worshipped as the goddess of love, beauty and prosperity. She has many other names, the chief being Loka mata (“mother of the world”), Padma (“the lotus”), Padma laya (“she who dwells on a lotus”) and Jaladhija (“the ocean-born”). She is represented as of a bright golden colour and seated on a lotus. She is said to have been born from the sea of milk when it was churned from ambrosia. Many quaint myths surround her birth. In the Rig Veda her name does not occur as a goddess.
LALAING, JACQUES DE (c. 1420–1453), Flemish knight, was originally in the service of the duke of Cleves and afterwards
in that of the duke of Burgundy, Philip III., the Good, gaining
great renown by his prowess in the tiltyard. The duke of
Burgundy entrusted him with embassies to the pope and the
king of France (1451), and subsequently sent him to put down
the revolt of the inhabitants of Ghent, in which expedition he
was killed. His biography, Le Livre des faits de messire Jacques
de Lalaing, which has been published several times, is mainly
the work of the Burgundian herald and chronicler Jean le
Fèvre, better known as Toison d’or; the Flemish historiographer
Georges Chastellain and the herald Charolais also took part in
its compilation.
LALANDE, JOSEPH JÉRÔME LEFRANÇAIS DE (1732–1807),
French astronomer, was born at Bourg (department of Ain),
on the 11th of July 1732. His parents sent him to Paris to
study law; but the accident of lodging in the Hôtel Cluny, where
J. N. Delisle had his observatory, drew him to astronomy, and
he became the zealous and favoured pupil of both Delisle and
Pierre Lemonnier. He, however, completed his legal studies,
and was about to return to Bourg to practise there as an advocate,
when Lemonnier obtained permission to send him to Berlin, to
make observations on the lunar parallax in concert with those
of N. L. Lacaille at the Cape of Good Hope. The successful
execution of his task procured for him, before he was twenty-one,
admission to the Academy of Berlin, and the post of adjunct
astronomer to that of Paris. He now devoted himself to the
improvement of the planetary theory, publishing in 1759 a
corrected edition of Halley’s tables, with a history of the celebrated
comet whose return in that year he had aided Clairault
to calculate. In 1762 J. N. Delisle resigned in his favour the
chair of astronomy in the Collège de France, the duties of which
were discharged by Lalande for forty-six years. His house
became an astronomical seminary, and amongst his pupils
were J. B. J. Delambre, G. Piazzi, P. Mechain, and his own
nephew Michel Lalande. By his publications in connexion
with the transit of 1769 he won great and, in a measure, deserved
fame. But his love of notoriety and impetuous temper compromised
the respect due to his scientific zeal, though these
faults were partially balanced by his generosity and benevolence.
He died on the 4th of April 1807.
Although his investigations were conducted with diligence rather than genius, the career of Lalande must be regarded as of eminent service to astronomy. As a lecturer and writer he gave to the science unexampled popularity; his planetary tables, into which he introduced corrections for mutual perturbations, were the best available up to the end of the 18th century; and the Lalande prize, instituted by him in 1802 for the chief astronomical performance of each year, still testifies to his enthusiasm for his favourite pursuit. Amongst his voluminous works are Traité d’astronomie (2 vols., 1764; enlarged edition, 4 vols., 1771–1781; 3rd ed., 3 vols., 1792); Histoire céleste française (1801), giving the places of 50,000 stars; Bibliographie astronomique (1803), with a history of astronomy from 1781 to 1802; Astronomie des dames (1785); Abrégé de navigation (1793); Voyage d’un françois en Italie (1769), a valuable record of his travels in 1765–1766. He communicated above one hundred and fifty papers to the Paris Academy of Sciences, edited the Connoissance des temps (1759–1774), and again (1794–1807), and wrote the concluding 2 vols. of the 2nd edition of Montucla’s Histoire des mathématiques (1802).
See Mémoires de l’Institut, t. viii. (1807) (J. B. J. Delambre); Delambre, Hist. de l’astr. au XVIII e siècle, p. 547; Magazin encyclopédique, ii. 288 (1810) (Mme de Salm); J. S. Bailly, Hist. de l’astr. moderne, t. iii. (ed. 1785); J. Mädler, Geschichte der Himmelskunde, ii. 141; R. Wolf, Gesch. der Astronomie; J. J. Lalande, Bibl. astr. p. 428; J. C. Poggendorff, Biog. Lit. Handwörterbuch; M. Marie, Hist. des sciences, ix. 35.
LALÍN, a town of north-western Spain, in the province of
Pontevedra. Pop. (1900) 16,238. Lalín is the centre of the
trade in agricultural products of the fertile highlands between
the Deza and Arnego rivers. The local industries are tanning
and the manufacture of paper. Near Lalín are the ruins of the
Gothic abbey of Carboeiro.
LA LINEA, or La Linea de la Concepcion, a town of Spain,
in the province of Cadiz, between Gibraltar and San Roque.
Pop. (1900) 31,802. La Linea, which derives its name from
the line or boundary dividing Spanish territory from the district
of Gibraltar, is a town of comparatively modern date and was
formerly looked upon as a suburb of San Roque. It is now a
distinct frontier post and headquarters of the Spanish commandant
of the lines of Gibraltar. The fortifications erected
here in the 16th century were dismantled by the British in 1810,
to prevent the landing of French invaders, and all the existing
buildings are modern. They include barracks, casinos, a theatre
and a bull-ring, much frequented by the inhabitants and garrison
of Gibraltar. La Linea has some trade in cereals, fruit and
vegetables; it is the residence of large numbers of labourers
employed in Gibraltar.
LALITPUR, a town of British India, in Jhansi district, United
Provinces. Pop. (1901) 11,560. It has a station on the Great
Indian Peninsula railway, and a large trade in oil-seeds, hides and
ghi. It contains several beautiful Hindu and Jain temples.
It was formerly the headquarters of a district of the same name,
which was incorporated with that of Jhansi in 1891. The
Bundela chiefs of Lalitpur were among those who most eagerly
joined the Mutiny, and it was only after a severe struggle that
the district was pacified.
LALLY, THOMAS ARTHUR, Comte de, Baron de Tollendal (1702–1766), French general, was born at Romans, Dauphiné, in January 1702, being the son of Sir Gerard O’Lally, an Irish Jacobite who married a French lady of noble family, from whom the son inherited his titles. Entering the French army in 1721 he served in the war of 1734 against Austria; he was present at Dettingen (1743), and commanded the regiment de Lally in the famous Irish brigade at Fontenoy (May 1745). He
was made a brigadier on the field by Louis XV. He had previously been mixed up in several Jacobite plots, and in 1745 accompanied Charles Edward to Scotland, serving as aide-de-camp at the battle of Falkirk (January 1746). Escaping to
France, he served with Marshal Saxe in the Low Countries,
and at the capture of Maestricht (1748) was made a maréchal
de camp. When war broke out with England in 1756 Lally was
given the command of a French expedition to India. He
reached Pondicherry in April 1758, and at the outset met with
some trifling military success. He was a man of courage and a
capable general; but his pride and ferocity made him disliked
by his officers and hated by his soldiers, while he regarded the
natives as slaves, despised their assistance, and trampled on their
traditions of caste. In consequence everything went wrong with
him. He was unsuccessful in an attack on Tanjore, and had
to retire from the siege of Madras (1758) owing to the timely
arrival of the British fleet. He was defeated by Sir Eyre Coote
at Wandiwash (1760), and besieged in Pondicherry and forced
to capitulate (1761). He was sent as a prisoner of war to England.
While in London, he heard that he was accused in France of
treachery, and insisted, against advice, on returning on parole to stand his trial. He was kept prisoner for nearly two years before the trial began; then, after many painful delays, he was sentenced to death (May 6, 1766), and three days later beheaded. Louis XV. tried to throw the responsibility for what was undoubtedly a judicial murder on his ministers and the public, but his policy needed a scapegoat, and he was probably well content not to exercise his authority to save an almost friendless foreigner.
See G. B. Malleson, The Career of Count Lally (1865); “Z’s” (the marquis de Lally-Tollendal) article in the Biographie Michaud; and Voltaire’s Œuvres complètes. The legal documents are preserved in the Bibliothèque Nationale.
LALLY-TOLLENDAL, TROPHIME GÉRARD, Marquis de (1751–1830), was born at Paris on the 5th of March 1751. He was the legitimized son of the comte de Lally and only discovered
