The first permanent settlement here was established in 1786; the township of St Albans (pop. in 1900, 1715) was incorporated in 1859, and the larger part of it was chartered as the city of St Albans in 1897. On the 19th of October 1864 Lieut. Bennett H. Young led from Canada about twenty-five un-uniformed Confederate soldiers in a raid on St Albans. They looted three banks, wounded several citizens, one mortally, and escaped to Canada, where Young and twelve others were arrested and brought to trial. But they were never punished, and even the $75,000 which had been taken from them on their arrest was returned to them. Later, however, the Canadian government refunded this amount to the banks. In 1866 and again in 1870 the Fenians made St Albans a base for attacks on Canada, and United States troops were sent here to preserve neutrality.
SAINT ALBIN, ALEXANDER CHARLES OMER ROUSSELIN DE CORBEAU, Comte de (1773-1847), French politician, was born in Paris, of a noble Dauphinois family, and was educated at the College d'Harcourt. He embraced the revolutionary ideas with enthusiasm. As civil commissioner at Troyes he was accused of terrorism by some, and by the revolutionary tribunal of moderation. He was imprisoned for a short time in 1794.
On his release the Citoyen Rousselin entered the ministry of the interior, and under the Directory he became secretary-general, and then civil commissioner of the Seine. Attached to the party of Bernadotte, he was looked on with suspicion by the imperial police, and during the later years of the empire spent his time
in retirement at Provence. During the Hundred Days, however, he served under Carnot at the ministry of the interior. Under
the Restoration he defended Liberal principle sin the Constitutionnel,
of which he was the founder. Although Louis Philippe
had been his friend since the days of the Revolution, he accepted
no office from the monarchy of July. He retired from the
Cunstilzrlionnel in 1838, and died on the 15th of June 1847. His
chief works deal with the soldiers of the Revolution. They are:
Vie de Lazare Hoche (2 vols., 1798); Notice historique sur le
général M arbot (1800); M. de Championnel(1860); and notices
of others posthumously published by his son, Hortensius de
Saint Albin, as Documents relatifs ri la Révolution Franeaise . . .
(1373)-
ST ALDEGONDE, PHILIPS VAN MARNIX, Heer van (1538-1598), Dutch writer and statesman, was born at Brussels, the son of Jacob van Marnix, baron of Pottes. He studied theology under Calvin and Beza at Geneva and, returning to the
Netherlands in 1560, threw himself energetically into the cause
of the Reformation, taking an active part in the compromise of
the nobles in 1565 and the assembly of St Trond. He made
himself conspicuous by issuing a pamphlet in justification of the
iconoclasts who devastated Flanders in 1566, and on Alva's
arrival next year had to fly the country. After spending some
time in Friesland and in the Palatinate he was in 1 5 70 taken into
the service of William, prince of Orange, and in 1572 was sent
as his representative to the first meeting of the States-general
assembled at Dordrecht. In 1573 he was taken prisoner by the
Spaniards at Maaslandsluys, but was exchanged in the following
year. He was sent as the representative of the insurgent provinces
to Paris and London, where he in vain attempted to secure
the effective assistance of Queen Elizabeth. In 1578 he was
at the diet of Worms, where he made an eloquent but fruitless
appeal for aid to the German princes. Equally vain were his
efforts in the same year to persuade the magistrates of Ghent
to cease persecuting the Catholics in the city. He took a. conspicuous part in arranging the Union of Utrecht, and in 1583
was chosen burgomaster of Antwerp. In 1585 he surrendered
the city, after a 13 months' siege, to the Spaniards. Violently
attacked by the English and by his own countrymen for this act,
he retired from public affairs and, save for a mission to Paris
in 1 590, lived henceforth in Leiden or on his estate in Zeeland,
where he worked at a translation of the Bible. He died at
Leiden on the 15th of December 1598.
St Aldegonde, or Marnix (by which name he is very commonly known), is celebrated for his share in the great development of Dutc literature which followed the classical period represented by such writers as the poet and historian Pieter Hooft. Of his works the best known is the Roman Bee-hive (De roamsche byen-korf), published in 1 569 during his exile in Friesland, a bitter satire on the faith and practices of the Roman Catholic Church. This was translated or adapted in French, German and English. As a poet, St Aldegonde is mainly known through his admirable metrical translation of the Psalms (1580), and the celebrated Wilhelmus 'van Nassauwe, one of the two officially recognized national anthems of Holland, is also ascribed to him. His complete works, edited by Lacroix and Quinet, were published at Brussels in 7 vols. (1855-1859), and his religious and theological writings, edited by Van Turenenbergen, at Paris, in 3 vols. (1871-1891).
See E. Quinet, Marnix de St Aldegonde (Paris, 1854); ]uste, Vie de Mamix (The Ha ue, 1858); Frédéricq, Marnix en zzjne nederlandsche gesehmflen (Ghent, 1882); Tjalma, Philips van Marnix, heer van Sin!-Aldegomle (Amsterdam, 1896).
ST ALDWYN, MICHAEL EDWARD HICKS BEACH, 1st Viscount (1837-), English statesman, son of Sir Michael Hicks Beach, 8th Bart., whom he succeeded in 1854, was born in London in 1837, and was educated at Eton and Christ Church, Oxford, where he graduated with a first class in the school of law and modern history. In 1864 he was returned to parliament as a Conservative for East Gloucestershire, the county in which his estates of Williamstrip Park were situated;
and during 1868 he acted both as parliamentary secretary to the Poor Law Board and as under-secretary for the Home Department. In 1874 he was made chief secretary for Ireland, and was included in the Cabinet in 1877. From 1878 to 1880 he was secretary of state for the colonies. In 1885 he was elected for West Bristol, and the Conservative party having returned to power, became chancellor of the exchequer and leader of the House of Commons. After Mr Gladstone's brief Home Rule Ministry in 1886 he entered Lord Salisbury's next Cabinet again as Irish secretary, making way for Lord Randolph Churchill as leader of the House; but troubles with his eyesight compelled him to resign in 1887, and meanwhile Mr Goschen replaced Lord Randolph as chancellor of the exchequer. From 1888 to 1892 Sir Michael Hicks Beach returned to active work as president of the Board of Trade, and in 189 5-Mr Goschen being transferred to the Admiralty-he again became chancellor of the exchequer. In 1899 he lowered the fixed charge for the National Debt from twenty-five to twenty-three millions-a reduction imperatively required, apart from other reasons, by the difficulties found in redeeming Consols at their then iniiated price. When compelled to find means for financing the war in South Africa, he insisted on combining the raising of loans with the imposition of fresh taxation; and besides raising the income-tax each year, up to rs. 3d. in 1902, he introduced taxes on sugar and exported coal (1901), and in 1902 proposed the re imposition of the registration duty on corn and flour which had been abolished in 1869 by Mr Lowe. The sale of his Netheravon estates in Wiltshire
to the War Office in 1898 occasioned some acrid criticism concerning the valuation, for which, however, Sir Michael himself was not responsible. On Lord Salisbury's retirement in 1902 Sir Michael Hicks Beach also left the government. He accepted
the chairmanship of the Royal Commission on Ritualistic
Practices in the Church, and he did valuable work as an arbitrator;
and though when the fiscal controversy arose he became
a member of the Free-food League, his parliamentary loyalty
to Mr Balfour did much to prevent the Unionist free-traders from
precipitating a rupture. When Mr Balfour resigned in 1905
he was raised to the peerage as Viscount St Aldwyn.
ST AMAND-LES-EAUX, a town of northern France, in the department of Nord, at the junction of the Elnon with the Scarpe, 22 m. S.E. of Lille by rail. Pop. (1906), town, 10,195; commune, 14,454. The town has a communal college and a school of drawing, and carries on iron-founding and the manufacture of porcelain, hosiery, chains and nails, but is better known for its mineral waters and mud baths. There are five springs; the water (67° to 77° F.) contains sulphate of lime and sulphur, and deposits white gelatinous threads without smell or taste. The mud baths are of benefit to patients suffering from rheumatism, gout and certain affections of liver and skin. Though from the discovery of statues and coins in the mud it is evident that these must have been frequented during the Roman period, it was only at the close of the 17th century that they again became of more than local celebrity. Of the abbey there remain
