Page:Imperialdictiona02eadi Brandeis.pdf/75

This page has been proofread, but needs to be validated.
DEL
59
DEL

were crowned. He declined himself appearing. For the. two last years of his life he lived at Nanterres. A loving companion had linked herself to the fortunes of Delille—not quite a wife, though scarcely less. Their union was of early date; marriage was probably not at first thought of, for the woman was of rank far below that to which Delille had risen, and the abbé had thoughts of taking orders, till the storm of the Revolution blew down the church. He first called the affectionate creature his Antigone, and at last gave her his own name. She had a keen and clear eye for the main chance. The booksellers gave something for his poems, and she would lock the door of his chamber to compel him to write. One day when some friends—brother poets—were with him she heard him reciting verses; she instantly turned them out. They had come, she said, to steal his verses and sell them to the booksellers. A translation of Pope's Essay on Man was published after his death. Delille has the merit of having freed French verse from the conventional language which had prevailed for a considerable period. Unfortunately his own style found imitators, and ended in becoming as conventional in his own hands and those of his imitators as that which it displaced.—J. A., D.

DELINIERS, Jacques Antoine Marie, viceroy of Buenos Ayres, was born in 1756. He entered the navy at an early age, and, on attaining the rank of captain, was sent on a mission to Algiers, and afterwards to South America, where he distinguished himself by the capture in 1807 of Buenos Ayres, which had been seized by the English. In the following year he added greatly to his reputation by a successful defence of this place against an expedition commanded by Generals Whitelocke and Auchmuty, and he was rewarded by the appointment from the king of Spain of brigadier of his armies. South America became unsettled, and the people began now to aspire after independence. Deliniers, who resolutely supported the royal cause, assembled an army of two thousand men, and offered a strenuous resistance to the designs of the revolutionary junto, but his undisciplined and ill-armed forces were dispersed, and himself taken prisoner and shot, 26th August, 1810.—J. T.

DELISLE, Guillaume, was born at Paris on the 28th February, 1675, son of Claude Delisle, an historiographer and geographer of some eminence in his day. He early developed a great geographical talent, and was one of the first to turn to account, in chartography, the accumulated observations of astronomers. His published maps amounted to upwards of one hundred sheets, and he contributed several valuable papers to the Recueil of the Académie des Sciences, of which he was a member. Louis XV. took lessons in geography from him, and in 1718 created for him the post of premier géographe du roi. He died suddenly of apoplexy at Paris on the 25th January, 1726. Fontenelle has written his éloge.—F. E.

DELISLE, Joseph Nicolas, brother of the foregoing, and second son of Claude, born at Paris on the 4th April, 1688, early distinguished himself by a successful zeal for astronomical observation, which procured him admission to the Academy of Sciences, and the friendship of Newton and Halley. In 1726 he proceeded, on the invitation of the Empress Catherine, to St. Petersburg, where he remained for twenty-one years, teaching his science, amassing observations, and occasionally publishing their results. He returned to France in 1747, and after a time was appointed astronomical geographer to the navy; the king having bought his collections and intrusted them to his care, attaching a salary to the custodiership. He died at Paris on the 11th September, 1768; and Lalande, who had been his pupil, wrote a eulogy of him in the Nècrologie des Homines Célébrés. The most important of his works is "Memoires sur les Nouvelles découvertes au nord de la mer du sud."—F. E.

DELISLE, Rouget. See Lisle.

DELLIUS, Quintus, a Roman historian and statesman, lived about 50 b.c. On the assassination of Julius Cæsar, he declared himself for Dolabella. Shortly after he took part with Cassius, and finally joined Antony, by whom he was sent on a mission to Cleopatra. In 34, when Antony was preparing to invade Armenia, Dellius was sent before him to reassure Artavasdes and to hoodwink him by deceitful promises. After the battle of Actium he abandoned the cause of Antony, as he had successively abandoned Dolabella and Cassius. From that period his name disappears from history. Dellius was the author of an account of the expedition of Antony against the Parthians, but it has completely perished.—J. T.

DELLON, C., a French physician, born in 1649. The reading of books of travel inspired him with a desire to see foreign countries. He embarked in 1668 for Madagascar, whence, after a year, he passed to India. There he incurred the displeasure of the jesuits, who condemned him to five years' servitude in the Portuguese galleys. He was liberated on his arrival at Lisbon, and returned to France.—R. M., A.

DELOLME, Jean Louis, born at Geneva in 1740; died in Switzerland, 1807. Brought up to the profession of the law, he early distinguished himself as a politician, and published a work "Examen de Trois parts des Droits," in consequence of which he found it necessary to leave Geneva. Taking refuge in England, he applied himself to acquiring a knowledge of the laws and constitution of that country, and wrote several works, by which he with difficulty supported himself. Of these the only one now read, and on which his reputation is founded, is the treatise on the "Constitution of England." Though it is not remarkable for depth or vigour, it is not wanting in acuteness and perspicuity, and is a remarkable book as coming from a foreigner. It does not maintain its original popularity.—J. F. W.

DELORME, Marion, one of those unhappy women whose cleverness and beauty are a snare to them, was born in 1612 at Chalons in Champagne. At an early age she became the mistress of Cinq Mars, who was put to death for conspiring against Richelieu in the reign of Louis XIII. The scandalous chronicles of the times record her intrigues with other courtiers, and she is said to have visited the cardinal himself in various disguises. Like the ἑταίραι of Athens, she was involved in the politics of her admirers. On one occasion she escaped arrest by announcing her death, while she viewed her own funeral from a window. After many adventures she went to England, married a person of rank, was soon left a widow, returned to France, was attacked by robbers on the way to Paris, and compelled to espouse their captain. Again a widow, she married one Lebrun, and died at Paris in great want in 1706.—T. J.

DELORME, Philibert, was born at Lyons about 1518, and died in 1577. He is one of the most celebrated champions of French architecture. His artistic education, early begun at Lyons, was completed in Rome, where he went when only fourteen years old, and where, for several years, he most ardently and carefully studied the relics of ancient art, showing, by his restoration of various monuments, how truly he had caught the spirit of ancient architecture. Returned to Lyons in 1536, he was carrying out some clever, but not very important labours, when he was called to Paris by Francis I., who, holding him in great esteem, intrusted him with numerous works. At the death of that Pericles of France, his successor, Henry II., and Catherine of Medicis, the regent, continued to Delorme the court favour. Amongst the buildings designed by this great architect, the most remarkable are—the crescent at Fontainebleau, the palaces (chateaux) of Meudon, St. Maur-des-Fossées, Anet, &c. The gateway of the last is the only important relic of these works, and now its finely-proportioned relics grace the school of fine arts of Paris, But the edifice to which the name of Delorme is particularly attached is the well-known palace of the Tuileries, which he began by order of the queen regent. Much of his original plan was subsequently discarded, and even much of what he carried out replaced by other constructions—a circumstance which the beauty of what remains of it in the central and in the lateral pavilions gives full cause to regret. Delorme also designed several tombs for St. Denis, the burial-place of the kings of France, and in carrying them out availed himself of the assistance of Primaticcio, employed by him in several of his other works. After having been director of the royal works under Francis I., Henry II., and the Regent Catherine, he was by the latter named governor of the Tuileries, director of all royal buildings and manufactures, privy councillor, and abbot of St. Eloy, St. Serge, and of Ivry. His different publications, although now considered as a little too bombastic and prolix, greatly helped to spread the principles of the French Renaissance, of which Delorme incontestably was one of the most eminent and successful apostles.—R. M.

DELORME, Pierre Claude François, a historical painter of modern times, was born in Paris in 1783. He is, perhaps, the best pupil of Girodet, and certainly remarkable for his correctness and purity of design. The pictures he produced whilst completing his studies in Rome met with great success. The "Descent of Christ into Hell," for the cathedral of Nôtre-