[1] This is the date given by G. de Chenier in his _La Verite sur la
famille de Chenier_ (1844).
CHENILLE (from the Fr. _chenille_, a hairy caterpillar), a twisted
velvet cord, woven so that the short outer threads stand out at right
angles to the central cord, thus giving a resemblance to a caterpillar.
Chenille is used as a trimming for dress and furniture.
CHENONCEAUX, a village of central France, in the department of
Indre-et-Loire, on the right bank of the Cher, 20 m. E. by S. of Tours
on the Orleans railway. Pop. (1906) 216. Chenonceaux owes its interest
to its chateau (see ARCHITECTURE: _Renaissance Architecture in France_),
a building in the Renaissance style on the river Cher, to the left bank
of which it is united by a two-storeyed gallery built upon five arches,
and to the right by a drawbridge flanked by an isolated tower, part of
an earlier building of the 15th century. Founded in 1515 by Thomas
Bohier (d. 1523), financial minister in Normandy, the chateau was
confiscated by Francis I. in 1535. Henry II. presented it to his
mistress Diane de Poitiers, who on his death was forced to exchange it
for Chaumont-sur-Loire by Catherine de' Medici. The latter built the
gallery which leads to the left bank of the Cher. Chenonceaux passed
successively into the hands of Louise de Vaudemont, wife of Henry III.,
the house of Vendome, and the family of Bourbon-Conde. In the 18th
century it came into the possession of the farmer-general Claude Dupin
(1684-1769), who entertained the most distinguished people in France
within its walls. In 1864 it was sold to the chemist Theophile Pelouze,
whose wife executed extensive restorations. It subsequently became the
property of the Credit Foncier, and again passed into private occupancy.
CHENOPODIUM, or GOOSE-FOOT, a genus of erect or prostrate herbs (natural
order Chenopodiaceae), usually growing on the seashore or on waste or
cultivated ground. The green angular stem is often striped with white or
red, and, like the leaves, often more or less covered with mealy hairs.
The leaves are entire, lobed or toothed, often more or less deltoid or
triangular in shape. The minute flowers are bisexual, and borne in dense
axillary or terminal clusters or spikes. The fruit is a membranous
one-seeded utricle often enclosed by the persistent calyx. Ten species
occur in Britain, one of which, _C. Bonus-Henricus_, Good King Henry,
is cultivated as a pot-herb, in lieu of asparagus, under the name
mercury, and all-good.
CHEOPS, in Herodotus, the name of the king who built the Great Pyramid
in Egypt. Following on a period of good rule and prosperity under
Rhampsinitus, Cheops closed the temples, abolished the sacrifices and
made all the Egyptians labour for his monument, working in relays of
100,000 men every three months (see PYRAMID). Proceeding from bad to
worse, he sacrificed the honour of his daughter in order to obtain the
money to complete his pyramid; and the princess built herself besides a
small pyramid of the stones given to her by her lovers. Cheops reigned
50 years and was succeeded by his brother, Chephren, who reigned 56
years and built the second pyramid. During these two reigns the
Egyptians suffered every kind of misery and the temples remained closed.
Herodotus continues that in his own day the Egyptians were unwilling to
name these oppressors and preferred to call the pyramids after a
shepherd named Philition, who pastured his flocks in their
neighbourhood. At length Mycerinus, son of Cheops and successor of
Chephren, reopened the temples and, although he built the Third Pyramid,
allowed the oppressed people to return to their proper occupations.
Cheops, Chephren and Mycerinus are historical personages of the fourth
Egyptian dynasty, in correct order, and they built the three pyramids
attributed to them here. But they are wholly misplaced by Herodotus.
Rhampsinitus, the predecessor of Cheops, appears to represent Rameses
III. of the twentieth dynasty, and Mycerinus in Herodotus is but a few
generations before Psammetichus, the founder of the twenty-sixth
dynasty. Manetho correctly places the great Pyramid kings in Dynasty IV.
In Egyptian the name of Cheops (Chemmis or Chembis in Diodorus Siculus,
Suphis in Manetho) is spelt Hwfw (Khufu), but the pronunciation, in late
times perhaps Khoouf, is uncertain. The Greeks and Romans generally
accepted the view that Herodotus supplies of his character, and
moralized on the uselessness of his stupendous work; but there is
nothing else to prove that the Egyptians themselves execrated his
memory. Modern writers rather dwell on the perfect organization demanded
by his scheme, the training of a nation to combined labour, the level
attained here by art and in the fitting of masonry, and finally the fact
that the Great Pyramid was the oldest of the seven wonders of the
ancient world and now alone of them survives. It seems that
representations of deities, and indeed any representations at all, were
rare upon the polished walls of the great monuments of the fourth
dynasty, and Petrie thinks that he can trace a violent religious
revolution with confiscation of endowments at this time in the temple
remains at Abydos; but none the less the wants of the deities were then
attended to by priests selected from the royal family and the highest in
the land. Khufu's work in the temple of Bubastis is proved by a
surviving fragment, and he is figured slaying his enemy at Sinai before
the god Thoth. In late times the priests of Denderah claimed Khufu as a
benefactor; he was reputed to have built temples to the gods near the
Great Pyramids and Sphinx (where also a pyramid of his daughter Hentsen
is spoken of), and there are incidental notices of him in the medical
and religious literature. The funerary cult of Khufu and Khafr[=e] was
practised under the twenty-sixth dynasty, when so much that had fallen
into disuse and been forgotten was revived. Khufu is a leading figure in
an ancient Egyptian story (Papyrus Westcar), but it is unfortunately
incomplete. He was the founder of the fourth dynasty, and was probably
born in Middle Egypt near Beni Hasan, in a town afterwards known as
"Khufu's Nurse," but was connected with the Memphite third dynasty. Two
tablets at the mines of Wadi Maghara in the peninsula of Sinai, a
granite block from Bubastis, and a beautiful ivory statuette found by
Petrie in the temple at Abydos, are almost all that can be definitely
assigned to Khufu outside the pyramid at Giza and its ruined
accompaniments. His date, according to Petrie, is 3969-3908 B.C., but in
the shorter chronology of Meyer, Breasted and others he reigned (23
years) about a thousand years later, c. 2900 B.C.
See Herodotus ii. 124; Diodorus Siculus i. 64; Sethe in
Pauly-Wissowa's _Realencyclopadie_, s.v.; W.M.F. Petrie, _History of
Egypt_, vol. i., and _Abydos_, part ii. p. 48; J.H. Breasted,
_History_. (F. LL. G.)
CHEPSTOW, a market town and river-port in the southern parliamentary
division of Monmouthshire, England, on the Wye, 2 m. above its junction
with the Severn, and on the Great Western railway. Pop. of urban
district (1901) 3067. It occupies the slope of a hill on the western
(left) bank of the river, and is environed by beautiful scenery. The
church of St Mary, originally the conventual chapel of a Benedictine
priory of Norman foundation, has remains of that period in the west
front and the nave, but a rebuilding of the chancel and transepts was
effected in the beginning of the 19th century. The church contains many
interesting monuments. The castle, still a magnificent pile, was founded
in the 11th century by William Fitz-Osbern, earl of Hereford, but was
almost wholly rebuilt in the 13th. There are, however, parts of the
original building in the keep. The castle occupies a splendid site on
the summit of a cliff above the Wye, and covers about 3 acres. The river
is crossed by a fine iron bridge of five arches, erected in 1816, and by
a tubular railway bridge designed by Sir Isambard Brunel. There is a
free passage on the Wye for large vessels as far as the bridge. From the
narrowness and depth of the channel the tide rises suddenly and to a
great height, forming a dangerous bore. The exports are timber, bark,
iron, coal, cider and millstones. Some shipbuilding is carried on.
As the key to the passage of the Wye, Chepstow (_Estrighorel_,
_Striguil_) was the site successively of British, Roman and Saxon
fortifications. Domesday Book records that the Norman castle was built
by William Fitz-Osbern to defend the Roman road into South Wales. On the
confiscation of his son's estates, the castle was granted to the earls
of Pembroke, and after its reversion to the crown in 1306, Edward II. in
1310 granted it to his half-brother Thomas de Brotherton. On the
latter's death it passed, through his daughter Margaret, Lady Segrave,
to the dukes of Norfolk, from whom, after again reverting to the crown,
it passed to the earls of Worcester. It was confiscated by parliament
and settled on Oliver Cromwell, but was restored to the earls in 1660.
The borough must have grown up between 1310, when the castle and vill
were granted to Thomas de Brotherton, and 1432, when John duke of
Norfolk died seised of the castle, manor and borough of Struguil. In
1524 Charles, first earl of Worcester and then lord of the Marches,
granted a new charter of incorporation to the bailiffs and burgesses of
the town, which had fallen into decay. This was sustained until the
reign of Charles II., when, some dispute arising between the earl of
Bridgwater and the burgesses, no bailiff was appointed and the charter
lapsed. Chepstow was afterwards governed by a board of twelve members. A
port since early times, when the lord took dues of ships going up to the
forest of Dean, Chepstow had no ancient market and no manufactures but
that of glass, which was carried on for a short time within the ruins of
the castle.
CHEQUE, or CHECK, in commercial law, a bill of exchange drawn on a
banker and signed by the drawer, requiring the banker to pay on demand a
certain sum in money to or to the order of a specified person or to
bearer. In this, its most modern sense, the cheque is the outcome of the
growth of the banking system of the 19th century. For details see BANKS
AND BANKING: _Law_, and BILL OF EXCHANGE. The word check,[1] of which
"cheque" is a variant now general in English usage, signified merely the
counterfoil or indent of an exchequer bill, or any draft form of
payment, on which was registered the particulars of the principal part,
as a check to alteration or forgery. The check or counterfoil parts
remained in the hands of the banker, the portion given to the customer
being termed a "drawn note" or "draft." From the beginning of the 19th
century the word "cheque" gradually became synonymous with "draft" as
meaning a written order on a banker by a person having money in the
banker's hands, to pay some amount to bearer or to a person named.
Ultimately, it entirely superseded the word "draft," and has now a
statutory definition (Bills of Exchange Act 1882, s. 73)--" a bill of
exchange drawn on a banker payable on demand." The word "draft" has come
to have a wider meaning, that of a bill drawn by one person on another
for a sum of money, or an order (whether on a banker or other) to pay
money. The employment of cheques as a method of payment offering greater
convenience than coin is almost universal in Great Britain and the
United States. Of the transactions through the banks of the United
Kingdom between 86 and 90% are conducted by means of cheques, and an
even higher proportion in the United States. On the continent of Europe
the use of cheques, formerly rare, is becoming more general,
particularly in France, and to some extent in Germany.