Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/886

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
CAB
834
CAB

the material organization of a living body there is superadded an unknown entity or principle which they called life. Cabanis held this last view. About 1805 Mons. Fauriel, then a young man, visited Cabanis; and the discussions which ensued between them led to a modification of his views, not so much as to the principle of life, as with regard to the causes of intellectual phenomena. In short, his views came to coincide with those of Stahl, and he regarded the principle of life as not only organizing and animating the body, but as constituting the ego, and producing mental phenomena—as the cause of vitality and intelligence—immaterial and immortal. In extending his views to the phenomena of nature, he came at last to the conclusion that these cannot be explained by the properties of matter, and that the harmonious ongoings of the universe imply a conscious intelligence, and a voluntary activity. These views are contained in Lettre posthume et inedite à M. F., sur les causes premières, avec des notes de F. Bérard, 8vo, Paris, 1824. They are to be regarded not so much as a retractation, as the mature conclusions to which continued reflection and extended inquiry conducted an ardent and honest mind.—W. F.

CABARRUS, Francisco, Count de, a celebrated Spanish financier, born in 1752; died in 1810. He was the son of a merchant of Bayonne, and for some time followed at Saragossa the profession of his father. In 1782 he became director of a bank called the Bank of Saint Charles. His great talents soon recommended him to public employment under the reign of Charles III., and afterwards under that of Charles IV. He was employed in various public missions, particularly to the congress of Rastadt, and was subsequently accredited as ambassador to the directory of the French republic. Under Joseph, the brother of Napoleon, he was appointed minister of finance—an office which he held until his death, a short time before the expulsion of the new dynasty.—G. M.

CABASSOLE, Philippe de, a French prelate, born in 1305. He was successively chancellor of Sicily and patriarch of Jerusalem. In 1369 Gregory XI. conferred on him the cardinal's hat, after which he was sent as legate to Perugia, where he died in 1372. He is chiefly memorable for his friendship with Petrarch.

CABEL, Adrian vander, a Dutch painter, born at Ryswick in 1631; died in 1695. He was a pupil of John van Goyen. He started for Italy via France, but staying at Lyons, he became so admired and rewarded, that he turned his tent into a house. He was a concrete of imitations, for he imitated sometimes Castiglione and Salvator Rosa at other times Mola and the Caracci. He painted landscapes with figures (not men) and cattle, and a sort of Italian sea-port was his humour. His trees are well touched, his figures correct and spirited, his animals clever; his manner is "the grand Italian manner." His deep brown tones spoil everything. At first he studied from nature. His real name was Vander Town, but his master. Van Goyen, gave him the nick-name of Vander Cabel. He etched several of his own designs of hermits in mountainous landscapes.—W. T.

CABESTAING, Guillaume de. The spelling of his name is unfixed. The date and place of birth of Guillaume de Cabestaing are uncertain. Millot says he was born at Roussillon. He lived in the twelfth century. He was in the service of Raymond de Castel-Roussillon, and his peculiar duty was that of donzel or squire to Marguerite, Raymond's wife. This, it would seem, was a dangerous office; for the lady and her donzel were soon in love with each other. Raymond took a deep and deadly revenge—he murdered the troubadour; and imitating what old story told of the feast of Atreus, had the minstrel's heart drest as food and placed before the lady, who ate of it without suspicion. When she was told the truth she refused food, and found the means of self-destruction. The story is told in several ballads and poems; it is also the subject of several prose romances. Boccacio tells it in the Decameron. Of Cabestaing's poems seven are preserved in the Bibliothéque Impériale, five of which have been printed by Raynouard.—J. A., D.

CABET, Etienne, one of the leading members of the communistic party in France, born at Dijon, 2nd January, 1788. His father, who exercised the humble trade of a cooper, gave him a liberal education. He embraced the profession of law, and first practised at the bar of his native town. He subsequently went to Paris, where, disappointed in his expectation of rising to eminence at the bar, he devoted himself for some years to conducting the Journal de Jurisprudence. In 1830 he received from the first minister of justice, M. Dupont de l'Eure, the appointment of procurator-general; but, considering the revolution as incomplete, he had the indiscretion publicly to avow sentiments adverse to the government of which he was one of the principal organs, and was, in consequence, deprived of his office the following year by the new minister of justice, M. Barthe. He was soon after elected member of the chamber of deputies; but having employed some expressions offensive to the king in his journal, Le Populaire, he was prosecuted by authority of the chambers, and having been found guilty by a jury, he was in February, 1834, condemned to two years' imprisonment and a heavy fine. Preferring exile to imprisonment he retired to England. Here he lighted on the work of a kindred spirit, an account of an imaginary utopia, with which he was so charmed, that he appropriated some of the leading ideas, and having adapted them to the taste of the French workmen, published them in March, 1842, in a little volume entitled "Voyage en Icarie." The establishment of a social republic appears after this to have become the leading idea of his life, and he had at last the happiness of securing a grant of land in Texas, whither he proceeded in 1848, with a considerable number of emigrants, anxious, like himself, to realize the daydream with which their imaginations had been delighted. After many hardships and difficulties, they succeeded in organizing themselves into a little community, over which Cabet presided. He died in 1856.—G. M.

CABEZA DE VACA, Alvar-Nunez, a Spanish voyager of the sixteenth century. In 1539 he was appointed to explore La Plata but, exceeding his orders, he marched into Paraguay and seized the government of Assumption. He was soon sent home in bonds to Spain, where he was condemned by the council of the Indies. He wrote the first account of Paraguay.

CABOCHE, Simonet, one of the chiefs of the Cabochiens, a corporation of butchers at the beginning of the fifteenth century. They were partisans of the duke of Burgundy in his contests with the Armagnacs, and for a time, although inconsiderable in number, tyrannized over Paris. Their violence at last roused the city against them, and through the tact and energy of a carpenter named Guillaume Cirasse, their power was completely broken.

CABOOS, surnamed Shams al-Maala (the Sun in its Splendour), a prince of the house of Shamgur, famous for his virtues and misfortunes, succeeded to the government of Jorjan in 996. He protected the exiled Bouiyan prince. Fakir El-Dowlah, and submitted to be driven from his kingdom rather than surrender the fugitive. When the exile was restored to his dominion, he seized the territory of his benefactor, who did not regain his crown till the death of the Bouiyan king in 997. He was dethroned in 1012 by his courtiers, who were provoked at the severity with which he punished their licentiousness. He died in the fortress in which they imprisoned him. Caboos was the earliest patron of Avicenna, and was himself a poet and astronomer. He wrote a treatise on eloquence, named "Kemal-al-Belagat."—J. B.

CABOT, George, an American statesman, born at Salem, Massachusetts, and educated at Harvard college, which he entered with the class which is styled of 1770. In 1791 he became United States senator from Massachusetts, a post which he held for five years—a steadfast friend throughout of the Washington administration. He yielded essential aid to Hamilton in perfecting his financial system. In 1798 he had the tender made him from President Adams of being the first secretary of the navy, which honour, however, he declined. In 1814 he was chosen a delegate to the memorable Hartford convention, and was elected president of that assembly. He died in 1823. A high authority states, that long before the great work of Say on Political Economy appeared, its leading principles were familiar to Mr. Cabot.—F. B.

CABOT, CABOTTO, or GAVOTTA, John. See Cabot, Sebastian.

CABOT, Sebastian, a great seaman of Venetian ancestry but of English birth, who discovered the American continent fourteen months before Columbus, and two years before Amerigo Vespucci had been west of the Canaries. Cabot was born about the year 1477. His history has been involved in obscurity in consequence of the corrupt text of Ramusis, the looseness with which Hakluyt has translated and quoted his authorities, and the carelessness of biographical bookmakers, who have expanded dubious phrases into positive sentences. The publication of original docu-