Part 4

LABICHE, EUGÈNE MARIN (1815-1888), French dramatist, was born on the 5th of May 1815, of _bourgeois_ parentage. He read for the bar, but literature had more powerful attractions, and he was hardly twenty when he gave to the _Chérubin_--an impertinent little magazine, long vanished and forgotten--a short story, entitled, in the cavalier style of the period, _Les plus belles sont les plus fausses_. A few others followed much in the same strain, but failed to catch the attention of the public. He tried his hand at dramatic criticism in the _Revue des théâtres_, and in 1838 made a double venture on the stage. The small Théâtre du Panthéon produced, amid some signs of popular favour, a drama of his, _L'Avocat Loubet_, while a vaudeville, _Monsieur de Coislin ou l'homme infiniment poli_, written in collaboration with Marc Michel, and given at the Palais Royal, introduced for the first time to the Parisians a provincial actor who was to become and to remain a great favourite with them, Grassot, the famous low comedian. In the same year Labiche, still doubtful about his true vocation, published a romance called _La Clé des champs_. M. Léon Halévy, his successor at the Academy and his panegyrist, informs us that the publisher became a bankrupt soon after the novel was out. "A lucky misadventure, for," the biographer concludes, "this timely warning of Destiny sent him back to the stage, where a career of success was awaiting him." There was yet another obstacle in the way. When he married, he solemnly promised his wife's parents that he would renounce a profession then considered incompatible with moral regularity and domestic happiness. But a year afterwards his wife spontaneously released him from his vow, and Labiche recalled the incident when he dedicated the first edition of his complete works: "To my wife." Labiche, in conjunction with Varin,[1] Marc Michel,[2] Clairville,[3] Dumanoir,[4] and others contributed comic plays interspersed with couplets to various Paris theatres. The series culminated in the memorable farce in five acts, _Un Chapeau de paille d'Italie_ (August 1851). It remains an accomplished specimen of the French _imbroglio_, in which some one is in search of something, but does not find it till five minutes before the curtain falls. Prior to that date Labiche had been only a successful _vaudevilliste_ among a crowd of others; but a twelvemonth later he made a new departure in _Le Misanthrope et l'Auvergnat_. All the plays given for the next twenty-five years, although constructed on the old plan, contained a more or less appreciable dose of that comic observation and good sense which gradually raised the French farce almost to the level of the comedy of character and manners. "Of all the subjects," he said, "which offered themselves to me, I have selected the _bourgeois_. Essentially mediocre in his vices and in his virtues, he stands half-way between the hero and the scoundrel, between the saint and the profligate." During the second period of his career Labiche had the collaboration of Delacour,[5] Choler,[6] and others. When it is asked what share in the authorship and success of the plays may be claimed for those men, we shall answer in Émile Augier's words: "The distinctive qualities which secured a lasting vogue for the plays of Labiche are to be found in all the comedies written by him with different collaborators, and are conspicuously absent from those which they wrote without him." A more useful and more important collaborator he found in Jean Marie Michel Geoffroy (1813-1883) whom he had known as a _débutant_ in his younger days, and who remained his faithful interpreter to the last. Geoffroy impersonated the _bourgeois_ not only to the public, but to the author himself; and it may be assumed that Labiche, when writing, could see and hear Geoffroy acting the character and uttering, in his pompous, fussy way, the words that he had just committed to paper. _Célimare le bien-aimé_ (1863), _Le Voyage de M. Perrichon_ (1860), _La Grammaire_, _Un Pied dans le crime_, _La Cagnotte_ (1864), may be quoted as the happiest productions of Labiche.

In 1877 he brought his connexion with the stage to a close, and retired to his rural property in Sologne. There he could be seen, dressed as a farmer, with low-brimmed hat, thick gaiters and an enormous stick, superintending the agricultural work and busily engaged in reclaiming land and marshes. His lifelong friend, Augier, visited him in his principality, and, being left alone in the library, took to reading his host's dramatic productions, scattered here and there in the shape of theatrical _brochures_. He strongly advised Labiche to publish a collected and revised edition of his works. The suggestion, first declined as a joke and long resisted, was finally accepted and carried into effect. Labiche's comic plays, in ten volumes, were issued during 1878 and 1879. The success was even greater than had been expected by the author's most sanguine friends. It had been commonly believed that these plays owed their popularity in great measure to the favourite actors who had appeared in them; but it was now discovered that all, with the exception of Geoffroy, had introduced into them a grotesque and caricatural element, thus hiding from the spectator, in many cases, the true comic vein and delightful delineation of human character. The amazement turned into admiration, and the _engouement_ became so general that very few dared grumble or appear scandalized when, in 1880, Labiche was elected to the French Academy. It was fortunate that, in former years, he had never dreamt of attaining this high distinction; for, as M. Pailleron justly observed, while trying to get rid of the little faults which were in him, he would have been in danger of losing some of his sterling qualities. But when the honour was bestowed upon him, he enjoyed it with his usual good sense and quiet modesty. He died in Paris on the 23rd of January 1888.

Some foolish admirers have placed him on a level with Molière, but it will be enough to say that he was something better than a public _amuseur_. Many of his plays have been transferred to the English stage. They are, on the whole, as sound as they are entertaining. Love is practically absent from his theatre. In none of his plays did he ever venture into the depths of feminine psychology, and womankind is only represented in them by pretentious old maids and silly, insipid, almost dumb, young ladies. He ridiculed marriage according to the invariable custom of French playwrights, but in a friendly and good-natured manner which always left a door open to repentance and timely amendment. He is never coarse, never suggestive. After he died the French farce, which he had raised to something akin to literature, relapsed into its former grossness and unmeaning complexity. (A. Fi.)

His _Théâtre complet_ (10 vols., 1878-1879) contains a preface by Émile Augier.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Victor Varin, pseudonym of Charles Voirin (1798-1869).

[2] Marc Antoine Amédée Michel (1812-1868), vaudevillist.

[3] Louis François Nicolaise, called Clairville (1811-1879), part-author of the famous _Fille de Mme Angot_ (1872).

[4] Philippe François Pinel, called Dumanoir (1806-1865).

[5] Alfred Charlemagne Lartigue, called Delacour (1815-1885). For a list of this author's pieces see O. Lorenz, _Catalogue Général_ (vol. ii., 1868).

[6] Adolphe Joseph Choler (1822-1889).

LABICI, an ancient city of Latium, the modern Monte Compatri, about 17 m. S.E. from Rome, on the northern slopes of the Alban Hills, 1739 ft. above sea-level. It occurs among the thirty cities of the Latin League, and it is said to have joined the Aequi in 419 B.C. and to have been captured by the Romans in 418. After this it does not appear in history, and in the time of Cicero and Strabo was almost entirely deserted if not destroyed. Traces of its ancient walls have been noticed. Its place was taken by the _respublica Lavicanorum Quintanensium_, the post-station established in the lower ground on the Via Labicana (see LABICANA, VIA), a little S.W. of the modern village of Colonna, the site of which is attested by various inscriptions and by the course of the road itself.

See T. Ashby in _Papers of the British School at Rome_, i. 256 sqq. (T. As.)

LABID (Abu 'Aqil Labid ibn Rabi'a) (_c._ 560-_c._ 661), Arabian poet, belonged to the Bani 'Amir, a division of the tribe of the Hawazin. In his younger years he was an active warrior and his verse is largely concerned with inter-tribal disputes. Later, he was sent by a sick uncle to get a remedy from Mahomet at Medina and on this occasion was much influenced by a part of the Koran. He accepted Islam soon after, but seems then to have ceased writing. In Omar's caliphate he is said to have settled in Kufa. Tradition ascribes to him a long life, but dates given are uncertain and contradictory. One of his poems is contained in the _Mo'allakat_ (q.v.).

Twenty of his poems were edited by Chalidi (Vienna, 1880); another thirty-five, with fragments and a German translation of the whole, were edited (partly from the remains of A. Huber) by C. Brockelmann (Leiden, 1892); cf. A. von Kremer, _Über die Gedichte des Lebyd_ (Vienna, 1881). Stories of Labid are contained in the _Kitabul-Aghani_, xiv. 93 ff. and xv. 137 ff. (G. W. T.)

LABIENUS, the name of a Roman family, said (without authority) to belong to the gens Atia. The most important member was TITUS LABIENUS. In 63 B.C., at Caesar's instigation, he prosecuted Gaius Rabirius (q.v.) for treason; in the same year, as tribune of the plebs, he carried a plebiscite which indirectly secured for Caesar the dignity of pontifex maximus (Dio Cassius xxxvii. 37). He served as a legatus throughout Caesar's Gallic campaigns and took Caesar's place whenever he went to Rome. His chief exploits in Gaul were the defeat of the Treviri under Indutiomarus in 54, his expedition against Lutetia (Paris) in 52, and his victory over Camulogenus and the Aedui in the same year. On the outbreak of the civil war, however, he was one of the first to desert Caesar, probably owing to an overweening sense of his own importance, not adequately recognized by Caesar. He was rapturously welcomed on the Pompeian side; but he brought no great strength with him, and his ill fortune under Pompey was as marked as his success had been under Caesar. From the defeat at Pharsalus, to which he had contributed by affecting to despise his late comrades, he fled to Corcyra, and thence to Africa. There he was able by mere force of numbers to inflict a slight check upon Caesar at Ruspina in 46. After the defeat at Thapsus he joined the younger Pompey in Spain, and was killed at Munda (March 17th, 45).

LABLACHE, LUIGI (1794-1858), Franco-Italian singer, was born at Naples on the 6th of December 1794, the son of a merchant of Marseilles who had married an Irish lady. In 1806 he entered the Conservatorio della Pieta de Turchini, where he studied music under Gentili and singing under Valesi, besides learning to play the violin and violoncello. As a boy he had a beautiful alto voice, and by the age of twenty he had developed a magnificent bass with a compass of two octaves from E[flat] below to E[flat] above the bass stave. After making his first appearance at Naples he went to Milan in 1817, and subsequently travelled to Turin, Venice and Vienna. His first appearances in London and Paris in 1830 led to annual engagements in both the English and French capitals. His reception at St Petersburg a few years later was no less enthusiastic. In England he took part in many provincial musical festivals, and was engaged by Queen Victoria to teach her singing. On the operatic stage he was equally successful in comic or tragic parts, and with his wonderfully powerful voice he could express either humour or pathos. Among his friends were Rossini, Bellini, Donizetti and Mercadante. He was one of the thirty-two torch-bearers chosen to surround the coffin at Beethoven's funeral in 1827. He died at Naples on the 23rd of January 1858 and was buried at Maison Lafitte, Paris. Lablache's Leporello in _Don Giovanni_ was perhaps his most famous impersonation; among his principal other rôles were Dandini in _Cenerentola_ (Rossini), Assur in _Semiramide_ (Rossini), Geronimo in _La Gazza Ladra_ (Rossini), Henry VIII. in _Anna Bolena_ (Donizetti), the Doge in _Marino Faliero_ (Donizetti), the title-rôle in _Don Pasquale_ (Donizetti), Geronimo in _Il Matrimonio Segreto_ (Cimarosa), Gritzenko in _L'Étoile du Nord_ (Meyerbeer), Caliban in _The Tempest_ (Halévy).

LABOR DAY, in the United States, a legal holiday in nearly all of the states and Territories, where the first Monday in September is observed by parades and meetings of labour organizations. In 1882 the Knights of Labor paraded in New York City on this day; in 1884 another parade was held, and it was decided that this day should be set apart for this purpose. In 1887 Colorado made the first Monday in September a legal holiday; and in 1909 Labor Day was observed as a holiday throughout the United States, except in Arizona and North Dakota; in Louisiana it is a holiday only in New Orleans (Orleans parish), and in Maryland, Wyoming and New Mexico it is not established as a holiday by statute, but in each may be proclaimed as such in any year by the governor.

LA BOURBOULE, a watering-place of central France, in the department of Puy-de-Dôme, 4½ m. W. by N. of Mont-Dore by road. Pop. (1906) 1401. La Bourboule is situated on the right bank of the Dordogne at a height of 2790 ft. Its waters, of which arsenic is the characteristic constituent, are used in cases of diseases of the skin and respiratory organs, rheumatism, neuralgia, &c. Though known to the Romans they were not in much repute till towards the end of the 19th century. The town has three thermal establishments and a casino.

LABOUR CHURCH, THE, an organization intended to give expression to the religion of the labour movement. This religion is not theological--it leaves theological questions to private individual conviction--but "seeks the realization of universal well-being by the establishment of Socialism--a commonwealth founded upon justice and love." It asserts that "improvement of social conditions and the development of personal character are both essential to emancipation from social and moral bondage, and to that end insists upon the duty of studying the economic and moral forces of society." The first Labour Church was founded at Manchester (England) in October 1891 by a Unitarian minister, John Trevor. This has disappeared, but vigorous successors have been established not only in the neighbourhood, but in Bradford, Birmingham, Nottingham, London, Wolverhampton and other centres of industry, about 30 in all, with a membership of 3000. Many branches of the Independent Labour Party and the Social Democratic Federation also hold Sunday gatherings for adults and children, using the Labour Church hymn-book and a similar form of service, the reading being chosen from Dr Stanton Coit's _Message of Man_. There are special forms for child-naming, marriages and burials. The separate churches are federated in a Labour Church Union, which holds an annual conference and business meeting in March. At the conference of 1909, held in Ashton-under-Lyne, the name "Labour Church" was changed to "Socialist Church."

LA BOURDONNAIS, BERTRAND FRANÇOIS, COUNT MAHÉ de (1699-1753), French naval commander, was born at Saint Malo on the 11th of February 1699. He went to sea when a boy, and in 1718 entered the service of the French India Company as a lieutenant. In 1724 he was promoted captain, and displayed such bravery in the capture of Mahé of the Malabar coast that the name of the town was added to his own. For two years he was in the service of the Portuguese viceroy of Goa, but in 1735 he returned to French service as governor of the Île de France and the Île de Bourbon. His five years' administration of the islands was vigorous and successful. A visit to France in 1740 was interrupted by the outbreak of hostilities with Great Britain, and La Bourdonnais was put at the head of a fleet in Indian waters. He saved Mahé, relieved General Dupleix at Pondicherry, defeated Lord Peyton, and in 1746 participated in the siege of Madras. He quarrelled with Dupleix over the conduct of affairs in India, and his anger was increased on his return to the Île de France at finding a successor to himself installed there by his rival. He set sail on a Dutch vessel to present his case at court, and was captured by the British, but allowed to return to France on parole. Instead of securing a settlement of his quarrel with Dupleix, he was arrested (1748) on a charge of gubernatorial peculation and maladministration, and secretly imprisoned for over two years in the Bastille. He was tried in 1751 and acquitted, but his health was broken by the imprisonment and by chagrin at the loss of his property. To the last he made unjust accusations against Dupleix. He died at Paris on the 10th of November 1753. The French government gave his widow a pension of 2400 livres.

La Bourdonnais wrote _Traité de la mâture des vaisseaux_ (Paris 1723), and left valuable memoirs which were published by his grandson, a celebrated chess player, Count L. C. Mahé de la Bourdonnais (1795-1840) (latest edition, Paris, 1890). His quarrel with Dupleix has given rise to much debate; for a long while the fault was generally laid to the arrogance and jealousy of Dupleix, but W. Cartwright and Colonel Malleson have pointed out that La Bourdonnais was proud, suspicious and over-ambitious.

See P. de Gennes, _Mémoire pour le sieur de la Bourdonnais, avec les pièces justificatives_ (Paris, 1750); _The Case of Mde la Bourdonnais, in a Letter to a Friend_ (London, 1748); Fantin des Odoards, _Révolutions de l'Inde_ (Paris, 1796); Collin de Bar, _Histoire de l'Inde ancienne et moderne_ (Paris, 1814); Barchou de Penhoën, _Histoire de la conquête et de la fondation de l'empire anglais dans l'Inde_ (Paris, 1840); Margry, "Les Isles de France et de Bourbon sous le gouvernement de La Bourdonnais," in _La Revue maritime et coloniale_ (1862); W. Cartwright, "Dupleix et l'Inde française," in _La Revue britannique_ (1882); G. B. Malleson, _Dupleix_ (Oxford, 1895); Anandaranga Pillai, _Les Français dans l'Inde_, _Dupleix et Labourdonnais, extraits du journal d'Anandaran-gappoullé 1736-1748_, trans. in French by Vinsor in _École spéciale des langues orientales vivantes_, séries 3, vol. xv. (Paris, 1894).

LABOUR EXCHANGE, a term very frequently applied to registries having for their principal object the better distribution of labour (see UNEMPLOYMENT). Historically the term is applied to the system of equitable labour exchanges established in England between 1832 and 1834 by Robert Owen and his followers. The idea is said to have originated with Josiah Warren, who communicated it to Owen. Warren tried an experiment in 1828 at Cincinnati, opening an exchange under the title of a "time store." He joined in starting another at Tuscarawas, Ohio, and a third at Mount Vernon, Indiana, but none were quite on the same line as the English exchanges. The fundamental idea of the English exchanges was to establish a currency based upon labour; Owen in _The Crisis_ for June 1832 laid down that all wealth proceeded from labour and knowledge; that labour and knowledge were generally remunerated according to the time employed, and that in the new exchanges it was proposed to make _time_ the standard or measure of wealth. This new currency was represented by "labour notes," the notes being measured in hours, and the hour reckoned as being worth sixpence, this figure being taken as the mean between the wage of the best and the worst paid labour. Goods were then to be exchanged for the new currency. The exchange was opened in extensive premises in the Gray's Inn Road, near King's Cross, London, on the 3rd of September 1832. For some months the establishment met with considerable success, and a considerable number of tradesmen agreed to take labour notes in payment for their goods. At first, an enormous number of deposits was made, amounting in seventeen weeks to 445,501 hours. But difficulties soon arose from the lack of sound practical valuators, and from the inability of the promoters to distinguish between the labour of the highly skilled and that of the unskilled. Tradesmen, too, were quick to see that the exchange might be worked to their advantage; they brought unsaleable stock from their shops, exchanged it for labour notes, and then picked out the best of the saleable articles. Consequently the labour notes began to depreciate; trouble also arose with the proprietors of the premises, and the experiment came to an untimely end early in 1834.

See F. Podmore's _Robert Owen_, ii. c. xvii. (1906); B. Jones, _Co-operative Production_, c. viii. (1894); G. J. Holyoake, _History of Co-operation_, c. viii. (1906).

LABOUR LEGISLATION. Regulation of labour,[1] in some form or another, whether by custom, royal authority, ecclesiastical rules or by formal legislation in the interests of a community, is no doubt as old as the most ancient forms of civilization. And older than all civilization is the necessity for the greater part of mankind to labour for maintenance, whether freely or in bonds, whether for themselves and their families or for the requirements or superfluities of others. Even while it is clear, however, that manual labour, or the application of the bodily forces--with or without mechanical aid--to personal maintenance and the production of goods, remains the common lot of the majority of citizens of the most developed modern communities, still there is much risk of confusion if modern technical terms such as "labour," "employer," "labour legislation" are freely applied to conditions in bygone civilizations with wholly different industrial organization and social relationships. In recent times in England there has been a notable disappearance from current use of correlative terms implying a social relationship which is greatly changed, for example, in the rapid passage from the Master and Servant Act 1867 to the Employer and Workman Act 1875. In the 18th century the term "manufacturer" passed from its application to a working craftsman to its modern connotation of at least some command of capital, the employer being no longer a small working master. An even more significant later change is seen in the steady development of a labour legislation, which arose in a clamant social need for the care of specially helpless "protected" persons in factories and mines, into a wider legislation for the promotion of general industrial health, safety and freedom for the worker from fraud in making or carrying out wage contracts.

If, then, we can discern these signs of important changes within so short a period, great caution is needed in rapidly reviewing long periods of time prior to that industrial revolution which is traced mainly to the application of mechanical power to machinery in aid of manual labour, practically begun and completed within the second half of the 18th century. "In 1740 save for the fly-shuttle the loom was as it had been since weaving had begun ... and the law of the land was" (under the Act of Apprentices of 1503) "that wages in each district should be assessed by Justices of the Peace."[2] Turning back to still earlier times, legislation--whatever its source or authority--must clearly be devoted to aims very different from modern aims in regulating labour, when it arose before the labourer, as a man dependent on an "employer" for the means of doing work, had appeared, and when migratory labour was almost unknown through the serfdom of part of the population and the special status secured in towns to the artisan.