Chapter XII: Part 12

LAETUS, JULIUS POMPONIUS [Giulio Pomponio Leto], (1425-1498), Italian humanist, was born at Salerno. He studied at Rome under Laurentius Valla, whom he succeeded (1457) as professor of eloquence in the Gymnasium Romanum. About this time he founded an academy, the members of which adopted Greek and Latin names, met on the Quirinal to discuss classical questions and celebrated the birthday of Romulus. Its constitution resembled that of an ancient priestly college, and Laetus was styled pontifex maximus. The pope (Paul II.) viewed these proceedings with suspicion, as savouring of paganism, heresy and republicanism. In 1468 twenty of the academicians were arrested during the carnival; Laetus, who had taken refuge in Venice, was sent back to Rome, imprisoned and put to the torture, but refused to plead guilty to the charges of infidelity and immorality. For want of evidence, he was acquitted and allowed to resume his professorial duties; but it was forbidden to utter the name of the academy even in jest. Sixtus IV. permitted the resumption of its meetings, which continued to be held till the sack of Rome (1527) by Constable Bourbon during the papacy of Clement VII. Laetus continued to teach in Rome until his death on the 9th of June 1498. As a teacher, Laetus, who has been called the first head of a philological school, was extraordinarily successful; in his own words, like Socrates and Christ, he expected to live on in the person of his pupils, amongst whom were many of the most famous scholars of the period. His works, written in pure and simple Latin, were published in a collected form (_Opera Pomponii Laeti varia_, 1521). They contain treatises on the Roman magistrates, priests and lawyers, and a compendium of Roman history from the death of the younger Gordian to the time of Justin III. Laetus also wrote commentaries on classical authors, and promoted the publication of the editio princeps of Virgil at Rome in 1469.

See _The Life of Leto_ by Sabellicus (Strassburg, 1510); G. Voigt,
_Die Wiederbelebung des klassischen Alterthums_, ii.; F. Gregorovius,
_Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter_, vii. (1894), p. 576, for an
account of the academy; Sandys, _History of Classical Scholarship_
(1908), ii. 92.

LAEVIUS (? c. 80 B.C.), a Latin poet of whom practically nothing is known. The earliest reference to him is perhaps in Suetonius (_De grammaticis_, 3), though it is not certain that the Laevius Milissus there referred to is the same person. Definite references do not occur before the 2nd century (Fronto, _Ep. ad M. Caes._ i. 3; Aulus Gellius, _Noct. Att._ ii. 24, xii. 10, xix. 9; Apuleius, _De magia_, 30; Porphyrion, _Ad Horat. carm._ iii. 1, 2). Some sixty miscellaneous lines are preserved (see Bährens, _Fragm. poët. rom._ pp. 287-293), from which it is difficult to see how ancient critics could have regarded him as the master of Ovid or Catullus. Gellius and Ausonius state that he composed an _Erotopaegnia_, and in other sources he is credited with _Adonis_, _Alcestis_, _Centauri_, _Helena_, _Ino_, _Protesilaudamia_, _Sirenocirca_, _Phoenix_, which may, however, be only the parts of the _Erotopaegnia_. They were not serious poems, but light and often licentious skits on the heroic myths.

See O. Ribbeck, _Geschichte der römischen Dichtung_, i.; H. de la
Ville de Mirmont, _Étude biographique et littéraire sur le poète
Laevius_ (Paris, 1900), with critical ed. of the fragments, and
remarks on vocabulary and syntax; A. Weichert, _Poëtarum latinorum
reliquiae_ (Leipzig, 1830); M. Schanz, _Geschichte der römischen
Litteratur_ (2nd ed.), pt. i. p. 163; W. Teuffel, _Hist. of Roman
Literature_ (Eng. tr.), § 150, 4; a convenient summary in F. Plessis,
_La Poésie latine_ (1909), pp. 139-142.

LAEVULINIC ACID ([beta]-acetopropionic acid), C5H8O3 or CH3CO·CH2·CH2·CO2H, a ketonic acid prepared from laevulose, inulin, starch, &c., by boiling them with dilute hydrochloric or sulphuric acids. It may be synthesized by condensing sodium acetoacetate with monochloracetic ester, the acetosuccinic ester produced being then hydrolysed with dilute hydrochloric acid (M. Conrad, _Ann._, 1877, 188, p. 222).

CH3·CO·CH·Na CH3·CO·CH·CH2·CO2R
| --> | -->CH3COCH2·CH2·CO2OH.
CO2R CO2R

It may also be prepared by heating the anhydride of [gamma]-methyloxy-glutaric acid with concentrated sulphuric acid, and by oxidation of methyl heptenone and of geraniol. It crystallizes in plates, which melt at 32.5-33° C. and boil at 148-149° (15 mm.) (A. Michael, _Jour. prak. Chem._, 1891 [2], 44, p. 114). It is readily soluble in alcohol, ether and water. The acid, when distilled slowly, is decomposed and yields [alpha]- and [beta]-angelica lactones. When heated with hydriodic acid and phosphorus, it yields n-valeric acid; and with iodine and caustic soda solution it gives iodoform, even in the cold. With hydroxylamine it yields an oxime, which by the action of concentrated sulphuric acid rearranges itself to N-methylsuccinimide [CH2·CO]2N·CH3.

LA FARGE, JOHN (1835-1910), American artist, was born in New York, on the 31st of March 1835, of French parentage. He received instruction in drawing from his grandfather, Binsse de St Victor, a painter of miniatures; studied law and architecture; entered the atelier of Thomas Couture in Paris, where he remained a short time, giving especial attention to the study and copying of old masters at the Louvre; and began by making illustrations to the poets (1859). An intimacy with the artist William M. Hunt had a strong influence on him, the two working together at Newport, Rhode Island. La Farge painted landscape, still life and figure alike in the early sixties. But from 1866 on he was for some time incapacitated for work, and when he regained strength he did some decorative work for Trinity church, Boston, in 1876, and turned his attention to stained glass, becoming president of the Society of Mural Painters. Some of his important commissions include windows for St Thomas's church (1877), St Peter's church, the Paulist church, the Brick church (1882), the churches of the Incarnation (1885) and the Ascension (1887), New York; Trinity church, Buffalo, and the "Battle Window" in Memorial Hall at Harvard; ceilings and windows for the house of Cornelius Vanderbilt, windows for the houses of W. H. Vanderbilt and D. O. Mills, and panels for the house of Whitelaw Reid, New York; panels for the Congressional Library, Washington; Bowdoin College, the Capitol at St Paul, Minn., besides designs for many stained glass windows. He was also a prolific painter in oil and water colour, the latter seen notably in some water-colour sketches, the result of a voyage in the South Seas, shown in 1895. His influence on American art was powerfully exhibited in such men as Augustus St Gaudens, Wilton Lockwood, Francis Lathrop and John Humphreys Johnston. He became president of the Society of American Artists, a member of the National Academy of Design in 1869; an officer of the Legion of Honour of France; and received many medals and decorations. He published _Considerations on Painting_ (New York, 1895), _Hokusai: A Talk about Hokusai_ (New York, 1897), and _An Artist's Letters from Japan_ (New York, 1897).

See Cecilia Waern, _John La Farge, Artist and Writer_ (London, 1896,
No. 26 of _The Portfolio_).

LA FARINA, GIUSEPPE (1815-1863), Italian author and politician, was born at Messina. On account of the part he took in the insurrection of 1837 he had to leave Sicily, but returning in 1839 he conducted various newspapers of liberal tendencies, until his efforts were completely interdicted, when he removed to Florence. In 1840 he had published _Messina ed i suoi monumenti_, and after his removal to Florence he brought out _La Germania coi suoi monumenti_ (1842), _L' Italia coi suoi monumenti_ (1842), _La Svizzera storica ed artistica_ (1842-1843), La China, 4 vols. (1843-1847), and _Storia d' Italia_, 7 vols. (1846-1854). In 1847 he established at Florence a democratic journal, _L' Alba_, in the interests of Italian freedom and unity, but on the outbreak of the revolution in Sicily in 1848 he returned thither and was elected deputy and member of the committee of war. In August of that year he was appointed minister of public instruction and later of war and marine. After vigorously conducting a campaign against the Bourbon troops, he was forced into exile, and repaired to France in 1849. In 1850 he published his _Storia documentata della Rivoluzione Siciliana del 1848-1849_, and in 1851-1852 his _Storia d' Italia dal 1815 al 1848_, in 6 vols. He returned to Italy in 1854 and settled at Turin, and in 1856 he founded the _Piccolo Corriere d' Italia_, an organ which had great influence in propagating the political sentiments of the Società Nazionale Italiana, of which he ultimately was chosen president. With Daniele Manin (q.v.), one of the founders of that society, he advocated the unity of Italy under Victor Emmanuel even before Cavour, with whom at one time he had daily interviews, and organized the emigration of volunteers from all parts of Italy into the Piedmontese army. He also negotiated an interview between Cavour and Garibaldi, with the result that the latter was appointed commander of the Cacciatori delle Alpi in the war of 1859. Later he supported Garibaldi's expedition to Sicily, where he himself went soon after the occupation of Palermo, but he failed to bring about the immediate annexation of the island to Piedmont as Cavour wished. In 1860 he was chosen a member of the first Italian parliament and was subsequently made councillor of state. He died on the 5th of September 1863.

See A. Franchi, _Epistolario di Giuseppe La Farina_ (2 vols., 1869)
and L. Carpi, _Il Risorgimento Italiano_, vol. i. (Milan, 1884).

LA FAYETTE, GILBERT MOTIER DE (1380-1462), marshal of France, was brought up at the court of Louis II., 3rd duke of Bourbon. He served under Marshal Boucicaut in Italy, and on his return to France after the evacuation of Genoa in 1409 became seneschal of the Bourbonnais. In the English wars he was with John I., 4th duke of Bourbon, at the capture of Soubise in 1413, and of Compiègne in 1415. The duke then made him lieutenant-general in Languedoc and Guienne. He failed to defend Caen and Falaise in the interest of the dauphin (afterwards Charles VII.) against Henry V. in 1417 and 1418, but in the latter year he held Lyons for some time against Jean sans Peur, duke of Burgundy. A series of successes over the English and Burgundians on the Loire was rewarded in 1420 with the government of Dauphiny and the office of marshal of France. La Fayette commanded the Franco-Scottish troops at the battle of Baugé (1422), though he did not, as has been sometimes stated, slay Thomas, duke of Clarence, with his own hand. In 1424 he was taken prisoner by the English at Verneuil, but was released shortly afterwards, and fought with Joan of Arc at Orleans and Patay in 1429. The marshal had become a member of the grand council of Charles VII., and with the exception of a short disgrace about 1430, due to the ill-will of Georges de la Trémouille, he retained the royal favour all his life. He took an active part in the army reform initiated by Charles VII., and the establishment of military posts for the suppression of brigandage. His last campaign was against the English in Normandy in 1449. He died on the 23rd of February 1462. His line was continued by Gilbert IV. de La Fayette, son of his second marriage with Jeanne de Joyeuse.

LA FAYETTE, LOUISE DE (c. 1616-1665), was one of the fourteen children of John, comte de La Fayette, and Marguerite de Bourbon-Busset. Louise became maid of honour to Anne of Austria, and Richelieu sought to attract the attention of Louis XIII. to her in the hope that she might counterbalance the influence exercised over him by Marie de Hautefort. The affair did not turn out as the minister wished. The king did indeed make her the confidante of his affairs and of his resentment against the cardinal, but she, far from repeating his confidences to the minister, set herself to encourage the king in his resistance to Richelieu's dominion. She refused, nevertheless, to become Louis's mistress, and after taking leave of the king in Anne of Austria's presence retired to the convent of the Filles de Sainte-Marie in 1637. Here she was repeatedly visited by Louis, with whom she maintained a correspondence. Richelieu intercepted the letters, and by omissions and falsifications succeeded in destroying their mutual confidence. The cessation of their intercourse was regretted by the queen, who had been reconciled with her husband through the influence of Louise. At the time of her death in January 1665 Mlle de La Fayette was superior of a convent of her order which she had founded at Chaillot.

See _Mémoires de Madame de Motteville_; Victor Cousin, _Madame de
Hautefort_ (Paris, 1868); L'Abbé Sorin, _Louise-Angèle de La Fayette_
(Paris, 1893).

LA FAYETTE, MARIE JOSEPH PAUL YVES ROCH GILBERT DU MOTIER. MARQUIS DE (1757-1834), was born at the château of Chavaniac in Auvergne, France, on the 6th of September 1757. His father[1] was killed at Minden in 1759, and his mother and his grandfather died in 1770, and thus at the age of thirteen he was left an orphan with a princely fortune. He married at sixteen Marie Adrienne Françoise de Noailles (d. 1807), daughter of the duc d'Ayen and granddaughter of the duc de Noailles, then one of the most influential families in the kingdom. La Fayette chose to follow the career of his father, and entered the Guards.

La Fayette was nineteen and a captain of dragoons when the English colonies in America proclaimed their independence. "At the first news of this quarrel," he afterwards wrote in his memoirs, "my heart was enrolled in it." The count de Broglie, whom he consulted, discouraged his zeal for the cause of liberty. Finding his purpose unchangeable, however, he presented the young enthusiast to Johann Kalb, who was also seeking service in America, and through Silas Deane, American agent in Paris, an arrangement was concluded, on the 7th of December 1776, by which La Fayette was to enter the American service as major-general. At this moment the news arrived of grave disasters to the American arms. La Fayette's friends again advised him to abandon his purpose. Even the American envoys, Franklin and Arthur Lee, who had superseded Deane, withheld further encouragement and the king himself forbade his leaving. At the instance of the British ambassador at Versailles orders were issued to seize the ship La Fayette was fitting out at Bordeaux, and La Fayette himself was arrested. But the ship was sent from Bordeaux to a neighbouring port in Spain, La Fayette escaped from custody in disguise, and before a second _lettre de cachet_ could reach him he was afloat with eleven chosen companions. Though two British cruisers had been sent in pursuit of him, he landed safely near Georgetown, S.C., after a tedious voyage of nearly two months, and hastened to Philadelphia, then the seat of government of the colonies.

When this lad of nineteen, with the command of only what little English he had been able to pick up on his voyage, presented himself to Congress with Deane's authority to demand a commission of the highest rank after the commander-in-chief, his reception was a little chilly. Deane's contracts were so numerous, and for officers of such high rank, that it was impossible for Congress to ratify them without injustice to Americans who had become entitled by their service to promotion. La Fayette appreciated the situation as soon as it was explained to him, and immediately expressed his desire to serve in the American army upon two conditions--that he should receive no pay, and that he should act as a volunteer. These terms were so different from those made by other foreigners, they had been attended with such substantial sacrifices, and they promised such important indirect advantages, that Congress passed a resolution, on the 31st of July 1777, "that his services be accepted, and that, in consideration of his zeal, illustrious family and connexions, he have the rank and commission of major-general of the United States." Next day La Fayette met Washington, whose lifelong friend he became. Congress intended his appointment as purely honorary, and the question of giving him a command was left entirely to Washington's discretion. His first battle was Brandywine (q.v.) on the 11th of September 1777, where he showed courage and activity and received a wound. Shortly afterwards he secured what he most desired, the command of a division--the immediate result of a communication from Washington to Congress of November 1, 1777, in which he said:--

"The marquis de La Fayette is extremely solicitous of having a command
equal to his rank. I do not know in what light Congress will view the
matter, but it appears to me, from a consideration of his illustrious
and important connexions, the attachment which he has manifested for
our cause, and the consequences which his return in disgust might
produce, that it will be advisable to gratify his wishes, and the more
so as several gentlemen from France who came over under some
assurances have gone back disappointed in their expectations. His
conduct with respect to them stands in a favourable point of
view--having interested himself to remove their uneasiness and urged
the impropriety of their making any unfavourable representations upon
their arrival at home. Besides, he is sensible, discreet in his
manners, has made great proficiency in our language, and from the
disposition he discovered at the battle of Brandywine possesses a
large share of bravery and military ardour."

Of La Fayette's military career in the United States there is not much to be said. Though the commander of a division, he never had many troops in his charge, and whatever military talents he possessed were not of the kind which appeared to conspicuous advantage on the theatre to which his wealth and family influence rather than his soldierly gifts had called him. In the first months of 1778 he commanded troops detailed for the projected expedition against Canada. His retreat from Barren Hill (May 28, 1778) was commended as masterly; and he fought at the battle of Monmouth (June 28,) and received from Congress a formal recognition of his services in the Rhode Island expedition (August 1778).

The treaties of commerce and defensive alliance, signed by the insurgents and France on the 6th of February 1778, were promptly followed by a declaration of war by England against the latter, and La Fayette asked leave to revisit France and to consult his king as to the further direction of his services. This leave was readily granted; it was not difficult for Washington to replace the major-general, but it was impossible to find another equally competent, influential and devoted champion of the American cause near the court of Louis XVI. In fact, he went on a mission rather than a visit. He embarked on the 11th of January 1779, was received with enthusiasm, and was made a colonel in the French cavalry. On the 4th of March following Franklin wrote to the president of Congress: "The marquis de La Fayette ... is infinitely esteemed and beloved here, and I am persuaded will do everything in his power to merit a continuance of the same affection from America." He won the confidence of Vergennes.

La Fayette was absent from America about six months, and his return was the occasion of a complimentary resolution of Congress. From April until October 1781 he was charged with the defence of Virginia, in which Washington gave him the credit of doing all that was possible with the forces at his disposal; and he showed his zeal by borrowing money on his own account to provide his soldiers with necessaries. The battle of Yorktown, in which La Fayette bore an honourable if not a distinguished part, was the last of the war, and terminated his military career in the United States. He immediately obtained leave to return to France, where it was supposed he might be useful in negotiations for a general peace. He was also occupied in the preparations for a combined French and Spanish expedition against some of the British West India Islands, of which he had been appointed chief of staff, and a formidable fleet assembled at Cadiz, but the armistice signed on the 20th of January 1783 between the belligerents put a stop to the expedition. He had been promoted (1781) to the rank of _maréchal de camp_ (major-general) in the French army, and he received every token of regard from his sovereign and his countrymen. He visited the United States again in 1784, and remained some five months as the guest of the nation.

La Fayette did not appear again prominently in public life until 1787, though he did good service to the French Protestants, and became actively interested in plans to abolish slavery. In 1787 he took his seat in the Assembly of Notables. He demanded, and he alone signed the demand, that the king convoke the states-general, thus becoming a leader in the French Revolution. He showed Liberal tendencies both in that assembly and after its dispersal, and in 1788 was deprived, in consequence, of his active command. In 1789 La Fayette was elected to the states-general, and took a prominent part in its proceedings. He was chosen vice-president of the National Assembly, and on the 11th of July 1789 presented a declaration of rights, modelled on Jefferson's Declaration of Independence in 1776. On the 15th of July, the second day of the new régime, La Fayette was chosen by acclamation colonel-general of the new National Guard of Paris. He also proposed the combination of the colours of Paris, red and blue, and the royal white, into the famous tricolour cockade of modern France (July 17). For the succeeding three years, until the end of the constitutional monarchy in 1792, his history is largely the history of France. His life was beset with very great responsibility and perils, for he was ever the minister of humanity and order among a frenzied people who had come to regard order and humanity as phases of treason. He rescued the queen from the hands of the populace on the 5th and 6th of October 1789, saved many humbler victims who had been condemned to death, and he risked his life in many unsuccessful attempts to rescue others. Before this, disgusted with enormities which he was powerless to prevent, he had resigned his commission; but so impossible was it to replace him that he was induced to resume it. In the Constituent Assembly he pleaded for the abolition of arbitrary imprisonment, for religious tolerance, for popular representation, for the establishment of trial by jury, for the gradual emancipation of slaves, for the freedom of the press, for the abolition of titles of nobility, and the suppression of privileged orders. In February 1790 he refused the supreme command of the National Guard of the kingdom. In May he founded the "Society of 1789" which afterwards became the Feuillants Club. He took a prominent part in the celebration of July 14, 1790, the first anniversary of the destruction of the Bastille. After suppressing an _émeute_ in April 1791 he again resigned his commission, and was again compelled to retain it. He was the friend of liberty as well as of order, and when Louis XVI. fled to Varennes he issued orders to stop him. Shortly afterwards he was made lieutenant-general in the army. He commanded the troops in the suppression of another _émeute_, on the occasion of the proclamation of the constitution (September 18, 1791), after which, feeling that his task was done, he retired into private life. This did not prevent his friends from proposing him for the mayoralty of Paris in opposition to Pétion.

When, in December 1791, three armies were formed on the western frontier to attack Austria, La Fayette was placed in command of one of them. But events moved faster than La Fayette's moderate and humane republicanism, and seeing that the lives of the king and queen were each day more and more in danger, he definitely opposed himself to the further advance of the Jacobin party, intending eventually to use his army for the restoration of a limited monarchy. On the 19th of August 1792 the Assembly declared him a traitor. He was compelled to take refuge in the neutral territory of Liége, whence as one of the prime movers in the Revolution he was taken and held as a prisoner of state for five years, first in Prussian and afterwards in Austrian prisons, in spite of the intercession of America and the pleadings of his wife. Napoleon, however, though he had a low opinion of his capacities, stipulated in the treaty of Campo Formio (1797) for La Fayette's release. He was not allowed to return to France by the Directory. He returned in 1799; in 1802 voted against the life consulate of Napoleon; and in 1804 he voted against the imperial title. He lived in retirement during the First Empire, but returned to public affairs under the First Restoration and took some part in the political events of the Hundred Days. From 1818 to 1824 he was deputy for the Sarthe, speaking and voting always on the Liberal side, and even becoming a _carbonaro_. He then revisited America (July 1824-September 1825) where he was overwhelmed with popular applause and voted the sum of $200,000 and a township of land. From 1825 to his death he sat in the Chamber of Deputies for Meaux. During the revolution of 1830 he again took command of the National Guard and pursued the same line of conduct, with equal want of success, as in the first revolution. In 1834 he made his last speech--on behalf of Polish political refugees. He died at Paris on the 20th of May 1834. In 1876 in the city of New York a monument was erected to him, and in 1883 another was erected at Puy.

Few men have owed more of their success and usefulness to their family rank than La Fayette, and still fewer have abused it less. He never achieved distinction in the field, and his political career proved him to be incapable of ruling a great national movement; but he had strong convictions which always impelled him to study the interests of humanity, and a pertinacity in maintaining them, which, in all the strange vicissitudes of his eventful life, secured him a very unusual measure of public respect. No citizen of a foreign country has ever had so many and such warm admirers in America, nor does any statesman in France appear to have ever possessed uninterruptedly for so many years so large a measure of popular influence and respect. He had what Jefferson called a "canine appetite" for popularity and fame, but in him the appetite only seemed to make him more anxious to merit the fame which he enjoyed. He was brave to rashness; and he never shrank from danger or responsibility if he saw the way open to spare life or suffering, to protect the defenceless, to sustain the law and preserve order.

His son, GEORGES WASHINGTON MOTIER DE LA FAYETTE (1779-1849), entered the army and was aide-de-camp to General Grouchy through the Austrian, Prussian and Polish (1805-07) campaigns. Napoleon's distrust of his father rendering promotion improbable, Georges de La Fayette retired into private life in 1807 until the Restoration, when he entered the Chamber of Representatives and voted consistently on the Liberal side. He was away from Paris during the revolution of July 1830, but he took an active part in the "campaign of the banquets," which led up to that of 1848. He died in December of the next year. His son, OSCAR THOMAS GILBERT MOTIER DE LA FAYETTE (1815-1881), was educated at the École Polytechnique, and served as an artillery officer in Algeria. He entered the Chamber of Representatives in 1846 and voted, like his father, with the extreme Left. After the revolution of 1848 he received a post in the provisional government, and as a member of the Constituent Assembly he became secretary of the war committee. After the dissolution of the Legislative Assembly in 1851, he retired from public life, but emerged on the establishment of the third republic, becoming a life senator in 1875. His brother EDMOND MOTIER DE LA FAYETTE (1818-1890) shared his political opinions. He was one of the secretaries of the Constituent Assembly, and a member of the senate from 1876 to 1888.

See _Mémoires historiques et pièces authentiques sur M. de La Fayette
pour servir à l'histoire des révolutions_ (Paris, An II., 1793-1794);
B. Sarrans, _La Fayette et la Révolution de 1830, histoire des choses
et des hommes de Juillet_ (Paris, 1834); _Mémoires, correspondances et
manuscrits de La Fayette_, published by his family (6 vols., Paris,
1837-1838); Regnault Warin, _Mémoires pour servir à la vie du général
La Fayette_ (Paris, 1824); A. Bardoux, _La jeunesse de La Fayette_
(Paris, 1892); _Les Dernières années de La Fayette_ (Paris, 1893); E.
Charavaray, _Le Général La Fayette_ (Paris, 1895); A. Levasseur, _La
Fayette en Amérique_ 1824 (Paris, 1829); J. Cloquet, _Souvenirs de la
vie privée du général La Fayette_ (Paris, 1836); Max Büdinger, _La
Fayette in Oesterreich_ (Vienna, 1898); and M. M. Crawford, _The Wife
of Lafayette_ (1908); Bayard Tuckerman, _Life of Lafayette_ (New York,
1889); Charlemagne Tower, _The Marquis de La Fayette in the American
Revolution_ (Philadelphia, 1895).

FOOTNOTE:

[1] The family of La Fayette, to the cadet branch of which he
belonged, received its name from an estate in Aix, Auvergne, which
belonged in the 13th century to the Motier family.

LA FAYETTE, MARIE-MADELEINE PIOCHE DE LA VERGNE, COMTESSE DE (1634-1692), French novelist, was baptized in Paris, on the 18th of March 1634. Her father, Marc Pioche de la Vergne, commandant of Havre, died when she was sixteen, and her mother seems to have been more occupied with her own than her daughter's interests. Mme de la Vergne married in 1651 the chevalier de Sévigné, and Marie thus became connected with Mme de Sévigné, who was destined to be a lifelong friend. She studied Greek, Latin and Italian, and inspired in one of her tutors, Gilles de Ménage, an enthusiastic admiration which he expressed in verse in three or four languages. Marie married in 1655 François Motier, comte de La Fayette. They lived on the count's estates in Auvergne, according to her own account (in a letter to Ménage) quite happily; but after the birth of her two sons her husband disappeared so effectually that it was long supposed that he died about 1660, though he really lived until 1683. Mme de La Fayette had returned to Paris, and about 1665 contracted an intimacy with the duc de la Rochefoucauld, then engaged on his _Maximes_. The constancy and affection that marked this liaison on both sides justified it in the eyes of society, and when in 1680 La Rochefoucauld died Mme de La Fayette received the sincerest sympathy. Her first novel, _La Princesse de Montpensier_, was published anonymously in 1662; _Zayde_ appeared in 1670 under the name of J. R. de Segrais; and in 1678 her masterpiece, _La Princesse de Clèves_, also under the name of Segrais. The history of the modern novel of sentiment begins with the _Princesse de Clèves_. The interminable pages of Mlle de Scudéry with the _Précieuses_ and their admirers masquerading as Persians or ancient Romans had already been discredited by the burlesques of Paul Scarron and Antoine Furetière. It remained for Mme de La Fayette to achieve the more difficult task of substituting something more satisfactory than the disconnected episodes of the _roman comique_. This she accomplished in a story offering in its shortness and simplicity a complete contrast to the extravagant and lengthy romances of the time. The interest of the story depends not on incident but on the characters of the personages. They act in a perfectly reasonable way and their motives are analysed with the finest discrimination. No doubt the semi-autobiographical character of the material partially explains Mme de La Fayette's refusal to acknowledge the book. Contemporary critics, even Mme de Sévigné amongst them, found fault with the avowal made by Mme de Clèves to her husband. In answer to these criticisms, which her anonymity prevented her from answering directly, Mme de La Fayette wrote her last novel, the _Comtesse de Tende_.

The character of her work and her history have combined to give an impression of melancholy and sweetness that only represents one side of her character, for a correspondence brought to light comparatively recently showed her as the acute diplomatic agent of Jeanne de Nemours, duchess of Savoy, at the court of Louis XIV. She had from her early days also been intimate with Henrietta of England, duchess of Orleans, under whose immediate direction she wrote her _Histoire de Madame Henriette d'Angleterre_, which only appeared in 1720. She wrote memoirs of the reign of Louis XIV., which, with the exception of two chapters, for the years 1688 and 1689 (published at Amsterdam, 1731), were lost through her son's carelessness. Madame de La Fayette died on the 25th of May 1692.

See Sainte-Beuve, _Portraits de femmes_; the comte d'Haussonville,
_Madame de La Fayette_ (1891), in the series of _Grands écrivains
français_; M. de Lescure's notice prefixed to an edition of the
_Princesse de Clèves_ (1881); and a critical edition of the historical
memoirs by Eugène Asse (1890). See also L. Rea, _Marie Madeleine,
comtesse de La Fayette_ (1908).

LAFAYETTE, a city and the county-seat of Tippecanoe county, Indiana, U.S.A., situated at the former head of navigation on the Wabash river, about 64 m. N.W. of Indianapolis. Pop. (1900) 18,116, of whom 2266 were foreign-born; (1910 census) 20,081. It is served by the Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville, the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis, the Lake Erie & Western, and the Wabash railways, and by the Terre Haute, Indianapolis & Eastern (electric), and the Fort Wayne & Wabash Valley (electric) railways. The river is not now navigable at this point. Lafayette is in the valley of the Wabash river, which is sunk below the normal level of the plain, the surrounding heights being the walls of the Wabash basin. The city has an excellent system of public schools, a good public library, two hospitals, the Wabash Valley Sanitarium (Seventh Day Adventist), St Anthony's Home for old people and two orphan asylums. It is the seat of Purdue University, a co-educational, technical and agricultural institution, opened in 1874 and named in honour of John Purdue (1802-1876), who gave it $150,000. This university is under state control, and received the proceeds of the Federal agricultural college grant of 1862 and of the second Morrill Act of 1890; in connexion with it there is an agricultural experiment station. It had in 1908-1909 180 instructors, 1900 students, and a library of 25,000 volumes and pamphlets. Just outside the city is the State Soldiers' Home, where provision is also made for the wives and widows of soldiers; in 1908 it contained 553 men and 700 women. The city lies in the heart of a rich agricultural region, and is an important market for grain, produce and horses. Among its manufactures are beer, foundry and machine shop products (the Chicago, Indianapolis & Louisville railway has shops here), straw board, telephone apparatus, paper, wagons, packed meats, canned goods, flour and carpets; the value of the factory product increased from $3,514,276 in 1900 to $4,631,415 in 1905, or 31.8%. The municipality owns its water works.

Lafayette is about 5 m. N.E. of the site of the ancient Wea (Miami) Indian village known as Ouiatanon, where the French established a post about 1720. The French garrison gave way to the English about 1760; the stockade fort was destroyed during the conspiracy of Pontiac, and was never rebuilt. The headquarters of Tecumseh and his brother, the "Prophet," were established 7 m. N. of Lafayette near the mouth of the Tippecanoe river, and the settlement there was known as the "Prophet's Town." Near this place, and near the site of the present village of Battle Ground (where the Indiana Methodists now have a summer encampment and a camp meeting in August), was fought on the 7th of November 1811 the battle of Tippecanoe, in which the Indians were decisively defeated by Governor William Henry Harrison, the whites losing 188 in killed and wounded and the Indians about an equal number. The battle ground is owned by the state; in 1907 the state legislature and the United States Congress each appropriated $12,500 for a monument, which took the form of a granite shaft 90 ft. high. The first American settlers on the site of Lafayette appeared about 1820, and the town was laid out in 1825, but for many years its growth was slow. The completion of the Wabash and Erie canal marked a new era in its development, and in 1854 Lafayette was incorporated.

LA FERTÉ, the name of a number of localities in France, differentiated by agnomens. La Ferté Imbault (department of Loir-et-Cher) was in the possession of Jacques d'Étampes (1590-1668), marshal of France and ambassador in England, who was known as the marquis of La Ferté Imbault. La Ferté Nabert (the modern La Ferté Saint Aubin, department of Loiret) was acquired in the 16th century by the house of Saint Nectaire (corrupted to Senneterre), and erected into a duchy in the peerage of France (_duché-pairie_) in 1665 for Henri de Saint Nectaire, marshal of France. It was called La Ferté Lowendal after it had been acquired by Marshal Lowendal in 1748.

LA FERTÉ-BERNARD, a town of western France, in the department of Sarthe, on the Huisne, 27 m. N.E. of Le Mans, on the railway from Paris to that town. Pop. (1906) 4358. La Ferté carries on cloth manufacture and flour-milling and has trade in horses and cattle. Its church of Nôtre Dame has a choir (16th century) with graceful apse-chapels of Renaissance architecture and remarkable windows of the same period; the remainder of the church is in the Flamboyant Gothic style. The town hall occupies the superstructure and flanking towers of a fortified gateway of the 15th century.

La Ferté-Bernard owes its origin and name to a stronghold (_fermeté_) built about the 11th century and afterwards held by the family of Bernard. In 1424 it did not succumb to the English troops till after a four months' siege. It belonged in the 16th century to the family of Guise and supported the League, but was captured by the royal forces in 1590.

LA FERTÉ-MILON, a town of northern France in the department of Aisne on the Ourcq, 47 m. W. by S. of Reims by rail. Pop. (1906) 1563. The town has imposing remains comprising one side flanked by four towers of an unfinished castle built about the beginning of the 15th century by Louis of Orleans, brother of Charles VI. The churches of St Nicholas and Notre-Dame, chiefly of the 16th century, both contain fine old stained glass. Jean Racine, the poet, was born in the town, and a statue by David d'Augers has been erected to him.

LAFFITTE, JACQUES (1767-1844), French banker and politician, was born at Bayonne on the 24th of October 1767, one of the ten children of a carpenter. He became clerk in the banking house of Perregaux in Paris, was made a partner in the business in 1800, and in 1804 succeeded Perregaux as head of the firm. The house of Perregaux, Laffitte et Cie. became one of the greatest in Europe, and Laffitte became regent (1809), then governor (1814) of the Bank of France and president of the Chamber of Commerce (1814). He raised large sums of money for the provisional government in 1814 and for Louis XVIII. during the Hundred Days, and it was with him that Napoleon deposited five million francs in gold before leaving France for the last time. Rather than permit the government to appropriate the money from the Bank he supplied two million from his own pocket for the arrears of the imperial troops after Waterloo. He was returned by the department of the Seine to the Chamber of Deputies in 1816, and took his seat on the Left. He spoke chiefly on financial questions; his known Liberal views did not prevent Louis XVIII. from insisting on his inclusion on the commission on the public finances. In 1818 he saved Paris from a financial crisis by buying a large amount of stock, but next year, in consequence of his heated defence of the liberty of the press and the electoral law of 1867, the governorship of the Bank was taken from him. One of the earliest and most determined of the partisans of a constitutional monarchy under the duke of Orleans, he was deputy for Bayonne in July 1830, when his house in Paris became the headquarters of the revolutionary party. When Charles X., after retracting the hated ordinances, sent the comte d'Argout[1] to Laffitte to negotiate a change of ministry, the banker replied, "It is too late. There is no longer a Charles X.," and it was he who secured the nomination of Louis Philippe as lieutenant-general of the kingdom. On the 3rd of August he became president of the Chamber of Deputies, and on the 9th he received in this capacity Louis Philippe's oath to the new constitution. The clamour of the Paris mob for the death of the imprisoned ministers of Charles X., which in October culminated in riots, induced the more moderate members of the government--including Guizot, the duc de Broglie and Casimir-Périer--to hand over the administration to a ministry which, possessing the confidence of the revolutionary Parisians, should be in a better position to save the ministers from their fury. On the 5th of November, accordingly, Laffitte became minister-president of a government pledged to progress (_mouvement_), holding at the same time the portfolio of finance. The government was torn between the necessity for preserving order and the no less pressing necessity (for the moment) of conciliating the Parisian populace; with the result that it succeeded in doing neither one nor the other. The impeached ministers were, indeed, saved by the courage of the Chamber of Peers and the attitude of the National Guard; but their safety was bought at the price of Laffitte's popularity. His policy of a French intervention in favour of the Italian revolutionists, by which he might have regained his popularity, was thwarted by the diplomatic policy of Louis Philippe. The resignation of Lafayette and Dupont de l'Eure still further undermined the government, which, incapable even of keeping order in the streets of Paris, ended by being discredited with all parties. At length Louis Philippe, anxious to free himself from the hampering control of the agents of his fortune, thought it safe to parade his want of confidence in the man who had made him king. Thereupon, in March 1831, Laffitte resigned, begging pardon of God and man for the part he had played in raising Louis Philippe to the throne. He left office politically and financially a ruined man. His affairs were wound up in 1836, and next year he created a credit bank, which prospered as long as he lived, but failed in 1848. He died in Paris on the 26th of May 1844.

See P. Thureau-Dangin, _La Monarchie de Juillet_ (vol. i. 1884).

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Apollinaire Antoine Maurice, comte d'Argout (1782-1858),
afterwards reconciled to the July monarchy, and a member of the
Laffitte Casimir-Périer and Thiers cabinets.

LAFFITTE, PIERRE (1823-1903), French Positivist, was born on the 21st of February 1823 at Béguey (Gironde). Residing at Paris as a teacher of mathematics, he became a disciple of Comte, who appointed him his literary executor. On the schism of the Positivist body which followed Comte's death, he was recognized as head of the section which accepted the full Comtian doctrine; the other section adhering to Littré, who rejected the religion of humanity as inconsistent with the materialism of Comte's earlier period. From 1853 Laffitte delivered Positivist lectures in the room formerly occupied by Comte in the rue Monsieur le Prince. He published _Les Grands Types de l'humanité_ (1875) and _Cours de philosophie première_ (1889). In 1893 he was appointed to the new chair founded at the Collège de France for the exposition of the general history of science, and it was largely due to his inspiration that a statue to Comte was erected in the Place de la Sorbonne in 1902. He died on the 4th of January 1903.

LA FLÈCHE, a town of western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Sarthe on the Loire, 31 m. S.S.W. of Le Mans by rail. Pop. (1906) town 7800; commune 10,663. The chief interest of the town lies in the Prytanée, a famous school for the sons of officers, originally a college founded for the Jesuits in 1607 by Henry IV. The buildings, including a fine chapel, were erected from 1620 to 1653 and are surrounded by a park. A bronze statue of Henry IV. stands in the marketplace. La Flèche is the seat of a sub-prefect and of a tribunal of first instance, and carries on tanning, flour-milling, and the manufacture of paper, starch, wooden shoes and gloves. It is an agricultural market.

The lords of La Flèche became counts of Maine about 1100, but the lordship became separate from the county and passed in the 16th century to the family of Bourbon and thus to Henry IV.

LAFONT, PIERRE CHÉRI (1797-1873), French actor, was born at Bordeaux on the 15th of May 1797. Abandoning his profession as assistant ship's doctor in the navy, he went to Paris to study singing and acting. He had some experience at a small theatre, and was preparing to appear at the Opéra Comique when the director of the Vaudeville offered him an engagement. Here he made his _début_ in 1821 in _La Somnambule_, and his good looks and excellent voice soon brought him into public favour. After several years at the Nouveautés and the Vaudeville, on the burning of the latter in 1838 he went to England, and married, at Gretna Green, Jenny Colon, from whom he was soon divorced. On his return to Paris he joined the Variétés, where he acted for fifteen years in such plays as _Le Chevalier de Saint Georges_, _Le Lion empaillé_, _Une dernière conquête_, &c. Another engagement at the Vaudeville followed, and one at the Gaiété, and he ended his brilliant career at the Gymnase in the part of the noble father in such plays as Les _Vieux Garçons_ and _Nos bons villageois_. He died in Paris on the 19th of April 1873.

LA FONTAINE, JEAN DE (1621-1695), French poet, was born at Château Thierry in Champagne, probably on the 8th of July 1621. His father was Charles de La Fontaine, "maître des eaux et forêts"--a kind of deputy-ranger--of the duchy of Château Thierry; his mother was Françoise Pidoux. On both sides his family was of the highest provincial middle class, but was not noble; his father was also fairly wealthy. Jean, the eldest child, was educated at the _collège_ (grammar-school) of Reims, and at the end of his school days he entered the Oratory in May 1641, and the seminary of Saint-Magloire in October of the same year; but a very short sojourn proved to him that he had mistaken his vocation. He then apparently studied law, and is said to have been admitted as _avocat_, though there does not seem to be actual proof of this. He was, however, settled in life, or at least might have been so, somewhat early. In 1647 his father resigned his rangership in his favour, and arranged a marriage for him with Marie Héricart, a girl of sixteen, who brought him twenty thousand livres, and expectations. She seems to have been both handsome and intelligent, but the two did not get on well together. There appears to be absolutely no ground for the vague scandal as to her conduct, which was, for the most part long afterwards, raised by gossips or personal enemies of La Fontaine. All that is positively said against her is that she was a negligent housewife and an inveterate novel reader; La Fontaine himself was constantly away from home, was certainly not strict in point of conjugal fidelity, and was so bad a man of business that his affairs became involved in hopeless difficulty, and a _séparation de biens_ had to take place in 1658. This was a perfectly amicable transaction for the benefit of the family; by degrees, however, the pair, still without any actual quarrel, ceased to live together, and for the greater part of the last forty years of La Fontaine's life he lived in Paris while his wife dwelt at Château Thierry, which, however, he frequently visited. One son was born to them in 1653, and was educated and taken care of wholly by his mother.