Part 33

BOURREE, a French name for a dance common in Auvergne and in Biscay in Spain; also a term for a musical composition or a dance-movement in a suite, somewhat akin to the gavotte, in quick time with two beats to the bar.

BOURRIENNE, LOUIS ANTOINE FAUVELET DE (1769-1834), French diplomatist, was born at Sens on the 9th of July 1769. He was educated at the military school of Brienne in Champagne along with Napoleon Bonaparte; and although the solitary habits of the latter made intimacy difficult, the two youths seem to have been on friendly terms. It must, however, be added that the stories of their very close friendship, as told in Bourrienne's memoirs, are open to suspicion. Leaving Brienne in 1787, and conceiving a distaste for the army, Bourrienne proceeded to Vienna. He was pursuing legal and diplomatic studies there and afterwards at Leipzig, when the French Revolution broke out and went through its first phases. Not until the spring of 1792 did Bourrienne return to France; at Paris he renewed his acquaintance with Bonaparte. They led a Bohemian life together, and among other incidents of that exciting time, they witnessed the mobbing of the royal family in the Tuileries (June 20) and the overthrow of the Swiss Guards at the same spot (August 10). Bourrienne next obtained a diplomatic appointment at Stuttgart, and soon his name was placed on the list of political _emigres_, from which it was not removed until November 1797. Nevertheless, after the affair of 13th Vendemiaire (October 5, 1795) he returned to Paris and renewed his acquaintance with Bonaparte, who was then second in command of the Army of the Interior and soon received the command of the Army of Italy. Bourrienne did not proceed with him into Italy, but was called thither by the victorious general at the time of the long negotiations with Austria (May-October 1797), when his knowledge of law and diplomacy was of some service in the drafting of the terms of the treaty of Campo Formio (October 17). In the following year he accompanied Bonaparte to Egypt as his private secretary, and left a vivid, if not very trustworthy, account of the expedition in his memoirs. He also accompanied him on the adventurous return voyage to Frejus (September-October 1799), and was of some help in the affairs which led up to the _coup d'etat_ of Brumaire (November) 1799. He remained by the side of the First Consul in his former capacity, but in the autumn of 1802 incurred his displeasure owing to his very questionable financial dealings. In the spring of 1805 he was sent as French envoy to the free city of Hamburg. There it was his duty to carry out the measures of commercial war against England, known as the Continental System; but it is known that he not only viewed those tyrannical measures with disgust, but secretly relaxed them in favour of those merchants who plied him with _douceurs_. In the early spring of 1807, when directed by Napoleon to order a large number of military cloaks for the army, then in East Prussia, he found that the only means of procuring them expeditiously was to order them from England. After gaining a large fortune while at Hamburg, he was recalled to France in disgrace at the close of 1810. In 1814 he embraced the royal cause, and during the Hundred Days (1815) accompanied Louis XVIII. to Ghent. The rest of his life was uneventful; he died at Caen on the 7th of February 1834, after suffering from a mental malady for two years.

The fame of Bourrienne rests, not upon his achievements or his original works, which are insignificant, but upon his _Memoires_, edited by C.M. de Villemarest (10 vols., Paris, 1829-1831), which have been frequently republished and translated. The best English edition is that edited by Colonel R.W. Phipps (4 vols., London, 1893); a new French edition has been edited by D. Lacroix (5 vols., Paris, 1899-1900). See _Bourrienne et ses erreurs, volontaires et involontaires_ (Paris, 1830), by Generals Belliard, Gourgaud, &c., for a discussion of the genuineness of his Memoirs; also _Napoleon et ses detracteurs_, by Prince Napoleon (Paris, 1887; Eng. trans., London, 1888). (J. Hl. R.)

BOURRIT, MARC THEODORE (1739-1819), Swiss traveller and writer, came of a family which was of French origin but had taken refuge at Geneva for reasons connected with religion. His father was a watchmaker there, and he himself was educated in his native city. He was a good artist and etcher, and also a pastor, so that by reason of his fine voice and love of music he was made (1768) precentor of the church of St Peter (the former cathedral) at Geneva. This post enabled him to devote himself to the exploration of the Alps, for which he had conceived a great passion ever since an ascent (1761) of the Voirons, near Geneva. In 1775 he made the first ascent of the Buet (10,201 ft.) by the now usual route from the Pierre a Berard, on which the great flat rock known as the _Table au Chantre_ still preserves his memory. In 1784-1785 he was the first traveller to attempt the ascent of Mont Blanc (not conquered till 1786), but neither then nor later (1788) did he succeed in reaching its summit. On the other hand he reopened (1787) the route over the Col du Geant (11,060 ft.), which had fallen into oblivion, and travelled also among the mountains of the Valais, of the Bernese Oberland, &c. He received a pension from Louis XVI., and was named the _historiographe des Alpes_ by the emperor Joseph II., who visited him at Geneva. His last visit to Chamonix was in 1812. His writings are composed in a naive, sentimental and rather pompous style, but breathe throughout a most passionate love for the Alps, as wonders of nature, and not as objects of scientific study. His chief works are the _Description des glacieres de Savoye_, 1773 (English translation, Norwich, 1775-1776), the _Description des Alpes pennines et rhetiennes_ (2 vols., 1781) (reprinted in 1783 under the title of _Nouvelle Description des vallees de glace_, and in 1785, with additions, in 3 vols., under the name of _Nouvelle Description des glacieres_), and the _Descriptions des cols ou passages des Alpes_, (2 vols., 1803), while his _Itineraire de Geneve, Lausanne et Chamouni_, first published in 1791, went through several editions in his lifetime. (W. A. B. C.)

BOURSAULT, EDME (1638-1701), French dramatist and miscellaneous writer, was born at Mussy l'Eveque, now Mussy-sur-Seine (Aube), in October 1638. On his first arrival in Paris in 1651 his language was limited to a Burgundian patois, but within a year he produced his first comedy, _Le Mort vivant_. This and some other pieces of small merit secured for him distinguished patronage in the society ridiculed by Moliere in the _Ecole des femmes_. Boursault was persuaded that the "Lysidas" of that play was a caricature of himself, and attacked Moliere in _Le Portrait du peintre ou la contre-critique de l'Ecole des femmes_ (1663). Moliere retaliated in _L'Impromptu de Versailles_, and Boileau attacked Boursault in Satires 7 and 9. Boursault replied to Boileau in his _Satire des satires_ (1669), but was afterwards reconciled with him, when Boileau on his side erased his name from his satires. Boursault obtained a considerable pension as editor of a rhyming gazette, which was, however, suppressed for ridiculing a Capuchin friar, and the editor was only saved from the Bastille by the interposition of Conde. In 1671 he produced a work of edification in _Ad usum Delphini: la veritable etude des souverains_, which so pleased the court that its author was about to be made assistant tutor to the dauphin when it was found that he was ignorant of Greek and Latin, and the post was given to Pierre Huet. Perhaps in compensation Boursault was made collector of taxes at Mont-lucon about 1672, an appointment that he retained until 1688. Among his best-known plays are _Le Mercure galant_, the title of which was changed to _La Comedie sans titre_ (1683); _La Princesse de Cleves_ (1676), an unsuccessful play which, when refurbished with fresh names by its author, succeeded as _Germanicus; Esope a la ville_ (1690); and _Esope a la cour_ (1701). His lack of dramatic instinct could hardly be better indicated than by the scheme of his _Esope_, which allows the fabulist to come on the stage in each scene and recite a fable. Boursault died in Paris on the 15th of September 1701.

The _Oeuvres choisies_ of Boursault were published in 1811, and a sketch of him is to be found in M. Saint-Rene Taillandier's _Etudes litteraires_ (1881).

BOURSE (from the Med. Lat. _bursa_, a purse), the French equivalent of the Stock Exchange, and so used of the Paris Exchange, or of any foreign money-market. The English form "burse," as in Sir Thomas Gresham's building, which was known as "Britain's Burse," went out of use in the 18th century. The origin of the name is doubtful; it is not derived from any connexion between purse and money, but rather from the use of a purse as a sign. At Bruges a house belonging to the family de Bursa is said to have been first used as an Exchange, and to have had three purses as a sign on the front.

BOURSSE, ESAIAS (1630-1673), Dutch painter, was born in Amsterdam. He was a follower of Pieter de Hooch, in whose manner he worked for many years in his native town; then he took service with the Dutch East India Company, and died on a sea voyage. His paintings are exceedingly rare, perhaps because, in spite of their greater freedom and breadth, many of them pass under the names of Vermeer of Delft and Pieter de Hooch. Two of the paintings ascribed to the latter (one bears the false signature) at the Ryks museum in Amsterdam, are now recognized as being the work of Boursse. His subjects are interiors with figures, painted with great precision and with exquisite quality of colour. The Wallace collection has his masterpiece, an interior with a woman and a child in a cradle, almost as brilliant as on the day it was painted, and reflecting something of the feeling of Rembrandt, by whom he was influenced. Other important examples are at the Ryks museum and at Aix-la-Chapelle. Boursse's "Boy blowing Soap Bubbles," in the Berlin museum, was until lately attributed to Vermeer of Delft. More than one picture bearing the false signature of Boursse have been publicly shown of late years.

BOUSSINGAULT, JEAN BAPTISTE JOSEPH DIEUDONNE (1802-1887), French chemist, was born in Paris on the 2nd of February 1802. After studying at the school of mines at Saint-Etienne he went, when little more than twenty years old, to South America as a mining engineer on behalf of an English company. During the insurrection of the Spanish colonies he was attached to the staff of General Bolivar, and travelled widely in the northern parts of the continent. Returning to France he became professor of chemistry at Lyons, and in 1839 was appointed to the chair of agricultural and analytical chemistry at the Conservatoire des Arts et Metiers in Paris. In 1848 he was elected to the National Assembly, where he sat as a Moderate republican. Three years later he was dismissed from his professorship on account of his political opinions, but so much resentment at this action was shown by scientific men in general, and especially by his colleagues, who threatened to resign in a body, that he was reinstated. He died in Paris on the 11th of May 1887. His first papers were concerned with mining topics, and his sojourn in South America yielded a number of miscellaneous memoirs, on the cause of goitre in the Cordilleras, the gasses of volcanoes, earthquakes, tropical rain, &c., which won the commendation of A. von Humboldt. From 1836 he devoted himself mainly to agricultural chemistry and animal and vegetable physiology, with occasional excursions into mineral chemistry. His work included papers on the quantity of nitrogen in different foods, the amount of gluten in different wheats, investigations on the question whether plants can assimilate free nitrogen from the atmosphere (which he answered in the negative), the respiration of plants, the function of their leaves, the action and value of manures, and other similar subjects. Through his wife he had a share in an estate at Bechebronn in Alsace, where he carried out many agricultural experiments. He collaborated with J.B.A. Dumas in writing an _Essai de statique chimique des etres organises_ (1841), and was the author of _Traite d'economic rurale_ (1844), which was remodelled as _Agronomie, chimie agricole, et physiologie_ (5 vols., 1860-1874; 2nd ed., 1884), and of _Etudes sur la transformation du fer en acier_ (1875).

BOUTERWEK, FRIEDRICH (1766-1828), German philosopher and critic, was born at Oker, near Goslar in Lower Saxony, and studied law at Gottingen. From 1790, however, he became a disciple of Kant, published _Aphorismen nach Kants Lehre vorgelegt_ (1793), and became professor of philosophy at Gottingen (1802), where he died on the 9th of August 1828. As a philosopher, he is interesting for his criticism of the theory of the "thing-in-itself" (_Ding-an-sich_). For the pure reason, as described in the _Kritik_, the "thing-in-itself" can be only an inconceivable "something-in-general"; any statement about it involves the predication of Reality, Unity and Plurality, which belong not to the absolute thing but to phenomena. On the other hand, the subject is known by the fact of will, and the object by that of resistance; the cognizance of willing is the assertion of absolute reality in the domain of relative knowledge. This doctrine has since been described as absolute Virtualism. Following this train of thought, Bouterwek left the Kantian position through his opposition to its formalism. In later life he inclined to the views of F.H. Jacobi, whose letters to him (published at Gottingen, 1868) shed much light on the development of his thought. His chief philosophical works are _Ideen zu einer allgemeinen Apodiktik_ (Gottingen and Halle, 1799); _Aesthetik_ (Leipzig, 1806; Gottingen, 1815 and 1824); _Lehrbuch der philos. Vorkenntnisse_ (Gottingen, 1810 and 1820); _Lehrbuch der philos. Wissenschaften_ (Gottingen, 1813 and 1820). In these works he dissociated himself from the Kantian school. His chief critical work was the _Geschichte der neuern Poesie und Beredsamkeit_ (Gottingen, 12 vols., 1801-1819), of which the history of Spanish literature has been published separately in French, Spanish and English. The _Geschichte_ is a work of wide learning and generally sound criticism, but it is not of equal merit throughout. He also wrote three novels, _Paulus Septimus_ (Halle, 1795), _Graf Donamar_ (Gottingen, 1791) and _Ramiro_ (Leipzig, 1804), and published a collection of poems (Gottingen, 1802).

BOUTHILLIER, CLAUDE, SIEUR DE FOUILLETOURTE (1581-1652), French statesman, began life as an advocate. In 1613 he was councillor in the parlement of Paris, and in 1619 became councillor of state and a secretary to the queen-mother, Marie de' Medici. The connexion of his father, Denis Bouthillier (d. 1622), with Cardinal Richelieu secured for him the title of secretary of state in 1628, and he was able to remain on good terms with both Marie de' Medici and Richelieu, in spite of their rivalry. In 1632 he became superintendent of finances. But his great role was in diplomacy. Richelieu employed him on many diplomatic missions, and the success of his foreign policy was due in no small degree to Bouthillier's ability and devotion. In 1630 he had taken part at Regensburg in arranging the abortive treaty between the emperor and France. From 1633 to 1640 he was continually busied with secret missions in Germany, sometimes alone, sometimes with Father Joseph. Following Richelieu's instructions, he negotiated the alliances which brought France into the Thirty Years' War. Meanwhile, at home, his tact and amiable disposition, as well as his reputation for straightforwardness, had secured for him a unique position of influence in a court torn by jealousies and intrigues. Trusted by the king, the confidant of Richelieu, the friend of Marie de' Medici, and through his son, Leon Bouthillier, who was appointed in 1635 chancellor to Gaston d'Orleans, able to bring his influence to bear on that prince, he was an invaluable mediator; and the personal influence thus exercised, combined with the fact that he was at the head of both the finances and the foreign policy of France, made him, next to the cardinal, the most powerful man in the kingdom. Richelieu made him executor of his will, and Louis XIII. named him a member of the council of regency which he intended should govern the kingdom after his death. But the king's last plans were not carried out, and Bouthillier was obliged to retire into private life, giving up his office of superintendent of finances in June 1643. He died in Paris on the 13th of March 1652.

His son, LEON BOUTHILLIER (1608-1652), comte de Chavigny, was early associated with his father, who took him with him from 1629 to 1632 to all the great courts of Europe, instructing him in diplomacy. In 1632 he was named secretary of state and seconded his father's work, so that it is not easy always to distinguish their respective parts. After the death of Louis XIII. he had to give up his office; but was sent as plenipotentiary to the negotiations at Munster. He showed himself incapable, however, giving himself up to pleasure and fetes, and returned to France to intrigue against Mazarin. Arrested twice during the Fronde, and then for a short time in power during Mazarin's exile (April 1651), he busied himself with small intrigues which came to nothing.

BOUTS-RIMES, literally (from the French) "rhymed ends," the name given in all literatures to a kind of verses of which no better definition can be found than was made by Addison, in the Spectator, when he described them as "lists of words that rhyme to one another, drawn up by another hand, and given to a poet, who was to make a poem to the rhymes in the same order that they were placed upon the list." The more odd and perplexing the rhymes are, the more ingenuity is required to give a semblance of common-sense to the production. For instance, the rhymes _breeze, elephant, squeeze, pant, scant, please, hope, pope_ are submitted, and the following stanza is the result:--

Escaping from the Indian _breeze_, The vast, sententious _elephant_ Through groves of sandal loves to _squeeze_ And in their fragrant shade to _pant_; Although the shelter there be _scant_, The vivid odours soothe and _please_, And while he yields to dreams of _hope_, Adoring beasts surround their _Pope_.

The invention of bouts-rimes is attributed to a minor French poet of the 17th century, Dulot, of whom little else is remembered. According to the _Menagiana_, about the year 1648, Dulot was complaining one day that he had been robbed of a number of valuable papers, and, in particular, of three hundred sonnets. Surprise being expressed at his having written so many, Dulot explained that they were all "blank sonnets," that is to say, that he had put down the rhymes and nothing else. The idea struck every one as amusing, and what Dulot had done seriously was taken up as a jest. Bouts-rimes became the fashion, and in 1654 no less a person than Sarrasin composed a satire against them, entitled _La Defaite des bouts-rimes_, which enjoyed a great success. Nevertheless, they continued to be abundantly composed in France throughout the 17th century and a great part of the 18th century. In 1701 Etienne Mallemans (d. 1716) published a collection of serious sonnets, all written to rhymes selected for him by the duchess of Maine. Neither Piron, nor Marmontel, nor La Motte disdained this ingenious exercise, and early in the 19th century the fashion was revived. The most curious incident, however, in the history of bouts-rimes is the fact that the elder Alexandre Dumas, in 1864, took them under his protection. He issued an invitation to all the poets of France to display their skill by composing to sets of rhymes selected for the purpose by the poet, Joseph Mery (1798-1866). No fewer than 350 writers responded to the appeal, and Dumas published the result, as a volume, in 1865.

W.M. Rossetti, in the memoir of his brother prefixed to D.G. Rossetti's _Collected Works_ (1886), mentions that, especially in 1848 and 1849, he and Dante Gabriel Rossetti constantly practised their pens in writing sonnets to _bouts-rimes_, each giving the other the rhymes for a sonnet, and Dante Gabriel writing off these exercises in verse-making at the rate of a sonnet in five or eight minutes. Most of W.M. Rossetti's poems in _The Germ_ were _bouts-rimes_ experiments. Many of Dante Gabriel's, a little touched up, remained in his brother's possession, but were not included in the _Collected Works_. (E. G.)

BOUTWELL, GEORGE SEWALL (1818-1905), American statesman, was born in Brookline, Massachusetts, on the 28th of January 1818. He was reared on a farm, and at an early age began a mercantile career at Groton, Mass. There he studied law and in 1836 was admitted to the bar, but did not begin practice for many years. In 1842-1844 and again in 1847-1850 he served in the state house of representatives, and became the recognized leader on the Democratic side; he was thrice defeated for Congress, and was twice an unsuccessful candidate for governor. In 1851, however, by means of "Free-Soil" votes, he was chosen governor, and was re-elected by the same coalition in 1852. In the following year he took an active

## part in the state constitutional convention. He became a member of the

Massachusetts Board of Education in 1853, and as its secretary in 1855-1861 prepared valuable reports and rendered much service to the state's school system. The passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Bill in 1854 had finally alienated him from the Democratic party, and he became one of the founders of the new Republican party in the state. He played an influential part in the Republican national convention in 1860, and in 1862 after the passage of the war tax measures he was appointed by President Lincoln the first commissioner of internal revenue, which department he organized. From 1863 to 1869 he was a representative in Congress, taking an influential part in debate, and acting as one of the managers of President Johnson's impeachment. From 1869 to 1873 he was secretary of the treasury in President Grant's cabinet, and from 1873 until 1877 was a United States senator from Massachusetts. Under an appointment by President Hayes, he prepared the second edition of the _United States Revised Statutes_ (1878). In 1880 he represented the United States before the commission appointed in accordance with the treaty of that year, between France and the United States, to decide the claims brought by French citizens against the United States for acts of the American authorities during the Civil War, and the claims of American citizens against France for acts of French authorities during the war between France and Mexico, the Franco-German War and the Commune. He opposed the acquisition by the United States of the Philippine Islands, became president of the Anti-Imperialistic League, and was a presidential elector on the Bryan (Democratic) ticket in 1900. He died at Groton, Massachusetts, on the 28th of February 1905. He published various volumes, including _The Constitution of the United States at the End of the First Century_ (1895), and _Reminiscences of Sixty Years in Public Affairs_ (2 vols., New York, 1902).