Part 12

BOISGUILBERT, PIERRE LE PESANT, SIEUR DE (1676-1714), French economist, was born at Rouen of an ancient noble family of Normandy, allied to that of Corneille. He received his classical education in Rouen, entered the magistracy and became judge at Montivilliers, near Havre. In 1690 he became president of the _bailliage_ of Rouen, a post which he retained almost until his death, leaving it to his son. In these two situations he made a close study of local economic conditions, personally supervising the cultivation of his lands, and entering into relations with the principal merchants of Rouen. He was thus led to consider the misery of the people under the burden of taxation. In 1695 he published his principal work, _Le Detail de la France; la cause de la diminution de ses biens, et la facilite du remede_.... In it he drew a picture of the general ruin of all classes of Frenchmen, caused by the bad economic regime. In opposition to Colbert's views he held that the wealth of a country consists, not in the abundance of money which it possesses but in what it produces and exchanges. The remedy for the evils of the time was not so much the reduction as the equalization of the imposts, which would allow the poor to consume more, raise the production and add to the general wealth. He demanded the reform of the _taille_, the suppression of internal customs duties and greater freedom of trade. In his _Factum de la France_, published in 1705 or 1706, he gave a more concise _resume_ of his ideas. But his proposal to substitute for all aides and customs duties a single capitation tax of a tenth of the revenue of all property was naturally opposed by the farmers of taxes and found little support. Indeed his work, written in a diffuse and inelegant style, passed almost unnoticed. Saint Simon relates that he once asked a hearing of the comte de Pontchartrain, saying that he would at first believe him mad, then become interested, and then see he was right. Pontchartrain bluntly told him that he did think him mad, and turned his back on him. With Michel de Chamillart, whom he had known as intendant of Rouen (1689-1690), he had no better success. Upon the disgrace of Vauban, whose _Dime royale_ had much in common with Boisguilbert's plan, Boisguilbert violently attacked the controller in a pamphlet, _Supplement au detail de la France_. The book was seized and condemned, and its author exiled to Auvergne, though soon allowed to return. At last in 1710 the controller-general, Nicolas Desmarets, established a new impost, the "tenth" (_dixieme_), which had some analogy with the project of Boisguilbert. Instead of replacing the former imposts, however, Desmarets simply added his _dixieme_ to them; the experiment was naturally disastrous, and the idea was abandoned.

In 1712 appeared a _Testament politique de M. de Vauban_, which is simply Boisguilbert's _Detail de la France_. Vauban's _Dime royale_ was formerly wrongly attributed to him. Boisguilbert's works were collected by Daire in the first volume of the _Collection des grands economistes_. His letters are in the _Correspondance des controleurs generaux_, vol. i., published by M. de Boislisle.

BOISROBERT, FRANCOIS LE METEL DE (1592-1662), French poet, was born at Caen in 1592. He was trained for the law, and practised for some time at the bar at Rouen. About 1622 he went to Paris, and by the next year had established a footing at court, for he had a share in the ballet of the _Bacchanales_ performed at the Louvre in February. He accompanied an embassy to England in 1625, and in 1630 visited Rome, where he won the favour of Urban VIII. by his wit. He took orders, and was made a canon of Rouen. He had been introduced to Richelieu in 1623, and by his humour and his talent as a raconteur soon made himself indispensable to the cardinal. Boisrobert became one of the five poets who carried out Richelieu's dramatic ideas. He had a passion for play, and was a friend of Ninon de l'Enclos; and his enemies found ready weapons against him in the undisguised looseness of his life. He was more than once disgraced, but never for long, although in his later years he was compelled to give more attention to his duties as a priest. It was Boisrobert who suggested to Richelieu the plan of the Academy, and he was one of its earliest and most active members. Rich as he was through the benefices conferred on him by his patron, he was liberal to men of letters. After the death of Richelieu, he attached himself to Mazarin, whom he served faithfully throughout the Fronde. He died on the 30th of March 1662. He wrote a number of comedies, to one of which, _La Belle Plaideuse_, Moliere's _L'Avare_ is said to owe something; and also some volumes of verse. The licentious _Contes_, published under the name of his brother D'Ouville, are often attributed to him.

BOISSARD, JEAN JACQUES (1528-1602), French antiquary and Latin poet, was born at Besancon. He studied at Louvain; but, disgusted by the severity of his master, he secretly left that seminary, and after traversing a great part of Germany reached Italy, where he remained several years and was often reduced to great straits. His residence in Italy developed in his mind a taste for antiquities, and he soon formed a collection of the most curious monuments from Rome and its vicinity. He then visited the islands of the Archipelago, with the intention of travelling through Greece, but a severe illness obliged him to return to Rome. Here he resumed his favourite pursuits with great ardour, and having completed his collection, returned to his native country; but not being permitted to profess publicly the Protestant religion, which he had embraced some time before, he withdrew to Metz, where he died on the 30th of October 1602. His most important works are: _Poemata_ (1574); _Emblemata_ (1584); _Icones Virorum Illustrium_ (1597); _Vitae et Icones Sultanorum Turcicorum_, &c. (1597); _Theatrum Vitae Humanae_ (1596); _Romanae Urbis Topographia_ (1597-1602), now very rare; _De Divinatione et Magicis Praestigiis_ (1605); _Habitus Variarum Orbis Gentium_ (1581), ornamented with seventy illuminated figures.

BOISSIER, MARIE LOUIS ANTOINE GASTON (1823-1908), French classical scholar, and secretary of the French Academy, was born at Nimes on the 15th of August 1823. The Roman monuments of his native town very early attracted Gaston Boissier to the study of ancient history. He made epigraphy his particular theme, and at the age of twenty-three became a professor of rhetoric at Angouleme, where he lived and worked for ten years without further ambition. A travelling inspector of the university, however, happened to hear him lecture, and Boissier was called to Paris to be professor at the Lycee Charlemagne. He began his literary career by a thesis on the poet Attius (1857) and a study on the life and work of M. Terentius Varro (1861). In 1861 he was made professor of Latin oratory at the College de France, and he became an

## active contributor to the _Revue des deux mondes_. In 1865 he published

_Ciceron et ses amis_ (Eng. trans, by A.D. Jones, 1897), which has enjoyed a success such as rarely falls to the lot of a work of erudition. In studying the manners of ancient Rome, Boissier had learned to re-create its society and to reproduce its characteristics with exquisite vivacity. In 1874 he published _La Religion romaine d'Auguste aux Antonins_ (2 vols.), in which he analysed the great religious movement of antiquity that preceded the acceptance of Christianity. In _L'Opposition sous les Cesars_ (1875) he drew a remarkable picture of the political decadence of Rome under the early successors of Augustus. By this time Boissier had drawn to himself the universal respect of scholars and men of letters, and on the death of H.J.G. Patin, the author of _Etudes sur les tragiques grecs_, in 1876, he was elected a member of the French Academy, of which he was appointed perpetual secretary in 1895.

His later works include _Promenades archeologiques: Rome et Pompei_ (1880; second series, 1886); _L'Afrique romaine, promenades archeologiques_ (1901); _La Fin du paganisme_ (2 vols., 1891); _Le Conjuration de Catilina_ (1905); _Tacite_ (1903, Eng. trans, by W.G. Hutchison, 1906). He was a representative example of the French talent for lucidity and elegance applied with entire seriousness to weighty matters of literature. Though he devoted himself mainly to his great theme, the reconstruction of the elements of Roman society, he also wrote monographs on _Madame de Sevigne_ (1887) and _Saint-Simon_ (1892). He died in June 1908.

BOISSONADE DE FONTARABIE, JEAN FRANCOIS (1774-1857), French classical scholar, was born at Paris on the 12th of August 1774. In 1792 he entered the public service during the administration of General Dumouriez. Driven from it in 1795, he was restored by Lucien Bonaparte, during whose time of office he served as secretary to the prefecture of the Upper Marne. He then definitely resigned public employment and devoted himself to the study of Greek. In 1809 he was appointed deputy professor of Greek at the faculty of letters at Paris, and titular professor in 1813 on the death of P.H. Larcher. In 1828 he succeeded J.B. Gail in the chair of Greek at the College de France. He also held the offices of librarian of the Bibliotheque du Roi, and of perpetual secretary of the Academie des Inscriptions. He died on the 8th of September 1857. Boissonade chiefly devoted his attention to later Greek literature: Philostratus, _Heroica_ (1806) and _Epistolae_ (1842); Marinus, _Vita procli_ (1814); Tiberius Rhetor, _De Figuris_ (1815); Nicetas Eugenianus, _Drosilla et Charicles_ (1819); Herodian, _Partitiones_ (1819); Aristaenetus, _Epistolae_ (1822); Eunapius, _Vitae Sophistarum_ (1822); Babrius, _Fables_ (1844); Tzetzes, _Allegoriae Iliados_ (1851); and a _Collection of Greek Poets_ in 24 vols. The _Anecdota Graeca_ (1829-1833) and _Anecdota Nova_ (1844) are important for Byzantine history and the Greek grammarians.

A selection of his papers was published by F. Colincamp, _Critique litteraire sous le premier Empire_ (1863), vol. i. of which contains a complete list of his works, and a "Notice Historique sur Monsieur B.," by Naudet.

BOISSY D'ANGLAS, FRANCOIS ANTOINE DE (1756-1828), French statesman, received a careful education and busied himself at first with literature. He had been a member of several provincial academies before coming to Paris, where he purchased a position as advocate to the parlement. In 1789 he was elected by the third estate of the _senechaussee_ of Annonay as deputy to the states-general. He was one of those who induced the states-general to proclaim itself a National Assembly on the 17th of June 1789; approved, in several speeches, of the capture of the Bastille and of the taking of the royal family to Paris (October 1789); demanded that strict measures be taken against the royalists who were intriguing in the south of France, and published some pamphlets on finance. During the Legislative Assembly he was _procureur-syndic_ for the directory of the department of Ardeche. Elected to the Convention, he sat in the centre, "_le Marais_," voting in the trial of Louis XVI. for his detention until deportation should be judged expedient for the state. He was then sent on a mission to Lyons to investigate the frauds in connexion with the supplies of the army of the Alps. During the Terror he was one of those deputies of the centre who supported Robespierre; but he was gained over by the members of the Mountain hostile to Robespierre, and his support, along with that of some other leaders of the _Marais_, made possible the 9th Thermidor. He was then elected a member of the Committee of Public Safety and charged with the superintendence of the provisioning of Paris. He presented the report supporting the decree of the 3rd Ventose of the year III. which established liberty of worship. In the critical days of Germinal and of Prairial of the year III. he showed great courage. On the 12th Germinal he was in the tribune, reading a report on the food supplies, when the hall of the Convention was invaded by the rioters, and when they withdrew he quietly continued where he had been interrupted. On the 1st Prairial he presided over the Convention, and remained unmoved by the insults and menaces of the insurgents. When the head of the deputy, Jean Feraud, was presented to him on the end of a pike, he saluted it impassively. He was reporter of the committee which drew up the constitution of the year III., and his report shows keen apprehension of a return of the Reign of Terror, and presents reactionary measures as precautions against the re-establishment of "tyranny and anarchy." This report, the proposal that he made (August 27, 1795) to lessen the severity of the revolutionary laws, and the eulogies he received from several Paris sections suspected of disloyalty to the republic, resulted in his being obliged to justify himself (October 15, 1795). As a member of the Council of the Five Hundred he became more and more suspected of royalism. He presented a measure in favour of full liberty for the press, which at that time was almost unanimously reactionary, protested against the outlawry of returned _emigres_, spoke in favour of the deported priests and attacked the Directory. Accordingly he was proscribed on the 18th Fructidor, and lived in England until the Consulate. In 1801 he was made a member of the Tribunate, and in 1805 a senator. In 1814 he voted for Napoleon's abdication, which won for him a seat in the chamber of peers; but during the Hundred Days he served Napoleon, and in consequence, on the second Restoration, was for a short while excluded. In the chamber he still sought to obtain liberty for the press--a theme upon which he published a volume of his speeches (Paris, 1817). He was a member of the Institute from its foundation, and in 1816, at the reorganization, became a member of the Academie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres. He published in 1819-1821 a two-volume _Essai sur la vie et les opinions de M. de Malesherbes_.

See F.A. Aulard, _Les Orateurs de la Revolution_ (2nd ed., 1906); L. Sciout, _Le Directoire_ (4 vols., 1895); and the "Notice sur la vie et les oeuvres de M. Boissy d'Anglas" in the _Memoires de l'Academie des Inscriptions_, ix. (R. A.*)

BOITO, ARRIGO (1842- ), Italian poet and musical composer, was born at Padua on the 24th of February 1842. He studied music at the Milan Conservatoire, but even in those early days he devoted as much of his time to literature as to music, forecasting the divided allegiance which was to be the chief characteristic of his life's history. While at the Conservatoire he wrote and composed, in collaboration with Franco Faccio, a cantata, _Le Sorelle d'Italia_, which was performed with success. On completing his studies Boito travelled for some years, and after his return to Italy settled down in Milan, dividing his time between journalism and music. In 1866 he fought under Garibaldi, and in 1868 conducted the first performance of his opera _Mefistofele_ at the Scala theatre, Milan. The work failed completely, and was withdrawn after a second performance. It was revived in 1875 at Bologna in a much altered and abbreviated form, when its success was beyond question. It was performed in London in 1880 with success, but in spite of frequent revivals has never succeeded in firmly establishing itself in popular favour. Boito treated the Faust legend in a spirit far more nearly akin to the conception of Goethe than is found in Gounod's Faust, but, in spite of many isolated beauties, his opera lacks cohesion and dramatic interest. His energies were afterwards chiefly devoted to the composition of libretti, of which the principal are _Otello_ and _Falstaff_, set to music by Verdi; _La Gioconda_, set by Ponchielli; _Amleto_, set by Faccio; and _Ero e Leandre_, set by Bottesini and Mancinelli. These works display a rare knowledge of the requirements of dramatic poetry, together with uncommon literary value. Boito also published a book of poems and a novel, _L'Alfier Meno_. The degree of doctor of music was conferred upon him in 1893 by the university of Cambridge.

BOIVIN, FRANCOIS DE, Baron de Villars (d. 1618), French chronicler, entered the service of Charles, Marshal Brissac, as secretary, and accompanied him to Piedmont in 1550 when the marshal went to take command of the French troops in the war with Spain. Remaining in this service he was sent after the defeat of the French at St Quentin in 1557 to assure the French king Henry II. of the support of Brissac. He took

## part in the negotiations which led to the treaty of Cateau-Cambresis in

April 1559, but was unable to prevent Henry II. from ceding the conquests made by Brissac. Boivin wrote _Memoires sur les guerres demelees tant dans le Piemont qu'au Montferrat et duche de Milan par Charles de Cosse, comte de Brissac_ (Paris, 1607), which, in spite of some drawbacks, is valuable as the testimony of an eye-witness of the war. An edition, carefully revised, appears in the _Memoires relatifs a l'histoire de France_, tome x., edited by J.F. Michaud and J.J.F. Poujoulat (Paris, 1850). He also wrote _Instruction sur les affaires d'etat_ (Lyons, 1610).

See J. Lelong, _Bibliotheque historique de la France_ (Paris, 1768-1778).

BOKENAM, OSBERN (1393?-1447?), English author, was born, by his own account, on the 6th of October 1393. Dr Horstmann suggests that he may have been a native of Bokeham, now Bookham, in Surrey, and derived his name from the place. In a concluding note to his _Lives of the Saints_ he is described as "a Suffolke man, frere Austyn of Stoke Clare." He travelled in Italy on at least two occasions, and in 1445 was a pilgrim to Santiago de Compostela. He wrote a series of thirteen legends of holy maidens and women. These are written chiefly in seven-and eight-lined stanzas, and nine of them are preceded by prologues. Bokenam was a follower of Chaucer and Lydgate, and doubtless had in mind Chaucer's _Legend of Good Women_. His chief, but by no means his only, source was the _Legenda Aurea_ of Jacobus de Voragine, archbishop of Genoa, whom he cites as "Januence." The first of the legends, _Vita Scae Margaretae, virginis et martiris_, was written for his friend, Thomas Burgh, a Cambridge monk; others are dedicated to pious ladies who desired the history of their name-saints. The Arundel MS. 327 (British Museum) is a unique copy of Bokenam's work; it was finished, according to the concluding note, in 1447, and presented by the scribe, Thomas Burgh, to a convent unnamed "that the nuns may remember him and his sister, Dame Betrice Burgh." The poems were edited (1835) for the Roxburghe Club with the title _Lyvys of Seyntys_ ..., and by Dr Carl Horstmann as _Osbern Bokenams Legenden_ (Heilbronn, 1883), in E. Kolbing's _Altengl. Bibliothek_, vol. i. Both editions include a dialogue written in Latin and English taken from Dugdale's _Monasticon Anglicanum_ (ed. 1846, vol. vi. p. 1600); "this dialogue betwixt a Secular asking and a Frere answerynge at the grave of Dame Johan of Acres shewith the lyneal descent of the lordis of the honoure of Clare fro ... MCCXLVIII to ... MCCCLVI". Bokenam wrote, as he tells us, plainly, in the Suffolk speech. He explains his lack of decoration on the plea that the finest flowers had been already plucked by Chaucer, Gower and Lydgate.

BOKHARA, or BUKHARA (the common central Asian pronunciation is Bukhara), a state of central Asia, under the protection of Russia. It lies on the right bank of the middle Oxus, between 37 deg. and 41 deg. N., and between 62 deg. and 72 deg. E., and is bounded by the Russian governments of Syr-darya, Samarkand and Ferghana on the N., the Pamirs on the E., Afghanistan on the S., and the Transcaspian territory and Khiva on the W. Its south-eastern frontier on the Pamirs is undetermined except where it touches the Russian dominions. Including the khanates of Karateghin and Darvaz the area is about 85,000 sq. m. The western portion of the state is a plain watered by the Zarafshan and by countless irrigation canals drawn from it. It has in the east the Karnap-chul steppe, covered with grass in early summer, and in the north an intrusion of the Kara-kum sand desert. Land suitable for cultivation is found only in oases, where it is watered by irrigation canals, but these oases are very fertile. The middle portion of the state is occupied by high plateaus, about 4000 ft. in altitude, sloping from the Tian-shan, and intersected by numerous rivers, flowing towards the Oxus. This region, very fertile in the valleys and enjoying a cooler and damper climate than the lower plains, is densely populated, and agriculture and cattle-breeding are carried on extensively. Here are the towns of Karshi, Kitab, Shaar, Chirakchi and Guzar or Huzar. The Hissar range, a westward continuation of the Alai Mountains, separates the Zarafshan from the tributaries of the Oxus--the Surkhan, Kafirnihan and Vakhsh. Its length is about 200 m., and its passes, 1000 to 3000 ft. below the surrounding peaks, reach altitudes of 12,000 to 14,000 ft. and are extremely difficult. Numbers of rivers pierce or flow in wild gorges between its spurs. Its southern foot-hills, covered with loess, make the fertile valleys of Hissar and the Vakhsh. The climate is so dry, and the rains are so scarce, that an absence of forests and Alpine meadows is characteristic of the ridge; but when heavy rain falls simultaneously with the melting of the snows in the mountains, the watercourses become filled with furious torrents, which create great havoc. The main glaciers (12) are on the north slope, but none creeps below 10,000 to 12,000 ft. The Peter the Great range, or Periokh-tau, in Karateghin, south of the valley of the Vakhsh, runs west-south-west to east-north-east for about 130 m., and is higher than the Hissar range. From the meridian of Garm or Harm it rises above the snowline, attaining at least 18,000 ft. in the Sary-kaudal peak, and 20,000 ft. farther east where it joins the snow-clad Darvaz range, and where the group Sandal, adorned with several glaciers, rises to 24,000 or 25,000 ft. Only three passes, very difficult, are known across it.

Darvaz, a small vassal state of Bokhara, is situated on the Panj, where it makes its sharp bend westwards, and is emphatically a mountainous region, agriculture being possible only in the lower parts of the valleys. The population, about 35,000, consists chiefly of Moslem Tajiks, and the closely-related Galchas, and its chief town is Kala-i-khumb on the Panj, at an altitude of 4370 ft.

The chief river of Bokhara is the Oxus or Amu-darya, which separates it from Afghanistan on the south, and then flows along its south-west border. It is navigated from the mouth of the Surkhan, and steamboats ply on it up to Karki near the Afghan frontier. The next largest river, the Zarafshan, 660 m. long, the water of which is largely utilized for irrigation, is lost in the sands 20 m. before reaching the Oxus. The Kashka-darya, which flows westwards out of the glaciers of Hazret-sultan (west of the Hissar range), supplies the Shahri-sabs (properly Shaar-sabiz) oasis with water, but is lost in the desert to the west of Karshi.