The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 290

"The Golden Legend," "Hiawatha," and "Miles Standish" (1807-1882).

LONGINUS, DIONYSIUS Ca.s.sIUS, a learned Greek philosopher, rhetorician, and critic, and eminent in all three departments, being in philosophy a Platonist of pure blood; his fame as a teacher reached the ears of Zen.o.bia, the queen of Palmyra, and being invited to her court he became her political adviser as well as the educator of her children, but on the surrender of the place he was beheaded by order of the Emperor Aurelian as a traitor; he wrote several works, but the only one that survives to some extent is his "Treatise on the Sublime," translated by Boileau (210-273).

LONGMANS, famous and oldest publis.h.i.+ng house in London; founded by Thomas Longman of Bristol in 1726, and now in the hands of the fifth generation; has been a.s.sociated with the production of Johnson's "Dictionary," Lindley Murray's "Grammar," the works of Wordsworth, Southey, Coleridge, and Scott, and Macaulay's "Lays," "Essays," and "History"; it absorbed the firm of Parker in 1863, and of Rivington in 1890.

LoNNROT, ELIAS, a great Finnish scholar, born in Nyland; was professor at Helsingfors; was editor of ancient Finnish compositions, and author of a Finnish-Swedish Dictionary (1802-1884).

LOPE DE VEGA. See VEGA.

LORD OF THE ISLES, a.s.sumed t.i.tle of Donald, a chief of Islay, who in 1346 reduced the whole of the Western Isles under his authority, and borne by his successors, and, as some allege, his ancestors as well.

LORELEI or LURLEI, a famous steep rock, 430 ft. high, on the Rhine, near St. Goar; dangerous to boatmen, on which it was fabled a siren sat combing her hair and singing to lure them to ruin; the subject of an exquisite Volkslied by Heine.

LORETTO, a city in Italy, 14 m. SE. of Ancona; celebrated as the site of the SANTA CASA (q. v.), and for the numerous pilgrims that annually resort to the holy shrine.

L'ORIENT (41), a seaport in Morbihan; contains the princ.i.p.al s.h.i.+pbuilding yard in France; was founded by the French East India Company in 1664 in connection with their trade in the East.

LORNE, MARQUIS OF, eldest son of the Duke of Argyll; entered Parliament in 1868; married Princess Louise, fourth daughter of Queen Victoria, in 1871; became Governor-General of Canada in 1878, member of Parliament for South Manchester in 1895, and is Governor of Windsor Castle; _b_. 1845.

LORRAINE, a district in France, between Metz and the Vosges; belonged originally to Germany, became French in 1766, and was restored to Germany in 1871.

LORRAINE, CLAUDE. See CLAUDE LORRAINE.

LOS ANGELES (11), a city in South California, 345 m. SE. of San Francisco, and founded in 1781; is the centre of a great orange-growing district, and a health resort.

LOST TRIBES, the ten tribes of the race of Israel whom the a.s.syrians carried off into captivity (see 2 Kings xvii. 6), and of whom all trace has been lost, and only in recent years guessed at.

LOTOPHAGI. See LOTUS EATERS.

LOTUS EATERS or LOTOPHAGI, an ancient people inhabiting a district of Cyrenaica, on the NE. coast of Africa, who lived on the fruit of the lotus-tree, from which they made wine. Ulysses and his companions in their wanderings landed on their sh.o.r.es, but the soothing influence of the lotus fruit so overpowered them with languor, that they felt no inclination to leave, or any more a desire to pursue the journey homewards. See Tennyson's poem "The Lotus-eaters."

LOTZE, RUDOLF HERMANN, German philosopher, born at Bautzen, in Saxony; professor successively at Gottingen and Berlin; believed in metaphysics as well as physics, and was versant in both; "Microcosmus" is his princ.i.p.al work, published in 1864; he founded the system of "teleological idealism," based on ethical considerations; he repudiated agnosticism, and had as little patience with a mere mechanical view of the universe as Carlyle (1817-1881).

LOUDON, JOHN CLAUDIUS, botanist and horticulturist, born at Cambuslang, Lanarks.h.i.+re; wrote largely on plants and their cultivation, and an "Arboretum" on trees and shrubs (1783-1843).

LOUIS I., LE DeBONNAIRE (i. e. the Gentle), was king of France from 814 to 840 in succession to his father Charlemagne, but was too meek and lowly to rule, and fitter for a monk than a king; suffered himself to be taken advantage of by his n.o.bles and the clergy; was dethroned by his sons, and compelled to retire into a cloister, from which he was twice over brought forth to stay the ravages of their enemies; he divided his kingdom among them during his lifetime, and bequeathed it to them to guard over it when he was gone, to its dismemberment.

LOUIS VI., LE GROS (i. e. the Fat), was son of Philip I.; was a.s.sociated in the royal power with his father from 1098 to 1108, and sole king from 1108 till 1137; in his struggle against the great va.s.sals he, by the help of the clergy and the bourgeois, centralised the government in the crown; had trouble with Henry I. of England as Lord Superior of Normandy, and was defeated by him in battle in 1119; under his reign the burgesses achieved their independence, and though he did nothing to initiate the movement he knew how to profit from the achievement in the interest of the monarchy.

LOUIS VII., THE YOUNG, son of the preceding, married Eleanor of Aquitaine; took part in the second crusade; on his return divorced his queen for her profligacy in his absence, who married Henry II. of England, and brought with her as dowry to Henry the richest provinces of France, which gave rise to the Hundred Years' War (1120-1180).

LOUIS VIII., THE LION, son of Philip Augustus; offered by the barons of England the crown of England, he was crowned at London in 1216, but defeated at Lincoln next year, he was obliged to recross the Channel; became king of France in 1223; he took several towns from the English, and conducted a crusade against the Albigenses (1187-1226).

LOUIS IX., SAINT LOUIS, son of the preceding; was a minor at the death of his father, and the country was governed by his mother, Blanche of Castile, with a strong hand; on attaining his majority he found himself engaged with the English under Henry, who had been called on to a.s.sist certain of the great barons in revolt, but in 1242 he defeated them in three engagements; under a vow he made during a dangerous illness he became a crusader, and in 1249 landed in Egypt with 40,000 men, but in an engagement was taken prisoner by the Saracens; released in 1250 on payment of a large ransom, though he did not return home for two years after, till on hearing of the death of his mother, who had been regent during his absence; on his return he applied himself to the affairs of his kingdom and the establishment of the royal power, but undertaking a second crusade in 1270, he got as far as Tunis, where a plague broke out in the camp, and he became one of the victims, and one of his sons before him; he was an eminently good and pious man, and was canonised by Boniface VIII. in 1297 (1215-1270).

LOUIS XI., son of Charles VII., born at Bourges, of a cruel and treacherous nature, took part in two insurrections against his father, by whom he had been pardoned after the first and from whom he had to flee after the second for refuge to Burgundy, where he remained till his father's death in 1461; he signalised the commencement of his reign by severe measures against the great va.s.sals, which provoked a revolt, headed by the Dukes of Burgundy and Bretagne, which he succeeded in subduing more by his crafty policy than force of arms; involved afterwards in a war with Charles the Bold of Burgundy and soliciting an interview, he was discovered by Charles to have been sowing treason among his subjects, taken prisoner, and only released on a solemn protestation of innocence; notwithstanding the sinister and often cruel character of his policy, he did much to develop the resources of the country and advance the cause of good government by the patronage of learning; the crimes he had committed weighed heavily on his mind towards the end of his days, and he died in great fear of death and the judgment (1423-1483).

LOUIS XIII., the son of Henry IV.; being only nine years old at the death of his father, the government was conducted by Marie de' Medicis, his mother, and at his accession the country was a prey to civil dissensions, which increased on the young king's marriage with a Spanish princess; the Huguenots rose in arms, but a peace was concluded in 1623; it was now Richelieu came to the front and a.s.sumed the reins with his threefold policy of taming the n.o.bles, checkmating the Huguenots, and humbling the house of Austria; Roch.e.l.le, the head-quarters of the Huguenots, revolted, the English a.s.sisting them, but by the strategy adopted the city was taken and the English driven to sea; henceforth the king was n.o.body and the cardinal was king; the cardinal died in 1642 and the king the year after, leaving two sons, Louis, who succeeded him, and Philip, Duke of Orleans and the first of his line (1601-1644).

LOUIS XIV., the "Grand Monarque," son of the preceding, was only nine when his father died, and the government was in the hands of his mother, Anne of Austria, and Cardinal Mazarin, her minister; under the regency the glory of France was maintained in the field, but her internal peace was disturbed by the insubordination of the parlement and the troubles of the Fronde; by a compact on the part of Mazarin with Spain before he died Louis was married to the Infanta Maria Theresa in 1659, and in 1660 he announced his intention to rule the kingdom alone, which he did for 54 years with a decision and energy no one gave him credit for, in fulfilment of his famous protestation _L'etat, c'est moi_, choosing Colbert to control finance, Louvois to reorganise the army, and Vauban to fortify the frontier towns; he sought to be as absolute in his foreign relations as in his internal administration, and hence the long succession of wars which, while they brought glory to France, ended in exhausting her; at home he suffered no one in religious matters to think otherwise than himself; he revoked the Edict of Nantes, sanctioned the dragonnades in the Cevennes, and to extirpate heresy encouraged every form of cruelty; yet when we look at the men who adorned it, the reign of Louis XIV. was one of the most ill.u.s.trious in letters and the arts in the history of France: Corneille, Racine, and Moliere eminent in the drama, La Fontaine and Boileau in poetry, Bossuet in oratory, Bruyere and Rochefoucauld in morals, Pascal in philosophy, Saint-Simon and Retz in history, and Poussin, Lorraine, Lebrun, Perault, &c., in art (1636-1715).

LOUIS XV., _Bien-Aime_ (i. e. Well-Beloved), great-grandson of the preceding, and only five at his death, the country during his minority being under the regency of Philip, Duke of Orleans; the regency was rendered disastrous by the failure of the Mississippi Scheme of Law and a war with Spain, caused by the rejection of a Spanish princess for Louis, and by his marriage to Maria Lesczynski, the daughter of Stanislas of Poland; Louis was crowned king in 1722 and declared of age the following year; in 1726 Cardinal Fleury, who had been his tutor, became his minister, and under him occurred the war of the succession to Poland, concluded by the treaty of Vienna, and the war of the Austrian succession, concluded by the treaty of Aix-la-Chapelle; with the death of his minister Louis gave way to his licentious propensities, and in all matters of state allowed himself to be swayed by unworthy favourites who pandered to his l.u.s.ts, the most conspicuous among them being Madame de Pompadour and Dame de Barry, her successor in crime; under them, and the corrupt court they presided over, the country went step by step to ruin, and she was powerless to withstand the military ascendency of England, which deprived her of all her colonies both in the East and in the West; though Choiseul, his last "substantial" minister, tried hard by a family compact of the Bourbons to collect her scattered strength; the situation did not trouble Louis; "it will last all my time," he said, and he let things go; suffering from a disease contracted by vice, he was seized with confluent smallpox, and died in misery, to the relief of the nation, which could not restrain its joy (1710-1774).

LOUIS XVI., the grandson of the preceding and his successor; had in 1770 married Marie Antoinette, the youngest daughter of Maria Theresa of Austria, and a woman young, beautiful, and accomplished, in high esteem for the purity of her character; his accession was hailed with enthusiasm, and he set himself to restore the ruined finances of the country by taking into his counsel those who could best advise him in her straitened state, but these one and all found the problem an impossible one, owing to the unwillingness of the n.o.bility to sacrifice any of their privileges for the public good; this led to the summoning of the States-General in 1789, and the outbreak of the Revolution by the fall of the Bastille in July of that year; in the midst of this Louis, well-intentioned but without strength of character, was submissive to the wishes of his court and the queen, lost his popularity by his hesitating conduct, the secret support he gave to the EMIGRANTS (q. v.), his attempt at flight, and by his negotiations with foreign enemies, and subjected himself to persecution at the hands of the nation; he was therefore suspended from his functions, shut up in the Temple, arraigned before the Convention, and condemned to death as "guilty of conspiracy against the liberty of the nation and a crime against the general safety of the State"; he was accordingly guillotined on the 21st January; he protested his innocence on the scaffold, but his voice was drowned by the beating of drums; he was accompanied by the Abbe Edgeworth, his confessor, who, as he laid his head on the block, exclaimed, "Son of St.

Louis, ascend to heaven" (1754-1793).

LOUIS XVII., second son of the preceding, shut up in the Temple, was, after the execution of his mother, proclaimed king by the Emigrants, and handed over in his prison to the care of one Simon, a shoemaker, in service about the prison, to bring him up in the principles of Sansculottism; Simon taught him to drink, dance, and sing the _carmagnole_; he died in prison "amid squalor and darkness," his s.h.i.+rt not changed for six months (1785-1796).

LOUIS XVIII., brother of Louis XVI., and called Monsieur during his brother's reign, flew from Paris and joined the Emigrants along with his brother, Count d'Artois, and took up arms, which he was compelled to forego, to wander from one foreign Court to another and find refuge at last in England; on Napoleon's departure for Elba he returned to France and was installed on the throne as _Louis le Desire_, but by the reappearance of the former on the scene he was obliged to seek refuge in Belgium, to return for good after the battle of Waterloo, July 9, 1815, with Talleyrand for minister and Fouche as minister of police; he reigned but a few years, his const.i.tution being much enfeebled by a disease (1755-1824).

LOUIS NAPOLEON (Napoleon III.), nephew of the first emperor, born at Paris, brought up at Augsburg and in Switzerland; became head of the family in 1832; he began a Bonapartist propaganda, and set himself to recover the throne of France; an abortive attempt in 1836 ended in a short exile in America and London, and a second at Boulogne in 1840 landed him in the fortress of Ham under sentence of perpetual imprisonment; escaping in 1846 he spent two years in England, returning to France after the Revolution of 1848; elected to the Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly and the same year to the Presidency he a.s.sumed the heads.h.i.+p of the Republic, and posed as the protector of popular liberties and national prosperity; struggles with the a.s.sembly followed; he won the favour of the army, filled the most important posts with his friends, dissolved the Const.i.tution in 1851 (Dec. 2), was immediately re-elected President for ten years, and a year later a.s.sumed the t.i.tle of Emperor; he married the Spanish Countess Eugenie in 1853, and exerted himself by public works, exhibitions, courting of the clergy, gagging of the press, and so on to strengthen his hold on the populace; in the Crimean War (1854-56) and the Lombardy campaign (1859) he was supported by Britain; in 1860 he annexed Savoy and Nice; ten years later suspecting the enthusiasm of the army, he plunged into war with Germany to rekindle its ardour, on a protest arising from the scheme to put Leopold of Hohenzollern on the Spanish throne; France was unprepared, disaster followed disaster; the Emperor surrendered to the Germans at Sedan, Sept.

2, 1870; a prisoner till the close of the war, he came to England in 1871 and resided with the Empress at Chislehurst till his death (1808-1873).

LOUIS PHILIPPE, king of the French from 1830 till 1848, born at Paris, eldest son of the Duke of Orleans, renounced his t.i.tles along with his father, and joined the National Guard and the Jacobins at the Revolution as M. Egalite; after the defeat of Neerwinden 1793, where he commanded the centre, he fled to Austria and Switzerland and supported himself by teaching; after three years in the United States he came to London in 1800, and on the fall of Napoleon repaired to Paris and recovered his estates; he gained popularity with the _bourgeoisie_, and when the Revolution of July 1830 overthrew Charles X. he succeeded to the throne as the elected sovereign of the people; under the "citizen king"

France prospered; but his government gradually became reactionary and violent; he used his great wealth in giving bribes, tampered with trial by jury and the freedom of the press, and so raised against him both the old aristocracy and the working-cla.s.ses; political agitation culminated in the Revolution of February 1848; he was forced to abdicate and escaped with his queen to England, where he died (1773-1850).

LOUIS-D'OR, an old French gold coin which ranged in value from 16s.