attached himself at first to the constitutional party; but he was less known as a speaker in the Assembly than as a journalist. His paper, however, the Point du Jour, according to Aulard, owes its reputation not so much to its own qualities as to the fact that the painter David, in his famous picture of the “Oath in the Tennis Court,” has represented Barère kneeling in the corner and writing a report of the proceedings as though for posterity. The reports of the debates of the National Assembly in the Point du Jour, though not inaccurate, are as a matter of fact very incomplete and very dry. After the flight of the king to Varennes, Barère passed over to the republican party, though he continued to keep in touch with the duke of Orleans, to whose natural daughter, Paméla, he was tutor. Barère, however, appears to have been wholly free from any guiding principle; conscience he had none, and his conduct was regulated only by the determination to be on the side of the strongest. After the close of the National Assembly he was nominated one of the judges of the newly instituted court of cassation from October 1791 to September 1792. In 1792 he was elected deputy to the National Convention for the department of the Hautes-Pyrénées. At first he voted with the Girondists, attacked Robespierre, “a pygmy who should not be set on a pedestal,” and at the trial of the king voted with the Mountain for the king’s death “without appeal and without delay.” He closed his speech with a sentence which became memorable: “the tree of liberty could not grow were it not watered with the blood of kings.” Appointed member of the Committee of Public Safety on the 7th of April 1793, he busied himself with foreign affairs; then, joining the party of Robespierre, whose resentment he had averted by timely flatteries, he played an important part in the second Committee of Public Safety—after the 17th of July 1793—and voted for the death of the Girondists. He was thoroughly unscrupulous, stopping at nothing to maintain the supremacy of the Mountain, and rendered it great service by his rapid work, by the telling phases of his oratory, and by his clear expositions of the problems of the day. On the 9th Thermidor (July 27th, 1794) Barère hesitated, then he drew up the report outlawing Robespierre. In spite of this, in Germinal of the year III. (the 21st of March to the 4th of April 1795), the Thermidorians decreed the accusation of Barère and his colleagues of the Terror, Collot d’Herbois and Billaud-Varenne, and he was sent to the Isle of Oléron. He was removed to Saintes, and thence escaped to Bordeaux, where he lived in concealment for several years. In 1795 he was elected member of the Council of Five Hundred, but was not allowed to take his seat. Later he was used as a secret agent by Napoleon I., for whom he carried on a diplomatic correspondence. On the fall of Napoleon, Barère played the part of royalist, but on the final restoration of the Bourbons in 1815 he was banished for life from France as a regicide, and then withdrew to Brussels and temporary oblivion. After the revolution of July 1830 he reappeared in France, was reduced by a series of lawsuits to extreme indigence, accepted a small pension assigned him by Louis Philippe (on whom he had heaped abuse and railing), and died, the last survivor of the Committee of Public Safety, on the 13th of January 1841. (See also French Revolution.)
The Mémoires de B. Barère . . . publiés par MM. H. Carnot . . . et David (d’Angers) . . . précédés d’une notice historique (Paris, 1824–1844) are false, but contain valuable information; Carnot’s Notice, which is very good, was published separately in 1842. See F. A. Aulard, Les Orateurs de la Constituante (Paris, 1882); Les Orateurs de la Convention (2nd ed., Paris, 1905). Macaulay’s essay on Barère, (Edinburgh Review, vol. 79) is eloquent, but incorrect.
BARETTI, GIUSEPPE MARC’ ANTONIO (1719–1789), Italian critic, was born at Turin in 1719. He was intended by his father for the profession of law, but at the age of sixteen fled from Turin and went to Guastalla, where he was for some time employed in a mercantile house. His leisure hours he devoted to literature and criticism, in which he became expert. For many years he led a wandering life, supporting himself chiefly by his writings. At length he arrived in London, where he remained for a considerable time. He obtained an appointment as secretary to the Royal Academy of Painting, and became acquainted with Johnson, Garrick and others of that society. He was a frequent visitor at the Thrales'; and his name occurs repeatedly in Boswell’s Life. In 1769 he was tried for murder, having had the misfortune to inflict a mortal wound with his fruit knife on a man who had assaulted him on the street. Johnson among others gave evidence in his favour at the trial, which resulted in Baretti’s acquittal. He died in May 1789. His first work of any importance was the Italian Library (London, 1757), a useful catalogue of the lives and works of many Italian authors. The Lettere famigliari, giving an account of his travels through Spain, Portugal and France during the years 1761–1765, were well received, and when afterwards published in English (4 vols., 1770), were highly commended by Johnson. While in Italy on his travels Baretti set on foot a journal of literary criticism, to which he gave the title of Frusta letteraria, the literary scourge. It was published under considerable difficulties and was soon discontinued. The criticisms on contemporary writers were sometimes just, but are frequently disfigured by undue vehemence and coarseness. Among his other numerous works may be mentioned a useful Dictionary and Grammar of the Italian Language, and a dissertation on Shakespeare and Voltaire. His collected works were published at Milan in 1838.
BARFLEUR, a small seaport of north-western France, overlooking the Bay of the Seine, in the department of Manche, 2212 m. N.N.E. of Valognes by rail. Pop. (1906) 1069. In the middle ages Barfleur was one of the chief ports of embarkation for England. In 1120 the “White Ship,” carrying Prince William, only son of Henry I., went down outside the harbour. About 2 m. to the north is Cape Barfleur, with a lighthouse 233 ft. high.
BARFURUSH, a town of Persia, in the province of Mazandaran in 36° 32′ N., and 52° 42′ E., and on the left bank of the river Bawul [Babul], which is here crossed by a bridge of eight arches, about 15 m. distant from the southern shore of the Caspian Sea, where the small town of Meshed i Sar serves as a port. It is the commercial capital of Mazandaran, and 26 m. distant from Sari and 90 m. from Teheran. Pop. about 50,000. Built in a low and swampy country and approached by deep and almost impassable roads, Barfurush would not seem at all favourably situated for the seat of an extensive inland trade; it is, however, peopled entirely by merchants and tradesmen, and is wholly indebted for its present size and importance to its commercial prosperity. The principal articles of its trade are rice and cotton, some sugar cane (nai shakar), flax (Katūn) and hemp (Kanab) are also grown. The town is of peculiar structure and aspect, being placed in the midst of a forest of tall trees, by which the buildings are so separated from one another, and so concealed, that, except in the bazars, it has no appearance of a populous town. The streets are broad and neat, though generally unpaved, and kept in good order. No ruins are to be seen as in other Persian towns; the houses are comfortable, in good repair, roofed with tiles and enclosed by substantial walls. There are no public buildings of any importance, and the only places of interest are the bazars, which extend fully a mile in length, and consist of substantially built ranges of shops covered with roofs of wood and tiles, and well stored with commodities. There are about ten commodious caravanserais and a number of colleges (medresseh), the place being as much celebrated for learning as for commerce. On an island in a small lake east of the town is a garden, called Bagh i Shah (garden of the Shah), with ruined palaces and baths. At Meshed i Sar, the port, or roadstead of Barfurush, the steamers of the Caucasus and Mercury Company call weekly, and a brisk shipping trade is carried on between it and other Caspian ports.
Barfurush was formerly called Māmatīr. The present name is from a settlement called Barfurush-deh, which was added to the old city A.D. 1012. (A. H.-S.)
BARGAIN[1] AND SALE, in English law, a contract whereby property, real or personal, is transferred from one person—called the bargainer—to another—called the bargainee—for a
- ↑ From O. Fr. bargaigne, a word of doubtful origin, appearing in many Romance languages, cf. Ital. bargagno; it is connected with Late Lat. barcaniare, to traffic, possibly derived from barca, a barge.
