He defended the fort of Issy at the siege of Paris, and served in Corsica and in Algeria in 1873. In 1876 he resigned his commission to enter the Chamber as deputy for Nantes in the republican interest, and in 1879 he became director of the Petit Parisien. For alleged libel on General Courtot de Cissey in this paper he was heavily fined. In the Chamber he spoke chiefly on army questions; and was chairman of a commission appointed to consider army legislation, resigning in 1887 on the refusal of the Chamber to sanction the abolition of exemptions of any kind. He then became an adherent of the revisionist policy of General Boulanger and a member of the League of Patriots. He was elected Boulangist deputy for the 18th Parisian arrondissement in 1889. He did not seek re-election in 1893, but devoted himself thenceforward to mathematics, helping to make known in France the theories of Giusto Bellavitis. He was attached to the staff of the École Polytechnique, and in 1903–1904 was president of the French Association for the Advancement of Science.
In addition to his political pamphlets Pourquoi et comment je suis Boulangiste (1887) and L’Anarchie bourgeoise (1887), he published mathematical works, among them Introduction à l’étude des quarternions (1881) and Théorie et applications des équipollences (1887).
LAI-YANG, a city in the Chinese province of Shan-tung, in 37° N., 120° 55′ E., about the middle of the eastern peninsula, on the highway running south from Chi-fu to Kin-Kia or Ting-tsu harbour. It is surrounded by well-kept walls of great antiquity, and its main streets are spanned by large pailous or monumental arches, some dating from the time of the emperor Tai-ting-ti of the Yuan dynasty (1324). There are extensive suburbs both to the north and south, and the total population is estimated at 50,000. The so-called Ailanthus silk produced by Saturnia cynthia is woven at Lai-yang into a strong fabric; and the manufacture of the peculiar kind of wax obtained from the la-shu or wax-tree insect is largely carried on in the vicinity.
LAKANAL, JOSEPH (1762–1845), French politician, was born
at Serres (Ariège) on the 14th of July 1762. His name, originally
Lacanal, was altered to distinguish him from his Royalist
brothers. He joined one of the teaching congregations, and for
fourteen years taught in their schools. When elected by his
native department to the Convention in 1792 he was acting
as vicar to his uncle Bernard Font (1723–1800), the constitutional
bishop of Pamiers. In the Convention he held apart from the
various party sections, although he voted for the death of
Louis XVI. He rendered great service to the Revolution by
his practical knowledge of education. He became a member
of the Committee of Public Instruction early in 1793, and after
carrying many useful decrees on the preservation of national
monuments, on the military schools, on the reorganization
of the Museum of Natural History and other matters, he brought
forward on the 26th of June his Projet d’éducation nationale
(printed at the Imprimerie Nationale), which proposed to lay
the burden or primary education on the public funds, but to
leave secondary education to private enterprise. Provision was
also made for public festivals, and a central commission was to
be entrusted with educational questions. The scheme, in the
main the work of Sieyès, was refused by the Convention, who
submitted the whole question to a special commission of six,
which under the influence of Robespierre adopted a report
by Michel le Peletier de Saint Fargeau shortly before his tragic
death. Lakanal, who was a member of the commission, now
began to work for the organization of higher education, and
abandoning the principle of his Projet advocated the establishment
of state-aided schools for primary, secondary and university
education. In October 1793 he was sent by the Convention to
the south-western departments and did not return to Paris
until after the revolution of Thermidor. He now became
president of the Education Committee and promptly abolished
the system which had had Robespierre’s support. He drew up
schemes for departmental normal schools, for primary schools
(reviving in substance the Projet) and central schools. He
presently acquiesced in the supersession of his own system,
but continued his educational reports after his election to the
Council of the Five Hundred. In 1799 he was sent by the
Directory to organize the defence of the four departments on
the left bank of the Rhine threatened by invasion. Under the
Consulate he resumed his professional work, and after Waterloo
retired to America, where he became president of the university
of Louisiana. He returned to France in 1834, and shortly
afterwards, in spite of his advanced age, married a second time.
He died in Paris on the 14th of February 1845; his widow
survived till 1881. Lakanal was an original member of the
Institute of France. He published in 1838 an Exposé sommaire
des travaux de Joseph Lakanal.
His éloge at the Academy of Moral and Political Science, of which he was a member, was pronounced by the comte de Rémusat (February 16, 1845), and a Notice historique by F. A. M. Mignet was read on the 2nd of May 1857. See also notices by Émile Darnaud (Paris, 1874), “Marcus” (Paris, 1879), P. Legendre in Hommes de la révolution (Paris, 1882), E. Guillon, Lakanal et l’instruction publique (Paris, 1881). For details of the reports submitted by him to the government see M. Tourneux, “Histoire de l’instruction publique, actes et déliberations de la convention, &c.” in Bibliog. de l’hist. de Paris (vol. iii., 1900); also A. Robert and G. Cougny, Dictionnaire des parlementaires (vol. ii., 1890).
LAKE, GERARD LAKE, 1st Viscount (1744–1808), British
general, was born on the 27th of July 1744. He entered the
foot guards in 1758, becoming lieutenant (captain in the army)
1762, captain (lieut.-colonel) in 1776, major 1784, and lieut.-colonel
in 1792, by which time he was a general officer in the army.
He served with his regiment in Germany in 1760–1762 and with
a composite battalion in the Yorktown campaign of 1781.
After this he was equerry to the prince of Wales, afterwards
George IV. In 1790 he became a major-general, and in 1793
was appointed to command the Guards Brigade in the duke of
York’s army in Flanders. He was in command at the brilliant
affair of Lincelles, on the 18th of August 1793, and served on the
continent (except for a short time when seriously ill) until April
1794. He had now sold his lieut.-colonelcy in the guards, and
had become colonel of the 53rd foot and governor of Limerick.
In 1797 he was promoted lieut.-general. In the following year
the Irish rebellion broke out. Lake, who was then serving in
Ireland, succeeded Sir Ralph Abercromby in command of the
troops in April 1798, issued a proclamation ordering the surrender
of all arms by the civil population of Ulster, and on the 21st of
June routed the rebels at Vinegar Hill (near Enniscorthy, Co.
Wexford). He exercised great, but perhaps not unjustified,
severity towards all rebels found in arms. Lord Cornwallis
now assumed the chief command in Ireland, and in August sent
Lake to oppose the French expedition which landed at Killala
Bay. On the 29th of the same month Lake arrived at Castlebar,
but only in time to witness the disgraceful rout of the troops
under General Hely-Hutchinson (afterwards 2nd earl of Donoughmore);
but he retrieved this disaster by compelling the surrender
of the French at Ballinamuck, near Cloone, on the 8th of
September. In 1799 Lake returned to England, and soon afterwards
obtained the command in chief in India. He took over
his duties at Calcutta in July 1801, and applied himself to the
improvement of the Indian army, especially in the direction
of making all arms, infantry, cavalry and artillery, more mobile
and more manageable. In 1802 he was made a full general.
On the outbreak of war with the Mahratta confederacy in 1803 General Lake took the field against Sindhia, and within two months defeated the Mahrattas at Coel, stormed Aligahr, took Delhi and Agra, and won the great victory of Laswari (November 1st, 1803), where the power of Sindhia was completely broken, with the loss of thirty-one disciplined battalions, trained and officered by Frenchmen, and 426 pieces of ordnance. This defeat, followed a few days later by Major-General Arthur Wellesley’s victory at Argaum, compelled Sindhia to come to terms, and a treaty with him was signed in December 1803. Operations were, however, continued against his confederate, Holkar, who, on the 17th of November 1804, was defeated by Lake at Farrukhabad. But the fortress of Bhurtpore held out against four assaults early in 1805, and Cornwallis, who succeeded Wellesley as governor-general in July of that year—superseding Lake at the same time as commander-in-chief—determined
