Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/355

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
BAC
325
BAC

ings. His reports are becoming a repertory of all the phenomena of currents and tides on the coasts of both oceans. Like the wise man who, while husbanding his strength, evokes from it all it can accomplish, he has arranged that his staff take note of magnetic and metereological phenomena. His last report on magnetism has just reached this country. We cannot within our narrow limits go into detail; but in fullest sincerity, and not without a certain portion of the adequate knowledge, we congratulate the United States that they possess an officer like Dr. Bache, and express, at the same time, our assurance that the support so liberally given by that government, will have its reward in the recognition, by all nations, of the value of the contributions thus obtained to the "physics of the globe."—J. P. N.

BACHE, Benjamin Franklin, an American printer and journalist, grandson of Dr. Franklin. He was apprenticed to an eminent printer in Paris, and on his return to America began the publication of the General Advertiser. Died in 1799.

BACHE, William, an American physician, author of some papers on subjects of natural history, died in 1797. He was a grandson of Dr. Franklin.

BACHELET-DAMVILLE, Louis Alexandre, a French general of brigade, born at St. Aubin, in the Lower Seine, 1st November, 1771; killed at the attack of the village of Gossa in Saxony, 16th October, 1813. He entered as a soldier in the first battalion of the Lower Seine, in March, 1792, and was engaged in the campaigns from 1793 to 1799, when he became aide-de-camp of General Vandermaessen. He afterwards served in the Spanish campaigns, and on the 30th May, 1813, was promoted to the rank of general of brigade. His name is inscribed on the bronze tablets at the palace of Versailles.—G. M.

BACHELIER, Jean Jacques, a French landscape painter, born at Paris in 1724; died in 1805. He consecrated the whole of his long life to the benefit of his art, especially in its application to porcelain and encaustic painting. He founded in 1766 a free school for artisans, and remained for forty years at the direction of the Sèvres manufacture, where he substituted artistical designs for the Chinese patterns in use when he entered it. He enjoyed the friendship of the count of Caylus, whom he assisted in his artistical researches and experiments.—R. M.

BACHELIER, Jean Marguerite, a French notary, and in 1793 member of the revolutionary committee of Nantes; died in that city, 10th August, 1843. He was condemned to death as an accomplice of Carrier, but was pardoned shortly after.

BACHELOT, Jean Alexis Augustin, a French theologian, born in 1790. He was sent by the pope, with the title of "prefet apostolique," to the Sandwich islands in 1826, but was met by the opposition of the English missionaries, and obliged to withdraw from the islands. Died in 1838.—J. S., G.

* BACHELOT DE LA PYLAIE, A. J. M., a distinguished French naturalist and antiquary, born at Fougeres in the department of Ille-et-Vilaine in 1786, has published, besides a manual of conchology and some other treatises, an interesting work on the Flora of Newfoundland, entitled "Flore de Terre Neuve et des iles Saint Pierre et Miquelon," Paris, 1829. M. Bachelot de la Pylaie generously presented to the museum of Paris, some years ago, the most curious of the plants he had collected in his numerous travels.—J. S., G.

BACHELU, Gilbert-Desire-Joseph, Baron, a French general, born at Dôle (Jura), 9th February, 1777; died at Paris in June, 1849. He served under Napoleon at Quatre Bras and Waterloo. After the disbanding of the army of the Loire, he was arrested and sent into exile, but was recalled in 1817. In 1831 he became member of the council-general of Jura; in 1837 he was chosen deputy by the electoral college of Dôle; and in 1838 by Châlons-sur-Saône.—G. M.

BACHET, Gaspard, born in 1593, died in 1638; one of the earliest members of the French Academy of Sciences, and an excellent and original analyst. We owe to him an edition of Diophantus and a commentary on his works. Bachet, among the first of the moderns, cultivated this curious and rather difficult branch of analysis;—he effected the general and complete resolution of indeterminate equations of the first degree, whatever the number of the indeterminate quantities and of the equations. He gave this solution in a work published at Lyons in 1612, entitled "Pleasant and delectable Problems depending on the Properties of Numbers." This work is the precursor of the "Mathematical Recreations."—J. P. N.

BACHEVILLE, the brothers Barthélemy and Antoine, French officers and travellers, both born at Trevoux; and died, the younger at Mascate, in June, 1820; the elder at Paris, in 1835. They both entered the army, and assisted at all the battles in which the French arms were distinguished from 1804 until 1814. On the abdication of Napoleon, the elder brother, Barthélemy, followed him to Elba, and afterwards both brothers fought at Fleurus and at Waterloo. After that brief and disastrous campaign they retired into domestic privacy; but having been accused of a political conspiracy, they contrived to escape from France, where a price had been set upon their heads, and sought refuge in Switzerland. They afterwards travelled through Bavaria, Saxony, and Silesia, and arriving at Varsovie, were kindly received by the Countess Dembinska, with whom they resided several months. They next proceeded to Moldavia, where they separated. Antoine remained at Jassy, and Barthélemy departed for Bucharest, which he soon after left for Constantinople. Learning that the French ambassador there was negotiating for his extradition, he embarked for Smyrna, whence he passed to Athens. Reduced to indigence, and almost to despair, he one day received a visit from the agent of the celebrated Ali Pacha, who took him into his service. He now departed with a caravan for Janina, but after some days' journey they were assailed in the gorges of Mount Olympus by a band of brigands, by whom the country was infested. Barthélemy took the command of the caravan, attacked and defeated the banditti, and compelled them to seek their safety in flight. The success of this encounter gained him the confidence of Ali Pacha, who, however, subsequently treated him with great inhumanity.

In the meantime, Antoine, becoming extremely impatient once more to see his brother, set out for Constantinople, afterwards travelled into Egypt and Persia, and finally reached Mascate, where the fatigues of his journey, and his grief on account of his separation from his brother, brought on the disease of which he died. At length Barthélemy, disgusted with the atrocities of Ali Pacha, secretly quitted his service, and returned to France; and, having purged himself of his contumacy, he was acquitted.—G. M.

BACHIARIUS, an ecclesiastic of the fifth century, said by Miræus, following Bâle, to have been an Irishman, and a disciple of St. Patrick; but this statement has been impugned as wanting authority. It would seem to be clear that, whatever was his native land, he left it, either on account of the heresies or troubles which disturbed it. He was the author of a treatise, "De Fide," and other works, as Gennadius mentions. There is extant also an epistle of considerable length written by him to Januarius, "De Recipiendis Lapsis," which is to be found in the Bibliotheca Patrum. Besides these, Florius, who has edited the writings of Bachiarius, attributes two other treatises to his authorship. From the writings of Bachiarius, it is not easy to form an exact judgment of his erudition and abilities, but they indicate considerable knowledge of the theological learning of the times, and display an amiable temper and christian spirit.—J. F. W.

BACHILANI, an Arabian philosopher and theologian, who was sent by the caliph from Bagdad to Constantinople about the commencement of the tenth century, to confer with the Greek theologians on certain points of doctrine.

* BACHMANN, Gottlob Ludwig Ernst, professor ordinary and head-master of the gymnasium at Rostock, was born at Leipzig, 1st January, 1792. He studied at Leipzig and Jena, and soon after became teacher at several schools. In 1824 he resigned his post, and during three years occupied himself in searching the great libraries of Vienna, Rome, Naples, and Paris, for Greek manuscripts. As the fruits of these researches, he published "Die Ægyptischen Papyrus der Vaticanischen Bibliothek" (The Egyptian Papyri of the Vatican Library), 1828; "Anecdota Græca e Codicibus Bibliothecæ Regiæ; Parisiensis," two vols.; the "Alexandra" of Lycophron; "Scholia in Homeri Iliadem," and other philological works.—K. E.

BACHMANN, James Joseph Anthony Leger, Baron de, major-general in the Swiss guard of Louis XVI., was born in Switzerland in 1733. He headed the Swiss guard in defence of the king on the 9th August, 1792, and was next day consigned to the Abbaye. He pleaded in vain the right of a foreigner before the revolutionary tribunal, but was condemned and executed.

BACHSTROM, Johann Friedrich, a German theologian and physician, born in Silesia towards the end of the seventeenth century, died about the middle of the eighteenth. In the course of his unsettled life he became professor of theology at Halle,