Part 43

(f) _Druses_ (q.v.), now barely an eighth of the whole and confined to Shuf and Metn in S. Lebanon, are tending to emigrate or conform to Sunni Islam. Since the establishment of the privileged province they have lost the Ottoman support which used to compensate for their numerical inferiority as compared with the Christians; and they are fast losing also their old habits and distinctiveness. No longer armed or wearing their former singular dress, the remnant of them in Lebanon seems likely ere long to be assimilated to the "Osmanli" Moslems. Their feud with the Maronites, whose accentuation in the middle of the 19th century was largely due to the tergiversations of the ruling Shehab family, now reduced to low estate, is dying away, but they retain something of their old clan feeling and feudal organization, especially in Shuf.

The mixed population, as a whole, displays the usual characteristics of mountaineers, fine physique and vigorous independent spirit; but its ancient truculence has given way before strong government action since the middle 19th century, and the great increase of agricultural pursuits, to which the purely pastoral are now quite secondary. The culture of the mulberry and silk, of tobacco, of the olive and vine, of many kinds of fruits and cereals, has expanded enormously, and the Lebanon is now probably the most productive region in Asiatic Turkey in proportion to its area. It exports largely through Beirut and Saida, using both the French railway which crosses S. Lebanon on its way to Damascus, and the excellent roads and mule-paths made since 1883. Lebanon has thick deposits of lignite coal, but of inferior quality owing to the presence of iron pyrites. The abundant iron is little worked. Manufactures are of small account, the raw material going mostly to the coast; but olive-oil is made, together with various wines, of which the most famous is the _vino d'oro_, a sweet liqueur-like beverage. This wine is not exported in any quantity, as it will not bear a voyage well and is not made to keep. Bee-keeping is general, and there is an export of eggs to Egypt.

_History._--The inhabitants of Lebanon have at no time played a conspicuous part in history. There are remains of prehistoric occupation, but we do not even know what races dwelt there in the historical period of antiquity. Probably they belonged chiefly to the Aramaean group of nationalities; the Bible mentions Hivites (Judges iii. 3) and Giblites (Joshua xiii. 5). Lebanon was included within the ideal boundaries of the land of Israel, and the whole region was well known to the Hebrews, by whose poets its many excellences are often praised. How far the Phoenicians had any effective control over it is unknown; the absence of their monuments does not argue much real jurisdiction. Nor apparently did the Greek Seleucid kingdom have much to do with the Mountain. In the Roman period the district of _Phoenice_ extended to Lebanon. In the 2nd century, with the inland districts, it constituted a subdivision of the province of Syria, having Emesa (Homs) for its capital. From the time of Diocletian there was a _Phoenice ad Libanum_, with Emesa as capital, as well as a _Phoenice Maritima_ of which Tyre was the chief city. Remains of the Roman period occur throughout Lebanon. By the 6th century it was evidently virtually independent again; its Christianization had begun with the immigration of Monothelite sectaries, flying from persecution in the Antioch district and Orontes valley. At all times Lebanon has been a place of refuge for unpopular creeds. Large part of the mountaineers took up Monothelism and initiated the national distinction of the Maronites, which begins to emerge in the history of the 7th century. The sectaries, after helping Justinian II. against the caliph Abdalmalik, turned on the emperor and his Orthodox allies, and were named Mardaites (rebels). Islam now began to penetrate S. Lebanon, chiefly by the immigration of various more or less heretical elements, Kurd, Turkoman, Persian and especially Arab, the latter largely after the break-up of the kingdom of Hira; and early in the 11th century these coalesced into a nationality (see Druses) under the congenial influence of the Incarnationist creed brought from Cairo by Ismael Darazi and other emissaries of the caliph Hakim and his vizier Hamza. The subsequent history of Lebanon to the middle of the 19th century will be found under Druses and Maronites, and it need only be stated here that Latin influence began to be felt in N. Lebanon during the Frank period of Antioch and Palestine, the Maronites being inclined to take the part of the crusading princes against the Druses and Moslems; but they were still regarded as heretic Monothelites by Abulfaragius (Bar-Hebraeus) at the end of the 13th century; nor is their effectual reconciliation to Rome much older than 1736, the date of the mission sent by the pope Clement XII., which fixed the actual status of their church. An informal French protection had, however, been exercised over them for some time previously, and with it began the feud of Maronites and Druses, the latter incited and spasmodically supported by Ottoman pashas. The feudal organization of both, the one under the house of Khazin, the other under those of Maan and Shehab successively, was in full force during the 17th and 18th centuries; and it was the break-up of this in the first part of the 19th century which produced the anarchy that culminated after 1840 in the civil war. The Druses renounced their Shehab amirs when Beshir al-Kassim openly joined the Maronites in 1841, and the Maronites definitely revolted from the Khazin in 1858. The events of 1860 led to the formation of the privileged Lebanon province, finally constituted in 1864. It should be added, however, that among the Druses of Shuf, feudalism has tended to re-establish itself, and the power is now divided between the Jumblat and Yezbeki families, a leading member of one of which is almost always Ottoman _kaimakam_ of the Druses, and locally called _amir_.

The Lebanon has now been constituted a _sanjak_ or _mutessariflik_, dependent directly on the Porte, which acts in this case in consultation with the six great powers. This province extends about 93 m. from N. to S. (from the boundary of the _sanjak_ of Tripoli to that of the _caza_ of Saida), and has a mean breadth of about 28 m. from one foot of the chain to the other, beginning at the edge of the littoral plain behind Beirut and ending at the W. edge of the Buka'a; but the boundaries are ill-defined, especially on the E. where the original line drawn along the crest of the ridge has not been adhered to, and the mountaineers have encroached on the Buka'a. The Lebanon is under a military governor (_mushir_) who must be a Christian in the service of the sultan, approved by the powers, and has, so far, been chosen from the Roman Catholics owing to the great preponderance of Latin Christians in the province. He resides at Deir al-Kamar, an old seat of the Druse amirs. At first appointed for three years, then for ten, his term has been fixed since 1892 at five years, the longer term having aroused the fear of the Porte, lest a personal domination should become established. Under the governor are seven _kaimakams_, all Christians except a Druse in Shuf, and forty-seven _mudirs_, who all depend on the kaimakams except one in the home district of Deir al-Kamar. A central _mejliss_ or Council of twelve members is composed of four Maronites, three Druses, one Turk, two Greeks (Orthodox), one Greek Uniate and one Metawali. This was the original proportion, and it has not been altered in spite of the decline of the Druses and increase of the Maronites. The members are elected by the seven cazas. In each _mudirieh_ there is also a local _mejliss_. The old feudal and _mukataji_ (see DRUSES) jurisdictions are abolished, i.e. they often persist under Ottoman forms, and three courts of First Instance, under the _mejliss_, and superior to the petty courts of the _mudirs_ and the village _sheikhs_, administer justice. Judges are appointed by the governor, but sheikhs by the villages. Commercial cases, and litigation in which strangers are concerned, are carried to Beirut. The police is recruited locally, and no regular troops appear in the province except on special requisition. The taxes are collected directly, and must meet the needs of the province, before any sum is remitted to the Imperial Treasury. The latter has to make deficits good. Ecclesiastical jurisdiction is exercised only over the clergy, and all rights of asylum are abolished.

This constitution has worked well on the whole, the only serious hitches having been due to the tendency of governors-general and _kaimakams_ to attempt to supersede the _mejliss_ by autocratic

## action, and to impair the freedom of elections. The attention of the

porte was called to these tendencies in 1892 and again in 1902, on the appointments of new governors. Since the last date there has been no complaint. Nothing now remains of the former French predominance in the Lebanon, except a certain influence exerted by the fact that the railway is French, and by the precedence in ecclesiastical functions still accorded by the Maronites to official representatives of France. In the Lebanon, as in N. Albania, the traditional claim of France to protect Roman Catholics in the Ottoman Empire has been greatly impaired by the non-religious character of the Republic. Like Italy, she is now regarded by Eastern Catholics with distrust as an enemy of the Holy Father.

See DRUSES. Also V. Cuinet, _Syrie, Liban et Palestine_ (1896); N. Verney and G. Dambmann, _Puissances étrangères en Syrie_, &c. (1900); G. Young, _Corps de droit ottoman_, vol. i. (1905); G. E. Post, _Flora of Syria_, &c. (1896); M. von Oppenheim, _Vom Mittelmeer_, &c. (1899). (A. So.; D. G. H.)

LEBANON, a city of Saint Clair county, Illinois, U.S.A., on Silver Creek, about 24 m. E. of Saint Louis, Missouri. Pop. (1910) 1907. It is served by the Baltimore & Ohio South-Western railroad and by the East Saint Louis & Suburban Electric line. It is situated on a high tableland. Lebanon is the seat of McKendree College, founded by Methodists in 1828 and one of the oldest colleges in the Mississippi valley. It was called Lebanon Seminary until 1830, when the present name was adopted in honour of William McKendree (1757-1835), known as the "Father of Western Methodism," a great preacher, and a bishop of the Methodist Church in 1808-1835, who had endowed the college with 480 acres of land. In 1835 the college was chartered as the "McKendreean College," but in 1839 the present name was again adopted. There are coal mines and excellent farming lands in the vicinity of Lebanon. Among the city's manufactures are flour, planing-mill products, malt liquors, soda and farming implements. The municipality owns and operates its electric-lighting plant. Lebanon was chartered as a city in 1874.

LEBANON, a city and the county-seat of Lebanon county, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., in the fertile Lebanon Valley, about 25 m. E. by N. of Harrisburg. Pop. (1900) 17,628, of whom 618 were foreign-born, (1910 census) 19,240. It is served by the Philadelphia & Reading, the Cornwall and the Cornwall & Lebanon railways. About 5 m. S. of the city are the Cornwall (magnetite) iron mines, from which about 18,000,000 tons of iron ore were taken between 1740 and 1902, and 804,848 tons in 1906. The ore yields about 46% of iron, and contains about 2.5% of sulphur, the roasting of the ores being necessary--ore-roasting kilns are more extensively used here than in any other place in the country. The area of ore exposed is about 4000 ft. long and 400 to 800 ft. wide, and includes three hills; it has been one of the most productive magnetite deposits in the world. Limestone, brownstone and brick-clay also abound in the vicinity; and besides mines and quarries, the city has extensive manufactories of iron, steel, chains, and nuts and bolts. In 1905 its factory products were valued at $6,978,458. The municipality owns and operates its water-works.

The first settlement in the locality was made about 1730, and twenty years later a town was laid out by one of the landowners, George Steitz, and named Steitztown in his honour. About 1760 the town became known as Lebanon, and under this name it was incorporated as a borough in 1821 and chartered as a city in 1885.

LE BARGY, CHARLES GUSTAVE AUGUSTE (1858- ), French actor, was born at La Chapelle (Seine). His talent both as a comedian and a serious actor was soon made evident, and he became a member of the Comédie Française, his chief successes being in such plays as _Le Duel_, _L'Énigme_, _Le Marquis de Priola_, _L'Autre Danger_ and _Le Dédale_. His wife, Simone le Bargy née Benda, an accomplished actress, made her début at the Gymnase in 1902, and in later years had a great success in _La Rafale_ and other plays. In 1910 he had differences with the authorities of the Comédie Française and ceased to be a _sociétaire_.

LE BEAU, CHARLES (1701-1778), French historical writer, was born at Paris on the 15th of October 1701, and was educated at the Collège de Sainte-Barbe and the Collège du Plessis; at the latter he remained as a teacher until he obtained the chair of rhetoric in the Collège des Grassins. In 1748 he was admitted a member of the Academy of Inscriptions, and in 1752 he was nominated professor of eloquence in the Collège de France. From 1755 he held the office of perpetual secretary to the Academy of Inscriptions, in which capacity he edited fifteen volumes (from the 25th to the 39th inclusive) of the _Histoire_ of that institution. He died at Paris on the 13th of March 1778.

The only work with which the name of Le Beau continues to be associated is his _Histoire du Bas-Empire, en commençant à Constantin le Grand_, in 22 vols. 12mo (Paris, 1756-1779), being a continuation of C. Rollin's _Histoire Romaine_ and J. B. L. Crevier's _Histoire des empereurs_. Its usefulness arises entirely from the fact of its being a faithful résumé of the Byzantine historians, for Le Beau had no originality or artistic power of his own. Five volumes were added by H. P. Ameilhon (1781-1811), which brought the work down to the fall of Constantinople. A later edition, under the care of M. de Saint-Martin and afterwards of Brosset, has had the benefit of careful revision throughout, and has received considerable additions from Oriental sources.

See his "Éloge" in vol. xlii. of the _Histoire de l'Académie des Inscriptions_ (1786), pp. 190-207.

LEBEAU, JOSEPH (1794-1865), Belgian statesman, was born at Huy on the 3rd of January 1794. He received his early education from an uncle who was parish priest of Hannut, and became a clerk. By dint of economy he raised money to study law at Liége, and was called to the bar in 1819. At Liége he formed a fast friendship with Charles Rogier and Paul Devaux, in conjunction with whom he founded at Liége in 1824 the _Mathieu Laensbergh_, afterwards _Le politique_, a journal which helped to unite the Catholic party with the Liberals in their opposition to the ministry, without manifesting any open disaffection to the Dutch government. Lebeau had not contemplated the separation of Holland and Belgium, but his hand was forced by the revolution. He was sent by his native district to the National Congress, and became minister of foreign affairs in March 1831 during the interim regency of Surlet de Chokier. By proposing the election of Leopold of Saxe-Coburg as king of the Belgians he secured a benevolent attitude on the part of Great Britain, but the restoration to Holland of part of the duchies of Limburg and Luxemburg provoked a heated opposition to the treaty of London, and Lebeau was accused of treachery to Belgian interests. He resigned the direction of foreign affairs on the accession of King Leopold, but in the next year became minister of justice. He was elected deputy for Brussels in 1833, and retained his seat until 1848. Differences with the king led to his retirement in 1834. He was subsequently governor of the province of Namur (1838), ambassador to the Frankfort diet (1839), and in 1840 he formed a short-lived Liberal ministry. From this time he held no office of state, though he continued his energetic support of liberal and anti-clerical measures. He died at Huy on the 19th of March 1865.

Lebeau published _La Belgique depuis 1847_ (Brussels, 4 vols., 1852), _Lettres aux électeurs belges_ (8 vols., Brussels, 1853-1856). His _Souvenirs personnels et correspondance diplomatique 1824-1841_ (Brussels, 1883) were edited by A. Fréson. See an article by A. Fréson in the _Biographie nationale de Belgique_; and T. Juste, _Joseph Lebeau_ (Brussels, 1865).

LEBEL, JEAN (d. 1370), Belgian chronicler, was born near the end of the 13th century. His father, Gilles le Beal des Changes, was an alderman of Liége. Jean entered the church and became a canon of the cathedral church, but he and his brother Henri followed Jean de Beaumont to England in 1327, and took part in the border warfare against the Scots. His will is dated 1369, and his epitaph gives the date of his death as 1370. Nothing more is known of his life, but Jacques de Hemricourt, author of the _Miroir des nobles de Hesbaye_, has left a eulogy of his character, and a description of the magnificence of his attire, his retinue and his hospitality. Hemricourt asserts that he was eighty years old or more when he died. For a long time Jean Lebel (or le Bel) was only known as a chronicler through a reference by Froissart, who quotes him in the prologue of his first book as one of his authorities. A fragment of his work, in the MS. of Jean d'Outremeuse's _Mireur des istores_, was discovered in 1847; and the whole of his chronicle, preserved in the library of Châlons-sur-Marne, was edited in 1863 by L. Polain. Jean Lebel gives as his reason for writing a desire to replace a certain misleading rhymed chronicle of the wars of Edward III. by a true relation of his enterprises down to the beginning of the Hundred Years' War. In the matter of style Lebel has been placed by some critics on the level of Froissart. His chief merit is his refusal to narrate events unless either he himself or his informant had witnessed them. This scrupulousness in the acceptance of evidence must be set against his limitations. He takes on the whole a similar point of view to Froissart's; he has no concern with national movements or politics; and, writing for the public of chivalry, he preserves no general notion of a campaign, which resolves itself in his narrative into a series of exploits on the part of his heroes. Froissart was considerably indebted to him, and seems to have borrowed from him some of his best-known episodes, such as the death of Robert the Bruce, Edward III. and the countess of Salisbury, and the devotion of the burghers of Calais. The songs and virelais, in the art of writing which he was, according to Hemricourt, an expert, have not come to light.

See L. Polain, _Les Vraies Chroniques de messire Jehan le Bel_ (1863); Kervyn de Lettenhove, _Bulletin de la société d'émulation de Bruges_, series ii. vols. vii. and ix.; and H. Pirenne in _Biographie nationale de Belgique_.

LEBER, JEAN MICHEL CONSTANT (1780-1859), French historian and bibliophile, was born at Orléans on the 8th of May 1780. His first work was a poem on Joan of Arc (1804); but he wrote at the same time a _Grammaire général synthétique_, which attracted the attention of J. M. de Gérando, then secretary-general to the ministry of the interior. The latter found him a minor post in his department, which left him leisure for his historical work. He even took him to Italy when Napoleon was trying to organize, after French models, the Roman states which he had taken from the pope in 1809. Leber however did not stay there long, for he considered the attacks on the temporal property of the Holy See to be sacrilegious. On his return to Paris he resumed his administrative work, literary recreations and historical researches. While spending a part of his time writing vaudevilles and comic operas, he began to collect old essays and rare pamphlets by old French historians. His office was preserved to him by the Restoration, and Leber put his literary gifts at the service of the government. When the question of the coronation of Louis XVIII. arose, he wrote, as an answer to Volney, a minute treatise on the _Cérémonies du sacre_, which was published at the time of the coronation of Charles X. Towards the end of Villèle's ministry, when there was a movement of public opinion in favour of extending municipal liberties, he undertook the defence of the threatened system of centralization, and composed, in answer to Raynouard, an _Histoire critique du pouvoir municipal depuis l'origine de la monarchie jusqu'à nos jours_ (1828). He also wrote a treatise entitled _De l'état réel de la presse et des pamphlets depuis François I^(er) jusqu'à Louis XIV_., in which he refuted an empty paradox of Charles Nodier, who had tried to prove that the press had never been, and could never be, so free as under the Grand Monarch. A few years later, Leber retired (1839), and sold to the library of Rouen the rich collection of books which he had amassed during thirty years of research. The catalogue he made himself (4 vols., 1839 to 1852). In 1840 he read at the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres two dissertations, an "Essai sur l'appréciation de la fortune privée au moyen âge," followed by an "Examen critique des tables de prix du marc d'argent depuis l'époque de Saint Louis"; these essays were included by the Academy in its _Recueil de mémoires présentés par divers savants_ (vol. i., 1844), and were also revised and published by Leber (1847). They form his most considerable work, and assure him a position of eminence in the economic history of France. He also rendered good service to historians by the publication of his _Collection des meilleures dissertations, notices et traités relatifs à l'histoire de France_ (20 vols., 1826-1840); in the absence of an index, since Leber did not give one, an analytical table of contents is to be found in Alfred Franklin's _Sources de l'histoire de France_ (1876, pp. 342 sqq.). In consequence of the revolution of 1848, Leber decided to leave Paris. He retired to his native town, and spent his last years in collecting old engravings. He died at Orléans on the 22nd of December 1859.

In 1832 he had been elected as a member of the _Société des Antiquaires de France_, and in the _Bulletin_ of this society (vol. i., 1860) is to be found the most correct and detailed account of his life's works.