Part 34

BETTINELLI, SAVERIO (1718-1808), Italian Jesuit and man of letters, was born at Mantua on the 18th of July 1718. After studying under the Jesuits in his native city and at Bologna he entered the society in 1736. He taught the belles-lettres from 1739 to 1744 at Brescia, where Cardinal Quirini, Count Mazzuchelli, Count Duranti and other scholars, formed an illustrious academy. He next went to Bologna, to pursue the study of divinity, and there he enjoyed the society of many learned and literary men. At the age of thirty he went to Venice, where he became professor of rhetoric, and was on friendly terms with the most illustrious persons of that city and state. The superintendence of the college of nobles at Parma was entrusted to him in 1751; and he had principal charge of the studies of poetry and history, and the entertainments of the theatre. He remained there eight years, visiting, at intervals, other cities of Italy, either on the affairs of his order, for pleasure or for health. In 1755 he traversed part of Germany, proceeded as far as Strassburg and Nancy, and returned by way of Germany into Italy, taking with him two young sons or nephews of the prince of Hohenlohe, who had requested him to take charge of their education. He made, the year following, another journey into France along with the eldest of his pupils; and during this excursion he wrote his famous _Lettere dieci di Virgilio agli Arcadi_, which were published at Venice with his _sciolti_ verses, and those of Frugoni and Algarotti. The opinions maintained in these letters against the two great Italian poets and particularly against Dante, created him many enemies, and embroiled him with Algarotti. In 1758 he went into Lorraine, to the court of King Stanislaus, who sent him on a matter of business to visit Voltaire. Voltaire presented him with a copy of his works, with a flattering inscription in allusion to Bettinelli's _Letters of Virgil_. From Geneva he returned to Parma, where he arrived in 1759. He afterwards lived for some years at Verona and Modena, and he had just been appointed professor of rhetoric there, when, in 1773, the order of Jesuits was abolished in Italy. Bettinelli then returned into his own country, and resumed his literary labours with new ardour. The siege of Mantua by the French compelled him to leave the city, and he retired to Verona, where he formed an intimate friendship with the chevalier Hippolito Pindemonti. In 1797 he returned to Mantua. Though nearly eighty years old, he resumed his labours and his customary manner of life. He undertook in 1799 a complete edition of his works, which was published at Venice in 24 vols. 12mo. Arrived at the age of ninety years, he still retained his gaiety and vivacity of mind, and died on the 13th of September 1808. The works of Bettinelli are now of little value. The only one still deserving remembrance, perhaps, is the _Risorgimento negli studj, nelle Arti e ne' Costumi dopo il Mille_ (1775-1786), a sketch of the progress of literature, science, the fine arts, industry, &c., in Italy.

BETTWS Y COED, an urban district of Carnarvonshire, North Wales, 4 m. from Llanrwst and 16 m. from Llandudno, on a branch of the London & North-Western railway. Pop. (1901) 1070. The name means "warm place of the wood," according to Llyn's definition of _bettws_. The other derivation of the word from _Abbatis_ (_domus_) agrees with its vicinity to Yspytty[1] Ifan (Ieuan), _Hospitium Ioannis_, near Pentre'r Foelas. The words "y coed" are added to distinguish this Bettws from several others in Wales, especially that near Llandeilo Fawr, Carmarthenshire, not far from the Bettws hills. Bettws y coed is a favourite village for artists and tourists. It is a centre for excursions towards Capel Curig and Snowdon, or towards Blaenau Festiniog, via Roman Bridge. There is excellent fishing for salmon and trout, and in summer coaches leave their daily loads of tourists here. The best-known streams and waterfalls are Llugwy, Lledr, with Rhaiadr y wenol (Swallow falls), Conwy and Machno falls. In the neighbourhood are Dolwyddelan castle and the hill of Moel Siabod.

FOOTNOTE:

[1] Other places named "Yspytty" are Y. Cynfyn and Y. Ystwyth. For the name Yspytty, cf. Bale's _King John_, 2125: "So many masendeens (_maisons Dieu_), hospytals and _spyttle_ howses."

BETTY, WILLIAM HENRY WEST (1791-1874), English actor, known as "the young Roscius," was born on the 13th of September 1791 at Shrewsbury. He first appeared on the stage at Belfast before he was twelve years old, as Osman in Aaron Hill's _Zara_, an English version of Voltaire's _Zaire_. His success was immediate, and he shortly afterwards appeared in Dublin, where it is said that in three hours of study he committed the part of Hamlet to memory. His precocious talents aroused great enthusiasm in Glasgow and Edinburgh, and he was favourably compared with some of the greatest tragedians. In 1804 he first appeared at Covent Garden, when the troops had to be called out to preserve order, so great was the crush to obtain admittance. At Drury Lane the house was similarly packed, and he played for the then unprecedented salary of over 75 guineas a night. He was a great success socially, George III. himself presenting him to the queen, and Pitt upon one occasion adjourning the House of Commons that members might be in time for his performance. But this enthusiasm gradually subsided, and in 1808 he made his final appearance as a boy actor, and entered Christ's College, Cambridge. He re-appeared four years later, but the public would have none of him, and he retired to the enjoyment of the large fortune which he had amassed as a prodigy. He died on the 24th of August 1874. His son Henry Betty (1819-1897) was also an actor.

BETUL, a town and district of British India, in the Nerbudda division of the Central Provinces. In 1901 the population of the town was 4739. The administrative headquarters of the district have been transferred to the town of Badnur (q.v.), 3 m. north.

The district of BETUL has an area of 3826 sq. m. In 1901 the population was 285,363, showing a decrease of 12% in the decade, due to the results of famine. The mean elevation above the sea is about 2000 ft. The country is essentially a highland tract, divided naturally into three distinct portions, differing in their superficial aspects, the character of their soil and their geological formation. The northern part of the district forms an irregular plain of the sandstone formation. It is a well-wooded tract, in many places stretching out in charming glades like an English park, but it has a very sparse population and little cultivated land. In the extreme north a line of hills rises abruptly out of the great plain of the Nerbudda valley. The central tract alone possesses a rich soil, well watered by the Machna and Sampna rivers, almost entirely cultivated and studded with villages. To the south lies a rolling plateau of basaltic formation (with the sacred town of Multai, and the springs of the river Tapti at its highest point), extending over the whole of the southern face of the district, and finally merging into the wild and broken line of the Ghats, which lead down to the plains. This tract consists of a succession of stony ridges of trap rock, enclosing valleys or basins of fertile soil, to which cultivation is for the most part confined, except where the shallow soil on the tops of the hills has been turned to account. The principal crops are wheat, millet, other food-grains, pulse, oil-seeds, and a little sugar-cane and cotton. A large part of the area is covered with forests, which yield teak and other timber. The only manufacture is cotton cloth. A railway is projected from Itarsi through the district to Berar. Good roads are few; and none of the rivers is navigable. This district suffered very severely from the famine of 1896-1897, in 1897 the death-rate being as high as 73 per 1000. It suffered again in 1900, when in May the number of persons relieved rose to one-third of the total population.

Little is known of the early history of the district except that it must have been the centre of the first of the four ancient Gond kingdoms of Kherla, Deogarh, Mandla and Chanda. According to Ferishta, the Persian historian, these kingdoms engrossed in 1398 all the hills of Gondwana and adjacent countries, and were of great wealth and power. About the year 1418 Sultan Husain Shah of Malwa invaded Kherla, and reduced it to a dependency. Nine years later the raja rebelled, but although with the help of the Bahmani kings of the Deccan he managed for a time to assert his independence, he was finally subdued and deprived of his territories. In 1467 Kherla was seized by the Bahmani king, but was afterwards restored to Malwa. A century later the kingdom of Malwa became incorporated into the dominions of the emperor of Delhi. In 1703 a Mussulman convert of the Gond tribe held the country, and in 1743 Raghoji Bhonsla, the Mahratta ruler of Berar, annexed it to his dominions. The Mahrattas in the year 1818 ceded this district to the East India Company as payment for a contingent, and by the treaty of 1826 it was formally incorporated with the British possessions. Detachments of British troops were stationed at Multai, Betul and Shahpur to cut off the retreat of Apa Sahib, the Mahratta general, and a military force was quartered at Betul until June 1862. The ruined city of Kherla formed the seat of government under the Gonds and preceding rulers, and hence the district was, until the time of its annexation to the British dominions, known as the "Kherla Sarkar." The town of Multai contains an artificial tank, from the centre of which the Tapti is said to take its rise: hence the reputed sanctity of the spot, and the accumulation of temples in its honour.

The climate of Betul is fairly healthy. Its height above the plains and the neighbourhood of extensive forests moderate the heat, and render the temperature pleasant throughout the greater part of the year. During the cold season the thermometer at night falls below the freezing point; little or no hot wind is felt before the end of April, and even then it ceases after sunset. The nights in the hot season are comparatively cool and pleasant. During the monsoon the climate is very damp, and at times even cold and raw, thick clouds and mist enveloping the sky for many days together. The average annual rainfall is 40 in. In the denser jungles malaria prevails for months after the cessation of the rains, but the Gonds do not appear to suffer much from its effects. Travellers and strangers who venture into these jungles run the risk of fever of a severe type at almost all seasons of the year.

BETWA, a river of India, which rises in the native state of Bhopal in Malwa, and after a course of 360 m., for the most part in a north-easterly direction, falls into the Jumna at Hamirpur. A weir is thrown across the Betwa about 15 m. from Jhansi town, whence a canal 168 m. long takes off, irrigating 106,000 acres of the Jalaun district; similar works have been carried out elsewhere on the river.

BEUDANT, FRANCOIS SULPICE (1787-1850), French mineralogist and geologist, was born at Paris on the 5th of September 1787. He was educated at the Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole Normale, and in 1811 was appointed professor of mathematics at the lycee of Avignon. Thence he was called, in 1813, to the lycee of Marseilles to fill the post of professor of physics. In the following year the royal mineralogical cabinet was committed to his charge to be conveyed into England, and from that time his attention was directed principally towards geology and cognate sciences. In 1817 he published a paper on the phenomena of crystallization, treating especially of the variety of forms assumed by the same mineral substance. In 1818 he undertook, at the expense of the French government, a geological journey through Hungary, and the results of his researches, _Voyage mineralogique et geologique en Hongrie_, 3 vols. 4to, with atlas, published in 1822, established for him a European reputation. In 1820 he was appointed to the professorship of mineralogy in the Paris faculty of sciences, and afterwards became inspector-general of the university. He subsequently published treatises on physics and on mineralogy and geology, and died on the 10th of December 1850.

BEUGNOT, JACQUES CLAUDE, COUNT (1761-1835), French politician, was born at Bar-sur-Aube. A magistrate under the old regime, he was elected deputy to the Legislative Assembly (1791), then to the Convention. He was involved in the proscription of the Girondists and imprisoned until the 9th Thermidor. He next entered into relations with the family of Bonaparte, and in 1799, after the 18th Brumaire, again entered politics, becoming successively prefect of the lower Seine, councillor of state, and finance minister to Jerome Bonaparte, king of Westphalia. In 1808 Beugnot, who had meanwhile been appointed administrator of the duchy of Berg-Cleves, received the cross of officer of the Legion of Honour with the title of count. He returned to France in 1813, after the battle of Leipzig, and was made prefect of the department of Nord. In 1814 he was a member of the provisional government as minister of the interior; and by Louis XVIII. he was named director-general of police and afterwards minister of marine. He followed Louis to Ghent during the Hundred Days, and became one of his confidants. He contributed to draw up Louis's charter, and in his memoirs boasted of having furnished the text of the proclamation addressed by the king to the French people before his return to France; but it is known now that it was another text that was adopted. Lacking the support of the ultra-royalists, he was given the title of minister of state without portfolio, which was equivalent to a retirement. Elected deputy, he attached himself to the moderate party, and defended the liberty of the press. In 1831 Louis Philippe made him a peer of France and director-general of manufactures and commerce. He died on the 24th of June 1835.

His son, AUGUSTE ARTHUR BEUGNOT (1797-1865), was an historian and scholar, who published an _Essai sur les institutions de Saint Louis_ (1821), _Histoire de la destruction du paganisme en occident_ (2 vols., 1885), and edited the _Olim_ of the parlement of Paris, the _Assizes of Jerusalem_, and the _Coutumes de Beauvoisis_ of Philippe de Beaumanoir. He was a member of the chamber of peers under Louis Philippe, and opposed Villemain's plan for freedom of education. After 1848 he maintained the same role, acting as reporter of the _loi Falloux_. He retired from public life after the _coup d'etat_ of Napoleon III., and died on the 15th of March 1865.

The _Memoires_ of J.C. Beugnot were published by his grandson, Count Albert Beugnot (2nd ed., Paris, 1868); see H. Wallon, _Eloges academiques_ (1882); and E. Dejean, _Un Prefet du Consulat: J.C. Beugnot_ (Paris, 1907).

BEULE, CHARLES ERNEST (1826-1874), French archaeologist and politician, was born at Saumur on the 29th of June 1826. He was educated at the Ecole Normale, and after having held the professorship of rhetoric at Moulins for a year, was sent to Athens in 1851 as one of the professors in the Ecole Francaise there. He had the good fortune to discover the propylaea of the Acropolis, and his work, _L'Acropole d'Athenes_ (2nd ed., 1863), was published by order of the minister of public instruction. On his return to France, promotion and distinctions followed rapidly upon his first successes. He was made doctor of letters, chevalier of the Legion of Honour, professor of archaeology at the Bibliotheque Imperiale, member of the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres and perpetual secretary of the Academie des Beaux-Arts. He took great interest in political affairs, with which the last few years of his life were entirely occupied. Elected a member of the National Assembly in 1871, he zealously supported the Orleanist party. In May-November 1873 he was minister of the interior in the Broglie ministry. He died by his own hand on the 4th of April 1874. His other important works are: _Etudes sur le Peloponnese_ (2nd ed., 1875); _Les Monnaies d'Athenes_ (1858); _L'Architecture au siecle de Pisistrate_ (1860); _Fouilles a Carthage_ (1861). Beule was also the author of high-class popular works on artistic and historical subjects: _Histoire de l'art grec avant Pericles_ (2nd ed., 1870); _Le Proces des Cesars_ (1867-1870, in four parts; _Auguste, sa famille et ses amis; Tibere et l'heritage d'Auguste; Le Sang de Germanicus; Titus et sa dynastie_).

See Ideville, _Monsieur Beule, Souvenirs personnels_ (1874).

BEURNONVILLE, PIERRE DE RUEL, MARQUIS DE (1752-1821), French general. After service in the colonies, he married a wealthy Creole, and returning to France purchased the post of lieutenant of the Swiss guard of the count of Provence. During the Revolution he was named lieutenant-general, and took an active part in the battles of Valmy and Jemmapes. Minister of war in February 1793, he denounced his old commander, C.F. Dumouriez, to the Convention, and was one of the four deputies sent to watch him. Given over by him to the Austrians on the 3rd of April 1793, Beurnonville was not exchanged until November 1795. He entered the service again, commanded the armies of the Sambre-et-Meuse and of the North, and was appointed inspector of infantry of the army of England in 1798. In 1800 he was sent as ambassador to Berlin, in 1802 to Madrid. Napoleon made him a senator and count of the empire. In 1814 he was a member of the provisional government organized after the abdication of Napoleon, and was created a peer of France. During the Hundred Days he followed Louis XVIII. to Ghent, and after the second restoration was made marquis and marshal of France.

See A. Chaquet, _Les Guerres de la Revolution_ (Paris, 1886).

BEUST, FRIEDRICH FERDINAND VON (1809-1886), Austrian statesman, was descended from a noble family which had originally sprung from the Mark of Brandenburg, and of which one branch had been for over 300 years settled in Saxony. He was born on the 13th of January 1809 in Dresden, where his father held office at the Saxon court. After studying at Leipzig and Gottingen he entered the Saxon public service; in 1836 he was made secretary of legation at Berlin, and afterwards held appointments at Paris, Munich and London. In March 1848 he was summoned to Dresden to take the office of foreign minister, but in consequence of the outbreak of the revolution was not appointed. In May he was appointed Saxon envoy at Berlin, and in February 1849 was again summoned to Dresden, and this time appointed minister of foreign affairs, an office which he continued to hold till 1866. In addition to this he held the ministry of education and public worship from 1849 to 1853; that of internal affairs in 1853, and in the same year was appointed minister-president. From the time that he entered the ministry he was, however, the leading member of it, and he was chiefly responsible for the events of 1849. By his advice the king refused to accept the constitution proclaimed by the Frankfort parliament, a policy which led to the outbreak of revolution in Dresden, which was suppressed after four days' fighting by Prussian troops, for whose assistance Beust had asked. On Beust fell also the chief responsibility for governing the country after order was restored, and he was the author of the so-called _coup d'etat_ of June 1850 by which the new constitution was overthrown. The vigour he showed in repressing all resistance to the government, especially that of the university, and in reorganizing the police, made him one of the most unpopular men among the Liberals, and his name became synonymous with the worst form of reaction, but it is not clear that the attacks on him were justified. After this he was chiefly occupied with foreign affairs, and he soon became one of the most conspicuous figures in German politics. He was the leader of that party which hoped to maintain the independence of the smaller states, and was the opponent of all attempts on the part of Prussia to attract them into a separate union; in 1849-1850 he had been obliged to join the "three kings' union" of Prussia, Hanover and Saxony, but he was careful to keep open a loophole for withdrawal, of which he speedily availed himself. In the crisis of 1851 Saxony was on the side of Austria, and he supported the restoration of the diet of the confederation. In 1854 he took part in the Bamberg conferences, in which the smaller German states claimed the right to direct their own policy independent of that of Austria or of Prussia, and he was the leading supporter of the idea of the _Trias_, i.e. that the smaller states should form a closer union among themselves against the preponderance of the great monarchies. In 1863 he came forward as a warm supporter of the claims of the prince of Augustenburg to Schleswig-Holstein (see SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN QUESTION); he was the leader of the party in the German diet which refused to recognize the settlement of the Danish question effected in 1852 by the treaty of London, and in 1864 he was appointed representative of the diet at the congress of London. He was thus thrown into opposition to the policy of Bismarck, and he was exposed to violent attacks in the Prussian press as a "particularist," i.e. a supporter of the independence of the smaller states. The expulsion of the Saxon troops from Rendsburg nearly led to a conflict with Prussia. Beust was accused of having brought about the war of 1866, but the responsibility for this must rest with Bismarck. On the outbreak of war Beust accompanied the king to Prague, and thence to Vienna, where they were received by the emperor with the news of Koniggratz. Beust undertook a mission to Paris to procure the help of Napoleon. When the terms of peace were discussed he resigned, for Bismarck refused to negotiate with him.