(February 1855), reprinted in Allemagne et Russie (Paris, 1856); Duduishkin’s “Materials for the Biography of Lermontov,” prefixed to the 1863 edition of his works. The Demon, translated by Sir Alexander Condie Stephen (1875), is an English version of one of his longer poems.
(W. R. S.-R.)
LEROUX, PIERRE (1798–1871), French philosopher and
economist, was born at Bercy near Paris on the 7th of April 1798,
the son of an artisan. His education was interrupted by the
death of his father, which compelled him to support his mother
and family. Having worked first as a mason and then as a
compositor, he joined P. Dubois in the foundation of Le Globe
which became in 1831 the official organ of the Saint-Simonian
community, of which he became a prominent member. In
November of the same year, when Enfantin preached the enfranchisement
of women and the functions of the couple-prêtre,
Leroux separated himself from the sect. In 1838, with J.
Regnaud, who had seceded with him, he founded the Encyclopédie
nouvelle (eds. 1838–1841). Amongst the articles which
he inserted in it were De l’égalité and Réfutation de l’éclectisme,
which afterwards appeared as separate works. In 1840 he
published his treatise De l’humanité (2nd ed. 1845), which
contains the fullest exposition of his system, and was regarded as
the philosophical manifesto of the Humanitarians. In 1841
he established the Revue indépendante, with the aid of George
Sand, over whom he had great influence. Her Spiridion, which
was dedicated to him, Sept cordes de la lyre, Consuelo, and La
Comtesse de Rudolstadt, were written under the Humanitarian
inspiration. In 1843 he established at Boussac (Creuse) a printing
association organized according to his systematic ideas,
and founded the Revue sociale. After the outbreak of the
revolution of 1848 he was elected to the Constituent Assembly,
and in 1849 to the Legislative Assembly, but his speeches on
behalf of the extreme socialist wing were of so abstract and
mystical a character that they had no effect. After the coup
d’état of 1851 he settled with his family in Jersey, where he
pursued agricultural experiments and wrote his socialist poem
La Grève de Samarez. On the definitive amnesty of 1869 he
returned to Paris, where he died in April 1871, during the
Commune.
The writings of Leroux have no permanent significance in the history of thought. He was the propagandist of sentiments and aspirations rather than the expounder of a systematic theory. He has, indeed, a system, but it is a singular medley of doctrines borrowed, not only from Saint-Simonian, but from Pythagorean and Buddhistic sources. In philosophy his fundamental principle is that of what he calls the “triad”—a triplicity which he finds to pervade all things, which in God is “power, intelligence and love,” in man “sensation, sentiment and knowledge.” His religious doctrine is Pantheistic; and, rejecting the belief in a future life as commonly conceived, he substitutes for it a theory of metempsychosis. In social economy his views are very vague; he preserves the family, country and property, but finds in all three, as they now are, a despotism which must be eliminated. He imagines certain combinations by which this triple tyranny can be abolished, but his solution seems to require the creation of families without heads, countries without governments and property without rights of possession. In politics he advocates absolute equality—a democracy pushed to anarchy.
See Raillard, Pierre Leroux et ses œuvres (Paris, 1899); Thomas, Pierre Leroux: sa vie, son œuvre, sa doctrine (Paris, 1904); L. Reybaud, Études sur les réformateurs et socialistes modernes; article in R. H. Inglis Palgrave’s Dictionary of Pol. Econ.
LEROY-BEAULIEU, HENRI JEAN BAPTISTE ANATOLE (1842–), French publicist, was born at Lisieux, on the 12th of February 1842. In 1866 he published Une troupe de comédiens, and afterwards Essai sur la restauration de nos monuments historiques devant l’art et devant le budget, which deals particularly with the restoration of the cathedral of Evreux. He visited Russia in order to collect documents on the political and economic organization of the Slav nations, and on his return published in the Revue des deux mondes (1882–1889) a series of articles, which appeared shortly afterwards in book form under the title L’Empire des tsars et les Russes (4th ed., revised in 3 vols., 1897–1898).
The work entitled Un empereur, un roi, un pape, une restauration, published in 1879, was an analysis and criticism of the
politics of the Second Empire. Un homme d’état russe (1884)
gave the history of the emancipation of the serfs by Alexander II.
Other works are Les Catholiques libéraux, l’église et le libéralisme
(1890), La Papauté, le socialisme et la démocracie (1892), Les
Juifs et l’antisémitisme; Israël chez les nations (1893), Les
Arméniens et la question arménienne (1896), L’Antisémitisme
(1897), Études russes et européennes (1897). These writings,
mainly collections of articles and lectures intended for the general
public, display enlightened views and wide information. In 1881
Leroy-Beaulieu was elected professor of contemporary history
and eastern affairs at the École Libre des Sciences Politiques,
becoming director of this institution on the death of Albert
Sorel in 1906, and in 1887 he became a member of the Académie
des Sciences Morales et Politiques.
Two of Leroy-Beaulieu’s works have been translated into English: one as the Empire of the Tsars and the Russians, by Z. A. Regozin (New York, 1893–1896), and another as Papacy, Socialism, Democracy, by B. L. O’Donnell (1892). See W. E. H. Lecky, Historical and Political Essays (1908).
LEROY-BEAULIEU, PIERRE PAUL (1843–), French
economist, brother of the preceding, was born at Saumur on the 9th of December 1843, and educated in Paris at the Lycée Bonaparte and the École de Droit. He afterwards studied
at Bonn and Berlin, and on his return to Paris began to write
for Le Temps, Revue nationale and Revue contemporaine. In
1867 he won a prize offered by the Academy of Moral Science
with an essay entitled “L’Influence de l’état moral et intellectuel
des populations ouvrières sur le taux des salaires.” In 1870
he gained three prizes for essays on “La Colonization chez les
peuples modernes,” “L’Administration en France et en Angleterre,”
and “L’Impôt foncier et ses conséquences économiques.”
In 1872 Leroy-Beaulieu became professor of finance at the
newly-founded École Libre des Sciences Politiques, and in 1880
he succeeded his father-in-law, Michel Chevalier, in the chair of
political economy in the Collège de France. Several of his works
have made their mark beyond the borders of his own country.
Among these may be mentioned his Recherches économiques,
historiques et statistiques sur les guerres contemporaines, a series
of studies published between 1863 and 1869, in which he calculated
the loss of men and capital caused by the great European conflicts.
Other works by him are—La Question monnaie au dix-neuvième
siècle (1861), Le Travail des femmes au dix-neuvième siècle (1873),
Traité de la science des finances (1877), Essai sur la repartition
des richesses (1882), L’Algérie et la Tunisie (1888), Précis
d’économie politique (1888), and L’État moderne et ses fonctions
(1889). He also founded in 1873 the Économiste français, on
the model of the English Economist. Leroy-Beaulieu may be
regarded as the leading representative in France of orthodox
political economy, and the most pronounced opponent of protectionist
and collectivist doctrines.
LERWICK, a municipal and police burgh of Shetland, Scotland,
the most northerly town in the British Isles. Pop. (1901)
4281. It is situated on Brassay Sound, a fine natural harbour,
on the east coast of the island called Mainland, 115 m. N.E. of
Kirkwall, in Orkney, and 340 m. from Leith by steamer. The
town dates from the beginning of the 17th century, and the older
part consists of a flagged causeway called Commercial Street,
running for 1 m. parallel with the sea (in which the gable ends of
several of the quaint-looking houses stand), and so narrow
in places as not to allow of two vehicles passing each other. At
right angles to this street lanes ascend the hill-side to Hillhead,
where the more modern structures and villas have been built.
At the north end stands Fort Charlotte, erected by Cromwell,
repaired in 1665 by Charles II. and altered in 1781 by George III.,
after whose queen it was named. It is now used as a depôt
for the Naval Reserve, for whom a large drill hall was added.
The Anderson Institute, at the south end, was constructed as a
secondary school in 1862 by Arthur Anderson, a native, who
also presented the Widows’ Asylum in the same quarter, an
institution intended by preference for widows of Shetland
sailors. The town-hall, built in 1881, contains several stained-glass
windows, two of which were the gift of citizens of Amsterdam
and Hamburg, in gratitude for services rendered by the
islanders to fishermen and seamen of those ports. Lerwick’s
main industries are connected with the fisheries, of which it is an
