Part 21

LA CHAISE, FRANÇOIS DE (1624-1709), father confessor of Louis XIV., was born at the château of Aix in Forey on the 25th of August 1624, being the son of Georges d'Aix, seigneur de la Chaise, and of Renée de Rochefort. On his mother's side he was a grandnephew of Père Coton, the confessor of Henry IV. He became a novice of the Society of Jesus before completing his studies at the university of Lyons, where, after taking the final vows, he lectured on philosophy to students attracted by his fame from all parts of France. Through the influence of Camille de Villeroy, archbishop of Lyons, Père de la Chaise was nominated in 1674 confessor of Louis XIV., who intrusted him during the lifetime of Harlay de Champvallon, archbishop of Paris, with the administration of the ecclesiastical patronage of the crown. The confessor united his influence with that of Madame de Maintenon to induce the king to abandon his liaison with Madame de Montespan. More than once at Easter he is said to have had a convenient illness which dispensed him from granting absolution to Louis XIV. With the fall of Madame de Montespan and the ascendancy of Madame de Maintenon his influence vastly increased. The marriage between Louis XIV. and Madame de Maintenon was celebrated in his presence at Versailles, but there is no reason for supposing that the subsequent coolness between him and Madame de Maintenon arose from his insistence on secrecy in this matter. During the long strife over the temporalities of the Gallican Church between Louis XIV. and Innocent XI. Père de la Chaise supported the royal prerogative, though he used his influence at Rome to conciliate the papal authorities. He must be held largely responsible for the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, but not for the brutal measures applied against the Protestants. He exercised a moderating influence on Louis XIV.'s zeal against the Jansenists, and Saint-Simon, who was opposed to him in most matters, does full justice to his humane and honourable character. Père de la Chaise had a lasting and unalterable affection for Fénelon, which remained unchanged by the papal condemnation of the _Maximes_. In spite of failing faculties he continued his duties as confessor to Louis XIV. to the end of his long life. He died on the 20th of January 1709. The cemetery of Père-la-Chaise in Paris stands on property acquired by the Jesuits in 1826, and not, as is often stated, on property personally granted to him.

See R. Chantelauze, _Le Père de la Chaize. Études d'histoire religieuse_ (Paris and Lyons, 1859).

LA CHAISE-DIEU, a town of central France, in the department of Haute Loire, 29 m. N.N.W. of Le Puy by rail. Pop. (1906) 1203. The town, which is situated among fir and pine woods, 3500 ft. above the sea, preserves remains of its ramparts and some houses of the 14th and 15th centuries, but owes its celebrity to a church, which, after the cathedral of Clermont-Ferrand, is the most remarkable Gothic building in Auvergne. The west façade, approached by a flight of steps, is flanked by two massive towers. The nave and aisles are of equal height and are separated from the choir by a stone rood screen. The choir, terminating in an apse with radiating chapel, contains the fine tomb and statue of Clement VI., carved stalls and some admirable Flemish tapestries of the early 16th century. There is a ruined cloister on the south side. The church, which dates from the 14th century, was built at the expense of Pope Clement VI., and belonged to a powerful Benedictine abbey founded in 1043. There are spacious monastic buildings of the 18th century. The abbey was formerly defended by fortifications, the chief survival of which is a lofty rectangular keep to the south of the choir. Trade in timber and the making of lace chiefly occupy the inhabitants of the town.

LA CHALOTAIS, LOUIS RENÉ DE CARADEUC DE (1701-1785), French jurist, was born at Rennes, on the 6th of March 1701. He was for 60 years procureur général at the parliament of Brittany. He was an ardent opponent of the Jesuits; drew up in 1761 for the parliament a memoir on the constitutions of the Order, which did much to secure its suppression in France; and in 1763 published a remarkable "Essay on National Education," in which he proposed a programme of scientific studies as a substitute for those taught by the Jesuits. The same year began the conflict between the Estates of Brittany and the governor of the province, the duc d'Aiguillon (q.v.). The Estates refused to vote the extraordinary imposts demanded by the governor in the name of the king. La Chalotais was the personal enemy of d'Aiguillon, who had served him an ill turn with the king, and when the parliament of Brittany sided with the Estates, he took the lead in its opposition. The parliament forbade by decrees the levy of imposts to which the Estates had not consented. The king annulling these decrees, all the members of the parliament but twelve resigned (October 1764 to May 1765). The government considered La Chalotais one of the authors of this affair. At this time the secretary of state who administered the affairs of the province, Louis Philypeaux, duc de la Vrillière, comte de Saint-Florentin (1705-1777), received two anonymous and abusive letters. La Chalotais was suspected of having written them, and three experts in handwriting declared that they were by him. The government therefore arrested him, his son and four other members of the parliament. The arrest made a great sensation. There was much talk of "despotism." Voltaire stated that the procureur général, in his prison of Saint Malo, was reduced, for lack of ink, to write his defence with a toothpick dipped in vinegar--which was apparently pure legend; but public opinion all over France was strongly aroused against the government. On the 16th of November 1765 a commission of judges was named to take charge of the trial. La Chalotais maintained that the trial was illegal; being procureur général he claimed the right to be judged by the parliament of Rennes, or failing this by the parliament of Bordeaux, according to the custom of the province. The judges did not dare to pronounce a condemnation on the evidence of experts in handwriting, and at the end of a year, things remained where they were at the first. Louis XV. then decided on a sovereign act, and brought the affair before his council, which without further formality decided to send the accused into exile. That expedient but increased the popular agitation; _philosophes_, members of the parliament, patriot Bretons and Jansenists all declared that La Chalotais was the victim of the personal hatred of the duc d'Aiguillon and of the Jesuits. The government at last gave way, and consented to recall the members of the parliament of Brittany who had resigned. This parliament, when it met again, after the formal accusation of the duc d'Aiguillon, demanded the recall of La Chalotais. This was accorded in 1775, and La Chalotais was allowed to transmit his office to his son. In this affair public opinion showed itself stronger than the absolutism of the king. The opposition to the royal power gained largely through it, and it may be regarded as one of the preludes to the revolution of 1789. La Chalotais, who was personally a violent, haughty and unsympathetic character, died at Rennes on the 12th of July 1785.

See, besides the _Comptes-Rendus des Constitutions des Jésuites_ and the _Essai d'éducation nationale_, the _Mémoires de la Chalotais_ (3 vols., 1766-1767). Two works containing detailed bibliographies are Marion, _La Bretagne et le duc d'Aiguillon_ (Paris, 1893), and B. Pocquet, _Le Duc d'Aiguillon et La Chalotais_ (Paris, 1901). See also a controversy between these two authors in the _Bulletin critique_ for 1902.

LA CHARITÉ, a town of central France in the department of Nièvre, on the right bank of the Loire, 17 m. N.N.W. of Nevers on the Paris-Lyon-Méditerranée railway. Pop. (1906) 3990. La Charité possesses the remains of a fine Romanesque basilica, the church of Sainte-Croix, dating from the 11th and early 12th centuries. The plan consists of a nave, rebuilt at the end of the 17th century, transept and choir with ambulatory and side chapels. Surmounting the transept is an octagonal tower of one story, and a square Romanesque tower of much beauty flanks the main portal. There are ruins of the ramparts, which date from the 14th century. The manufacture of hosiery, boots and shoes, files and iron goods, lime and cement and woollen and other fabrics are among the industries; trade is chiefly in wood and iron.

La Charité owes its celebrity to its priory, which was founded in the 8th century and reorganized as a dependency of the abbey of Cluny in 1052. It became the parent of many priories and monasteries, some of them in England and Italy. The possession of the town was hotly contested during the wars of religion of the 16th century, at the end of which its fortifications were dismantled.

LA CHAUSSÉE, PIERRE CLAUDE NIVELLE DE (1692-1754), French dramatist, was born in Paris in 1692. In 1731 he published an _Épître à Clio_, a didactic poem in defence of Lériget de la Faye in his dispute with Antoine Houdart de la Motte, who had maintained that verse was useless in tragedy. La Chaussée was forty years old before he produced his first play, _La Fausse Antipathie_ (1734). His second play, _Le Préjugé à la mode_ (1735) turns on the fear of incurring ridicule felt by a man in love with his own wife, a prejudice dispelled in France, according to La Harpe, by La Chaussée's comedy. _L'École des amis_ (1737) followed, and, after an unsuccessful attempt at tragedy in _Maximinien_, he returned to comedy in _Mélanide_ (1741). In _Mélanide_ the type known as _comédie larmoyante_ is fully developed. Comedy was no longer to provoke laughter, but tears. The innovation consisted in destroying the sharp distinction then existing between tragedy and comedy in French literature. Indications of this change had been already offered in the work of Marivaux, and La Chaussée's plays led naturally to the domestic drama of Diderot and of Sedaine. The new method found bitter enemies. Alexis Piron nicknames the author "_le Révérend Père Chaussée_," and ridiculed him in one of his most famous epigrams. Voltaire maintained that the _comédie larmoyante_ was a proof of the inability of the author to produce either of the recognized kinds of drama, though he himself produced a play of similar character in _L'Enfant prodigue_. The hostility of the critics did not prevent the public from shedding tears nightly over the sorrows of La Chaussée's heroine. _L'École des mères_ (1744) and _La Gouvernante_ (1747) form, with those already mentioned, the best of his work. The strict moral aims pursued by La Chaussée in his plays seem hardly consistent with his private preferences. He frequented the same gay society as did the comte de Caylus and contributed to the _Recueils de ces messieurs_. La Chaussée died on the 14th of May 1754. Villemain said of his style that he wrote prosaic verses with purity, while Voltaire, usually an adverse critic of his work, said he was "_un des premiers après ceux qui ont du génie_."

For the _comédie larmoyante_ see G. Lanson, _Nivelle de la Chaussée et la comédie larmoyante_ (1887).

LACHES (from Anglo-French _lachesse_, negligence, from _lasche_, modern _lâche_, unloosed, slack), a term for slackness or negligence, used particularly in law to signify negligence on the part of a person in doing that which he is by law bound to do, or unreasonable lapse of time in asserting a right, seeking relief, or claiming a privilege. Laches is frequently a bar to a remedy which might have been had if prosecuted in proper time. Statutes of limitation specify the time within which various classes of actions may be brought. Apart from statutes of limitation courts of equity will often refuse relief to those who have allowed unreasonable time to elapse in seeking it, on the principle _vigilantibus ac non dormientibus jura subveniunt_.

LACHINE, an incorporated town in Jacques Cartier county, Quebec, Canada, 8 m. W. of Montreal, on Lake St Louis, an expansion of the St Lawrence river, and at the upper end of the Lachine canal. Pop. (1901) 5561. It is a station on the Grand Trunk railway and a port of call for steamers plying between Montreal and the Great Lakes. It is a favourite summer resort for the people of Montreal. It was named in 1669 in mockery of its then owner, Robert Cavelier de la Salle (1643-1687), who dreamed of a westward passage to China. In 1689 it was the scene of a terrible massacre of the French by the Iroquois.

LACHISH, a town of great importance in S. Palestine, often mentioned in the Tell el-Amarna tablets. It was destroyed by Joshua for joining the league against the Gibeonites (Joshua x. 31-33) and assigned to the tribe of Judah (xv. 39). Rehoboam fortified it (2 Chron. xi. 9). King Amaziah having fled hither, was here murdered by conspirators (2 Kings xiv. 19). Sennacherib here conducted a campaign (2 Kings xviii. 13) during which Hezekiah endeavoured to make terms with him: the campaign is commemorated by bas-reliefs found in Nineveh, now in the British Museum (see G. Smith's _History of Sennacherib_, p. 69). It was one of the last cities that resisted Nebuchadnezzar (Jer. xxxiv. 7). The meaning of Micah's denunciation (i. 13) of the city is unknown. The _Onomasticon_ places it 7 m. from Eleutheropolis on the S. road, which agrees with the generally received identification, Tell el-Hesi, an important mound excavated for the Palestine Exploration Fund by Petrie and Bliss, 1890-1893. The name is preserved in a small Roman site in the neighbourhood, Umm Lakis, which probably represents a later dwelling-place of the descendants of the ancient inhabitants of the city.

See W. M. Flinders Petrie, _Tell el-Hesy_, and F. J. Bliss, _A Mound of many Cities_, both published by the Palestine Exploration Fund. (R. A. S. M.)

LACHMANN, KARL KONRAD FRIEDRICH WILHELM (1793-1851), German philologist and critic, was born at Brunswick on the 4th of March 1793. He studied at Leipzig and Göttingen, devoting himself mainly to philological studies. In 1815 he joined the Prussian army as a volunteer _chasseur_ and accompanied his detachment to Paris, but did not encounter the enemy. In 1816 he became an assistant master in the Friedrich Werder gymnasium at Berlin, and a _privat-docent_ at the university. The same summer he became one of the principal masters in the Friedrichs-Gymnasium of Königsberg, where he assisted his colleague, the Germanist Friedrich Karl Köpke (1785-1865) with his edition of Rudolf von Ems' _Barlaam und Josaphat_ (1818), and also assisted his friend in a contemplated edition of the works of Walther von der Vogelweide. In January 1818 he became professor extraordinarius of classical philology in the university of Königsberg, and at the same time began to lecture on Old German grammar and the Middle High German poets. He devoted himself during the following seven years to an extraordinarily minute study of those subjects, and in 1824 obtained leave of absence in order that he might search the libraries of middle and south Germany for further materials. In 1825 Lachmann was nominated extraordinary professor of classical and German philology in the university of Berlin (ordinary professor 1827); and in 1830 he was admitted a member of the Academy of Sciences. The remainder of his laborious and fruitful life as an author and a teacher was uneventful. He died on the 13th of March 1851.

Lachmann, who was the translator of the first volume of P. E. Müller's _Sagabibliothek des skandinavischen Altertums_ (1816), is a figure of considerable importance in the history of German philology (see Rudolf von Raumer, _Geschichte der germanischen Philologie_, 1870). In his "Habilitationsschrift" _Über die ursprüngliche Gestalt des Gedichts der Nibelunge Not_ (1816), and still more in his review of Hagen's _Nibelungen_ and Benecke's _Bonerius_, contributed in 1817 to the _Jenaische Literaturzeitung_ he had already laid down the rules of textual criticism and elucidated the phonetic and metrical principles of Middle High German in a manner which marked a distinct advance in that branch of investigation. The rigidly scientific character of his method becomes increasingly apparent in the _Auswahl aus den hochdeutschen Dichtern des dreizehnten Jahrhunderts_ (1820), in the edition of Hartmann's _Iwein_ (1827), in those of Walther von der Vogelweide (1827) and Wolfram von Eschenbach (1833), in the papers "Über das Hildebrandslied," "Über althochdeutsche Betonung und Verskunst," "Über den Eingang des Parzivals," and "Über drei Bruchstücke niederrheinischer Gedichte" published in the _Abhandlungen_ of the Berlin Academy, and in _Der Nibelunge Not und die Klage_ (1826, 11th ed., 1892), which was followed by a critical commentary in 1836. Lachmann's _Betrachtungen über Homer's Ilias_, first published in the _Abhandlungen_ of the Berlin Academy in 1837 and 1841, in which he sought to show that the _Iliad_ consists of sixteen independent "lays" variously enlarged and interpolated, have had considerable influence on modern Homeric criticism (see HOMER), although his views are no longer accepted. His smaller edition of the New Testament appeared in 1831, 3rd ed. 1846; the larger, in two volumes, in 1842-1850. The plan of Lachmann's edition, explained by himself in the _Stud. u. Krit._ of 1830, is a modification of the unaccomplished project of Bentley. It seeks to restore the most ancient reading current in Eastern MSS., using the consent of the Latin authorities (Old Latin and Greek Western Uncials) as the main proof of antiquity of a reading where the oldest Eastern authorities differ. Besides _Propertius_ (1816), Lachmann edited _Catullus_ (1829); _Tibullus_ (1829); _Genesius_ (1834); _Terentianus Maurus_ (1836); _Babrius_ (1845); _Avianus_ (1845); _Gaius_ (1841-1842); the _Agrimensores Romani_ (1848-1852); _Lucilius_ (edited after his death by Vahlen, 1876); and _Lucretius_ (1850). The last, which was the main occupation of the closing years of his life, from 1845, was perhaps his greatest achievement, and has been characterized by Munro as "a work which will be a landmark for scholars as long as the Latin language continues to be studied." Lachmann also translated Shakespeare's sonnets (1820) and _Macbeth_ (1829).

See M. Hertz, _Karl Lachmann, eine Biographie_ (1851), where a full list of Lachmann's works is given; F. Leo, _Rede zur Säcularfeier K. Lachmanns_ (1893); J. Grimm, biography in _Kleine Schriften_; W. Scherer in _Allgemeine deutsche Biographie_, xvii., and J. E. Sandys, _Hist. of Classical Scholarship_, iii. (1908), pp. 127-131.

LACINIUM, PROMUNTURIUM (mod. Capo delle Colonne), 7 m S.E. of Crotona (mod. Cotrone); the easternmost point of Bruttii (mod. Calabria). On the cape still stands a single column of the temple erected to Hera Lacinia, which is said to have been fairly complete in the 16th century, but to have been destroyed to build the episcopal palace at Cotrone. It is a Doric column with capital, about 27 ft. in height. Remains of marble roof-tiles have been seen on the spot (Livy xlii. 3) and architectural fragments were excavated in 1886-1887 by the Archaeological Institute of America. The sculptures found were mostly buried again, but a few fragments, some decorative terra-cottas and a dedicatory inscription to Hera of the 6th century B.C., in private possession at Cotrone, are described by F. von Duhn in _Notizie degli scavi_, 1897, 343 seq. The date of the erection of the temple may be given as 480-440 B.C.; it is not recorded by any ancient writer.

See R. Koldewey and O. Puchstein, _Die griechischen Tempel in Unteritalien und Sicilien_ (Berlin 1899, 41).

LA CIOTAT, a coast town of south-eastern France in the department of Bouches-du-Rhône, on the west shore of the Bay of La Ciotat, 26 m. S.E. of Marseilles by rail. Pop. (1906) 10,562. The port is easily accessible and well sheltered. The large shipbuilding yards and repairing docks of the Messageries Maritimes Company give employment to between 2000 and 3000 workmen. Fishing and an active coasting trade are carried on; the town is frequented for sea-bathing. La Ciotat was in ancient times the port of the neighbouring town of _Citharista_ (now the village of Ceyreste).

LA CLOCHE, JAMES DE ["Prince James Stuart"] (1644?-1669), a character who was brought into the history of England by Lord Acton in 1862 (_Home and Foreign Review_, i. 146-174: "The Secret History of Charles II."). From information discovered by Father Boero in the archives of the Jesuits in Rome, Lord Acton averred that Charles II., when a lad at Jersey, had a natural son, James. The evidence follows. On the 2nd of April 1668, as the register of the Jesuit House of Novices at Rome attests, "there entered Jacobus de la Cloche." His baggage was exiguous, his attire was clerical. He is described as "from the island of Jersey, under the king of England, aged 24." He possessed two documents in French, purporting to have been written by Charles II. at Whitehall, on the 25th of September 1665, and on the 7th of February 1667. In both Charles acknowledges James to be his natural son, he styles him "James de la Cloche de Bourg du Jersey," and avers that to recognize him publicly "would imperil the peace of the kingdoms"--why is not apparent. A third certificate of birth, in Latin, undated, was from Christina of Sweden, who declares that Jame