Part 35

BLUEBEARD, the monster of Charles Perrault's tale of _Barbe Bleue_, who murdered his wives and hid their bodies in a locked room. Perrault's tale was first printed in his _Histoires et contes du temps passe_ (1697). The essentials of the story--Bluebeard's prohibition to his wife to open a certain door during his absence, her disobedience, her discovery of a gruesome secret, and her timely rescue from death--are to be found in other folklore stories, none of which, however, has attained the fame of _Bluebeard_. A close parallel exists in an Esthonian legend of a husband who had already killed eleven wives, and was prevented from killing the twelfth, who had opened a secret room, by a gooseherd, the friend of her childhood. In "The Feather Bird" of Grimm's _Hausmarchen_, three sisters are the victims, the third being rescued by her brothers. Bluebeard, though Perrault does not state the number of his crimes, is generally credited with the murder of seven wives. His history belongs to the common stock of folklore, and has even been ingeniously fitted with a mythical interpretation. In France the Bluebeard legend has its local habitation in Brittany, but whether the existing traditions connecting him with Gilles de Rais (q.v.) or Comorre the Cursed, a Breton chief of the 6th century, were anterior to Perrault's time, we have no means of determining. The identification of Bluebeard with Gilles de Rais, the _bete d'extermination_ of Michelet's forcible language, persists locally in the neighbourhood of the various castles of the baron, especially at Machecoul and Tiffauges, the chief scenes of his infamous crimes. Gilles de Rais, however, had only one wife, who survived him, and his victims were in the majority of cases young boys. The traditional connexion may arise simply from the not improbable association of two monstrous tales. The less widespread identification of Bluebeard with Comorre is supported by a series of frescoes dating only a few years later than the publication of Perrault's story, in a chapel at St Nicolas de Bieuzy dedicated to St Tryphine, in which the tale of Bluebeard is depicted as the story of the saint, who in history was the wife of Comorre. Comorre or Conomor had his original headquarters at Carhaix, in Finistere. He extended his authority by marriage with the widow of Iona, chief of Domnonia, and attempted the life of his stepson Judwal, who fled to the Frankish court. About 547 or 548 he obtained in marriage, through the intercession of St Gildas, Tryphine, daughter of Weroc, count of Vannes. The pair lived in peace at Castel Finans for some time, but Comorre, disappointed in his ambitions in the Vannetais, presently threatened Tryphine. She took flight, but her husband found her hiding in a wood, when he gave her a wound on the skull and left her for dead. She was tended and restored to health by St Gildas, and after the birth of her son retired to a convent of her own foundation. Eventually Comorre was defeated and slain by Judwal. In legend St Tryphine was decapitated and miraculously restored to life by Gildas. Alain Bouchard (_Grandes croniques_, Nantes, 1531) asserts that Comorre had already put several wives to death before he married Tryphine. In the _Legendes bretonnes_ of the count d'Amezeuil the church legend becomes a charming fairy tale.

See also E.A. Vizetclly, _Bluebeard_ (1902); E. Sidney Hartland, "The Forbidden Chamber," in _Folklore_, vol. iii. (1885); and the editions of the _Contes_ of Charles Perrault (q.v.). Cf. A. France, _Les Sept Femmes de Barbe Bleue_ (1909).

BLUE-BOOK, the general name given to the reports and other documents printed by order of the parliament of the United Kingdom, so called from their being usually covered with blue paper, though some are bound in drab and others have white covers. The printing of its proceedings was first adopted by the House of Commons in 1681, and in 1836 was commenced the practice of selling parliamentary papers to the public. All notices of questions, resolutions, votes and proceedings in both Houses of Parliament are issued each day during the session; other publications include the various papers issued by the different government departments, the reports of committees and commissions of inquiry, public bills, as well as returns, correspondence, &c., specially ordered to be printed by either house. The papers of each session are so arranged as to admit of being bound up in regular order, and are well indexed. The terms upon which blue-books, single papers, &c., are issued to the general public are one halfpenny per sheet of four pages, but for an annual subscription of L20 all the parliamentary publications of the year may be obtained; but subscriptions can be arranged so that almost any particular class of publication can be obtained--for example, the daily votes and proceedings can be obtained for an annual subscription of L3, the House of Lords papers for L10, or the House of Commons papers for L15. Any publication can also be purchased separately.

Most foreign countries have a distinctive colour for the binding of their official publications. That of the United Slates varies, but foreign diplomatic correspondence is bound in red. The United States government publications are not only on sale (as a rule) but are widely supplied gratis, with the result that important publications soon get out of print, and it is difficult to obtain access to many valuable reports or other information, except at a public library. German official publications are bound in white; French, in yellow; Austrian, in red; Portuguese, in white; Italian, in green; Spanish, in red; Mexican, in green; Japanese, in grey; Chinese, in yellow.

BLUESTOCKING, a derisive name for a literary woman. The term originated in or about 1750, when Mrs Elizabeth Montagu (q.v.) made a determined effort to introduce into society a healthier and more intellectual tone, by holding assemblies at which literary conversation and discussions were to take the place of cards and gossip. Most of those attending were conspicuous by the plainness of their dress, and a Mr Benjamin Stillingfleet specially caused comment by always wearing blue or worsted stockings instead of the usual black silk. It was in special reference to him that Mrs Montagu's friends were called the Bluestocking Society or Club, and the women frequenting her house in Hill Street came to be known as the "Bluestocking Ladies" or simply "bluestockings." As an alternative explanation, the origin of the name is attributed to Mrs Montagu's deliberate adoption of blue stockings (in which fashion she was followed by all her women friends) as the badge of the society she wished to form. She is said to have obtained the idea from Paris, where in the 17th century there was a revival of a social reunion in 1590 on the lines of that formed in 1400 at Venice, the ladies and men of which wore blue stockings. The term had been applied in England as early as 1653 to the Little Parliament, in allusion to the puritanically plain and coarse dress of the members.

BLUFF (a word of uncertain origin; possibly connected with an obsolete Dutch word, _blaf_, broad), an adjective used of a ship, meaning broad and nearly vertical in the bows; similarly, of a cliff or shore, presenting a bold and nearly perpendicular front; of a person, good-natured and frank, with a rough or abrupt manner. Another word "bluff," perhaps connected with German _verbluffen_, to baffle, meant originally a horse's blinker, the corresponding verb meaning to blindfold: it survives as a term in such games as poker, where "to bluff" means to bet heavily on a hand so as to make an opponent believe it to be stronger than it is; hence such phrases as "the game of bluff," "a policy of bluff."

BLUM, ROBERT FREDERICK (1857-1903), American artist, was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, on the 9th of July 1857. He was employed for a time in a lithographic shop, and studied at the McMicken Art School of Design in Cincinnati, and at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts in Philadelphia, but he was practically self-taught, and early showed great and original talent. He settled in New York in 1879, and his first published sketches--of Japanese jugglers--appeared in _St Nicholas_. His most important work is a large frieze in the Mendelssohn Music Hall, New York, "Music and the Dance" (1895). His pen-and-ink work for the Century magazine attracted wide attention, as did his illustrations for Sir Edwin Arnold's _Japonica_. In the country and art of Japan he had been interested for many years. "A Daughter of Japan," drawn by Blum and W.J. Baer, was the cover of _Scribner's Magazine_ for May 1893, and was one of the earliest pieces of colour-printing for an American magazine. In _Scribner's_ for 1893 appeared also his "Artist's Letters from Japan." He was an admirer of Fortuny, whose methods somewhat influenced his work. Blum's Venetian pictures, such as "A Bright Day at Venice" (1882), had lively charm and beauty. He died on the 8th of June 1903 in New York City. He was a member of the National Academy of Design, being elected after his exhibition in 1892 of "The Ameya"; and was president of the Painters in Pastel. Although an excellent draughtsman and etcher, it was as a colourist that he chiefly excelled.

BLUMENBACH, JOHANN FRIEDRICH (1752-1840), German physiologist and anthropologist, was born at Gotha on the 11th of May 1752. After studying medicine at Jena, he graduated doctor at Gottingen in 1775, and was appointed extraordinary professor of medicine in 1776 and ordinary professor in 1778. He died at Gottingen on the 22nd of January 1840. He was the author of _Institutiones Physiologicae_ (1787), and of a _Handbuch der vergleichenden Anatomie_ (1804), both of which were very popular and went through many editions, but he is best known for his work in connexion with anthropology, of which science he has been justly called the founder. He was the first to show the value of comparative anatomy in the study of man's history, and his craniometrical researches justified his division of the human race into several great varieties or families, of which he enumerated five--the Caucasian or white race, the Mongolian or yellow, the Malayan or brown race, the Negro or black race, and the American or red race. This classification has been very generally received, and most later schemes have been modifications of it. His most important anthropological work was his description of sixty human crania published originally in _fasciculi_ under the title _Collectionis suae craniorum diversarum gentium illustratae decades_ (Gottingen, 1790-1828).

BLUMENTHAL, LEONHARD, COUNT VON (1810-1900), Prussian field marshal, son of Captain Ludwig von Blumenthal (killed in 1813 at the battle of Dennewitz), was born at Schwedt-on-Oder on the 30th of July 1810. Educated at the military schools of Culm and Berlin, he entered the Guards as 2nd lieutenant in 1827. After serving in the Rhine provinces, he joined the topographical division of the general staff in 1846. As lieutenant of the 31st foot he took part in 1848 in the suppression of the Berlin riots, and in 1849 was promoted captain on the general staff. The same year he served on the staff of General von Bonin in the Schleswig-Holstein campaign, and so distinguished himself, particularly at Fredericia, that he was appointed chief of the staff of the Schleswig-Holstein army. In 1850 he was general staff officer of the mobile division under von Tietzen in Hesse-Cassel. He was sent on a mission to England in that year (4th class of Red Eagle), and on several subsequent occasions. Having attained the rank of lieutenant-colonel, he was appointed personal adjutant to Prince Frederick Charles in 1859. In 1860 he became colonel of the 31st, and later of the 71st, regiment. He was chief of the staff of the III. army corps when, on the outbreak of the Danish War of 1864, he was nominated chief of the general staff of the army against Denmark, and displayed so much ability, particularly at Duppel and the passage to Alsen island, that he was promoted major-general and given the order _pour le merite_. In the war of 1866 Blumenthal occupied the post of chief of the general staff to the crown prince of Prussia, commanding the 2nd army. It was upon this army that the brunt of the fighting fell, and at Koniggratz it decided the fortunes of the day. Blumenthal's own part in these battles and in the campaign generally was most conspicuous. On the field of Koniggratz the crown prince said to his chief of staff, "I know to whom I owe the conduct of my army," and Blumenthal soon received promotion to lieutenant-general and the oak-leaf of the order _pour le merite_. He was also made a knight of the Hohenzollern Order. From 1866 to 1870 he commanded the 14th division at Dusseldorf. In the Franco-German War of 1870-71 he was chief of staff of the 3rd army under the crown prince. Blumenthal's soldierly qualities and talent were never more conspicuous than in the critical days preceding the battle of Sedan, and his services in the war have been considered as scarcely less valuable and important than those of Moltke himself. In 1871 Blumenthal represented Germany at the British manoeuvres at Chobham, and was given the command of the IV. army corps at Magdeburg. In 1873 he became a general of infantry, and ten years later he was made a count. In 1888 he was made a general field marshal, after which he was in command of the 4th and 3rd army inspections. He retired in 1896, and died at Quellendorf near Kothen on the 21st of December 1900.

Blumenthal's diary of 1866 and 1870-1871 has been edited by his son, Count Albrecht von Blumenthal (_Tagebuch des G.F.M. von Blumenthal_), 1902; an English translation (_Journals of Count von Blumenthal_) was published in 1903.

BLUNDERBUSS (a corruption of the Dutch _donder_, thunder, and the Dutch _bus_; cf. Ger. _Buchse_, a box or tube, hence a thunder-box or gun), an obsolete muzzle-loading firearm with a bell-shaped muzzle. Its calibre was large so that it could contain many balls or slugs, and it was intended to be fired at a short range, so that some of the charge was sure to take effect. The word is also used by analogy to describe a blundering and random person or talker.

BLUNT, JOHN HENRY (1823-1884), English divine, was born at Chelsea in 1823, and before going to the university of Durham in 1850 was for some years engaged in business as a manufacturing chemist. He was ordained in 1852 and took his M.A. degree in 1855, publishing in the same year a work on _The Atonement_. He held in succession several preferments, among them the vicarage of Kennington near Oxford (1868), which he vacated in 1873 for the crown living of Beverston in Gloucestershire. He had already gained some reputation as an industrious theologian, and had published among other works an annotated edition of the Prayer Book (1867), a _History of the English Reformation_ (1868), and a _Book of Church Law_ (1872), as well as a useful _Dictionary of Doctrinal and Historical Theology_ (1870). The continuation of these labours was seen in a _Dictionary of Sects and Heresies_ (1874), an _Annotated Bible_ (3 vols., 1878-1879), and a _Cyclopaedia of Religion_ (1884), and received recognition in the shape of the D.D. degree bestowed on him in 1882. He died in London on the 11th of April 1884.

BLUNT, JOHN JAMES (1794-1855), English divine, was born at Newcastle-under-Lyme in Staffordshire, and educated at St John's College, Cambridge, where he took his degree as fifteenth wrangler and obtained a fellowship (1816). He was appointed a Wort's travelling bachelor 1818, and spent some time in Italy and Sicily, afterwards publishing an account of his journey. He proceeded M.A. in 1819, B.D. 1826, and was Hulsean Lecturer in 1831-1832 while holding a curacy in Shropshire. In 1834 he became rector of Great Oakley in Essex, and in 1839 was appointed Lady Margaret professor of divinity at Cambridge. In 1854 he declined the see of Salisbury, and he died on the 18th of June 1855. His chief book was _Undesigned Coincidences in the Writings both of the Old and New Testaments_ (1833; fuller edition, 1847). Some of his writings, among them the _History of the Christian Church during the First Three Centuries_ and the lectures _On the Right Use of the Early Fathers_, were published posthumously.

A short memoir of him appeared in 1856 from the hand of William Selwyn, his successor in the divinity professorship.

BLUNT, WILFRID SCAWEN (1840- ), English poet and publicist, was born on the 17th of August 1840 at Petworth House, Sussex, the son of Francis Scawen Blunt, who served in the Peninsular War and was wounded at Corunna. He was educated at Stonyhurst and Oscott, and entered the diplomatic service in 1858, serving successively at Athens, Madrid, Paris and Lisbon. In 1867 he was sent to South America, and on his return to England retired from the service on his marriage with Lady Anne Noel, daughter of the earl of Lovelace and a grand-daughter of the poet Byron. In 1872 he succeeded, by the death of his elder brother, to the estate of Crabbet Park, Sussex, where he established a famous stud for the breeding of Arab horses. Mr and Lady Anne Blunt travelled repeatedly in northern Africa, Asia Minor and Arabia, two of their expeditions being described in Lady Anne's _Bedouins of the Euphrates_ (2 vols., 1879) and _A Pilgrimage to Nejd_ (2 vols., 1881). Mr Blunt became known as an ardent sympathizer with Mahommedan aspirations, and in his _Future of Islam_ (1888) he directed attention to the forces which afterwards produced the movements of Pan-Islamism and Mahdism. He was a violent opponent of the English policy in the Sudan, and in _The Wind and the Whirlwind_ (in verse, 1883) prophesied its downfall. He supported the national party in Egypt, and took a prominent part in the defence of Arabi Pasha. _Ideas about India_ (1885) was the result of two visits to that country, the second in 1883-1884. In 1885 and 1886 he stood unsuccessfully for parliament as a Home Ruler; and in 1887 he was arrested in Ireland while presiding over a political meeting in connexion with the agitation on Lord Clanricarde's estate, and was imprisoned for two months in Kilmainham. His best-known volume of verse, _Love Sonnets of Proteus_ (1880), is a revelation of his real merits as an emotional poet. _The Poetry of Wilfrid Blunt_ (1888), selected and edited by W.E. Henley and Mr George Wyndham, includes these sonnets, together with "Worth Forest, a Pastoral," "Griselda" (described as a "society novel in rhymed verse"), translations from the Arabic, and poems which had appeared in other volumes.

BLUNTSCHLI, JOHANN KASPAR (1808-1881), Swiss jurist and politician, was born at Zurich on the 7th of March 1808, the son of a soap and candle manufacturer. From school he passed into the _Politische Institut_ (a seminary of law and political science) in his native town, and proceeding thence to the universities of Berlin and Bonn, took the degree of _doctor juris_ in the latter in 1829. Returning to Zurich in 1830, he threw himself with ardour into the political strife which was at the time unsettling all the cantons of the Confederation, and in this year published _Uber die Verfassung der Stadt Zurich_ (On the Constitution of the City of Zurich). This was followed by _Das Volk und der Souveran_ (1830), a work in which, while pleading for constitutional government, he showed his bitter repugnance of the growing Swiss radicalism. Elected in 1837 a member of the Grosser Rath (Great Council), he became the champion of the moderate conservative party. Fascinated by the metaphysical views of the philosopher Friedrich Rohmer (1814-1856), a man who attracted little other attention, he endeavoured in _Psychologische Studien uber Staat und Kirche_ (1844) to apply them to political science generally, and in particular as a panacea for the constitutional troubles of Switzerland. Bluntschli, shortly before his death, remarked, "I have gained renown as a jurist, but my greatest desert is to have comprehended Rohmer." This philosophical essay, however, coupled with his uncompromising attitude towards both radicalism and ultramontanism, brought him many enemies, and rendered his continuance in the council, of which he had been elected president, impossible. He resigned his seat, and on the overthrow of the Sonderbund in 1847, perceiving that all hope of power for his party was lost, took leave of Switzerland with the pamphlet _Stimme eines Schweizers uber die Bundesreform_ (1847), and settled at Munich, where he became professor of constitutional law in 1848.

At Munich he devoted himself with energy to the special work of his chair, and, resisting the temptation to identify himself with politics, published _Allgemeines Staatsrecht_ (1851-1852); _Lehre vom modernen Staat_ (1875-1876); and, in conjunction with Karl Ludwig Theodor Brater (1819-1869), _Deutsches Staats-worterbuch_ (II vols., 1857-1870: abridged by Edgar Loening in 3 vols., 1869-1875). Meanwhile he had assiduously worked at his code for the canton of Zurich, _Privatrechtliches Gesetzbuch fur den Kanton Zurich_ (4 vols., 1854-1856), a work which was much praised at the time, and which,

## particularly the section devoted to contracts, served as a model for

codes both in Switzerland and other countries. In 1861 Bluntschli received a call to Heidelberg as professor of constitutional law (Staatsrecht), where he again entered the political arena, endeavouring in his _Geschichte des allgemeinen Staatsrechts und der Politik_ (1864) "to stimulate," as he said, "the political consciousness of the German people, to cleanse it of prejudices and to further it intellectually." In his new home, Baden, he devoted his energies and political influence, during the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, towards keeping the country neutral. From this time Bluntschli became active in the field of international law, and his fame as a jurist belongs rather to this province than to that of constitutional law. His _Das moderne Kriegsrecht_ (1866); _Das moderns Volkerrecht_ (1868), and _Das Beuterecht im Krieg_ (1878) are likely to remain invaluable text-books in this branch of the science of jurisprudence. He also wrote a pamphlet on the "Alabama" case.

Bluntschli was one of the founders, at Ghent in 1873, of the Institute of International Law, and was the representative of the German emperor at the conference on the international laws of war at Brussels. During the latter years of his life he took a lively interest in the _Protestantenverein_, a society formed to combat reactionary and ultramontane views of theology. He died suddenly at Karlsruhe on the 21st of October 1881. His library was acquired by Johns Hopkins University at Baltimore, U.S.A.

Among his works, other than those before mentioned, may be cited _Deutsches Privatrecht_ (1853-1854); _Deutsche Staatslehre fur Gebildete_ (1874); and _Deutsche Staatslehre und die heutige Staatenwelt_ (1880).

For notices of Bluntschli's life and works see his interesting autobiography, _Denkwurdiges aus meinem Leben_ (1884); von Holtzendorff, _Bluntschli und seine Verdienste um die Staatswissenschaften_ (1882); Brockhaus, _Konversations-Lexicon_ (1901); and a biography by Meyer von Kronau, in _Allgemeine deutsche Biographie_.