Chapter II: Operations on Land (1)

The contemporary military history of Europe included, first, the war between France and Spain, 1654-59, usually called the Spanish Fronde, of which the most notable incident was the great battle of the Dunes fought on the 14th of June 1658 between the French and English under Turenne and the Spaniards under Conde, in which a contingent of Cromwell's soldiers bore a conspicuous part. About the same time a war was fought in northern Europe (1655-60), celebrated chiefly for the three days' battle of Warsaw (28th, 29th, 30th July 1656), and the successful invasion of Denmark by the Swedes, carried out from island to island over the frozen sea (February 1658), and culminating in a long siege of Copenhagen (1658-59). Between the second and third wars of England and the United Provinces came the short War of Devolution (1667-68)--a war of sieges in the Low Countries in which the French were commanded chiefly by Turenne. In 1668 the French under Conde made a rapid conquest of Franche-Comte. This was, however, given up at the peace. The war of 1672-78, the first of the three great wars of Louis XIV., was fought on a grander scale.

_Invasion of Holland, 1672._--The diplomacy of Louis had, before the outbreak of war, deprived Holland of her allies--England (treaty of Dover, 1670), Sweden (treaty of Stockholm, 1672) and the emperor, and when he declared war on the United Provinces in March 1672, it seemed that the Dutch could offer little resistance. The French army under Louis in person started from Charleroi and marched down the Meuse unopposed. The powerful Dutch fortress of Maastricht was masked, and the French then moved towards Dusseldorf. In the electorate of Cologne they were in friendly country, and the main army soon moved down the Rhine from Dusseldorf, the corps of Turenne on the left bank, that of Conde on the right. At the same time a corps under Marshal Luxemburg, composed of Louis' German allies (Cologne and Munster) moved from Westphalia towards Over-Yssel and Groningen. The Rhine fortresses offered but little resistance to the advance of Turenne and Conde. William of Orange with a weak field army tried to defend the Yssel-Rhine line, but the French rapidly forced the passage of the Rhine at Tollhuis (June 12th) and passed into the Betuwe (between the Leck and the Waal). Conde now advised a cavalry raid on Amsterdam, but Louis, acting on the suggestion of the war minister Louvois, preferred to reduce Nijmwegen, Gorinchem and other places, before entering Utrecht province. Conde's plan was, however, partially carried out by Count Rochefort, who with 1800 troopers captured successively Amersfoort and Naarden. His further progress was checked at Muyden, which the Dutch garrisoned in the nick of time, and he returned to the main army, taking Utrecht _en route_. Louis now moved on Amsterdam, brushing aside the feeble opposition which was offered, and it seemed that the French must achieve their object in one short campaign. But the Dutch people were roused. The month before, the citizens of Utrecht had refused to raze their suburban villas, and defence of the fortifications had consequently been impossible. Now, the dykes were cut and the sluices opened, and Amsterdam was covered by a wide inundation, against which the invader was powerless. At the same time the men of Zealand repulsed a French raid from Ath on Ardenburg, and this infraction of the neutrality of the Spanish Netherlands served but to raise up another enemy for Louis. Luxemburg too, at first successful, was repulsed before Groningen. A revolution placed William of Orange at the head of the government. The alliance of Brandenburg and the Mainz electorate had already been secured, and Spain, justly fearing for the safety of her Flemish possessions, soon joined them. The emperor followed, and Louis was now opposed, not by one state, but by a formidable coalition.

_War against the Coalition._--In the autumn the war spread to the Rhine. No attempt could be made on Amsterdam until the ice should cover the floods. Turenne was therefore despatched to Westphalia and Conde to Alsace, while a corps of observation was formed on the Meuse to watch the Spanish Netherlands. But the coalition had not yet developed its full strength, and Turenne's skill checked the advance of the Imperialists under Montecucculi and of the Brandenburgers under the Great Elector. A war of manoeuvre on the middle Rhine ended in favour of the French, and the allies then turned against the territories of Cologne and Munster, while William, disappointed in his hopes of joining forces with his friends, made a bold, but in the end unsuccessful, raid on Charleroi (September-December 1672). The allies in Germany were now not merely checked but driven from point to point by Turenne, who on this occasion displayed a degree of energy rare in the military history of the period. The troops of Cologne and Munster formed part of his army, other friends of Louis were preparing to take the field, and after a severe winter campaign, the elector, defeated in combat and manoeuvre, was forced back to the Weser, and being but weakly supported by the Imperialists, found himself compelled to make a separate peace (June 6th, 1673). Turenne then turned his attention to the Imperialists who were assembling in Bohemia, and made ready to meet them at Wetzlar. Meanwhile the other French armies were fully employed. Corps of observation were formed in Roussillon and Lorraine. Conde in Holland was to renew his efforts against the Amsterdam defences; during the winter the demands of the war on the Rhine had reduced the French forces in the provinces to the size of a mere army of occupation.[1] Louis' own army, originally collected for the relief of Charleroi in December, advanced on Maastricht, and after a brief siege, in which Vauban directed the besiegers, captured this most important fortress (June 29th, 1673). But this was the last success of the French armies in the campaign. Conde made no headway against Amsterdam, and William retook Naarden (September 14th). Louis, after the capture of Maastricht led his army southwards into Lorraine and overran the electorate of Trier. But nothing of importance was gained, and Turenne's summer campaign was wholly unsuccessful.

_Capture of Bonn._--From Wetzlar he moved to Aschaffenburg, Louis at the same time keeping back, for the intended conquest of Franche-Comte, many soldiers who would have been more usefully employed in Germany. Soon the Imperialists advanced in earnest, greatly superior in numbers. Marching via Eger and Nuremberg (September 3rd) on the Main, Montecucculi drew Turenne to the valley of the Tauber; then, having persuaded the bishop of Wurzburg to surrender the bridge of that place, he passed to the right bank of the Main before Turenne could intervene. The Imperialists soon arrived at Frankfort, and the French position was turned. Montecucculi thus achieved one of the greatest objects of the 17th century strategist, the wearing down of the enemy in repeated and useless marches. The French retreat to the Rhine was painful and costly, and Montecucculi then passed that river at Mainz and made for Trier. Turenne followed, unable to do more than conform to his opponent's movements, and took post to defend Trier and Alsace. Thereupon Montecucculi turned northward to meet William of Orange, who evaded Conde's weak army and marched rapidly via Venlo (22nd October) on Coblenz. The elector of Trier, who had not forgotten the depredations of Louis' army in the spring, followed the example of the bishop of Wurzburg and gave a free passage at Coblenz. William and Montecucculi joined forces in the electorate and promptly besieged Bonn. This fortress fell on the 12th of November, and the troops of the coalition gained possession of an unbroken line from Amsterdam to the Breisgau, while Louis' German allies (Cologne and Munster), now isolated, had to make peace at once. William wintered in Holland, Montecucculi in Cologne and Julich, and the Spaniards, who had served with William, in their own provinces of the Meuse. A century after the outbreak of the War of Independence the Dutch and the Spaniards are thus found making war as allies, a striking proof of the fact that all questions but those of dynastic interests had been effectually settled by the peace of Westphalia. Louis' allies were leaving him one by one. The German princes and the empire itself rallied to the emperor, Denmark joined the coalition (January 1674), the Great Elector re-entered the war, and soon afterwards England made peace.

_1674._--In 1674 therefore Louis reluctantly evacuated those of the United Provinces occupied by his army. He had derived a considerable revenue from the enemy's country, and he had moreover quartered his troops without expense. The resources of the French government were almost intact for the coming campaign; the corps of observation in Roussillon was continued, and its commander, Marshal Schomberg, made a successful campaign against the Spaniards, and the war was carried even into Sicily. Conde, in the Spanish Low Countries, opposed with inferior forces the united army of Spaniards, Dutch and Austrians under William, and held the Meuse from Grave to Charleroi on the Sambre. The war in this quarter was memorable for Conde's last, and William's first, battle, the desperate and indecisive engagement of Seneffe (August 11th), in which the two armies lost one-seventh of their strength in killed alone. The French, however, in the course of the year lost a few fortresses on the Meuse, including Grave and Huy. The king's part in the campaign was, as usual, a war of sieges; an army under his personal command overran Franche-Comte in six weeks, and Louis, aided by the genius of Vauban, reduced Besancon in nine days. Turenne's Rhine campaign began with an invasion of Germany, undertaken to prevent interference with Louis in Franche-Comte. Bournonville, the imperial commander who now replaced Montecucculi, lay in the Cologne and Trier electorates. An army of South Germans in the Breisgau, after an unsuccessful attempt to invade Alsace, moved northward to the Neckar valley with the intention of uniting with Bournonville, who was moving up the Rhine to meet them. Turenne determined to attack the southern army under the duke of Lorraine and Count Caprara before the junction could be effected. He crossed the Rhine at Philipsburg early in June, and on the 16th fell upon the inferior forces of Caprara in their entrenched position of Sinsheim. The result of the battle was a complete victory for the French, who followed up their success by driving a portion of Bournonville's army (on which the duke of Lorraine had rallied his forces) from the Neckar (action of Ladenburg near Heidelberg, July 7th). Turenne then laid waste the Palatinate, in order that it should no longer support an army, and fell back over the Rhine, ignoring the reproaches of the elector palatine, who vainly challenged him to a duel. This devastation has usually been considered as a grave stain on the character of the commander who ordered it, but Turenne's conception of duty did not differ in this respect from that of Cromwell, Marlborough, Wellington and the generals of the American Civil War. It was held to be necessary and expedient, and it was accordingly carried out. Bournonville's army near Frankfort was still to be dealt with, and the Great Elector and his Brandenburgers were rapidly approaching the Main valley. After a slight attempt to invade Lorraine, which Turenne easily stopped, the Imperialists suddenly recrossed the Rhine and marched rapidly into the neighbourhood of the Strassburg bridge.

_Turenne's Winter Campaign in Alsace._--The magistrates of this city were not less amenable than had been the bishop of Wurzburg in 1673. Bournonville obtained a free passage, and Turenne was too late to oppose him. The French general, however, determined to fight, as he had done at Sinsheim, to prevent the junction of the two hostile armies. The Great Elector was still in the Neckar valley when the battle of Enzheim (8 m. from Strassburg) was fought on the 4th of October. This time it was indecisive, and Bournonville's superior forces, soon augmented by the arrival of the elector, spread into Alsace. Turenne steadily retired to his camp of Dettweiler, unable for the moment to do more, and the Germans took up winter quarters in all the towns from Belfort to Strassburg (October-November 1674). But Turenne was preparing for another winter campaign, the most brilliant in the great commander's career.

First he placed the fortresses of middle Alsace in a state of defence, to deceive the enemy. Then he withdrew the whole of the field army quietly into Lorraine. Picking up on his way such reinforcements as were available, he marched southward with all speed behind the Vosges, and in the last stages of the movement he even split up his forces into many small bodies, that the enemy's spies might be misled. After a severe march through hilly country and in the midst of snowstorms, the French reunited near Belfort, and without a moment's delay poured into Alsace from the south. The scattered Imperialists were driven towards Strassburg, every corps which tried to resist being cut off. Bournonville stood to fight at Mulhausen with such forces as he could collect (29th December 1674) but Turenne's men carried all before them. The advance continued to Colmar, where the elector, who was now in command of the Germans, stood on the defensive with forces equal to Turenne's own. The battle of Turkheim (5th of January 1675) nevertheless resulted in another and this time a decisive victory for the French; a few days after the battle Turenne could report that there was not a soldier of the enemy left in Alsace. His army now went into winter quarters about Strassburg, and drew supplies from the German bank of the Rhine and even from the Neckar valley (January 1675).

_1675._--This opening of the campaign promised well, and Louis as usual took the field as early as possible. In the course of the spring (May-June) the king's army recaptured some of the lost fortresses of the Meuse and took in addition Liege and Limburg. The expeditionary corps in Sicily also gained some successes in this campaign, and Schomberg invaded Catalonia. On the Rhine was fought the last campaign of Turenne and Montecucculi. The elector having withdrawn his forces to Brandenburg (see SWEDEN: _History_), Montecucculi resumed command, and between Philipsburg and Strassburg the two great commanders manoeuvred for an advantage, each seeking to cover his own country and to live upon that of the enemy. At last Turenne prevailed and had the Imperialists at a disadvantage on the Sasbach, where, in opening the action, he was killed by a cannon-shot (July 27th). The sequel showed how dependent was even the best organized army of the time upon the personality of its commander.

All the advantages won were hastily surrendered, and Montecucculi, sharply following up the retreat of the French, drove them over the Rhine and almost to the Vosges. At the same time the duke of Lorraine defeated Marshal Crequi (August 11th) at Conzer Brucke on the Moselle, and recaptured Trier (September 6th), which, as a set-off against Bonn, Turenne had taken in the autumn of 1673. The situation was more than alarming for the French, but Conde was destined to achieve a last success--for once a success of careful strategy and prudent manoeuvre. Luxemburg was left in charge in Flanders, and the prince took command of the remnant of Turenne's old army and of the fugitives of Crequi's. Montecucculi's skill failed completely to shake his position, and in the end the prince compelled him to retire over the Rhine. Conde and Montecucculi retired from their commands at the close of the year, Turenne was dead, and a younger generation of commanders henceforward carried on the war.

_1676._--In 1676 the naval successes of France in the Mediterranean enabled the corps under Marshal Vivonne in Sicily to make considerable progress, and he won an important victory at Messina on the 25th of March. Vivonne was made viceroy of Sicily. Louis himself, with his marshals and Vauban, conducted the campaign in the north. The town of Conde fell on the 26th of April, and the king then manoeuvred against the prince of Orange in the neighbourhood of Valenciennes. An attempt made by the latter in the summer to besiege Maastricht was frustrated by Marshal Schomberg with a detachment of the king's army (August). Rochefort meanwhile covered the Meuse country and Luxemburg. Crequi, who had now returned from captivity (he had been taken after the battle of Conzer Brucke) opposed the Imperialists in Lorraine, but he was unable to prevent the fall of Philipsburg, which occurred on the 17th of September. The French now laid waste the land between the Meuse and Moselle for the same reason which brought about the devastation of the Palatinate in 1674, and the year closed with a war of manoeuvre on the upper Rhine between the Imperialists under the duke of Lorraine and the French under Luxemburg.

_1677._--The chief event of the campaign of 1677 in the Netherlands was the siege of Valenciennes, which fortress was invested by Louis in the first weeks of the campaigning season. Five marshals of France served under the king in this enterprise, but their advice was of less value than that of Vauban, whose plans the king followed implicitly, even so far as to order an assault _de vive force_ against the unanimous opinion of the marshals. This succeeded beyond Vauban's own expectation; the picked troops entrusted with the attack of an outwork forced their way into the town itself (March 17th). The success was followed by the siege of St Omer and the defeat of William's relieving army by the duke of Orleans (battle of Mont Cassel, April 11th, 1677). The summer campaign was a contest of skill between Luxemburg and William, which resulted in favour of the French. The prince of Orange failed in an attempt to take Charleroi, and Marshal D'Humieres captured St Ghislain.

In Germany the credit of the French successes was due to Crequi, who was no longer the defeated general of Conzer Brucke, but the most successful of Turenne's pupils. He began by driving back the duke of Lorraine to the Rhine. Another attempt by the Lorraine family to reconquer their duchy was thus foiled, and at the same time a second imperial army under the duke of Saxe-Eisenach, which had crossed the Rhine by Philipsburg, was shut up in an island of the Rhine and forced to make terms with the French. A large reinforcement sent by the duke of Lorraine to the assistance of Saxe-Eisenach was completely defeated by Crequi in the battle of Kochersberg near Strassburg (October 7th) and the marshal followed up his successes by the capture of Freiburg on the 14th of November. During the year there was a brisk war in the West Indies, and also in Catalonia, where the French maintained the ground won by Schomberg in the previous campaign.

_1678._--In 1678 Louis took the field in February. The skilful manoeuvres of the French, whether due to Louis' own generalship or that of his advisers, resulted in the speedy capture of Ghent and Ypres (March), and the retention of the prizes in the usual war of posts which followed. The last battle of the war was fought at St Denis (outside Mons) between William and Luxemburg on the 14th of August, three days after the peace of Nijmwegen had been concluded. William sustained another defeat, but the battle was one of the most fiercely contested of the whole war. On the Rhine, Crequi began by winning the battle of Rheinfelden (July 6th), after which he inflicted upon the Imperialists another defeat at Gengenbach (July 23rd) and took Kehl. In the short campaign of 1679, before France and the empire had concluded peace, he was equally successful.

In Spain the French army under Marshal de Navailles had also made steady progress, and thus the last campaign was wholly in favour of the French. The peace of Nijmwegen gave Louis many of the Netherlands frontier fortresses, and little else. He was threatened by the intervention of England on the side of the coalition, and would have made peace earlier but for his reluctance to abandon his ally Sweden. The French army had, however, well established its reputation. Vauban was unique amongst the officers of his time, and Crequi and Luxemburg were not unworthy successors of Turenne and Conde. The two marshals added to their reputation in the "Reunion War" of 1680-84. Crequi died in 1684 at the age of sixty-one, Luxemburg's greatest triumph was won ten years later (see GRAND ALLIANCE, WAR OF THE). Vauban retired from active service as a marshal twenty-five years after the peace of Nijmwegen. But the interest of the war does not reside wholly in the personalities of the leaders. There were great commanders before Turenne and Conde. It is as the debut of a new method of military organization and training--the first real test of the standing army as created by Louvois--that the Dutch War of 1672-79 is above all instructive. (C. F. A.)

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Marshal Luxemburg, who was left in command of the army in Holland
during the winter of 1672-73, had indeed made a bold attempt to
capture Leiden and the Hague by marching a corps from Utrecht across
the frozen inundations. But a sudden thaw imperilled his force and he
had to make a painful retreat along the dykes to Utrecht. Holland was
again inundated in 1673.

DUTCH WEST INDIA COMPANY, THE (_De Westindische Compagnie_), a company founded by letters-patent from the Netherlands states-general dated the 3rd of June 1621. The purpose for which the company was formed was to regulate and protect the contraband trade already carried on by the Dutch in the American and African possessions of Spain and Portugal, and to establish colonies on both continents and their islands. By the terms of the charter the company was to be composed of five boards or branches, established in Amsterdam, Zealand, the Meuse (Rotterdam), the North Department (Friesland and Hoorn), and Groningen. Each was to be represented on the general governing board according to the importance of the capital contributed by it. Thus Amsterdam, which contributed four-ninths of the capital, had eight directors on the board. Zealand, which subscribed two-ninths, had four. Rotterdam was represented by two directors, though it only contributed one-ninth. The northern district and Groningen, which each contributed one-ninth, appointed one director each. Another director was appointed by the states-general. In 1629 a ninth representative was given to Amsterdam, and the strength of the whole board was fixed at nineteen.

The company was granted the monopoly of the trade with America and Africa and between them, from the Arctic regions to the Straits of Magellan, and from the Tropic of Cancer to the Cape of Good Hope. The policy the company proposed to follow was to use its monopoly on the coast of Africa in order to secure the cheap and regular supply of negro slaves for the possessions it hoped to acquire in America. The trade was thrown open by the voluntary action of the company in 1638. The general board was endowed with ample power to negotiate treaties, and make war and peace with native princes; to appoint its officials, generals and governors; and to legislate in its possessions subject to the laws of the Netherlands. The states-general undertook to secure the trading rights of the company, and to support it by a subvention of one million guilders (about L100,000). In case of war the states-general undertook to contribute sixteen vessels of 300 tons and upwards for the defence of the company, which, however, was to bear the expense of maintaining them. In return for these aids the states-general claimed a share in the profits, stipulated that the company must maintain sixteen large vessels (300 tons and upwards) and fourteen "yachts" (small craft of 50 to 100 tons or so); required that all the company's officials should take an oath of allegiance to themselves as well as to the board of directors; and that all despatches should be sent in duplicate to themselves and to the board.

The history of the Dutch West India Company is one of less prosperity than that of the Dutch East India Company. In early days the trade was not sufficient to meet the heavy expense of the armaments raised against Spain and Portugal. A compensation was found in the plunder of Spanish and Portuguese galleons and carracks. In 1628 the company's admiral Piet Heijn captured a vast booty in the Spanish treasure-ships. But this source of profit was dried up by the success of the company's cruisers, which destroyed their enemy's trade. Profit had to be sought in the development of the colonies established on the continent of America. In this field the successes of the company were counterbalanced by not a few failures. The company was never able to secure the control of the supply of slaves from Africa. Its settlement of New Netherland was lost to England. In the West Indies it gained a valuable footing among the islands. It occupied St Eustatius in 1634, Curacao with Bonaire and Aruba in 1634 and 1635, Saba in 1640 and St Martin in 1648. But its greatest conquests and its greatest losses were alike met on the continent of South America. After a first unsuccessful occupation in 1623 of Bahia, which was immediately retaken by a combined Spanish and Portuguese armament, the company obtained a firm footing in Pernambuco. The story of the wars which arose out of this invasion belongs to the history of Brazil. The company had been largely guided in its policy of assailing the Portuguese possessions by the advice of the Jews, who were numerous in Brazil, and who found means to communicate with their fellows in religion, the refugees in Amsterdam. The most prosperous period of the company was during the tolerant and liberal administration of Count John Maurice of Nassau-Siegen (1636-1644).

The monopolist tendency of all Dutch colonization, the religious hostility of the Roman Catholic Portuguese, and the support given by France and England to Portugal after her revolt from Spain, combined at last to make the position of the company in Brazil untenable. It resigned all claim on the country by the treaty of 1661. But though deprived of its establishment in Brazil, the company found a compensation in Surinam and Essequibo (Dutch Guiana), where there was no Spanish or Portuguese population to resist it, and where the resources of the country offered great profits. The advantages of the settlement in Guiana were not, however, reaped by the company founded in 1621. In 1674 it had become so embarrassed that it was dissolved, and reconstructed in 1675. The newly formed company continued to exploit the Dutch possessions in America till 1794, when they were all swept into the general reorganization consequent on the French invasion of Holland. The West India Company founded after the Napoleonic epoch in 1828 was only meant to develop trade, and was not successful.

AUTHORITIES.--P.M. Nitscher, _Les Hollandais au Bresil_ (the Hague,
1853), the work of a Dutch author writing in French. See also Southey,
_History of Brazil_ (London, 1810), and E.B. O'Callaghan, _History of
New Netherland_ (New York, 1846-1848).

DUTENS, LOUIS (1730-1812), French writer, was born at Tours, of Protestant parents, on the 15th of January 1730. He went to London, where his uncle was a jeweller, and there obtained a situation as tutor in a private family. In this position he learnt Greek and mathematics, and studied oriental languages, also Italian and Spanish. He took orders, and was appointed chaplain and secretary to the English minister at the court of Turin in October 1758. In 1760-1762 he was charge d'affaires at Turin. Lord Bute, before retiring from office in 1763, procured him a pension. He again went to Turin as charge d'affaires; and during this second mission he collected and published a complete edition of the works of Leibnitz (Geneva, 6 vols., 1768) and wrote his _Recherches sur l'origine des decouvertes attribuees aux modernes_ (1766). On his return to England the duke of Northumberland procured him the living of Elsdon, in Northumberland, and made him tutor to his son. In 1775 he became a member of the French Academy of Inscriptions and a fellow of the Royal Society. Dutens was for a third time charge d'affaires at Turin. He was in Paris in 1783, and returned to London the following year. He died in London on the 23rd of May 1812.

The principal works of Dutens were his _Recherches sur l'origine des
decouvertes attribuees aux modernes_ (1766, 2 vols.); _Appel au bon
sens_ (London, 1777, 8vo), directed in defence of Christianity against
the French philosophers, and published anonymously; _Explication de
quelques medailles de peuples, de rois et de villes grecques et
pheniciennes_ (London, 1773); _Explication de quelques medailles du
cabinet de Duane_ (1774); _Troisieme dissertation sur quelques
medailles grecques et pheniciennes_ (1776); _Logique, ou l'art de
raisonner_ (1773); _Des pierres precieuses et des pierres fines, avec
les moyens de les connaitre et de les evaluer_ (Paris, 1776);
_Itineraire des routes les plus frequentees, ou journal d'un voyage
aux principales villes d'Europe_ (Paris, 1775), frequently
republished; _Considerations theologiques sur les moyens de reunir
toutes les eglises chretiennes_ (1798); _Oeuvres melees_, containing
his most important works published up to the date (London, 1797, 4
vols.); _L'Ami des etrangers qui voyagent en Angleterre_ (1789, 8vo);
_Histoire de ce qui s'est passe pour le retablissement d'une regence
en Angleterre_ (1789); _Recherches sur le tems le plus recule de
l'usage des voutes chez les anciens_ (1795); _Memoires d'un voyageur
qui se repose_ (Paris, 1786, 3 vols.). The first two volumes of the
last-named work contain the life of the author, written in a romantic
style; the third bears the title of _Dutensiana_, and is filled with
remarks, anecdotes and bons mots. (See memoir of Dutens in the
_Gentleman's Magazine_ for 1812.)

DUTROCHET, RENE JOACHIM HENRI (1776-1847), French physiologist, was born at Chateau de Neon (Indre) on the 14th of November 1776, and died at Paris on the 4th of February 1847. In 1799 he entered the military marine at Rochefort, but soon left it to join the Vendean army. In 1802 he began the study of medicine at Paris; and he was subsequently appointed chief physician to the hospital at Burgos. After an attack of typhus he returned in 1809 to France, where he devoted himself to the study of the natural sciences. His scientific publications were numerous, and covered a wide field, but his most noteworthy work was embryological. His "Recherches sur l'accroissement et la reproduction des vegetaux," published in the _Memoires du museum d'histoire naturelle_ for 1821, procured him in that year the French Academy's prize for experimental physiology. In 1837 appeared his _Memoires pour servir a l'histoire anatomique et physiologique des vegetaux et des animaux_, a collection of all his more important biological papers.

DUTT, MICHAEL MADHU SUDAN (1824-1873), the greatest native poet of India in the 19th century, was born at Sagandari, in the district of Jessore in Bengal, on the 25th of January 1824. His father was a pleader in Calcutta, and young Madhu Sudan received his education in the Hindu college of Calcutta, and was the foremost among the distinguished young students of his day, many of whom lived to make their mark in the literature and social progress of their country. Madhu Sudan left the college in 1842, and in the following year ran away to avoid a marriage into which his father wished to force him, and embraced the Christian religion. Continuing his studies now in the Bishop's college, Madhu Sudan learnt Greek and Latin and some modern European languages, and in 1848 went to Madras. There he wrote English verses, and married the daughter of a European indigo-planter, but was soon separated from her. He then united himself with an English lady, the daughter of an educational officer; and she remained true to him through life amidst all his misfortunes, and was the mother of the children he left. With her Madhu Sudan returned to Calcutta in 1856, and soon discovered that the true way for winning literary distinction was by writing in his own language, not by composing verses in English. His three classical dramas--_Sarmishtha_, _Padmavati_, and _Krishna Kumari_--appeared between 1858 and 1861, and were recognized as works of merit. But his great ambition was to introduce blank verse into Bengali. His knowledge of Sanskrit poetry, his appreciation of the Greek and Latin epics, and his admiration of Dante and of Milton, impelled him to break through the fetters of the Bengali rhyme, and to attempt a spirited and elevated style in blank verse. His first poem in blank verse, the _Tilottama_, was only a partial success; but his great epic which followed in 1861, the _Meghanad-Badha_, took the Indian world by surprise, and at once established his reputation as the greatest poet of his age and country. He took his story from the old Sanskrit epic, the _Ramayana_, but the beauty of the poem is all his own, and he imparted to it the pathos and sweetness of Eastern ideas combined with the vigour and loftiness of Western thought. In 1862 Madhu Sudan left for Europe. He lived in England for some years, and was called to the bar; and in 1867 returned to his country to practise as a barrister in Calcutta. But the poet was unfitted for a lawyer's vocation; his liabilities increased, his health failed, his powers declined. He still wrote much, but nothing of enduring merit. His brilliant but erratic life ended in a Calcutta hospital on the 29th of June 1873.

DUTY (from "due," that which is owing, O. Fr. _deu_, _du_, past participle of _devoir_; Lat. _debere_, _debitum_; cf. "debt"), a term loosely applied to any action or course of action which is regarded as morally incumbent, apart from personal likes and dislikes or any external compulsion. Such action must be viewed in relation to a principle, which may be abstract in the highest sense (e.g. obedience to the dictates of conscience) or based on local and personal relations. That a father and his children have mutual duties implies that there are moral laws regulating their relationship; that it is the duty of a servant to obey his master within certain limits is part of a definite contract, whereby he becomes a servant engaging to do certain things for a specified wage. Thus it is held that it is not the duty of a servant to infringe a moral law even though his master should command it. For the nature of duty in the abstract, and the various criteria on which it has been based, see ETHICS.

From the root idea of obligation to serve or give something in return, involved in the conception of duty, have sprung various derivative uses of the word; thus it is used of the services performed by a minister of a church, by a soldier, or by any employee or servant. A special application is to a tax, a payment due to the revenue of a state, levied by force of law. Properly a "duty" differs from a "tax" in being levied on specific commodities, transactions, estates, &c., and not on individuals; thus it is right to talk of import-duties, excise-duties, death-or succession-duties, &c., but of income-tax as being levied on a person in proportion to his income.

DU VAIR, GUILLAUME (1556-1621), French author and lawyer, was born in Paris on the 7th of March 1556. Du Vair was in orders, and, though during the greater part of his life he exercised only legal functions, he was from 1617 till his death bishop of Lisieux. His reputation, however, is that of a lawyer, a statesman and a man of letters. He became in 1584 counsellor of the parlement of Paris, and as deputy for Paris to the Estates of the League he pronounced his most famous politico-legal discourse, an argument nominally for the Salic law, but in reality directed against the alienation of the crown of France to the Spanish infanta, which was advocated by the extreme Leaguers. Henry IV. acknowledged his services by entrusting him with a special commission as magistrate at Marseilles, and made him master of requests. In 1595 appeared his treatise _De l'eloquence francaise et des raisons pour quoi elle est demeuree si basse_, in which he criticizes the orators of his day, adding by way of example some translations of the speeches of ancient orators, which reproduce the spirit rather than the actual words of the originals. He was sent to England in 1596 with the marshal de Bouillon to negotiate a league against Spain; in 1599 he became first president of the parlement of Province (Aix); and in 1603 was appointed to the see of Marseilles, which he soon resigned in order to resume the presidency. In 1616 he received the highest promotion open to a French lawyer and became keeper of the seals. He died at Tonneins (Lot-et-Garonne) on the 3rd of August 1621. Both as speaker and writer he holds a very high rank, and his character was equal to his abilities. Like other political lawyers of the time, Du Vair busied himself not a little in the study of philosophy. The most celebrated of his treatises are _La Philosophie morale des Stoiques_, translated into English (1664) by Charles Cotton; _De la constance et consolation es calamites publiques_,[1] which was composed during the siege of Paris in 1589, and applied the Stoic doctrine to present misfortunes; and _La Sainte Philosophie_, in which religion and philosophy are intimately connected. Pierre Charron drew freely on these and other works of Du Vair. F. de Brunetiere points out the analogy of Du Vair's position with that afterwards developed by Pascal, and sees in him the ancestor of the Jansenists. Du Vair had a great indirect influence on the development of style in French, for in the south of France he made the acquaintance of Malherbe, who conceived a great admiration for Du Vair's writings. The reformer of French poetry learned much from the treatise _De l'eloquence francaise_, to which the counsels of his friend were no doubt added.

Du Vair's works were published in folio at Paris in 1641. See Niceron,
_Memoires_, vol. 43; and monographs by C.A. Sapey (1847 and 1858).

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Translated into English by Andrew Comt in 1622 as _A Buckler
against Adversitie_.

DUVAL, ALEXANDRE VINCENT PINEUX (1767-1842), French dramatist, was born at Rennes on the 6th of April 1767. He was in turn sailor, architect, actor, theatrical manager and dramatist. He is the characteristic dramatist of the Empire, but the least ambitious of his dramas have best stood the test of time. _Les Projets de menage_ (1790), _Les Tuteurs venges_ (1794) and _Les Heritiers_ (1796) have been revived on the modern French stage. Others among his plays, which number more than sixty, are _Le Menuisier de Livonie_ (1805), _La Manie des grandeurs_ (1817) and _Le Faux Bonhomme_ (1821). In 1812 he was elected to the Academy. He died on the 1st of September 1842.

DUVAL, CLAUDE (1643-1670), a famous highwayman, was born at Domfront, Normandy, in 1643. Having entered domestic service in Paris, he came to England at the time of the Restoration in attendance on the duke of Richmond, and soon became a highwayman notorious for the daring of his robberies no less than for his gallantry to ladies. Large rewards were offered for his capture, and he was at one time compelled to seek refuge in France. In the end he was captured in London, and hanged at Tyburn on the 21st of January 1670. His body was buried in the centre aisle of Covent Garden church, under a stone with the following epitaph:--

"Here lies Du Vall: Reader if male thou art,
Look to thy purse: if female to thy heart."

A full account of his adventures, ascribed to William Pope, was reprinted in the _Harleian Miscellany_, and Samuel Butler published a satirical ode _To the Happy Memory of the Most Renowned Du Val_.

DUVENECK, FRANK (1848- ), American figure and portrait painter, was born at Covington, Kentucky, on the 9th of October 1848. He was a pupil of Diez in the Royal Academy of Munich, and a prominent member of the group of Americans who in the 'seventies overturned the traditions of the Hudson River School and started a new art movement. His work shown in Boston and elsewhere about 1875 attracted great attention, and many pupils flocked to him in Germany and Italy, where he made long visits. After returning from Italy to America, he gave some attention to sculpture, and modelled a fine monument to his wife, now in the English cemetery in Florence.

DU VERGIER DE HAURANNE, JEAN (1581-1643), abbot of St Cyran, father of the Jansenist revival in France, was born of wealthy parents at Bayonne in 1581, and studied theology at the Flemish university of Louvain. After taking holy orders he settled in Paris, where he became known as a mine of miscellaneous erudition. In 1609 he distinguished himself by his _Question royale_, an elaborate answer to a problem casually thrown out by King Henry IV. as to the exact circumstances under which a subject ought to give his life for his sovereign. His learning was presently diverted into a more profitable channel. The Louvain of his time was the scene of many conflicts between the Jesuit party, which stood for scholasticism and Church-authority, and the followers of Michael Baius (q.v.), who upheld the mysticism of St Augustine. Into this controversy Du Vergier was presently dragged by his friendship with Cornelius Jansen, a young champion of the Augustinian party, who had come to Paris to study Greek. The two divines went off together to Du Vergier's home at Bayonne, where he became a canon of the cathedral, and Jansen a tutor in the bishop's seminary. Here they remained some years, intently studying the fathers. Eventually, however, Jansen went back to Louvain, while Du Vergier became confidential secretary to the bishop of Poitiers, and was presently made sinecure abbot of St Cyran. Thereafter he was generally called M. de St Cyran. At Poitiers he was brought into contact with Richelieu--as yet unknown to political fame, and simply the zealous young bishop of the neighbouring diocese of Lucon. Western Touraine being the headquarters of French Protestantism, the two prelates turned St Cyran's learning against the Huguenots. He began to dream of reforming Catholicism on Augustinian lines, and thus defeating the Protestants by their own weapons. They appealed to primitive antiquity; he answered that his Church understood antiquity better than theirs. They appealed to the spirit of St Paul; he answered that Augustine had saved that spirit from etherealizing away, by coupling it with a high sacramental theory of the Church. They flung practical abuses in the teeth of Rome; he entered on a bold campaign to bring those abuses to an end. Before long, his reforming zeal involved him in many quarrels--so much so that he left Poitiers and settled down in Paris. Here he became widely known as a director of consciences, forming a particular friendship with the influential Arnauld family. But his general projects of reform were by no means allowed to sleep, though here he worked hand in hand with his old friend Jansen. Both traced the evils of their time to the Jesuits and Schoolmen. Their dialectic had corrupted theology; their hand-to-mouth utilitarianism had played havoc with traditional church-institutions. Accordingly, Jansen set to work to remedy one evil by writing a big book on St Augustine, the great master of theological method. St Cyran dealt with the other evil in an equally bulky treatise, the _Petrus Aurelius_ (1633). This indicts the Jesuits for every sort and kind of misdemeanour. It deals much with what Pascal will presently call their _devotion aisee_; but still more with crimes of a technical sort, especially their defiance of episcopal authority. Thereby the book gained for its author's projects of reform a great deal of Gallican support. On the other hand, it gave much annoyance to Richelieu, now the all-powerful and extremely Erastian prime minister. After failing more than once to stop St Cyran's mouth with a bishopric, he had him arrested as a disturber of ecclesiastical peace (14th of March 1638). He remained shut up in the castle of Vincennes until Richelieu's death (December 1642). Then he was at once set free; but the long imprisonment had told heavily on his health, and he died of a stroke of apoplexy in October 1643.

St Cyran's character has been always something of a puzzle. Many excellent contemporary judges were profoundly impressed; others, as one of them said, went away bewildered by this strange abbe, who never argued a question out, but leapt from one point to another in broken, incoherent phrases. Grace of expression he had none; perhaps no man of equal spiritual insight ever found it so hard to make his meaning clear, whether on paper or by word of mouth. On the other hand, Jansenism, considered as a practical religious revival, is altogether his work. He dragged the Augustinian mysticism out of the Louvain classrooms, and made it a vital spiritual force in France. Without him there would have been no Pascal--no Provincial Letters, and no _Pensees_.

There is an excellent life of St Cyran by his secretary, Claude
Lancelot, published at Cologne in two volumes, 1738. A selection of
his _Lettres chrestiennes_ was edited by his disciple, Robert Arnauld
d'Andilly (Paris, 1645). An entirely different collection of _Lettres
spirituelles_ was printed at Cologne in 1744. (St C.)

DUVEYRIER, HENRI (1840-1892), French explorer of the Sahara, was born in Paris on the 28th of February 1840. His youth was spent partly in London, where he met Heinrich Barth, then preparing the narrative of his travels in the western Sudan. At the age of nineteen Duveyrier, who had already learnt Arabic, began a journey in the northern parts of the Sahara which lasted nearly three years. On returning to France he received, in 1863, the gold medal of the Paris Geographical Society, and in 1864 published _Exploration du Sahara: les Touareg du nord_. In the war of 1870 he was taken prisoner by the Germans. Subsequently he made several other journeys in the Sahara, adding considerably to the knowledge of the regions immediately south of the Atlas, from the eastern confines of Morocco to Tunisia. He also examined the Algerian and Tunisian _shats_ and explored the interior of western Tripoli. Duveyrier devoted special attention to the customs and speech of the Tuareg, with whom he lived for months at a time, and to the organization of the Senussi. In 1881 he published _La Tunisie_, and in 1884 _La Confrerie musselmane de Sidi Mohammed Ben Ali-Es-Senousi et son domaine geographique_. He died at Sevres on the 25th of April 1892.

DUX (Czech _Duchcov_), a town of Bohemia, Austria, 86 m. N.N.W. of Prague by rail. Pop. (1900) 11,921, three-fourths German. It is situated in the centre of an extensive and well-worked lignite deposit and manufactures glass, porcelain and earthenware. In Dux is a castle belonging to Count Waldstein, a kinsman of Wallenstein, which contains a picture gallery with two portraits of Wallenstein by Van Dyck, and a museum with a collection of arms and armour and several relics of the great general.

DUXBURY, a township of Plymouth county, Massachusetts, on Massachusetts Bay, 36 m. S.S.E. of Boston. Pop. (1890) 1908; (1905, state census) 2028. Area, 25.5 sq. m. Duxbury is served by the Old Colony system of the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway. In the township are the villages of Duxbury, South Duxbury, West Duxbury, North Duxbury, Island Creek and Millbrook. The soil is sandy, the surface of the country well wooded and broken by a number of ponds and creeks. Duxbury is a summer resort, with a large hotel at Standish Shore. Duxbury has a public library, and is the seat of the Powder Point school for boys, and Partridge Academy, founded in 1828 by a bequest of $10,000 from George Partridge of Duxbury, and incorporated in 1830. On Captain's Hill is the Standish Monument (begun in 1872), a circular tower, on an octagonal base, of rough Hallowell granite, surmounted by a statue of Miles Standish, 124 ft. from the ground. The Standish house, built in 1666 by Miles's son, Alexander, is still in existence. In South Duxbury is an old burying ground, in which the oldest marked grave is that of Jonathan Alden (d. 1697), son of John Alden. For many years there were important cod and mackerel fisheries here and Duxbury clams were famous; there were large shipyards in Duxbury in the 18th century and in the first half of the 19th. At present cranberries are the only product of importance. The first settlement was made here in 1631 by Miles Standish (to whom Captain's Hill was granted), William Brewster, John Alden, and a few others. In 1632 a church was organized and the present name was adopted from Duxbury Hall, Lancashire, the old seat of the Standish family; the Indian name had been Mattakeeset. The township was incorporated in 1637; it originally included Bridgewater and parts of Pembroke and Kingston.

See Justin Winsor, _History of Duxbury_ (Boston, 1849); and Laurence
Bradford, _Historic Duxbury in Plymouth County_ (Boston, 1900).

DVINA, the name of two rivers of European Russia.

1. The NORTHERN DVINA, or _Dvina Syevernaya_, belongs to the basin of the White Sea, and is formed by the junction of the Sukhona and the Yug, which, rising, the former in the south-west and the latter in the south-east of the government of Vologda, meet in the neighbourhood of Velikiy-Ustyug, at a height of 300 ft. above the sea, in 61 deg. 20' N. and 46 deg. 20' E. The conjoint stream then flows N.W. to the Gulf of Archangel, which it reaches 50 m. below the city of Archangel. From its mouth to the confluence of the co-tributary streams the distance is about 470 m., and to the source of the Sukhona 780 m. The drainage area is estimated at 141,000 sq. m. Except at the rapids the current of the Dvina is comparatively slow, as the average fall per mile is only 9 in. Till its union with the Vychegda, a river which exceeds it in volume, it flows for the most part in a single, well-defined and permanent channel; but below that point it often splits into several branches, and not infrequently alters its course. In the neighbourhood of Archangel it divides into three distinct arms, which form a regular delta; but of these that of Berezov alone is navigable for sea-going vessels, and even it is impeded by a bar at the mouth, with not more than 14-1/2 or 15-1/2 ft. of water at full tide. Just above the point where the delta begins the river is joined by a large tributary, the Pinega, from the right. Above the confluence of the Vychegda the breadth is about 1750 ft.; below that point it widens out to 3500 ft.; and near Archangel it attains more than three times that measure. The channel is free from ice for about 174 days in the year. By means of the Duke Alexander of Wurttemberg Canal, the river is connected with the Neva and the Volga.

2. The SOUTHERN DVINA, or _Dvina Zapadnaya_, in German _Duna_ and in Lettish _Daugava_, belongs to the Baltic basin, and takes its rise in a small lake about 800 ft. above the level of the sea, in the government of Tver, not far from the sources of the Volga and the Dnieper. After dividing Tver in part from Pskov in part, it skirts the east and south of the government of Vitebsk, separates part of the latter from Vilna, and then divides Vitebsk and Livonia from Courland, and disembogues in the southern end of the Gulf of Riga. Its length is 640 m. and it drains an area of 32,960 sq. m. From Dvinsk (Dunaburg) to Riga, a distance of 135 m., there is altogether a fall of 295 ft., of which 105 ft. are in the 40 m. from Jakobstadt to Friedrichstadt. In the lower part of its course the river attains an ordinary depth of 30 ft. and an average breadth of 1400 ft.; but during the spring flood it sometimes rises 14 ft. above its usual level, and its waters spread out to a mile in width. Near the mouth the river is usually free from ice for 245 days in the year, and in the government of Vitebsk for 229. It is navigable from the confluence of the Mezha (i.e. from Vitebsk) downwards, but the number of rapids and shallows greatly diminishes its value. Navigation can also be carried on by the following tributaries: the Usvyat, Mezha, Kasplya, Ulla, Disna and Bolder-aa. This river was formerly called the Khezin or Turunt, and at the present day it has the name of Polot among the White Russians. Salmon and lampreys abound in its waters. (P. A. K.; J. T. Be.)