the Directorate he amassed a considerable fortune, and styling himself the marquis de Beauregard, purchased a splendid mansion and began giving magnificent entertainments. Detected at the height of his success, the impostor was arrested and condemned to four years in irons and to be branded. He soon escaped from prison, and had the audacity to reappear in Paris and start his old life afresh. After a short time, however, he disappeared again, and is supposed to have committed suicide. It is probable that most of the information available about him is a blend of fact and fiction.
BEAUREGARD, PIERRE GUSTAVE TOUTANT (1818–1893), American soldier, was born near New Orleans, Louisiana, on the 28th of May 1818. At the United States military academy he graduated second in his class in July 1838, and was appointed lieutenant of engineers. In the Mexican War he distinguished himself in siege operations at Vera Cruz, and took part in all the battles around Mexico, being wounded at Chapultepec, and receiving the brevets of captain and major. In 1853 he became captain and was in charge of fortification and other engineer works of various points, on the Gulf coast from 1853 to 1860. He had just been appointed superintendent of West Point when the secession of his state brought about his resignation (20th February 1861). As a brigadier-general of the new Confederate army he directed the bombardment of Fort Sumter, S.C. As the commander of the Southern “Army of the Potomac” he opposed McDowell’s advance to Bull Run, and during the battle was second in command under Joseph E. Johnston, who had joined him on the previous evening. He was one of the five full generals appointed in August 1861, and in 1862 was second in command under Sidney Johnston on the Tennessee. After Johnston’s death he directed the battle of Shiloh, subsequent to which he retired to Corinth. This place he defended against the united armies under Halleck, until the end of May 1862, when he retreated in good order to the southward. His health now failing, he was employed in less active work. He defended Charleston against the Union forces from September 1862 to April 1864. In May 1864 he fought a severe and eventually successful battle at Drury’s Bluff against General Butler and the Army of the James. Later in the year he endeavoured to gather troops wherewith to oppose Sherman’s advance from Atlanta, and eventually surrendered with Johnston’s forces in April 1865. After the war he engaged in railway management, became adjutant-general of his state and managed the Louisiana lottery. He declined high commands which were offered to him in the Rumanian and later in the Egyptian armies. General Beauregard died in New Orleans on the 20th of February 1893. He was the author of Principles and Maxims of the Art of War (Charleston, 1863); Report on the Defence of Charleston (Richmond, 1864).
See Alfred Roman, Military Operations of General Beauregard (New York, 1883).
BEAUSOBRE, ISAAC DE (1659–1738), French Protestant divine, was born at Niort on the 8th of March 1659. After studying theology at the Protestant academy of Saumur, he was ordained at the age of twenty-two, becoming pastor at Chatillon-sur-Indre. After the revocation of the edict of Nantes he fled to Rotterdam (November 1685), and in 1686 was appointed chaplain to the princess of Dessau, Henrietta Catherine of Orange. In 1693, on the death of the prince of Dessau, he went to Berlin and became chaplain to the court at Oranienbaum, and in 1695 pastor of the French church at Berlin. He became court preacher, counsellor of the Consistory, director of the Maison française, a hospice for French people, inspector of the French gymnasium and superintendent of all the French churches in Brandenburg. He died on the 5th of June 1738. He had strong sense with profound erudition, was one of the best writers of his time and an excellent preacher.
BEAUVAIS, a town of northern France, capital of the department of Oise, 49 m. N. by W. of Paris, on the Northern railway. Pop. (1906) 17,045. Beauvais lies at the foot of wooded hills on the left bank of the Thérain at its confluence with the Avelon. Its ancient ramparts have been destroyed, and it is now surrounded by boulevards, outside which run branches of the Thérain. In addition, there are spacious promenades in the north-east of the town. Its cathedral of St Pierre, in some respects the most daring achievement of Gothic architecture, consists only of a transept and choir with apse and seven apse-chapels. The vaulting in the interior exceeds 150 ft. in height. The small Romanesque church of the 10th century known as the Basse-Oeuvre occupies the site destined for the nave. Begun in 1247, the work was interrupted in 1284 by the collapse of the vaulting of the choir, in 1573 by the fall of a too ambitious central tower, after which little addition was made. The transept was built from 1500 to 1548. Its façades, especially that on the south, exhibit all the richness of the late Gothic style. The carved wooden doors of both the north and the south portals are masterpieces respectively of Gothic and Renaissance workmanship. The church possesses an elaborate astronomical clock (1866) and tapestries of the 15th and 17th centuries; but its chief artistic treasures are stained glass windows of the 13th, 14th and 16th centuries, the most beautiful of them from the hand of the Renaissance artist, Engrand Le Prince, a native of Beauvais. To him also is due some of the stained glass in St. Étienne, the second church of the town, and an interesting example of the transition stage between the Romanesque and Gothic styles.
In the Place de l’Hôtel de Ville and in the old streets near the cathedral there are several houses dating from the 12th to the 16th centuries. The hôtel de ville, close to which stands the statue of Jeanne Hachette (see below), was built in 1752. The episcopal palace, now used as a court-house, was built in the 16th century, partly upon the Gallo-Roman fortifications. The industry of Beauvais comprises, besides the state manufacture of tapestry, which dates from 1664, the manufacture of various kinds of cotton and woollen goods, brushes, toys, boots and shoes, and bricks and tiles. Market-gardening flourishes in the vicinity and an extensive trade is carried on in grain and wine.
The town is the seat of a bishop, a prefect and a court of assizes; it has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, together with a chamber of commerce, a branch of the Bank of France, a higher ecclesiastical seminary, a lycée and training colleges.
Beauvais was known to the Romans as Caesaromagus, and took its present name from the Gallic tribe of the Bellovaci, whose capital it was. In the 9th century it became a countship, which about 1013 passed to the bishops of Beauvais, who ultimately became peers of France. In 1346 the town had to defend itself against the English, who again besieged it in 1433. The siege which it suffered in 1472 at the hands of the duke of Burgundy was rendered famous by the heroism of the women, under the leadership of Jeanne Hachette, whose memory is still celebrated by a procession on the 14th of October (the feast of Ste Angadrème), in which the women take precedence of the men.
See V. Lhuillier, Choses du vieux Beauvais et du Beauvaisis (1896).
BEAUVILLIER, the name of a very ancient French family belonging to the country around Chartres, members of which are found filling court offices from the 15th century onward. For Charles de Beauvillier, gentleman of the chamber to the king, governor and bailli of Blois, the estate of Saint Aignan was created a countship in 1537. François de Beauvillier, comte de Saint Aignan, after having been through the campaigns in Germany (1634–1635), Franche-Comté (1636), and Flanders (1637), was sent to the Bastille in consequence of his having lost the battle of Thionville in 1640. In reward for his devotion to the court party during the Fronde he obtained many signal favours, and Saint Aignan was raised to a duchy in the peerage of France (duché-pairie) in 1663. His son Paul, called the duc de Beauvillier, was several times ambassador to England; he became chief of the council of finance in 1685, governor of the dukes of Burgundy, Anjou and Berri from 1689 to 1693, minister of state in 1691, and grandee of Spain in 1701. He married a daughter of Colbert. Paul Hippolyte de Beauvillier, comte de Montrésor, afterwards duc de Saint Aignan, was ambassador at Madrid from 1715 to 1718 and at Rome in 1731, and a member of the council of regency in 1719.
(M. P.*)
