmes as part-author of these burlesques, and while on occasion he acted in more serious comedy, for which he had undoubted capacity, his fame rests on his connexion with them. In 1881 and 1883 he played in America. He died on the 7th of December 1892.

See W. T. Vincent, Recollections of Fred Leslie (1894).

LESLIE, SIR JOHN (1766-1832), Scottish mathematician and physicist, was born of humble parentage at Largo, Fifeshire, on the 16th of April 1766, and received his early education there and at Leven. In his thirteenth year, encouraged by friends who had even then remarked his aptitude for mathematical and physical science, he entered the university of St Andrews. On the completion of his arts course, he nominally studied divinity at Edinburgh until 1787; in 1788-1789 he spent rather more than a year as private tutor in a Virginian family, and from 1790 till the close of 1792 he held a similar appointment at Etruria in Staffordshire, with the family of Josiah Wedgwood, employing his spare time in experimental research and in preparing a translation of Buffon’s Natural History of Birds, which was published in nine 8vo vols. in 1793, and brought him some money. For the next twelve years (passed chiefly in London or at Largo, with an occasional visit to the continent of Europe) he continued his physical studies, which resulted in numerous papers contributed by him to Nicholson’s Philosophical Journal, and in the publication (1804) of the Experimental Inquiry into the Nature and Properties of Heat, a work which gained him the Rumford Medal of the Royal Society of London. In 1805 he was elected to succeed John Playfair in the chair of mathematics at Edinburgh, not, however, without violent though unsuccessful opposition on the part of a narrow-minded clerical party who accused him of heresy in something he had said as to the “unsophisticated notions of mankind” about the relation of cause and effect. During his tenure of this chair he published two volumes of a Course of Mathematics—the first, entitled Elements of Geometry, Geometrical Analysis and Plane Trigonometry, in 1809, and the second, Geometry of Curve Lines, in 1813; the third volume, on Descriptive Geometry and the Theory of Solids was never completed. With reference to his invention (in 1810) of a process of artificial congelation, he published in 1813 A Short Account of Experiments and Instruments depending on the relations of Air to Heat and Moisture; and in 1818 a paper by him “On certain impressions of cold transmitted from the higher atmosphere, with an instrument (the aethrioscope) adapted to measure them,” appeared in the Transactions of the Royal Society of Edinburgh. In 1819, on the death of Playfair, he was promoted to the more congenial chair of natural philosophy, which he continued to hold until his death, and in 1823 he published, chiefly for the use of his class, the first volume of his never-completed Elements of Natural Philosophy. Leslie’s main contributions to physics were made by the help of the “differential thermometer,” an instrument whose invention was contested with him by Count Rumford. By adapting to this instrument various ingenious devices he was enabled to employ it in a great variety of investigations, connected especially with photometry, hygroscopy and the temperature of space. In 1820 he was elected a corresponding member of the Institute of France, the only distinction of the kind which he valued, and early in 1832 he was created a knight. He died at Coates, a small property which he had acquired near Largo, on the 3rd of November 1832.

LESLIE, THOMAS EDWARD CLIFFE (1827-1882), English economist, was born in the county of Wexford in (as is believed) the year 1827. He was the second son of the Rev. Edward Leslie, prebendary of Dromore, and rector of Annahilt, in the county of Down. His family was of Scottish descent, but had been connected with Ireland since the reign of Charles I. Amongst his ancestors were that accomplished prelate, John Leslie (1571-1671), bishop first of Raphoe and afterwards of Clogher, who, when holding the former see, offered so stubborn a resistance to the Cromwellian forces, and the bishop’s son Charles (see above), the nonjuror. Cliffe Leslie received his elementary education from his father, who resided in England, though holding church preferment as well as possessing some landed property in Ireland; by him he was taught Latin, Greek and Hebrew, at an unusually early age; he was afterwards for a short time under the care of a clergyman at Clapham, and was then sent to King William’s College, in the Isle of Man, where he remained until, in 1842, being then only fifteen years of age, he entered Trinity College, Dublin. He was a distinguished student there, obtaining, besides other honours, a classical scholarship in 1845, and a senior moderatorship (gold medal) in mental and moral philosophy at his degree examination in 1846. He became a law student at Lincoln’s Inn, was for two years a pupil in a conveyancer’s chambers in London, and was called to the English bar. But his attention was soon turned from the pursuit of legal practice, for which he seems never to have had much inclination, by his appointment, in 1853, to the professorship of jurisprudence and political economy in Queen’s College, Belfast. The duties of this chair requiring only short visits to Ireland in certain terms of each year, he continued to reside and prosecute his studies in London, and became a frequent writer on economic and social questions in the principal reviews and other periodicals. In 1870 he collected a number of his essays, adding several new ones, into a volume entitled Land Systems and Industrial Economy of Ireland, England and Continental Countries. J. S. Mill gave a full account of the contents of this work in a paper in the Fortnightly Review, in which he pronounced Leslie to be “one of the best living writers on applied political economy.” Mill had sought his acquaintance on reading his first article in Macmillan’s Magazine; he admired his talents and took pleasure in his society, and treated him with a respect and kindness which Leslie always gratefully acknowledged.

In the frequent visits which Leslie made to the continent, especially to Belgium and some of the less-known districts of France and Germany, he occupied himself much in economic and social observation, studying the effects of the institutions and system of life which prevailed in each region, on the material and moral condition of its inhabitants. In this way he gained an extensive and accurate acquaintance with continental rural economy, of which he made excellent use in studying parallel phenomena at home. The accounts he gave of the results of his observations were among his happiest efforts; “no one,” said Mill, “was able to write narratives of foreign visits at once so instructive and so interesting.” In these excursions he made the acquaintance of several distinguished persons, amongst others of M. Léonce de Lavergne and M. Émile de Laveleye. To the memory of the former of these he afterwards paid a graceful tribute in a biographical sketch (Fortnightly Review, February 1881); and to the close of his life there existed between him and M. de Laveleye relations of mutual esteem and cordial intimacy.

Two essays of Leslie’s appeared in volumes published under the auspices of the Cobden Club, one on the “Land System of France” (2nd ed., 1870), containing an earnest defence of la petite culture and still more of la petite propriété; the other on “Financial Reform” (1871), in which he exhibited in detail the impediments to production and commerce arising from indirect taxation. Many other articles were contributed by him to reviews between 1875 and 1879, including several discussions of the history of prices and the movements of wages in Europe, and a sketch of life in Auvergne in his best manner; the most important of them, however, related to the philosophical method of political economy, notably a memorable one which appeared in the Dublin University periodical, Hermathena. In 1879 the provost and senior fellows of Trinity College published for him a volume in which a number of these articles were collected under the title of Essays in Political and Moral Philosophy. These and some later essays, together with the earlier volume on Land Systems, form the essential contribution of Leslie to economic literature. He had long contemplated, and had in part written, a work on English economic and legal history, which would have been his magnum opus—a more substantial fruit of his genius and his labours than anything he has left. But the MS. of this treatise, after much pains had already been spent on it, was unaccountably lost at Nancy in 1872; and, though he hoped to be able speedily to reproduce the missing portion and finish the work, no material was left in a state fit for publication. What the nature of it would have been may be gathered from an essay on the “History and Future of Profit” in the Fortnightly Review for November 1881, which is believed to have been in substance an extract from it.

That he was able to do so much may well be a subject of wonder when it is known that his labours had long been impeded by a painful and depressing malady, from which he suffered severely at intervals, whilst he never felt secure from its recurring attacks. To this disease he in the end succumbed at Belfast, on the 27th of January 1882.

Leslie’s work may be distributed under two heads, that of applied political economy and that of discussion on the philosophical method of the science. The Land Systems belonged principally to the former division. The author perceived the great and growing importance for the social welfare of both Ireland and England of what is called “the land question,” and treated it in this volume at once with breadth of view and with a rich variety of illustrative detail. His general purpose was to show that the territorial systems of both countries were so encumbered with elements of feudal origin as to be altogether unfitted to serve the purposes of a modern industrial society. The policy he recommended is summed up in the following list of requirements, “a simple jurisprudence relating to land, a law of equal intestate succession, a prohibition of entail, a legal security for tenants’ improvements, an open registration of title and transfer and a considerable number of peasant properties.” The volume is full of practical good sense, and exhibits a thorough knowledge of home and foreign agricultural economy; and in the handling of the subject is everywhere shown the special power which its author possessed of making what he wrote interesting as well as instructive. The way in which sagacious observation and shrewd comment are constantly intermingled in the discussion not seldom reminds us of Adam Smith, whose manner was more congenial to Leslie than the abstract and arid style of Ricardo.

But what, more than anything else, marks him as an original thinker and gives him a place apart among contemporary economists, is his exposition and defence of the historical method in political economy. Both at home and abroad there has for some time existed a profound and growing dissatisfaction with the method and many of the doctrines of the hitherto dominant school, which, it is alleged, under a “fictitious completeness, symmetry and exactness” disguises a real hollowness and discordance with fact. It is urged that the attempt to deduce the economic phenomena of a society from the so-called universal principle of “the desire of wealth” is illusory, and that they cannot be fruitfully studied apart from the general social conditions and historic development of which they are the outcome. Of this movement of thought Leslie was the principal representative, if not the originator, in England. There is no doubt, for he has himself placed it on record, that the first influence which impelled him in the direction of the historical method was that of Sir Henry Maine, by whose personal teaching of jurisprudence, as well as by the example of his writings, he was led “to look at the present economic structure and state of society as the result of a long evolution.” The study of those German economists who represent similar tendencies doubtless confirmed him in the new line of thought on which he had entered, though he does not seem to have been further indebted to any of them except, perhaps, in some small degree to Roscher. And the writings of Comte, whose “prodigious genius,” as exhibited in the Philosophie Positive, he admired and proclaimed, though he did not accept his system as a whole, must have powerfully co-operated to form in him the habit of regarding economic science as only a single branch of sociology, which should always be kept in close relation to the others. The earliest writing in which Leslie’s revolt against the so-called “orthodox school” distinctly appears is his Essay on Wages, which was first published in 1868 and was reproduced as an appendix to the volume on Land Tenures. In this, after exposing the inanity of the theory of the wage-fund, and showing the utter want of agreement between its results and the observed phenomena, he concludes by declaring that “political economy must be content to take rank as an inductive, instead of a purely deductive science,” and that, by this change of character, “it will gain in utility, interest and real truth far more than a full compensation for the forfeiture of a fictitious title to mathematical exactness and certainty.” But it is in the essays collected in the volume of 1879 that his attitude in relation to the question of method is most decisively marked. In one of these, on “the political economy of Adam Smith,” he exhibits in a very interesting way the co-existence in the Wealth of Nations of historical-inductive investigation in the manner of Montesquieu with a priori speculation founded on theologico-metaphysical bases, and points out the error of ignoring the former element, which is the really characteristic feature of Smith’s social philosophy, and places him in strong contrast with his soi-disant followers of the school of Ricardo. The essay, however, which contains the most brilliant polemic against the “orthodox school,” as well as the most luminous account and the most powerful vindication of the new direction, was that of which we have above spoken as having first appeared in Hermathena. It may be recommended as supplying the best extant presentation of one of the two contending views of economic method. On this essay mainly rests the claim of Leslie to be regarded as the founder and first head of the English historical school of political economy. Those who share his views on the philosophical constitution of the science regard the work he did, notwithstanding its unsystematic character, as in reality the most important done by any English economists in the latter half of the 19th century. But even the warmest partisans of the older school acknowledge that he did excellent service by insisting on a kind of inquiry, previously too much neglected, which was of the highest interest and value, in whatever relation it might be supposed to stand to the establishment of economic truth. The members of both groups alike recognized his great learning, his patient and conscientious habits of investigation and the large social spirit in which he treated the problems of his science.

(J. K. I.)

LESLIE, a police burgh of Fifeshire, Scotland. Pop. (1901) 3587. It lies on the Leven, the vale of which is overlooked by the town, 4 m. W. of Markinch by the North British railway. The industries include paper-making, flax-spinning, bleaching and linen-weaving. The old church claims to be the “Christ’s Kirk on the Green” of the ancient ballads of that name. A stone on the Green, called the Bull Stone, is said to have been used when bull-baiting was a popular pastime. Leslie House, the seat of the earl of Rothes, designed by Sir William Bruce, rivalled Holyrood in magnificence. It was noted for its tapestry and its gallery of family portraits and other pictures, including a portrait of Rembrandt by himself. Daniel Defoe considered its park the glory of the kingdom. The mansion sustained serious damage from fire in 1763. Norman Leslie, master of Rothes, was concerned in the killing of Cardinal Beaton (1546), and the dagger with which John Leslie, Norman’s uncle, struck the fatal blow is preserved in Leslie House.

Markinch (pop. 1499), a police burgh situated between Conland Burn and the Leven, 7¼ m. N. by E. of Kirkcaldy by the North British railway, is a place of great antiquity. A cell of the Culdees was established here by one of the last of the Celtic bishops, the site of which may possibly be marked by the ancient cross of Balgonie. Markinch is also believed to have been a residence of the earlier kings, where prior to the 11th century they occasionally administered justice; and in the reign of William the Lion (d. 1214) the warrantors of goods alleged to have been stolen were required to appear here. Its industries comprise bleaching, flax-spinning, paper-making, distilling and coal-mining. Balgonie Castle, close by, the keep of which is 80 ft. high, was a residence of Alexander Leslie, the first earl of Leven, and at Balfour Castle were born Cardinal Beaton and his uncle and nephew the archbishops of Glasgow.

LESPINASSE, JEANNE JULIE ÉLÉONORE DE (1732-1776), French author, was born at Lyons on the 9th of November 1732. A natural child of the comtesse d’Albon, she was brought up as the daughter of Claude Lespinasse of Lyons. On leaving her convent school she became governess in the house of her mother’s legitimate daughter, Mme de Vichy, who had married the brother of the marquise du Deffand. Here Mme du Deffand made her acquaintance, and, recognizing her extraordinary gifts, persuaded her to come to Paris as her companion. The alliance lasted ten years (1754-1764) until Mme du Deffand became jealous of the younger woman’s increasing influence, when a violent quarrel ensued. Mlle de Lespinasse set up a salon of her own which was joined by many of the most brilliant members of Mme du Deffand’s circle. D’Alembert was one of the most assiduous of her friends and eventually came to live under the same roof. There was no scandal attached to this arrangement, which ensured d’Alembert’s comfort and lent influence to Mlle de Lespinasse’s salon. Although she had neither beauty nor rank, her ability as a hostess made her reunions the most popular in Paris. She owes her distinction, however, not to her social success, but to circumstances which remained a secret during her lifetime from her closest friends. Two volumes of Lettres published in 1809 displayed her as the victim of a passion of a rare intensity. In virtue of this ardent, intense quality Sainte Beuve and other of her critics place her letters in the limited category to which belong the Latin letters of Héloïse and those of the Portuguese Nun. Her first passion, a reasonable and serious one, was for the marquis de Mora, son of the Spanish ambassador in Paris. De Mora had come to Paris in 1765, and with some intervals remained there until 1772 when he was ordered to Spain for his health. On the way to Paris in 1774 to fulfil promises exchanged with Mlle de Lespinasse, he died at Bordeaux. But her letters to the comte de Guibert, the worthless object of her fatal infatuation, begin from 1773. From the struggle between her affection for de Mora and her blind passion for her new lover they go on to describe her partial disenchantment on Guibert’s marriage and her final despair. Mlle de Lespinasse died on the 23rd of May 1776, her death being apparently hastened by the agitation and misery to which she had been for the last three years of her life a prey. In addition to the Lettres she was the author of two chapters intended as a kind of sequel to Sterne’s Sentimental Journey.

Her Lettres ... were published by Mme de Guibert in 1809 and a spurious additional collection appeared in 1820. Among modern editions may be mentioned that of Eugène Asse (1876-1877). Lettres inédites de Mademoiselle de Lespinasse à Condorcet, à D’Alembert, à Guibert, au comte de Crillon, edited by M. Charles Henry (1887), contains copies of the documents available for her biography. Mrs Humphry Ward’s novel, Lady Rose’s Daughter, owes something to the character of Mlle de Lespinasse.

LES SABLES D’OLONNE, a seaport of western France, capital of an arrondissement of the department of Vendée, on an inlet of the Atlantic seaboard, 23 m. S.W. of La Roche-sur-Yon by rail. Pop. (1906) 11,847. The town stands between the sea on the south and the port on the north, while on the west it is separated by a channel from the suburb of La Chaume, built at the foot of a range of dunes 65 ft. high, which terminates southwards in the rocky peninsula of L’Aiguille. The beautiful smoothly sloping beach, 1 m. in length, is much frequented by bathers. To the north of Sables extend salt-marshes and oyster-parks, yielding 6,000,000 to 8,000,000 oysters per annum. Sables has a church built in the Late Gothic style towards the middle of the 17th century. The port, consisting of a tidal basin and a wet-dock, is accessible to vessels of 2000 tons, but is dangerous when the winds are from the south-west. The lighthouse of Barges, a mile out at sea to the west, is visible for 17 to 18 nautical miles. The inhabitants are employed largely in sardine and tunny fishing; there are imports of coal, wood, petroleum and phosphates. Boat-building and sardine-preserving are carried on. The town has a sub-prefecture and a tribunal of first instance.

Founded by Basque or Spanish sailors, Sables was the first place in Poitou invaded by the Normans in 817. Louis XI., who went there in 1472, granted the inhabitants various privileges, improved the harbour, and fortified the entrance. Captured and recaptured during the Wars of Religion, the town afterwards became a nursery of hardy sailors and privateers, who harassed the Spaniards and afterwards the English. In 1696 Sables was bombarded by the combined fleets of England and Holland. In the middle of the 18th century hurricanes caused grievous damage to town and harbour.

LES SAINTES-MARIES, a coast village of south-eastern France in the department of Boûches-du-Rhône, 24 m. S.S.W. of Arles by rail. Pop. (1906) 544. Saintes-Maries is situated in the plain of the Camargue, 1½ m. E. of the mouth of the Petit-Rhône. It is the object of an ancient and famous pilgrimage due to the tradition that Mary, sister of the Virgin, and Mary, mother of James and John, together with their black servant Sara, Lazarus, Martha, Mary Magdalen and St Maximin fled thither to escape persecution in Judaea. The relics of the two Maries, who are said to have been buried at Saintes-Maries, are bestowed in the upper storey of the apse of the fortress-church, a remarkable building of the 12th century with crenelated and machicolated walls. Two festivals are held in the town, a less important one in October, the other, on the 24th and 25th of May, unique for its gathering of gipsies who come in large numbers to do honour to the tomb of their patroness Sara, contained in the crypt below the apse.

LESSE, one of the most romantic of the smaller rivers of Belgium. It rises at Ochamps in the Ardennes, and flowing in a north-westerly course reaches the Meuse at Anseremme, a few miles above Dinant. The river is only 49 m. long, but its meandering course may be judged by the fact that it is no more than 29 m. from Ochamps to Anseremme in a straight line. There is a good deal of pretty scenery along this river, as, for instance, at Ciergnon, but the most striking part of the valley is contained in the last 12 m. from Houyet to Anseremme. In this section the river is confined between opposing walls of cliff ranging from 300 to 500 ft. above the river. Here were discovered in the caves near Walzin the bones of prehistoric men, and other evidence of the primitive occupants of this globe at a period practically beyond computation. Another curious natural feature of the Lesse is that on reaching the hill of Han it disappears underground, reappearing about 1 m. farther on at the village of that name. Here are the curious and interesting Han grottoes. The Lesse receives altogether in its short course the water of thirteen tributaries.

LESSEPS, FERDINAND DE (1805-1894). French diplomatist and maker of the Suez Canal, was born at Versailles on the 19th of November 1805. The origin of his family has been traced back as far as the end of the 14th century. His ancestors, it is believed, came from Scotland, and settled at Bayonne when that region was occupied by the English. One of his great-grandfathers was town clerk and at the same time secretary to Queen Anne of Neuberg, widow of Charles II. of Spain, exiled to Bayonne after the accession of Philip V. From the middle of the 18th century the ancestors of Ferdinand de Lesseps followed the diplomatic career, and he himself occupied with real distinction several posts in the same calling from 1825 to 1849. His uncle was ennobled by King Louis XVI., and his father was made a count by Napoleon I. His father, Mathieu de Lesseps (1774-1832), was in the consular service; his mother, Catherine de Grivégnée, was Spanish, and aunt of the countess of Montijo, mother of the empress Eugénie. His first years were spent in Italy, where his father was occupied with his consular duties. He was educated at the College of Henry IV. in Paris. From the age of 18 years to 20 he was employed in the commissary department of the army. From 1825 to 1827 he acted as assistant vice-consul at Lisbon, where his uncle, Barthélemy de Lesseps, was the French chargé d’affaires. This uncle was an old companion of La Pérouse and a survivor of the expedition in which that navigator perished. In 1828 Ferdinand was sent as an assistant vice-consul to Tunis, where his father was consul-general. He courageously aided the escape of Youssouff, pursued by the soldiers of the bey, of whom he was one of the officers, for violation of the seraglio law. Youssouff acknowledged this protection given by a Frenchman by distinguishing himself in the ranks of the French army at the time of the conquest of Algeria. Ferdinand de Lesseps was also entrusted by his father with missions to Marshal Count Clausel, general-in-chief of the army of occupation in Algeria. The marshal wrote to Mathieu de Lesseps on the 18th of December 1830: “I have had the pleasure of meeting your son, who gives promise of sustaining with great credit the name he bears.” In 1832 Ferdinand de Lesseps was appointed vice-consul at Alexandria. To the placing in quarantine of the vessel which took him to Egypt is due the origin of his great conception of a canal across the isthmus of Suez. In order to help him to while away the time at the lazaretto, M. Mimaut, consul-general of France at Alexandria, sent him several books, among which was the memoir written upon the Suez Canal, according to Bonaparte’s instructions, by the civil engineer Lapère, one of the scientific members of the French expedition. This work struck de Lesseps’s imagination, and gave him the idea of piercing the African isthmus. This idea, moreover, was conceived in circumstances that were to prepare the way for its realization. Mehemet Ali, who was the viceroy of Egypt, owed his position, to a certain extent, to the recommendations made in his behalf to the French government by Mathieu de Lesseps, who was consul-general in Egypt when Mehemet Ali was a simple colonel. The viceroy therefore welcomed Ferdinand affectionately, while Said Pacha, Mehemet’s son, began those friendly relations that he did not forget later, when he gave him the concession for making the Suez Canal. In 1833 Ferdinand de Lesseps was sent as consul to Cairo, and soon afterwards given the management of the consulate-general at Alexandria, a post that he held until 1837. While he was there a terrible epidemic of the plague broke out and lasted for two years, carrying off more than a third of the inhabitants of Cairo and Alexandria. During this time he went from one city to the other, according as the danger was more pressing, and constantly displayed an admirable zeal and an imperturbable energy. Towards the close of the year 1837 he returned to France, and on the 21st of December married Mlle Agathe Delamalle, daughter of the government prosecuting attorney at the court of Angers. By this marriage M. de Lesseps became the father of five sons. In 1839 he was appointed consul at Rotterdam, and in the following year transferred to Malaga, the place of origin of his mother’s family. In 1842 he was sent to Barcelona, and soon afterwards promoted to the grade of consul-general. In the course of a bloody insurrection in Catalonia, which ended in the bombardment of Barcelona, Ferdinand de Lesseps showed the most persistent bravery, rescuing from death, without distinction, the men belonging to the rival factions, and protecting and sending away not only the Frenchmen who were in danger, but foreigners of all nationalities. From 1848 to 1849 he was minister of France at Madrid. In the latter year the government of the French Republic confided to him a mission to Rome at the moment when it was a question whether the expelled pope would return to the Vatican with or without bloodshed. Following his interpretation of the instructions he had received, de Lesseps began negotiations with the existing government at Rome, according to which Pius IX. should peacefully re-enter the Vatican and the independence of the Romans be assured at the same time. But while he was negotiating, the elections in France had caused a change in the foreign policy of the government. His course was disapproved; he was recalled and brought before the council of state, which blamed his conduct without giving him a chance to justify himself. Rome, attacked by the French army, was taken by assault after a month’s sanguinary siege. M. de Lesseps then retired from the diplomatic service, and never afterwards occupied any public office. In 1853 he lost his wife and daughter at a few days’ interval. Perhaps his energy would not have been sufficient to sustain him against these repeated blows of destiny if, in 1854, the accession to the viceroyalty of Egypt of his old friend, Said Pacha, had not given a new impulse to the ideas that had haunted him for the last twenty-two years concerning the Suez Canal. Said Pacha invited M. de Lesseps to pay him a visit, and on the 7th of November 1854 he landed at Alexandria; on the 30th of the same month Said Pacha signed the concession authorizing M. de Lesseps to pierce the isthmus of Suez.