shortly afterwards followed by a second, Shamus O’Brien, successfully recited in the United States by Samuel Lover. In 1839 he became proprietor of the Warder, a Dublin newspaper, and, after purchasing the Evening Packet and a large interest in the Dublin Evening Mail, he combined the three papers under the title the Evening Mail, a weekly reprint from which was issued as the Warder. After the death of his wife in 1858 he lived in retirement, and his best work was produced at this period of his life. He wrote some clever novels, of a sensational order, in which his vigorous imagination and his Irish love of the supernatural have full play. He died in Dublin on the 7th of February 1873. His best-known novels are The House by the Churchyard (1863) and Uncle Silas, a Tale of Bartram Haugh (1864). The Purcell Papers, Irish stories dating from his college days, were edited with a memoir of the author by A. P. Graves in 1880.
LEFEBVRE, PIERRE FRANÇOIS JOSEPH, duke of Danzig
(1755–1820), marshal of France, was born at Rouffach in Alsace on the 20th of October 1755. At the outbreak of the Revolution he was a sergeant in the Gardes françaises, and with many of his comrades of this regiment took the popular side. He distinguished
himself by bravery and humanity in many of the street
fights in Paris, and becoming an officer and again distinguishing himself—this time against foreign invaders—he was made a general of division in 1794. He took part in the Revolutionary Wars from Fleurus to Stokach, always resolute, strictly obedient and calm. At Stokach (1799) he received a severe wound and
had to return to France, where he assisted Napoleon during
the coup d’état of 18 Brumaire. He was one of the first generals
of division to be made marshal at the beginning of the First
Empire. He commanded the guard infantry at Jena, conducted
the siege of Danzig 1806–1807 (from which town he received his
title in 1808), commanded a corps in the emperor’s campaign
of 1808–1809 in Spain, and in 1809 was given the difficult task
of commanding the Bavarian contingent, which he led in the
containing engagements of Abensberg and Rohr and at the
battle of Eckmühl. He commanded the Imperial Guard in
Russia, 1812, fought through the last campaign of the Empire,
and won fresh glory at Montmirail, Areis-sur-Aube and Champaubert.
He was made a peer of France by Louis XVIII. but joined
Napoleon during the Hundred Days, and was only amnestied
and permitted to resume his seat in the upper chamber in 1819.
He died at Paris on the 14th of September 1820. Marshal
Lefebvre was a simple soldier, whose qualifications for high
rank, great as they were, came from experience and not from
native genius. He was incapable of exercising a supreme command,
even of leading an important detachment, but he was
absolutely trustworthy as a subordinate, as brave as he was
experienced, and intensely loyal to his chief. He maintained
to the end of his life a rustic simplicity of speech and demeanour.
Of his wife (formerly a blanchisseuse to the Gardes Françaises)
many stories have been told, but in so far as they are to her
discredit they seem to be false, she being, like the marshal,
a plain “child of the people.”
LEFEBVRE, TANNEGUY (Tanaquillus Faber) (1615–1672), French classical scholar, was born at Caen. After completing his studies in Paris, he was appointed by Cardinal Richelieu inspector of the printing-press at the Louvre. After Richelieu’s death he left Paris, joined the Reformed Church, and in 1651 obtained a professorship at the academy of Saumur, which he filled with great success for nearly twenty years. His increasing ill-health and a certain moral laxity (as shown in his judgment on Sappho) led to a quarrel with the consistory, as a result of which he resigned his professorship. Several universities were eager to obtain his services, and he had accepted a post offered him by the elector palatine at Heidelberg, when he died suddenly on the 12th of September, 1672. One of his children was the
famous Madame Dacier. Lefebvre, who was by no means a
typical student in dress or manners, was a highly cultivated
man and a thorough classical scholar. He brought out editions
of various Greek and Latin authors—Longinus, Anacreon and
Sappho, Virgil, Horace, Lucretius and many others. His
most important original works are: Les Vies des poètes Grecs
(1665); Méthode pour commencer les humanités Grecques et
Latines (2nd ed., 1731), of which several English adaptations
have appeared; Epistolae Criticae (1659).
In addition to the Mémoires pour . . . la vie de Tanneguy Lefebvre, by F. Graverol (1686), see the article in the Nouvelle biographie générale, based partly on the MS. registers of the Saumur Académie.
LEFEBVRE-DESNOËTTES, CHARLES, Comte (1773–1822), French cavalry general, joined the army in 1792 and served with the armies of the North, of the Sambre-and-Meuse and Rhine-and-Moselle in the various campaigns of the Revolution. Six years later he had become captain and aide-de-camp to General Bonaparte. At Marengo he won further promotion, and at Austerlitz became colonel, serving also in the Prussian campaigns of 1806–1807. In 1808 he was made general of brigade and created a count of the Empire. Sent with the army into Spain, he conducted the first and unsuccessful siege of Saragossa.
The battlefield of Tudela showed his talents to better advantage, but towards the end of 1808 he was taken prisoner in the action of Benavente by the British cavalry under Paget (later Lord Uxbridge, and subsequently Marquis of Anglesey). For over two
years he remained a prisoner in England, living on parole at Cheltenham. In 1811 he escaped, and in the invasion of Russia in 1812 was again at the head of his cavalry. In 1813 and 1814 his men distinguished themselves in most of the great battles, especially La Rothière and Montmirail. He joined Napoleon in the Hundred Days and was wounded at Waterloo. For his part in these events he was condemned to death, but he escaped to the United States, and spent the next few years farming in Louisiana. His frequent appeals to Louis XVIII. eventually obtained his permission to return, but the “Albion,” the vessel
on which he was returning to France, went down off the coast of Ireland with all on board on the 22nd of May 1822.
LE FÈVRE, JEAN (c. 1395–1468), Burgundian chronicler and seigneur of Saint Remy, is also known as Toison d’or from his long connexion with the order of the Golden Fleece. Of noble birth, he adopted the profession of arms and with other Burgundians fought in the English ranks at Agincourt. In 1430, on the foundation of the order of the Golden Fleece by Philip III. the Good, duke of Burgundy, Le Fèvre was appointed its king of arms and he soon became a very influential person at the Burgundian court. He frequently assisted Philip in conducting negotiations with foreign powers, and he was an arbiter in tournaments and on all questions of chivalry, where his wide knowledge of heraldry was highly useful. He died at Bruges on the 16th of June 1468.
Le Fèvre wrote a Chronique, or Histoire de Charles VI., roy de France. The greater part of this chronicle is merely a copy of the work of Enguerrand de Monstrelet, but Le Fèvre is an original authority for the years between 1428 and 1436 and makes some valuable additions to our knowledge, especially about the chivalry of the Burgundian court. He is more concise than Monstrelet, but is equally partial to the dukes of Burgundy. The Chronique has been edited by F. Morand for the Société de l’histoire de France (Paris, 1876). Le Fèvre is usually regarded as the author of the Livre des faites de Jacques de Lalaing.
LEG (a word of Scandinavian origin, from the Old Norwegian leggr, cf. Swed. lägg, Dan. laég; the O. Eng. word was sceanca, shank), the general name for those limbs in animals which support and move the body, and in man for the lower limbs of the body (see Anatomy, Superficial and Artistic; Skeleton, Appendicular; Muscular System). The word is in common use for many objects which resemble the leg in shape or function. As a slang term, “leg,” a shortened form of “blackleg,” has been in use since the end of the 18th century for a swindler, especially in connexion with racing or gambling. The term “blackleg” is now also applied by trade-unionists to a workman who, during a strike or lockout, continues working or is brought to take the place of the withdrawn workers.
LEGACY (Lat. legatum), in English law, some particular thing or things given or left by a testator in his will, to be paid or performed by his executor or administrator. The word is primarily applicable to gifts of personalty or gifts charged
