and comprises an outer harbour opening on the one hand into a floating basin, on the other into a tidal basin with another floating basin adjoining it. Behind the tidal basin is the Maubec reservoir, the waters of which, along with those of the Marans canal, help to scour the port and navigable channel. Some 200 sailing ships are engaged in the fisheries, and the fish market of La Rochelle is the most important on the west coast. The harbour is, however, inaccessible to the largest vessels, for the accommodation of which the port of La Pallice, inaugurated in 1891, was created. Lying about 3 m. W.S.W. of La Rochelle, this port opens into the bay opposite the eastern extremity of the island of Ré. It was artificially excavated and affords safe anchorage in all weathers. The outer port, protected by two jetties, has an area of 29 acres and a depth of 1612 ft. below lowest tide-level. At the extremity of the breakwater is a wharf where ships may discharge without entering the basin. A lock connects with the inner basin, which has an area of 27 acres, with 5900 ft. of quayage, a minimum depth of 28 ft., and depths of 2912 ft. and 36 ft. at high, neap and spring tides. Connected with the basin are two graving docks. La Pallice has regular communication with South America by the vessels of the Pacific Steam Navigation Company and by those of other companies with London, America, West Africa, Egypt and the Far East. The port has petroleum refineries and chemical manure works.
In 1906 there entered the port of La Rochelle, including the dock of La Pallice, 441 vessels with a tonnage of 629,038, and cleared 468 vessels with a tonnage of 664,861 (of which 235 of 241,146 tons cleared with ballast). These figures do not include vessels entering from, or clearing for, other ports in France. The imports (value, £1,276,000 in 1900 as compared with £1,578,000 in 1907) include coal and patent fuel, superphosphates, natural phosphates, nitrate of soda, pyrites, building-timber, wines and alcohol, pitch, dried codfish, petroleum, jute, wood-pulp. Exports (value, £1,294,000 in 1900; £1,979,000 in 1907) include wine and brandy, fancy goods, woven goods, garments, skins, coal and briquettes, furniture, potatoes.
La Rochelle existed at the close of the 10th century under the name of Rupella. It belonged to the barony of Châtelaillon, which was annexed by the duke of Aquitaine and succeeded Châtelaillon as chief town in Aunis. In 1199 it received a communal charter from Eleanor, duchess of Guienne, and it was in its harbour that John Lackland disembarked when he came to try to recover the domains seized by Philip Augustus. Captured by Louis VIII. in 1224, it was restored to the English in 1360 by the treaty of Brétigny, but it shook off the yoke of the foreigner when Du Guesclin recovered Saintonge. During the 14th, 15th and 16th centuries La Rochelle, then an almost independent commune, was one of the great maritime cities of France. From its harbour in 1402 Jean de Béthencourt set out for the conquest of the Canaries, and its seamen were the first to turn to account the discovery of the new world. The salt-tax provoked a rebellion at Rochelle which Francis I. repressed in person; in 1568 the town secured exemption by the payment of a large sum. At the Reformation La Rochelle early became one of the chief centres of Calvinism, and during the religious wars it armed privateers which preyed on Catholic vessels in the Channel and on the high seas. In 1571 a synod of the Protestant churches of France was held within its walls under the presidency of Beza for the purpose of drawing up a confession of faith. After the massacre of St Bartholomew, La Rochelle held out for six and a half months against the Catholic army, which was ultimately obliged to raise the siege after losing more than 20,000 men. The peace of the 24th of June 1573, signed by the people of La Rochelle in the name of all the Protestant party, granted the Calvinists full liberty of worship in several places of safety. Under Henry IV. the town remained quiet, but under Louis XIII. it put itself again at the head of the Huguenot party. Its vessels blockaded the mouth of the Gironde and stopped the commerce of Bordeaux, and also seized the islands of Ré and Oléron and several vessels of the royal fleet. Richelieu then resolved to subdue the town once for all. In spite of the assistance rendered by the English troops under Buckingham and in spite of the fierce energy of their mayor Guiton, the people of La Rochelle were obliged to capitulate after a year’s siege (October 1628). During this investment Richelieu raised the celebrated mole which cut off the town from the open sea. La Rochelle then became the principal port for the trade between France and the colony of Canada. But the revocation of the Edict of Nantes (1685) deprived it of some thousands of its most industrious inhabitants, and the loss of Canada by France completed for the time the ruin of its commerce. Its privateers, however, maintained a vigorous struggle with the English during the republic and the empire.
See P. Suzanne, La Rochelle pittoresque (La Rochelle, 1903), and E. Couneau, La Rochelle disparue (La Rochelle, 1904).
LA ROCHE-SUR-YON, a town of western France, capital of the department of Vendée, on an eminence on the right bank of the Yon, 48 m. S. of Nantes on the railway to Bordeaux. Pop. (1906) town 10,666, commune 13,685. The castle of La Roche, which probably existed before the time of the crusades, and was frequently attacked or taken in the Hundred Years’ War and in the wars of religion, was finally dismantled under Louis XIII. When Napoleon in 1804 made this place, then of no importance, the chief town of a department, the stones from its ruins were employed in the erection of the administrative buildings, which, being all produced at once after a regular plan, have a monotonous effect. The equestrian statue of Napoleon I. in an immense square overlooking the rest of the town; the statue of General Travot, who was engaged in the “pacification” of La Vendée; the museum, with several paintings by P. Baudry, a native artist, of whom there is a statue in the town, are the only objects of interest. Napoleon-Vendée and Bourbon-Vendée, the names borne by the town according to the dominance of either dynasty, gave place to the original name after the revolution of 1870. The town is the seat of a prefect and a court of assizes, and has a tribunal of first instance, a chamber of commerce, a branch of the Bank of France, a lycée for boys and training colleges for both sexes. It is a market for farm-produce, horses and cattle, and has flour-mills. The dog fairs of La Roche are well known.
LAROMIGUIÈRE, PIERRE (1756–1837), French philosopher,
was born at Livignac on the 3rd of November 1756, and died on
the 12th of August 1837 in Paris. As professor of philosophy
at Toulouse he was unsuccessful and incurred the censure of
the parliament by a thesis on the rights of property in connexion
with taxation. Subsequently he came to Paris, where he was
appointed professor of logic in the École Normale and lectured
in the Prytanée. In 1799 he was made a member of the Tribunate,
and in 1833 of the Academy of Moral and Political
Science. In 1793 he published Projet d’éléments de metaphysique,
a work characterized by lucidity and excellence of style. He
wrote also two Mémoires, read before the Institute, Les Paradoxes
de Condillac (1805) and Leçons de philosophie (1815–1818).
Laromiguière’s philosophy is interesting as a revolt against
the extreme physiological psychology of the natural scientists,
such as Cabanis. He distinguished between those psychological
phenomena which can be traced directly to purely physical causes,
and the actions of the soul which originate from within itself.
Psychology was not for him a branch of physiology, nor on the
other hand did he give to his theory an abstruse metaphysical
basis. A pupil of Condillac and indebted for much of his ideology
to Destutt de Tracy, he attached a fuller importance to Attention
as a psychic faculty. Attention provides the facts, Comparison
groups and combines them, while Reason systematizes and
explains. The soul is active in its choice, i.e. is endowed with freewill,
and is, therefore, immortal. For natural science as a method
of discovery he had no respect. He held that its judgments are,
at the best, statements of identity, and that its so-called discoveries
are merely the reiteration, in a new form, of previous
truisms. Laromiguière was not the first to develop these views;
he owed much to Condillac, Destutt de Tracy and Cabanis. But,
owing to the accuracy of his language and the purity of his style,
his works had great influence, especially over Armand Marrast,
Cardaillac and Cousin. A lecture of his in the École Normale
impressed Cousin so strongly that he at once devoted himself to
the study of philosophy. Jouffroy and Taine agree in describing
him as one of the great thinkers of the 19th century.
See Damiron, Essai sur la philosophie en France au XIX e siècle; Biran, Examen des leçons de philosophie; Victor Cousin, De Methodo sive de Analysi; Daunou, Notice sur Laromiguière; H. Taine, Les Philosophes classiques du XIX e siècle; Gatien Arnoult, Étude sur Laromiguière; Compayré, Notice sur Laromiguière; Ferraz, Spiritualisme et Libéralisme; F. Picavet, Les Idéologues.
LARRA, MARIANO JOSÉ DE (1809–1837), Spanish satirist, was born at Madrid in 1809. His father served as a regimental doctor in the French army, and was compelled to leave the
