vacated was conferred upon Boieldieu. Particularly gratified by this distinction, he considered his next work as a necessary test of his worthiness of the honour, and, with this feeling, he bestowed even more than his usual pains upon it. "Le Petit Chaperon Rouge" was the opera which thus occupied him; and its reception, when it was brought out in July, 1818, was such as to satisfy him that he had not toiled in vain. He now experienced a long and trying illness, induced, it is said, by the careful pains he bestowed on this production. About this time he was appointed professor of composition in the conservatoire, with the rare provision, in consideration of his delicate health, that he should be allowed to receive his class at his country residence. For several years he rested almost entirely from composition, his only efforts being the revision of "La Voiture Versée," one of his early successful operas, and the contribution of some unimportant pieces to works chiefly written by other composers. In May, 1821, he was created a member of the legion of honour; when, with a modest conviction that Catel merited this distinction better than himself, he used every exertion till he procured the same honour for his friend. He at length amply made up to the world for his long repose, by the production, in December, 1825, of "La Dame Blanche," the opera in which above all others his fluency of melody, his purity of harmony, his simplicity of modulation, his clearness of construction, his brightness of instrumentation, and his truthfulness of dramatic effect, are proved, and by which, more than any of his works, these admirable qualities are kept familiar to the world. The long delay in bringing this work forward was greatly occasioned by the composer's dread of competition with his former productions. Success, which too often weans a writer from carefulness in composition, and care for the result, alike increased these qualities with him to an extent amounting to nervous irritability, and when even he could find nothing to improve in his score, it was still with difficulty that he could be prevailed upon to give his work to the public. In 1826 he was relieved from the restraint of his unfortunate marriage by the death of his wife, from whom, though never legally divorced, he had been parted since the first year of their union; and shortly after this he contracted a new alliance with Mdlle. Philis (whose sister had sustained the principal characters of his operas in Russia), by whom he had an only son. The same reasons that had procrastinated first the completion and then the production of "La Dame Blanche," had a similar operation on "Les Deux Nuits," the next and the last opera of Boieldieu. This was produced in May, 1829, and mainly in consequence of the weakness of its libretto, met with less success than any previous work of equal importance the composer has given us. The effect of this failure upon Boieldieu was so great, that his health gave way under the vexation; and he in consequence resigned his professorship, as feeling no longer equal to the discharge of its duties. On the dissolution of the Societé des Acteurs, some years earlier, the annual pension of 1200 francs, which they had settled upon Boieldieu, was discontinued by the new management of the Opera Comique, as not being bound by the engagements of its predecessors. The pension of the conservatoire, however, added to a private pension from the king, promised him a competency for the rest of his days; but the revolution in 1830 deprived him at once of both these dependencies, as well as some court offices he had long held, and reduced him to a state of serious apprehension as to the means of subsistence. In extreme anxiety he proposed to resume his professorship; this brought his situation under public notice, in consequence of which the minister of the interior granted him a pension of 3000 francs from the Fondes des Beaux Arts. He did not long enjoy this new acknowledgment of his many successes; his constitution was broken, and he sought relief in vain from the baths of the south of France. A short time before his death he was with difficulty removed to a place which was endeared to him by the memory of many hours of recreation he had spent there, where he expired without pain. His funeral obsequies were celebrated in the church of the Invalides, and the government conferred a pension of 1200 francs upon his son. Boieldieu's name is more conspicuous in the musical history of France than those of some more profound musicians, who had neither his temporary popularity nor his lasting influence. His "Dame Blanche," if none of his other operas, must for long remain a standard work in every lyric theatre; but we trace the effect of his genius in what is most national and most natural in the existing French school; for neither Herold, Adam, Thomas, nor even Auber would have been what they are to us, had he not written before them.—G. A. M.
BOIGNE, Benoit le Borgne, comte de, an Indian general, born at Chambery, March 8, 1741; died in the same town, June 21, 1830. He was the son of a furrier, and was originally destined to the profession of the law; but, preferring a military career, he joined an Irish regiment, which he accompanied to the Isle of France. We find him afterwards captain of a Greek regiment in the service of Catherine II. After a series of adventures, he resolved to seek his fortune in India, which he reached by way of Suez. He was for many years engaged in the service of several native princes successively; and, by his military skill, and the introduction of European discipline among the native troops, won many a victory for his patrons. Having amassed an immense fortune, he returned to Europe with the rank of general. He first visited England, where he married, and soon after retired to his native town, where he employed a large portion of his vast wealth in deeds of private charity and public munificence.—G. M.
BOILEAU, Gilles, elder brother of Despreaux, born at Crone, near Paris, 1631; died in 1669. Between Gilles Boileau and Despreaux there was continued jealousy, supposed to have arisen from poetical rivalry. Gilles unluckily wrote verses, and did not understand why his younger brother refused his admiration. The courtesies of life led Gilles to pay some compliments to poets who were the subjects of his brother's satire. Gilles Boileau was member of the Academy. The contests on the subject of his admission created a kind of civil war, which is adverted to in several works of the period. He was at the time of his death "controlleur de l'argenterie du roi."—J. A., D.
BOILEAU, Jacques, a French theologian, brother of Gilles and of Nicolas, born 1635; died 1716. He was grand-vicar of the diocese of Sens, doctor of the Sorbonne, and canon of the church of Sainte-Chapelle at Paris. He was so much of a humourist in his talk and in his writings, that it was said of him by his brother Despreaux, if he had not been a doctor of the Sorbonne he would have filled the part of the doctor in the Italian comedy. In his works, the extensive erudition proper for the one, and the vivacity requisite for the other, are both conspicuous. The principal of these are—"Historia Flagellantium, sive de perverso flagellorum usu apud Christianos," Paris, 1700—a work which made a great noise at the time, and brought its author rather more fame than he wanted, certain passages, which were not adapted for indiscriminate perusal, having been submitted to that process by means of a French translation; "Historica Disquisitio de re vestiaria hominis sacri," 1704; "Disquisitio theologica de Sanguine corporis Christi post resurrectionem, ad epistolam 146 Augustini," 1681.—J. S., G.
BOILEAU, Nicolas Despreaux, was born in 1636, and died in 1711. His father was one of the registrars of the parliament of Paris. The family claimed descent from Etienne Boileaux, who held high judicial office at Paris in the days of St. Louis, and the pedigree which seemed to prove this was, at the instance of the poet, authenticated as far as the seals and signatures of heralds' offices can authenticate such a narrative of family mythology. While no difficulties of evidence seem to have embarassed the inquiry as to remoter periods of the narrative, the part which more immediately relates to the poet himself presents some. The precise place of his birth is unknown; most of his biographers fix it at Paris, and in the very chamber which had been occupied, about half a century before, by Gillot, one of the authors of the Satire Menippée; while Racine, with somewhat more probability, makes his birthplace to have been Crône—a little village near Paris, the meadows in the neighbourhood of which suggested the aristocratic affix of Despreaux. On the precise year, too, of his birth (which, however, seems fixed to the date we have given) doubt has been thrown. The king, it seems, on some occasion, asked Boileau his age,—"Sire," said the poet, "I was sent into the world a year before your majesty, my destiny being to proclaim the miraculous glories of your reign." It is said that he mistook the year, but could not spoil the compliment, such as it was, by correcting the mistake.
We are, however, anticipating. Boileau was one of four brothers, all carefully educated, and all distinguished in their respective professions. He was educated at the college of d'Harcourt—afterwards called the College Royal de Saint Louis. While there he underwent a painful and not perfectly successful operation for the stone. To some mistake originating most probably in this
