Bonaparte erased his name from all the lists. He then returned to commercial pursuits, and became involved in difficulties in consequence of the failure of a local bank of which he was governor. In 1815 he visited London to recover sums which he had deposited in the Bank of England during the peace of Amiens, and he returned to France with much valuable information concerning the banks and other economical institutions of this country, which he afterwards turned to good account in several publications. Having spent his latter years peaceably in such occupations, he died, October 14, 1829. Besides several works on the financial affairs of France, he wrote an "Examination of the Views of Robert Owen," and a "Letter to the Abbé Sicard on his method of instructing deaf mutes."—G. BL.
LAFITAU, Pierre François, a French bishop, born at Bordeaux in 1685, studied among the jesuits. Dubois sent him to Rome as chargé d'affairs, and in 1719 he was consecrated bishop of Sisteron. He was employed by Dubois, who was ambitious of a cardinal's hat, in several affairs which were creditable to neither. Thus when the French cardinals were sent to Rome to elect a successor to Clement XI., Lafitau impudently and openly proposed to bribe the conclave, and to confer the tiara upon the cardinal who was willing to bestow the coveted hat upon Dubois. From first to last Lafitau appears as a man utterly destitute of principle, but he was crafty and intriguing. He died at Sisteron in 1764. The most popular of his works was his "History of the Constitution Unigenitus," which was several times printed. Besides this, he published a volume of sermons, a life of Clement XI., and several works of a devotional character.—B. H. C.
LAFONTAINE, August Heinrich Julius, a prolific and popular German novelist, born at Brunswick in 1759. He studied theology, became a chaplain in the Prussian army, and at the peace of Basle obtained a place in the university of Halle, where he remained till his death in 1831. His works, which numbered about two hundred volumes in all, enjoyed great but transient popularity. The sentimentalism which pleased his contemporaries was nauseous to their posterity. He also published in his old age two of the dramas of Æschylus, with notes. He died in 1831.—R. H.
LA FONTENELLE, Armand Desiré de, a French archæologist, born 24th April, 1784; died 12th February, 1847. His writings are principally connected with his own province of Poitou, but are not on that account less worthy of attention. Under the title of "Revue Anglo-Française," he published twenty-eight numbers of a work on the historical connection of Aquitaine and Normandy with England.—P. E. D.
LAGARAYE, Claude-Toussaint Marot, Comte de, a French nobleman, eminently distinguished by his labours in the cause of philanthropy, was born at Rennes in 1675, and died in 1755. He studied medicine and chemistry at Paris with the view of enabling him to contribute to the alleviation of human suffering; and in 1736 he published "Recueil alphabetique des pronostics dangereux sur les differents maladies de l'homme" for the use of country curates, and others. He wrote also a chemical work, in which he described some new and useful medicines discovered by himself. He spent his whole life and fortune in founding schools, hospitals, &c., and was ably assisted by his wife in his philanthropic exertions.—G. BL.
LAGASCA, Don Mariano, an eminent Spanish botanist, was born at Arragon in 1781, and died at Barcelona on 23rd June, 1839. At an early age he was sent to the gymnasium of Tarragona, and he afterwards went to Madrid to prosecute medical studies. He there became acquainted with Cavanilles, the professor of botany, and was induced to devote himself to that science. In 1822 he was returned deputy to the cortes for his native province; and when the constitutional government was overthrown in November, 1823, he was compelled to flee. He went first to Gibraltar, and then to Britain. Here he gained many friends, and carried on his botanical studies. He cultivated a large number of Spanish cerealia in the Apothecaries' garden at Chelsea. He subsequently returned to Spain, and died in Catalonia. His remains were honoured with a public funeral. He published an account of the Spanish flora, of the plants in the Madrid garden, and observations on the natural orders umbelliferæ, dipsacacæ, and compositæ.—J. H. B.
LAGNY, Thomas Fantet de, a French mathematician, was born at Lyons in 1660, and died in Paris on the 12th of April, 1734. He studied at first with a view to the profession of the law, and occupied his leisure only with mathematics; but his ability in that science attracted the notice of the Abbé Bignon, through whose influence he was appointed professor of hydrography at Rochefort. His diffidence was so great that it was with some difficulty that he was induced to accept that office; and he was only induced to do so on the condition of being permitted to make a voyage at sea, in order to study navigation practically. In 1716 the regent duke of Orleans gave him the appointment of sub-director of the Banque générale, on the failure of which scheme he returned to his former pursuits. He wrote a series of elementary mathematical treatises of great merit, and some essays on the solution of problems and the theory of equations.—W. J. M. R.
LAGOMARSINI, Geronimo, an erudite Italian writer and professor, born in Spain in 1698, and died at Rome in 1773. He removed to Italy in his youth, and studied at Prato. In 1721 he was appointed tutor of a college at Arezzo, whence he went to Rome to continue his studies, but returned to Arezzo, where he remained till 1732, when he was called to a professorship at Florence. This post he relinquished twelve years later, in order to give himself entirely to the preparation of an edition of Cicero, which he never accomplished. In 1751 he accepted a professorship at Rome, which he retained till his death. Lagomarsini has the reputation of being a profound Latin scholar, and a minute and careful critic. He wrote in Italian and in Latin a number of works, some of which were of temporary interest, but others of permanent value. His edition of Cicero's oration In Pisonem, with various readings, is curious; and his edition of the orations and epistles of Julius Poggianus is excellent for its learned notes. Some of his writings are in verse.—B. H. C.
LAGRANGE, Joseph Louis, one of the greatest of mathematicians, was born at Turin on the 25th of January, 1736, and died in Paris on the 10th of April, 1813. His father, who was of French descent, held a government office at Turin. Joseph Louis was the eldest of eleven children, of whom himself and the youngest alone lived to maturity. He was educated at the college of Turin, where for the first year he gave his mind chiefly to classical studies, and did not, until the second year, show any marked ability in mathematics; and then he at first confined his attention to the ancient geometry. At the age of seventeen, however, he began to study the modern analysis with extraordinary zeal and success, as was shown by his publishing in 1754 the series known by his name for approximating to differentials and integrals of any order; in 1755 some researches which laid the foundation of the calculus of variations; and in 1756 a demonstration of the so-called "principle of the least action," as applied to any system of bodies whatsoever. He became soon afterwards one of the founders of the Academy of Turin. In 1759 he became a member of the Berlin Academy; and between that time and 1766 he published some important investigations on subjects connected with physical astronomy, such as the libration of the moon, the planetary theory, and the theory of Jupiter's satellites. In 1766, by the invitation of Frederick the Great, he went to Berlin to become director of the mathematical division of the Academy, in the place of Euler, who had gone to St. Petersburg. In the course of twenty years he contributed sixty scientific papers to the Memoirs of the Berlin Academy. After the death of King Frederick, he went by the invitation of Louis XVI. to Paris, where in 1787 he became a member of the Academy of Sciences. It is said that this invitation and its acceptance were brought about by the influence of Mirabeau, who had known Lagrange in Berlin. In 1786 he had completed his first and greatest separate work, the "Mécanique Analytique," one of the most remarkable monuments of human genius. It was edited by Legendre, and published in 1787. It would be impossible here to give an analysis of the contents or plan of that work; but it may be stated, that it is pervaded by one master idea—the reduction of all mechanical questions to the principle which in one shape is called that of virtual velocities, and in another shape that of the conservation of moments—the word "moment" being used to denote the product of a force into the magnitude of the change which it tends to produce. The extension of this idea by later inquirers from questions of equilibrium and motion to those of physical phenomena of all kinds, has given rise to the theories embraced under the terms of "conservation of energy," or "correlation of physical forces," or "energetics." For some time after the
