her execution in Fotheringay castle. When she was brought to the scaffold, and Mr. Beal, clerk of council, had read the commission for her execution. Dr. Fletcher entered upon the delivery of a formal and somewhat harsh homily; and as he went on with it, "the said queen three or four times said unto him—'Master Dean, trouble not yourself nor me, for know that I am settled in the ancient catholic Romish religion, and in defence thereof, by God's help, to spend my blood.'" In 1589 Fletcher was advanced to the see of Bristol, from which he was translated in 1592 to Worcester, and in 1594 to London. But his enjoyment of the many conveniences and advantages which had made him desire and earnestly solicit at the hands of Lord Burghley this last promotion, was of brief duration; for by contracting immediately after a second marriage with "a fine lady and widow, the sister of Sir George Gifford, one of the queen's gentlemen pensioners," he fell under Elizabeth's heavy displeasure, who not only forbade his presence at court, but ordered the archbishop of Canterbury to suspend him from his episcopal functions. "This marriage (as the queen liked not marriages at all in the clergy) she thought very indecent in an elderly clergyman and a bishop that before had been married." It was not till he had been suspended for six months that he was restored to his office, and for a whole twelvemonth he was unable to "procure that grant from the queen, that he might see her face," as the courtier-bishop himself expressed it. At last, however, his imperious mistress so far relented as to honour him with a visit at Chelsea. And, as if it was now time to say "Nunc dimittis," the bishop soon afterwards died suddenly in his chair, June 15, 1596.—P. L.
FLEURANGES, Robert de la Marck, Seigneur de, a distinguished officer in the reigns of Louis XII. and Francis I., born at Sedan in 1491; died at Lonjumeau in 1537. He was first known by this title, afterwards as duc de Bouillon and seigneur de Sedan. He received at the battle of Asti forty-six wounds, had a horse killed under him at Marignano, and was taken prisoner with Francis at the battle of Pavia. During his imprisonment he wrote a history of the principal events in France, Italy, and Germany, from 1499 to 1521, under the name of "Le Jeune Aventureux." His book is a very curious one. He was employed for Francis in his contest for the empire, when Charles V. was elected. In his memoirs he gives an account of the "field of the cloth of gold," and his description of the "verrine," or palace of glass, has been of late years a good deal referred to. By his father's death he became seigneur de la Marck, but his own death occurred a few days after. The strange motto of the family was—"Si Dieu ne me veult, le diable me prye."—J. A., D.
FLEURIEU, Charles Pierre Claret, Comte de, a distinguished hydrographer and statesman, was born at Lyons in 1738, and died at Paris in 1810. He entered the navy at fourteen years of age, and after the Seven Years' war, in which he was actively engaged, devoted himself to the careful study of nautical science. He took an intense interest in the problem of the longitudes, which was at that time absorbing the attention of scientific men, and commanded the Isis during a long voyage made, for the purpose of testing the marine clocks invented by his friend, Ferdinand Berthoud. Fleurieu published an account of this voyage in 1773. Three years afterwards he was appointed director-general of ports and arsenals, and the success of the French navy in the American war, was chiefly owing to his indefatigable labours, and especially to his admirable strategical skill. It was also during his term of office, and under his particular care, that the celebrated expeditions of La Perouse and D'Entrecasteaux were prepared and despatched. In 1790 Fleurieu was appointed minister of the marine; he resigned this office, however, in the following year, much to the regret of Louis XVI., who in 1792 nominated him to the post of tutor to the dauphin. In the former year he published his "Découvertes des Français en 1768 et 1769 dans le sud-est de la Nouvelle-Guinée, et reconnaissance postérieure des mêmes terres par des navigateurs anglais," &c., of which an excellent translation soon after appeared at London. In 1793 Fleurieu suffered an imprisonment of fourteen months at the hands of the revolutionary party. In 1797 he again held office for a few months, as minister of the marine. Two years later we find him a member of the council of state, and receiving honours from Napoleon. One of his last appointments was to the governorship of the Tuileries, for which he resigned his office of intendant-general of horse. He was employed during his last years upon a hydrographic atlas. This noble work, on which he had expended above 200,000 francs, was left unfinished at his death.—R. M., A.
FLEURIOT-LESCOT, Jean-Baptiste-Edouard, a prominent revolutionist, was born at Brussels in 1761, and was guillotined at Paris on the 28th July, 1794. Fleuriot was by trade a builder, and coming to Paris to exercise his profession, caught the infection of the new political doctrines. He took a prominent part in all the tumults and bloodshed of the Revolution, and being a sworn follower of Robespierre, had his own share in the most odious transactions of the Reign of Terror.—R. M., A.
FLEURY, Abraham Joseph Benard, the assumed name of a famous French comedian, born at Chartres in 1751; died at Orleans in 1822. His parents were itinerant comedians. On his first appearance at the theatre Français in 1774, he attracted but little attention; but as the veteran Molé gradually withdrew from the stage, Fleury was allowed to take his place, and in course of time it was admitted that there was no excellence of his art which he did not bring into his impersonations of petit-maîtres, courtiers, and genteel scamps. He continued on the stage till 1818. A work, entitled Memoires de Fleury de la Comedie Française, was published in 1835-37. It was from the pen of J. B. Lafitte.—J. S., G.
FLEURY, André Hercule de, was born at Lodève in Languedoc, on the 22nd of June, 1653. He chose the priesthood as a profession, and having been introduced at the court of Louis XIV., was appointed the almoner of the queen, then almoner of the king, and lastly bishop of Fréjus. He was not a man of eminent talents or of lofty aims, and owed his promotion chiefly to exterior advantages. Rather for his negative than for his positive qualities, he was named preceptor of the little child who was afterwards to be Louis XV. The nature of this young Bourbon was radically bail, and Fleury assuredly did nothing to improve it; his chief effort being to gain complete command over the future king. The favourite amusement of Fleury's pupil was letting thousands of sparrows loose in a large hall and seeing birds of prey tear them to pieces. The duke of Orleans was regent of France from the death of Louis XIV. in 1715, to the duke's own death in 1723. It was for France, through the Scottish adventurer, Law, a season of signal delirium; and through the duke of Orleans, himself, and nearly all the nobility, a season of flagrant wickedness, and gave France its first tremendous impulse towards the abyss of revolution. Whosoever ruled France, Fleury ruled its boy-monarch. When the duke of Orleans died, it might have been supposed that Fleury would have placed himself at the head of the government; this, however, for purposes of his own, he abstained from doing. He allowed the duke de Bourbon to be created prime minister, the vilest, most vicious debauchee of his time. On the duke's ignominious fall in 1726, Fleury succeeded him, he being at the time seventy-three years of age, while the king was sixteen. Not long after Fleury received the cardinal's hat. He remained prime minister till his death on the 29th of January, 1743. Various are the judgments on his long administration. He loved peace, and was the friend of Walpole, who loved peace no less. For the sake of peace he was willing to make almost humiliating sacrifices; yet the war into which, in 1733, France was led to oblige Louis XV.'s father-in-law, Stanislaus, who had been re-elected king of Poland, very remotely affected French interests; still France gained by it the important province of Lorraine. The war of succession, however, which ended with the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle in 1748, and to the participation of France in which Fleury perhaps unwillingly consented, was barren for France in everything but victories like those of Fontenay and Laffeld; and added to the French national debt twelve hundred millions of francs. Fleury was not more fortunate in his love of economy than in his love of peace. The extravagance under the regency had been boundless. Fleury sought to heal this evil by a mistaken and most miserable parsimony, whereby France was imperilled abroad and paralyzed at home. But if Fleury had not the large conceptions which are indispensable to the statesman, he was free from the frailties whereby some of the greatest statesmen have been tainted. Mazarin left a fortune of two hundred millions of francs; Fleury scarcely more than was needful decently to inter him. Though carrying frugality to a fault in the affairs of the state, Fleury was yet disposed generously to protect literature, the arts, and the sciences. It is said likewise, that scarcely reaching mediocrity as a states-
