of the former three or four seem destined to retain their charm as classics. He holds a place midway between the romanticists and the realists, with a distinguished and lucid portraiture of life which is entirely his own. He drew the women of the world whom he saw around him with dignity, with indulgence, with extraordinary penetration and clairvoyance. There is little description in his novels, which sometimes seem to move on an almost bare and colourless stage, but, on the other hand, the analysis of motives, of emotions, and of “the fine shades” has rarely been carried further. Few have written French with greater purity than Feuillet, and his style, reserved in form and never excessive in ornament, but full of wit and delicate animation, is in admirable uniformity with his subjects and his treatment. It is probably in Sibylle and in Julia de Trécœur that he can now be studied to most advantage, though Monsieur de Camors gives a greater sense of power, and though Le Roman d’un jeune homme pauvre still preserves its popularity.
See also Sainte-Beuve, Nouveaux Lundis, vol. v.; F. Brunetière, Nouveaux Essais sur la littérature contemporaine (1895). (E. G.)
FEUILLETON (a diminutive of the Fr. feuillet, the leaf of a
book), originally a kind of supplement attached to the political
portion of French newspapers. Its inventor was Bertin the
elder, editor of the Débats. It was not usually printed on a
separate sheet, but merely separated from the political part of the
newspaper by a line, and printed in smaller type. In French
newspapers it consists chiefly of non-political news and gossip,
literature and art criticism, a chronicle of the fashions, and
epigrams, charades and other literary trifles; and its general
characteristics are lightness, grace and sparkle. The feuilleton in
its French sense has never been adopted by English newspapers,
though in various modern journals (in the United States especially)
the sort of matter represented by it is now included. But
the term itself has come into English use to indicate the instalment
of a serial story printed in one part of a newspaper.
FEUQUIÈRES, ISAAC MANASSÈS DE PAS, Marquis de
(1590–1640), French soldier, came of a distinguished family of
which many members held high command in the civil wars of
the 16th century. He entered the Royal army at the age of
thirty, and soon achieved distinction. In 1626 he served in the
Valtelline, and in 1628–1629 at the celebrated siege of La Rochelle,
where he was taken prisoner. In 1629 he was made Maréchal
de Camp, and served in the fighting on the southern frontiers
of France. After occupying various military positions in
Lorraine, he was sent as an ambassador into Germany, where
he rendered important services in negotiations with Wallenstein.
In 1636 he commanded the French corps operating with the
duke of Weimar’s forces (afterwards Turenne’s “Army of
Weimar”). With these troops he served in the campaigns of
1637 (in which he became lieutenant-general), 1638 and 1639.
At the siege of Thionville (Diedenhofen) he received a mortal
wound. His lettres inédites appeared (ed. Gallois) in Paris in
1845.
His son Antoine Manassès de Pas, Marquis de Feuquières (1648–1711), was born at Paris in 1648, and entered the army at the age of eighteen. His conduct at the siege of Lille in 1667, where he was wounded, won him promotion to the rank of captain. In the campaigns of 1672 and 1673 he served on the staff of Marshal Luxemburg, and at the siege of Oudenarde in the following year the king gave him command of the Royal Marine regiment, which he held until he obtained a regiment of his own in 1676. In 1688 he served as a brigadier at the siege of Philipsburg, and afterwards led a ravaging expedition into south Germany, where he acquired much booty. Promoted Maréchal de Camp, he served under Catinat against the Waldenses, and in the course of the war won the nickname of the “Wizard.” In 1692 he made a brilliant defence of Speierbach against greatly superior forces, and was rewarded with the rank of lieutenant-general. He bore a distinguished part in Luxemburg’s great victory of Neerwinden or Landen in 1693. Marshal Villeroi impressed him less favourably than his old commander Luxemburg, and the resumption of war in 1701 found him in disfavour in consequence. The rest of his life, embittered by the refusal of the marshal’s baton, he spent in compiling his celebrated memoirs, which, coloured as they were by the personal animosities of the writer, were yet considered by Frederick the Great and the soldiers of the 18th century as the standard work on the art of war as a whole. He died in 1711. The Mémoires sur la guerre appeared in the same year and new editions were frequently published (Paris 1711, 1725, 1735, &c., London 1736, Amsterdam subsequently). An English version appeared in London 1737, under the title Memoirs of the Marquis de Feuquières, and a German translation (Feuquières geheime Nachrichten) at Leipzig 1732, 1738, and Berlin 1786. They deal in detail with every branch of the art of war and of military service.
FÉVAL, PAUL HENRI CORENTIN (1817–1887), French
novelist and dramatist, was born on the 27th of September 1817,
at Rennes in Brittany, and much of his best work deals with the
history of his native province. He was educated for the bar,
but after his first brief he went to Paris, where he gained a footing
by the publication of his “Club des phoques” (1841) in the
Revue de Paris. The Mystères de Londres (1844), in which an
Irishman tries to avenge the wrongs of his countrymen by
seeking the annihilation of England, was published under the
ingenious pseudonym “Sir Francis Trolopp.” Others of his
novels are: Le Fils du diable (1846); Les Compagnons du silence
(1857); Le Bossu (1858); Le Poisson d’or (1863); Les Habits
noirs (1863); Jean le diable (1868), and Les Compagnons du
trésor (1872). Some of his novels were dramatized, Le Bossu
(1863), in which he had M. Victorien Sardou for a collaborator,
being especially successful in dramatic form. His chronicles
of crime exercised an evil influence, eventually recognized by
the author himself. In his later years he became an ardent
Catholic, and occupied himself in revising his earlier works from
his new standpoint and in writing religious pamphlets. Reverses
of fortune and consequent overwork undermined his mental
and bodily health, and he died of paralysis in the monastery of
the Brothers of Saint John in Paris on the 8th of March 1887.
His son, Paul Féval (1860– ), became well known as a novelist and dramatist. Among his works are Nouvelles (1890), Maria Laura (1891), and Chantepie (1896).
FEVER (Lat. febris, connected with fervere, to burn), a term
generally used to include all conditions in which the normal
temperature of the animal body is markedly exceeded for any
length of time. When the temperature reaches as high a point
as 106° F. the term hyperpyrexia (excessive fever) is applied,
and is regarded as indicating a condition of danger; while, if
it exceeds 107° or 108° for any length of time, death almost
always results. The diseases which are called specific fevers,
because of its being a predominant factor in them, are discussed
separately under their ordinary names. Occasionally in certain
specific fevers and febrile diseases the temperature may attain
the elevation of 110°-112° prior to the fatal issue. For the
treatment of fever in general, see Therapeutics.
Pathology.—Every rise of temperature is due to a disturbance in the heat-regulating mechanism, the chief variable in which is the action of the skin in eliminating heat (see Animal Heat). Although for all practical purposes this mechanism works satisfactorily, it is not by any means perfect, and many physiological conditions cause a transient rise of temperature; e.g. severe muscular exercise, in which the cutaneous eliminating mechanism is unable at once to dispose of the increased amount of heat produced in the muscles. Pathologically, the heat-regulating mechanism may be disturbed in three different ways: 1st, by mechanical interference with the nervous system; 2nd, by interference with heat elimination; 3rd, by the action of various poisons.
1. In the human subject, fever the result of mechanical interference with the nervous system rarely occurs, but it can readily be produced in the lower animals by stimulating certain parts of the great brain, e.g. the anterior portion of the corpus striatum. This leads to a rise of temperature with increased heat production. The high temperature seems to cause disintegration of cell protoplasm and increased excretion of nitrogen and of carbonic acid. Possibly some of the cases of high temperature recorded
