[1] The institution of pay for the councillors may safely be ascribed
to Pericles although we have no direct evidence of it before 411 B.C.
(Thuc. viii. 69; see PERICLES).
BOULEVARD (a Fr. word, earlier _boulevart_, from Dutch or Ger.
_Bollwerk_, cf. Eng. "bulwark"), originally, in fortification, an
earthwork with a broad platform for artillery. It came into use owing to
the width of the gangways in medieval walls being insufficient for the
mounting of artillery thereon. The boulevard or bulwark was usually an
earthen outwork mounting artillery, and so placed in advance as to
prevent the guns of a besieger from battering the foot of the main
walls. It was as a rule circular. Semicircular _demi-boulevards_ were
often constructed round the bases of the old masonry towers with the
same object. In modern times the word is most frequently used to denote
a promenade laid out on the site of a former fortification, and, by
analogy, a broad avenue in a town planted with rows of trees.
BOULLE, ANDRE CHARLES (1642-1732), French cabinet-maker, who gave his
name to a fashion of inlaying known as Boulle or Buhl work. The son of
Jean Boulle, a member of a family of _ebenistes_ who had already
achieved distinction--Pierre Boulle, who died c. 1636, was for many
years _tourneur et menuisier du roy des cabinets d'ebene_,--he became
the most famous of his name and was, indeed, the second
cabinet-maker--the first was Jean Mace--who has acquired individual
renown. That must have begun at a comparatively early age, for at thirty
he had already been granted one of those lodgings in the galleries of
the Louvre which had been set apart by Henry IV. for the use of the
most talented of the artists employed by the crown. To be admitted to
these galleries was not only to receive a signal mark of royal favour,
but to enjoy the important privilege of freedom from the trammels of the
trade gilds. Boulle was given the deceased Jean Mace's own lodging in
1672 by Louis XIV. upon the recommendation, of Colbert, who described
him as "_le plus habile ebeniste de Paris_," but in the patent
conferring this privilege he is described also as "chaser, gilder and
maker of marqueterie." Boulle appears to have been originally a painter,
since the first payment to him by the crown of which there is any record
(1669) specifies "ouvrages de peinture." He was employed for many years
at Versailles, where the mirrored walls, the floors of "wood mosaic,"
the inlaid panelling and the pieces in marqueterie in the Cabinet du
Dauphin were regarded as his most remarkable work. These rooms were long
since dismantled and their contents dispersed, but Boulle's drawings for
the work are in the Musee des Arts Decoratifs. His royal commissions
were, indeed, innumerable, as we learn both from the _Comptes des
batiments_ and from the correspondence of Louvois. Not only the most
magnificent of French monarchs, but foreign princes and the great nobles
and financiers of his own country crowded him with commissions, and the
_mot_ of the abbe de Marolles, "_Boulle y tourne en ovale_," has become
a stock quotation in the literature of French cabinet-making. Yet
despite his distinction, the facility with which he worked, the high
prices he obtained, and his workshops full of clever craftsmen, Boulle
appears to have been constantly short of money. He did not always pay
his workmen, clients who had made considerable advances failed to obtain
the fine things they had ordered, more than one application was made for
permission to arrest him for debt under orders of the courts within the
asylum of the Louvre, and in 1704 we find the king giving him six
months' protection from his creditors on condition that he used the time
to regulate his affairs or "ce scra la derniere grace que sa majeste lui
fera la-dessus." Twenty years later one of his sons was arrested at
Fontainebleau and kept in prison for debt until the king had him
released. In 1720 his finances were still further embarrassed by a fire
which, beginning in another atelier, extended to his twenty workshops
and destroyed most of the seasoned materials, appliances, models and
finished work of which they were full. The salvage was sold and a
petition for pecuniary help was sent to the regent, the result of which
does not appear. It would seem that Boulle was never a good man of
business, but, according to his friend Mariette, many of his pecuniary
difficulties were caused by his passion for collecting pictures,
engravings and other objects of art--the inventory of his losses in the
fire, which exceeded L40,000 in amount, enumerates many old masters,
including forty-eight drawings by Raphael and the manuscript journal
kept by Rubens in Italy. He attended every sale of drawings and
engravings, borrowed at high interest to pay for his purchases, and when
the next sale took place, fresh expedients were devised for obtaining
more money. Collecting was to Boulle a mania of which, says his friend,
it was impossible to cure him. Thus he died in 1732, full of fame, years
and debts. He left four sons who followed in his footsteps in more
senses than one--Jean Philippe (born before 1690, dead before 1745),
Pierre Benoit (d. 1741), Charles Andre (1685-1749) and Charles Joseph
(1688-1754). Their affairs were embarrassed throughout their lives, and
the three last are known to have died in debt.
All greatness is the product of its opportunities, and the elder Boulle
was made by the happy circumstances of his time. He was born into a
France which was just entering upon the most brilliant period of
sumptuary magnificence which any nation has known in modern times. Louis
XIV., so avid of the delights of the eye, by the reckless extravagance
of his example turned the thoughts of his courtiers to domestic
splendours which had hitherto been rare. The spacious palaces which
arose in his time needed rich embellishment, and Boulle, who had not
only inherited the rather flamboyant Italian traditions of the late
Renaissance, but had _ebenisterie_ in his blood, arose, as some such man
invariably does arise, to gratify tastes in which personal pride and
love of art were not unequally intermingled. He was by no means the
first Frenchman to practise the delightful art of marqueterie, nor was
he quite the inventor of the peculiar type of inlay which is chiefly
associated with his name; but no artist, before or since, has used these
motives with such astonishing skill, courage and surety. He produced
pieces of monumental solidity blazing with harmonious colour, or
gleaming with the sober and dignified reticence of ebony, ivory and
white metal. The Renaissance artists chiefly employed wood in making
furniture, ornamenting it with gilding and painting, and inlaying it
with agate, cornelian, lapis-lazuli, marble of various tints, ivory,
tortoise-shell, mother-of-pearl and various woods. Boulle improved upon
this by inlaying brass devices into wood or tortoise-shell, which last
he greatly used according to the design he had immediately in view,
whether flowers, scenes, scrolls, &c.; to these he sometimes added
enamelled metal. Indeed the use of tortoise-shell became so
characteristic that any furniture, however cheap and common, which has a
reddish _fond_ that might by the ignorant be mistaken for inlay, is now
described as "Buhl"--the name is the invention of the British auctioneer
and furniture-maker. In this process the brass is thin, and, like the
ornamental wood or tortoise-shell, forms a veneer. In the first instance
the production of his work was costly, owing to the quantity of valuable
material that was cut away and wasted, and, in addition, the labour lost
in separately cutting for each article or copy of a pattern. By a
subsequent improvement Boulle effected an economy by gluing together
various sheets of material and sawing through the whole, so that an
equal number of figures and matrices were produced at one operation.
Boulle adopted from time to time various plans for the improvement of
his designs. He placed gold-leaf or other suitable material under the
tortoise-shell to produce such effect as he required; he chased the
brass-work with a graver for a like purpose, and, when the metal
required to be fastened down with brass pins or nails, these were
hammered flat and disguised by ornamental chasing. He also adopted, in
relief or in the round, brass feet, brackets, edgings, and other
ornaments of appropriate design, partly to protect the corners and edges
of his work, and partly for decoration. He subsequently used other brass
mountings, such as claw-feet to pedestals, or figures in high or low
relief, according to the effect he desired to produce. These mounts in
the pieces that undoubtedly come from Boulle's _atelier_ are nearly
always of the greatest excellence. They were cast in the rough--the
tools of the chaser gave them their sharpness, their minute finish,
their jewel-like smoothness.
Unhappily it is by no means easy, even for the expert, to declare the
authenticity of a commode, a bureau, or a table in the manner of Boulle
and to all appearance from his workshops. His sons unquestionably
carried on the traditions for some years after his death, and his
imitators were many and capable. A few of the more magnificent
pedigree-pieces are among the world's mobiliary treasures. There are,
for instance, the two famous _armoires_, which fetched L12,075 at the
Hamilton Palace sale; the marqueterie commodes, enriched with bronze
mounts, in the Bibliotheque Mazarine; various cabinets and commodes and
tables in the Louvre, the Musee Cluny and the Mobilier National; the
marriage coffers of the dauphin which were in the San Donato collection.
There are several fine authenticated pieces in the Wallace collection at
Hertford House, together with others consummately imitated, probably in
the Louis Seize period. On the rare occasions when a pedigree example
comes into the auction-room, it invariably commands a high price; but
there can be little doubt that the most splendid and sumptuous specimens
of Boulle are diminishing in number, while the second and third classes
of his work are perhaps becoming more numerous. The truth is that this
wonderful work, with its engraved or inlaid designs of Berain, its
myriads of tiny pieces of ivory and copper, ebony and tortoise-shell,
all kept together with glue and tiny chased nails, and applied very
often to a rather soft, white wood, is not meet to withstand the ravages
of time and the variations of the atmosphere. Alternate heat and
humidity are even greater enemies of inlaid furniture than time and
wear--such delicate things are rarely much used, and are protected from
ordinary chances of deterioration. There is consequently reason to
rejoice when a piece of real artistry in furniture finds its final home
in a museum, where a degree of warmth is maintained which, however
distressing it may be to the visitor, at least preserves the contents
from one of the worst enemies of the collector. (J. P.-B.)
BOULOGNE, or BOULLONGNE, the name of a family of French painters. Louis
(1609-1674), who was one of the original members of the Academy of
Painting and Sculpture (1648), became celebrated under Louis XIV. His
traditions were continued by his children: GENEVIEVE (1645-1708), who
married the sculptor Jacques Clerion; MADELEINE (1646-1710), whose work
survives in the _Trophies d'armes_ at Versailles; BON (1649-1717), a
successful teacher and decorative artist; and LOUIS the younger
(1654-1733), who copied Raphael's cartoons for the Gobelins tapestry,
and besides taking a high place as a painter was also a designer of
medals.
BOULOGNE-SUR-MER, a fortified seaport of northern France and chief town
of an arrondissement in Pas-de-Calais, situated on the shore of the
English Channel at the mouth of the river Liane, 157 m. N.N.W. of Paris
on the Northern railway, and 28 m. by sea S.E. of Folkestone, Kent. Pop.
(1906) 49,636. Boulogne occupies the summit and slopes of a ridge of
hills skirting the right bank of the Liane; the industrial quarter of
Capecure extends along the opposite bank, and is reached by two bridges,
while the river is also crossed by a double railway viaduct. The town
consists of two parts, the Haute Ville and the Basse Ville. The former,
situated on the top of the hill, is of comparatively small extent, and
forms almost a parallelogram, surrounded by ramparts of the 13th
century, and, outside them, by boulevards, and entered by ancient
gateways. In this part are the law court, the chateau and the hotel de
ville (built in the 18th century), and a belfry tower of the 13th and
17th centuries is in the immediate neighbourhood. In the chateau (13th
century) now used as barracks, the emperor Napoleon III was confined
after the abortive insurrection of 1840. At some distance north-west
stands the church of Notre-Dame, a well-known place of pilgrimage,
erected (1827-1866) on the site of an old building destroyed in the
Revolution, of which the extensive crypt still remains. The modern town
stretches from the foot of the hill to the harbour, along which it
extends, terminating in an expanse of sandy beach frequented by bathers,
and provided with a bathing establishment and casino. It contains
several good streets, some of which are, however, very steep. A main
street, named successively rue de la Lampe, St Nicolas and Grande rue,
extends from the bridge across the Liane to the promenade by the side of
the ramparts. This is intersected first by the Quai Gambetta, and
farther back by the rue Victor Hugo and the rue Nationale, which contain
the principal shops. The public buildings include several modern
churches, two hospitals and a museum with collections of antiquities,
natural history, porcelain, &c. Connected with the museum is a public
library with 75,000 volumes and a number of valuable manuscripts, many
of them richly illuminated. There are English churches in the town, and
numerous boarding-schools intended for English pupils. Boulogne is the
seat of a sub-prefect, and has tribunals of first instance and of
commerce, a board of trade-arbitrators, a chamber of commerce and a
branch of the Bank of France. There are also communal colleges, a
national school of music, and schools of hydrography, commerce and
industry. Boulogne has for a long time been one of the most anglicized
of French cities; and in the tourist season a continuous stream of
English travellers reach the continent at this point.
The harbour is formed by the mouth of the Liane. Two jetties enclose a
channel leading into the river, which forms a tidal basin with a depth
at neap-tides of 24 ft. Alongside this is an extensive dock, and behind
it an inner port. There is also a tidal basin opening off the entrance
channel. The depth of water in the river-harbour is 33 ft. at
spring-tide and 24 ft. at neap-tide; in the sluice of the dock the
numbers are 29-1/2 and 23-1/2 respectively. The commerce of Boulogne
consists chiefly in the importation of jute, wool, woven goods of silk
and wool skins, threads, coal, timber, and iron and steel, and the
exportation of wine, woven goods, table fruit, potatoes and other
vegetables, skins, motor-cars, forage and cement. The average annual
value of the exports in the five years 1901-1905 was L10,953,000
(L11,704,000 in the years 1896-1900), and of the imports L6,064,000
(L7,003,000 in the years 1896-1900). From 1901 to 1905 the annual
average of vessels entered, exclusive of fishing-smacks, was 2735,
tonnage 1,747,699; and cleared 2750, tonnage 1,748,297. The total number
of passengers between Folkestone and Boulogne in 1906 was 295,000 or 49%
above the average for the years 1901-1905. These travelled by the
steamers of the South-Eastern & Chatham railway company. The liners of
the Dutch-American, Hamburg-American and other companies also call at
the port. In the extent and value of its fisheries Boulogne is exceeded
by no seaport in France. The most important branch is the
herring-fishery; next in value is the mackerel. Large quantities of
fresh fish are transmitted to Paris by railway, but an abundant supply
is reserved to the town itself. The fishermen live for the most part in
a separate quarter called La Beurriere, situated in the upper part of
the town. In 1905 the fisheries of Boulogne and the neighbouring village
of Etaples employed over 400 boats and 4500 men, the value of the fish
taken being estimated at L1,025,000. Among the numerous industrial
establishments in Boulogne and its environs may be mentioned foundries,
cement-factories, important steel-pen manufactories, oil-works,
dye-works, fish-curing works, flax-mills, saw-mills, and manufactories
of cloth, fireproof ware, chocolate, boots and shoes, and soap.
Shipbuilding is also carried on.
Among the objects of interest in the neighbourhood the most remarkable
is the Colonne de la Grande Armee, erected on the high ground above the
town, in honour of Napoleon I., on occasion of the projected invasion of
England, for which he here made great preparations. The pillar, which is
of the Doric order, 166 ft. high, is surmounted by a statue of the
emperor by A.S. Bosio. Though begun in 1804, the monument was not
completed till 1841. On the edge of the cliff to the east of the port
are some rude brick remains of an old building called Tour d'Ordre, said
to be the ruins of a tower built by Caligula at the time of his intended
invasion of Britain.
Boulogne is identified with the _Gessoriacum_ of the Romans, under whom
it was an important harbour. It is suggested that it was the _Portus
Itius_ where Julius Caesar assembled his fleet (see ITIUS PORTUS). At an
early period it began to be known as _Bononia_, a name which has been
gradually modified into the present form. The town was destroyed by the
Normans in 882, but restored about 912. During the Carolingian period
Boulogne was the chief town of a countship that was for long the subject
of dispute between Flanders and Ponthieu. From the year 965 it belonged
to the house of Ponthieu, of which Godfrey of Bouillon, the first king
of Jerusalem, was a scion. Stephen of Blois, who became king of England
in 1135, had married Mahaut, daughter and heiress of Eustace, count of
Boulogne. Their daughter Mary married Matthew of Alsace (d. 1173), and
her daughter Ida (d. 1216) married Renaud of Dammartin. Of this last
marriage was issue Mahaut, countess of Boulogne, wife of Philip Hurepel
(d. 1234), a son of King Philip Augustus. To her succeeded the house of
Brabant, issue of Mahaut of Boulogne, sister of Ida, and wife of Henry
I. of Brabant; and then the house of Auvergne, issue of Alice, daughter
of Henry I. of Brabant, inherited the Boulonnais. It remained in the
possession of descendants of these families until Philip the Good, duke
of Burgundy, seized upon it in 1419. In 147 7 Louis XI. of France
reconquered it, and reunited it to the French crown, giving Lauraguais
as compensation to Bertrand IV. de la Tour, count of Auvergne, heir of
the house of Auvergne. To avoid doing homage to Mary of Burgundy,
suzerain of the Boulonnais and countess of Artois, Louis XI declared the
countship of Boulogne to be held in fee of Our Lady of Boulogne. In 1544
Henry VIII.--more successful in this than Henry III. had been in
1347--took the town by siege; but it was restored to France in 1550.
From 1566 to the end of the 18th century it was the seat of a
bishopric.
BOULOGNE-SUR-SEINE, a town of northern France, in the department of
Seine, on the right bank of the Seine, S.W. of Paris and immediately
outside the fortifications. Pop. (1906) 49,412. The town has a Gothic
church of the 14th and 15th centuries (restored in 1863) founded in
honour of Notre-Dame of Boulogne-sur-Mer. To this fact is due the name
of the place, which was previously called Menus-les-St Cloud. Laundrying
is extensively carried on as well as the manufacture of metal boxes,
soap, oil and furniture, and there are numerous handsome residences. For
the neighbouring Bois de Boulogne see PARIS.
BOULTON, MATTHEW (1728-1809), English manufacturer and engineer, was
born on the 3rd of September 1728, at Birmingham, where his father,
Matthew Boulton the elder, was a manufacturer of metal articles of
various kinds. To this business he succeeded on his father's death in
1759, and in consequence of its growth removed his works in 1762 from
Snowhill to what was then a tract of barren heath at Soho, 2 mi. north
of Birmingham. Here he undertook the manufacture of artistic objects in
metal, as well as the reproduction of oil paintings by a mechanical
process in which he was associated with Francis Eginton (1737-1805), who
subsequently achieved a reputation as a worker in stained or enamelled
glass. About 1767, Boulton, who was finding the need of improving the
motive power for his machinery, made the acquaintance of James Watt, who
on his side appreciated the advantages offered by the Soho works for the
development of his steam-engine. In 1772 Watt's partner, Dr John
Roebuck, got into financial difficulties, and Boulton, to whom he owed
L1200, accepted the two-thirds share in Watt's patent held by him in
satisfaction of the debt. Three years later Boulton and Watt formally
entered into partnership, and it was mainly through the energy and
self-sacrifice of the former, who devoted all the capital he possessed
or could borrow to the enterprise, that the steam-engine was at length
made a commercial success. It was also owing to Boulton that in 1775 an
act of parliament was obtained extending the term of Watt's 1769 patent
to 1799. In 1800 the two partners retired from the business, which they
handed over to their sons, Matthew Robinson Boulton and James Watt
junior. In 1788 Boulton turned his attention to coining machinery, and
erected at Soho a complete plant with which he struck coins for the
Sierra Leone and East India companies and for Russia, and in 1797
produced a new copper coinage for Great Britain. In 1797 he took out a
patent in connexion with raising water on the principle of the hydraulic
ram. He died at Birmingham on the 18th of August 1809.
BOUND, or BOUNDARY (from O. Fr. _bonde_, Med. Lat. _bodena_ or _butina_,
a frontier line), that which serves to indicate the limit or extent of
land. It is usually defined by a certain mark, such as a post, ditch,
hedge, dyke, wall of stones, &c., though on the other hand it may have
to be ascertained by reference to a plan or by measurement. In law, the
exact boundary of land is always a matter of evidence; where no evidence
is available, the court acts on presumption. For example, the boundary
of land on opposite sides of a road, whether public or private, is
presumed to be the middle line of the road. Where two fields are
separated by a hedge and ditch the boundary line will run between the
hedge and the ditch. Boundaries of parishes, at common law, depended
upon ancient and immemorial custom, and in many parishes great care was
taken to perpetuate the boundaries of the parish by perambulations from
time to time. The confusion of local boundaries in England was the
subject of several commissions and committees in the 19th century, and
much information will be found in their reports (1868, 1870, 1873,
1888). The Local Government Act 1888, ss. 50-63, contains provisions for
the alteration of local areas.
BOUNDS, BEATING THE, an ancient custom still observed in many English
parishes. In former times when maps were rare it was usual to make a
formal perambulation of the parish boundaries on Ascension day or during
Rogation week. The latter is in the north of England still called "Gang
Week" or "Ganging Days" from this "ganging" or procession. The priest
of the parish with the churchwardens and the parochial officials headed
a crowd of boys who, armed with green boughs, beat with them the parish
border-stones. Sometimes the boys were themselves whipped or even
violently bumped on the boundary-stones to make them remember. The
object of taking boys was obviously to ensure that witnesses to the
boundaries should survive as long as possible. In England the custom is
as old as Anglo-Saxon days, as it is mentioned in laws of Alfred and
Aethelstan. It is thought that it may have been derived from the Roman
Terminalia, a festival celebrated on the 22nd of February in honour of
Terminus, the god of landmarks, to whom cakes and wine were offered,
sports and dancing taking place at the boundaries. In England a
parish-ale or feast was always held after the perambulation, which
assured its popularity, and in Henry VIII.'s reign the occasion had
become an excuse for so much revelry that it attracted the condemnation
of a preacher who declared "these solemne and accustomable processions
and supplications be nowe growen into a right foule and detestable
abuse." Beating the bounds had a religious side in the practice which
originated the term Rogation, the accompanying clergy being supposed to
beseech (_rogare_) the divine blessing upon the parish lands for the
ensuing harvest. This feature originated in the 5th century, when
Mamercus, bishop of Vienne, instituted special prayers and fasting and
processions on these days. This clerical side of the parish
bounds-beating was one of the religious functions prohibited by the
Injunctions of Queen Elizabeth; but it was then ordered that the
perambulation should continue to be performed as a quasi-secular
function, so that evidence of the boundaries of parishes, &c. might be
preserved (Gibson, _Codex juris Ecclesiastici Anglicani_ (1761) pp.
213-214). Bequests were sometimes made in connexion with bounds-beating.
Thus at Leighton Buzzard on Rogation Monday, in accordance with the will
of one Edward Wilkes, a London merchant who died in 1646, the trustees
of his almshouses accompanied the boys. The will was read and beer and
plum rolls distributed. A remarkable feature of the bequest was that
while the will is read one of the boys has to stand on his head.
BOUNTY (through O. Fr. _bontet_, from Lat. _bonitas_, goodness), a gift
or gratuity; more usually, a premium paid by a government to encourage
some branch of production or industry, as in England in the case of the
bounty on corn, first granted in 1688 and abolished in 1814, the
herring-fishery bounties, the bounties on sail-cloth, linen and other
goods. It is admitted that the giving of bounties is generally
impolitic, though they may sometimes be justified as a measure of state.
The most striking modern example of a bounty was that on sugar (q.v.).
Somewhat akin to bounties are the subsidies granted to shipping (q.v.)
by many countries. Bounties or, as they may equally well be termed,
grants are often given, more especially in new countries, for the
destruction of beasts of prey; in the United States and some other
countries, bounties have been given for tree-planting; France has given
bounties to encourage the Newfoundland fisheries.
Bounty was also the name given to the money paid to induce men to enlist
in the army or navy, and, in the United Kingdom, to the sum given on
entering the militia reserve. During the American Civil War, many
recruits joined solely for the sake of the bounty offered, and
afterwards deserted; they were called "bounty-jumpers." The term bounty
was also applied in the English navy to signify money payable to the
officers and crew of a ship in respect of services on particular
occasions.
Queen Anne's Bounty (q.v.) is a fund applied for the augmentation of
poor livings in the established church.
King's Bounty is a grant made by the sovereign of his royal bounty to
those of his subjects whose wives are delivered of three or more
children at a birth.
BOURBAKI, CHARLES DENIS SAUTER (1816-1897), French general, was born at
Pau on the 22nd of April 1816, the son of a Greek colonel who died in
the War of Independence in 1827. He entered St Cyr, and in 1836 joined
the Zouaves, becoming lieutenant of the Foreign Legion in 1838, and
aide-de-camp to King Louis Philippe. It was in the African expedition
that he first came to the front. In 1842 he was captain in the Zouaves;
1847, colonel of the Turcos; in 1850, lieutenant-colonel of the 1st
Zouaves; 1851, colonel; 1854, brigadier-general. In the Crimean War he
commanded a portion of the Algerian troops; and at the Alma, Inkerman
and Sevastopol Bourbaki's name became famous. In 1857 he was made
general of division, commanding in 1859 at Lyons. His success in the war
with Italy was only second to that of MacMahon, and in 1862 he was
proposed as a candidate for the vacant Greek throne, but declined the
proffered honour. In 1870 the emperor entrusted him with the command of
the Imperial Guard, and he played an important part in the fighting
round Metz.
A curious incident of the siege of Metz is connected with Bourbaki's
name. A man who called himself Regnier,[1] about the 21st of September,
appeared at Hastings, to seek an interview with the refugee empress
Eugenie, and failing to obtain this he managed to get from the young
prince imperial a signed photograph with a message to the emperor
Napoleon. This he used, by means of a safe-conduct from Bismarck, as
credentials to Marshal Bazaine, to whom he presented himself at Metz,
telling him on the empress's alleged authority that peace was about to
be signed and that either Marshal Canrobert or General Bourbaki was to
go to Hastings for the purpose. Bourbaki at once went to England, with
Prussian connivance, as though he had a recognized mission, only to
discover from the empress at Hastings that a trick had been played on
him; and as soon as he could manage he returned to France. He offered
his services to Gambetta and received the command of the Northern Army,
but was recalled on the 19th of November and transferred to the Army of
the Loire. In command of the hastily-trained and ill-equipped Army of
the East, Bourbaki made the attempt to raise the siege of Belfort,
which, after the victory of Villersexel, ended in the repulse of the
French in the three days' battle of the Lisaine. Other German forces
under Manteuffel now closed upon Bourbaki, and he was eventually driven
over the Swiss frontier with the remnant of his forces (see
FRANCO-GERMAN WAR). His troops were in the most desperate condition,
owing to lack of food; and out of 150,000 men under him when he started,
only 84,000 escaped from the Germans into Swiss territory. Bourbaki
himself, rather than submit to the humiliation of a probable surrender,
on the 26th of January 1871 delegated his functions to General
Clinchant, and in the night fired a pistol at his own head, but the
bullet, owing to a deviation of the weapon, was flattened against his
skull and his life was saved. General Clinchant carried Bourbaki into
Switzerland, and he recovered sufficiently to return to France. In July
1871 he again took the command at Lyons, and subsequently became
military governor. In 1881, owing to his political opinions, he was
placed on the retired list. In 1885 he was an unsuccessful candidate for
the senate. He died on the 27th of September 1897. A patriotic Frenchman
and a brilliant soldier and leader, Bourbaki, like some other French
generals of the Second Empire whose training had been obtained in
Africa, was found wanting in the higher elements of command when the
European conditions of 1870 were concerned.