uncongenial world of every day. Jules Lemaître, a less sympathetic critic, finds in the extraordinary crimes of his heroes and heroines, his reactionary views, his dandyism and snobbery, an exaggerated Byronism.
See also Alcide Dusolier, Jules Barbey d’Aurevilly (1862), a collection of eulogies and interviews; Paul Bourget, Preface to d’Aurevilly’s Memoranda (1883); Jules Lemaître, Les Contemporains; Eugène Grelé, Barbey d’Aurevilly, sa vie et son œuvre (1902); René Doumic, in the Revue des deux mondes (Sept. 1902).
BARBEYRAC, JEAN (1674–1744), French jurist, the nephew of Charles Barbeyrac, a distinguished physician of Montpellier, was born at Beziers in Lower Languedoc on the 15th of March 1674. He removed with his family into Switzerland after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, and there studied jurisprudence. After spending some time at Geneva and Frankfort-on-Main, he became professor of belles-lettres in the French school of Berlin. Thence, in 1711, he was called to the professorship of history and civil law at Lausanne, and finally settled as professor of public law at Groningen. He died on the 3rd of March 1744. His fame rests chiefly on the preface and notes to his translation of Pufendorf’s treatise De Jure Naturae et Gentium. In fundamental principles he follows almost entirely Locke and Pufendorf; but he works out with great skill the theory of moral obligation, referring it to the command or will of God. He indicates the distinction, developed more fully by Thomasius and Kant, between the legal and the moral qualities of action. The principles of international law he reduces to those of the law of nature, and combats, in so doing, many of the positions taken up by Grotius. He rejects the notion that sovereignty in any way resembles property, and makes even marriage a matter of civil contract. Barbeyrac also translated Grotius’s De Jure Belli et Pacis, Cumberland’s De Legibus Naturae, and Pufendorf’s smaller treatise De Officio Hominis et Civis. Among his own productions are a treatise, De la morale des pères, a history of ancient treaties contained in the Supplément au grand corps diplomatique, and the curious Traité du jeu (1709), in which he defends the morality of games of chance.
BARBICAN (from Fr. barbacane, probably of Arabic or Persian origin), an outwork for the defence of a gate or drawbridge; also a sort of pent-house or construction of timber to shelter warders or sentries from arrows or other missiles.
BARBIER, ANTOINE ALEXANDRE (1765–1825), French librarian and bibliographer, was born on the 11th of January 1765 at Coulommiers (Seine-et-Marne). He took priest’s orders, from which, however, he was finally released by the pope in 1801. In 1794 he became a member of the temporary commission of the arts, and was charged with the duty of distributing among the various libraries of Paris the books that had been confiscated during the Revolution. In the execution of this task he discovered the letters of Huet, bishop of Avranches, and the MSS. of the works of Fénelon. He became librarian successively to the Directory, to the Conseil d’État, and in 1807 to Napoleon, from whom he carried out a number of commissions. He produced a standard work in his Dictionnaire des ouvrages anonymes et pseudonymes (4 vols., 1806–1809; 3rd edition 1872–1879). Only the first part of his Examen critique des dictionnaires historiques (1820) was published. He had a share in the foundation of the libraries of the Louvre, of Fontainebleau, of Compiègne and Saint-Cloud; under Louis XVIII. he became administrator of the king’s private libraries, but in 1822 he was deprived of all his offices. Barbier died in Paris on the 5th of December 1825.
See also a notice by his son, Louis Barbier, and a list of his works prefixed to the 3rd edition of the Dict. des ouvrages anonymes et pseudonymes.
BARBIER, HENRI AUGUSTE (1805–1882), French dramatist and poet, was born in Paris on the 29th of April 1805. Inspired by the revolution of July he poured forth a series of eager, vigorous poems, denouncing, crudely enough, the evils of the time. They are spoken of collectively as the Iambes (1831), though the designation is not strictly applicable to all. As the name suggests, they are modelled on the verse of André Chénier. They include La Curée, La Popularité, L’Idole, Paris, Dante, Quatre-vingt-treize and Varsovie. The rest of Barbier’s poems are forgotten, and when, in 1869, he received the long delayed honour of admission to the Academy, Montalembert expressed the general sentiment in his Barbier? mais il est mort! It was even asserted, though without foundation, that he was not the real author of the Iambes. He died at Nice on the 13th of February 1882. He collaborated with Léon de Wailly in the libretto of Berlioz’s opera, Benvenuto Cellini, and his works include two series of poems on the political and social troubles of Italy and England, printed in later editions of Iambes et poèmes.
See also Sainte-Beuve, Portraits Contemporains, vol. ii.
BARBIER, LOUIS, known as the Abbé de la Rivière (1593–1670), French bishop, was born of humble parents in Vaudelaincourt, near Compiègne. He entered the church and made his way by his wit and cleverness, until he was appointed tutor, and then became the friend and adviser, of Gaston d’Orléans, brother of Louis XIII. He thus gained an entrance to the court, became grand almoner of the queen, and received the revenue of rich abbeys. In March 1655 he was named bishop of Langres, but he spent his time at court, where his wit was always in demand, and where he gained great sums by gambling. He died very rich.
BARBIERI, GIOVANNI FRANCESCO (otherwise called Guercino, from his squinting), (1591–1666), Italian historical painter, was born at Cento, a village not far from Bologna. His artistic powers were developed very rapidly, and at the age of seventeen he was associated with Benedetto Gennari (1550–1610), a well-known painter of the Bolognese school. The fame of the young painter spread beyond his native village, and in 1615 he removed to Bologna, where his paintings were much admired. His first style was formed after that of the Caracci; but the strong colouring and shadows employed by Caravaggio made a deep impression on his mind, and for a considerable period his productions showed evident traces of that painter’s influence. Some of his latest pieces approach rather to the manner of his great contemporary Guido, and are painted with more lightness and clearness. Guercino was esteemed very highly in his lifetime, not only by the nobles and princes of Italy, but by his brother artists, who placed him in the first rank of painters. He was remarkable for the extreme rapidity of his execution; he completed no fewer than 106 large altar-pieces for churches, and his other paintings amount to about 144. His most famous piece is thought to be the St Petronilla, which was painted at Rome for Gregory XV. and is now in the Capitol. In 1626 he began his frescoes in the Duomo at Piacenza. Guercino continued to paint and teach up to the time of his death in 1666. He had amassed a handsome fortune by his labours. His life, by J. A. Calvi, appeared at Bologna in 1808.
His brother, Paolo Antonio Barbieri (1603–1649), was a celebrated painter of still life and animals. He chose for his subjects fruits, flowers, insects and animals, which he painted after nature with a lively tint of colour, great tenderness of pencil, and a strong character of truth and life.
BARBITON, or Barbitos (Gr. βάρβιτον or βάρβιτος; Lat. barbitus; Pers. barbat, barbud), an ancient stringed instrument known to us from the Greek and Roman classics, but derived from Persia. Theocritus (xvi. 45), the Sicilian poet, calls it an instrument of many strings, i.e. more than seven, which was by the Hellenes accounted the perfect number, as in the cithara of the best period. Anacreon,[1] (a native of Teos in Asia Minor) sings that his barbitos only gives out erotic tones. Pollux (Onomasticon iv. chap. 8, § 59) calls the instrument barbiton or barymite (from βαρύς, heavy and μίτος, a string), an instrument producing deep sounds; the strings were twice as long as those of the pectis and sounded an octave lower. Pindar (in Athen. xiv. p. 635), in the same line wherein he attributes the introduction of the instrument into Greece to Terpander, tells us one could magadize, i.e. play in two parts at an interval of an octave on the two instruments. The word barbiton was frequently used for the lyre itself. Although in use in Asia Minor, Italy,
- ↑ See Bergk’s Poetae Lyrici Graeci (4th ed., 1882), p. 291, fr. 143 [113]; and p. 311, 23 [1], 3; and 14 [9], 34, p. 306.
