DE GUBEENATIS
DELAGE
La Madeleine Convent, Paris. Marie began
to question the truth of religion while she
was at the convent-school, and the cele
brated preacher Massillon was brought to
convince her. She routed the preacher.
She was a beautiful and very gifted woman,
and, after her marriage with the Marquis
du Deffand, her salon was the chief meet
ing-place of the famous French nationalists
of the time. She was a great friend of
Horace Walpole as well as of Voltaire.
After 1753 she lived in a convent at Paris,
but she continued to receive the philo
sophers there and share their views. To
the Marquise du Deffand we owe the witty
expression : " II n-y-a que le premier
pas qui coute." A cardinal was impressing
on her the extraordinary distance which
St. Denis was supposed to have carried
his head after he had been beheaded.
" The first step is the real difficulty," she
said. D. Sep. 23, 1780.
DE GUBERNATIS, Count Angelo,
D. es L., Italian orientalist. B. Apr. 7, 1840. Ed. Turin and Berlin Universities. He was professor of Sanscrit at Florence from 1863 to 1890, delegate of the Indian Government at the International Congress of Orientalists in 1876, and special lecturer at Oxford University in 1878. He founded the Indian Museum and the Asiatic Society of Italy. In addition to the title of Count (1881) he received the Eed Cross of the Order of Frederick of Wiirtemburg, the Order of the Rose of Brazil, and the Gold Medal of the Order of Benemerenti of Rumania. De Gubernatis was a foreign member of the Royal Society of the Dutch Indies, the Royal Asiatic Society of Bombay, the American Philosophical Society, and many others. His literary output (including a Storia Universale della letteratura in 18 vols.) is prodigious and of the highest scholarship ; and he founded thirteen reviews in French and Italian. In the preface to his valuable Dictionnaire International des Ecrivains du Monde Latin (2 vols., 1891, sec. ed. 1905) he says : " Our ideal temple is far vaster than that enclosed 201
by any Church and it does more for
the luminous peace and happiness of the world." D. Feb. 26, 1913.
DEKKER, Edward Dowes (" Multa- tuli"), Dutch writer. B. Mar. 2, 1820. From 1840 to 1857 Dekker was in the Civil Service in the Dutch East Indies. In the end he became Assistant Resident at Lebak, but he lost his position by criticism of the Government, and returned to Holland. In 1860 he, under the name " Multatuli," published a critical novel, Max Havelaar, which stirred Holland, and a long series of works followed. They were published in a collected edition, in ten volumes (1892), by his widow. His Ideen (7 vols., 1862-79) is full of pungent Rationalism. There are biographies of him by Huet, Vosmaer, Abrahamsz, etc. D. Feb. 19, 1887.
DELACROIX, Ferdinand Victor
Eugene, French painter. B. Apr. 26, 1798. He studied art under Guerin and joined the Romantic School. His first picture was exhibited in 1822. Delacroix warmly welcomed the Revolution of 1830, and painted a great picture of " Liberty leading the People to the Barricades." He was one of the greatest French artists of his day. E. Moreau-Nelaton, his chief biogra pher, records that he was an assiduous reader of Voltaire and Diderot, and shared their ideas. His funeral was purely secular. D. Aug. 13, 1863.
DEL AGE, Professor Marie Yves,
D. es Sc., M.D., French zoologist. B. May 13, 1854. Ed. Paris. He began to teach zoology in 1874, became Director of the Zoological Station at Luc-sur-Mer in 1883, professor of zoology at Caen in 1884, and professor of comparative zoology, anatomy, and physiology at the faculty of sciences, Paris, in 1885. Professor Delage, who is one of the most eminent zoologists of Europe, is an Officer of the Academy and of Public Instruction, Chevalier of the Legion of Honour, Laureate of the Institut, 202
