Elvire; and inducing both her and her husband to visit France in his company, the party set sail in an English ship bound from Civita Vecchia to Toulon. Not far from Nice, however, the vessel was captured by corsairs; and Regnard, who had fought gallantly in a contest which was fatal to the English captain, was carried with his companions to Algiers. Their adventures whilst in captivity were afterwards related by Regnard in a charming novellette called "La Provençale," in which he narrates, with much sprightliness, his experiences as cook to a certain Achmet Talem. Ransomed by the French consul, he took back with him to France the chain he had worn as a slave, and which he now hung up as an ornament to his study. In April, 1681, he set out upon a fresh journey, in the course of which he visited Sweden, Lapland, Hungary, Poland, and Germany. Returning to Paris in 1683, he obtained a lucrative situation under government, and devoted his leisure to literary pursuits. Still passionately addicted to pleasure, he died on 5th September, 1710. Second only to those of Molière, the comedies of Regnard are still well worthy of perusal. The best of them is "Le Joueur," written in 1696, and universally acknowledged to be one of the masterpieces of the French drama. Excellent also in their way are "Le Distrait," "Le Legataire Universel," and "Les Ménechmes." His prose account of his travels is remarkably graphic and interesting.—W. J. P.
REGNAUD, Michel Louis Etienne, known as Regnaud de Saint Jean d'Angely, was born in 1760 at St. Fargeau. His father held a judicial appointment, and he was educated for the bar. Avocat in 1781, he was appointed in the following year to a legal post in connection with the French marine at Rochefort. He was deputed to the states general in 1789, commenced to edit the Journal de Versailles, and in consequence of his connection with the moderate party, of which it was an organ, he ran great risks during the Reign of Terror. After the fall of Robespierre he served with the army of Italy, and at the establishment of the empire gained definitively the confidence and affection of Napoleon, whom he afterwards served with rare fidelity. During the empire he occupied in succession some of the highest posts in the administrative department of government. He died in 1819.—J. S., G.
* REGNAULT, Henri Victor, one of the most eminent chemical and physical inquirers of the present time, was born on the 21st of July, 1810, at Aix-la-Chapelle. He studied at the Polytechnic school and at the School of mines, and entered the corps of government mining engineers, in which he rose to the rank of engineer-in-chief of the second class. In 1840 he became a member of the Academy of Sciences. In 1847 he was appointed professor of chemistry in the Polytechnic school, and of physics in the collège de France; and in 1854 director of the porcelain works of Sèvres. In 1847-49 he published an elementary treatise on chemistry, of high reputation; and since 1835 his various physical and chemical researches have appeared in the Annales de Chimie et de Physique and the Memoirs of the Academy of Sciences. The most important of these are a series of experimental investigations carried on at the expense of the French government, on the elasticity and other mechanical properties of air, steam, and other gases and vapours, in the course of which various physical laws have been for the first time discovered. The first part of those researches appeared in 1847, and they are still in progress.—R.
REGNAULT, Jean Baptiste, Baron, a celebrated French painter, was born at Paris, October 17, 1754; served awhile as cabin-boy on board a merchant vessel; but was noticed by the painter Jean Bardin, who took the youth with him to Rome, and taught him design. Regnault worked hard, and carried off the great prize of the French Academy by his painting of "Alexander and Diogenes." He painted religious, classical, and allegorical subjects in the popular manner of his time. His pencil was very prolific, and he was considered one of the chiefs of the French school; but his manner has now fallen into disesteem. Among the most celebrated of his works were the "Education of Achilles," known by Bewick's fine engraving; "The Descent from the Cross," painted for the chapel of Fontainebleau, but now in the Luxembourg; the "Death of Cleopatra," &c. One of his noted large decorative works was "Napoleon seated on a Triumphal Car," in which at the Bourbon restoration the figure of Napoleon was replaced by that of France. Regnault was elected a member of the Academy in 1795; received the ribbon of the orders of St. Michael and the legion of honour, and was created a baron. He died at Paris, November 12, 1829.—J. T—e.
REGNIER-DESMARAIS or DESMARETS, François Seraphin, French grammarian and litterateur, born at Paris in 1632. He accompanied the duke of Crequi to Rome in 1662 with the title of secretary of embassy; and acquiring a singular mastery over the Italian, wrote some verses in that language, which procured him admission into the Academy Delia Crusca. On his return he became prior of Grammont (1668) and entered into holy orders. In 1670 he was admitted a member, and in 1684 became secretary of the French Academy, of the dictionary published by which society he was one of the principal authors. Regnier published a "Grammaire Française," 1705—a work which was extraordinarily successful; poems in French, Latin, Italian, and Spanish; translations of the first book of the Iliad, and of some of the works of Cicero; and a "History of the Disputes of France with the Court of Rome." Regnier-Desmarets died in 1713.
REGNIER, Mathurin, a French satirist, born at Chartres in 1573; died in 1613. He was a nephew of the poet Desportes, and receiving the tonsure at the age of thirteen, he accompanied the Cardinal de Joyeuse to Rome in 1593, and the Duc de Bethune in 1602. On his return in the latter year he became a canon of Chartres, and received a pension of two thousand livres. Abandoned to all sorts of dissipation, he died at the early age of forty. Regnier was the first French writer who achieved any success as a satirist. Boileau alludes to him in the Art Poetique—
" Heureux si ses discours, craints du chaste lecteur,
Ne se sentaient des lieux où fréquentait l'auteur."
The best editions of his works are those of Viollet le Duc, 1821, and of Lequien, 1822, with the commentary of Brossette.
REGULUS, Marcus Atilius, the Roman hero, was sent as consul in the second Punic war, 256 b.c., to invade Africa. He gained several brilliant victories, took the city of Tunis, and menaced Carthage itself. He refused all reasonable terms of peace, and the Carthaginians, driven to despair and assisted by the counsels of the Spartan general, Xanthippus, gave him battle once more, and gained a complete victory, 255 b.c. After a captivity of five years, Regulus was sent to Rome as a prisoner to offer terms of peace from Carthage, on his promise to return if the treaty was not concluded. The Romans, mainly guided by his advice, rejected the Carthaginian proposals; and Regulus, well knowing the fate that awaited him, heroically kept his promise and returned to Carthage, where his enemies, exasperated at their disappointment, put him to death with cruel tortures. The story of Regulus was a favourite theme with the Roman authors, and forms the subject of one of Horace's most striking compositions. Its authenticity, however, has been much doubted in modern times, and it is pronounced a mere fiction by Niebuhr. There seems, however, nothing improbable in the story itself, while it is perfectly consonant with the ideas and customs of those nations and that age.—G.
REHBERG, Friedrich, a German painter and lithographer, was born at Hanover in 1758. He studied at Rome under R. Mengs, and adopted the eclectic and academic manner of his master. In 1783 he returned to Germany. In 1787 he was nominated professor in the Royal Academy of Berlin; but after a time returned to Rome, where, with the exception of a journey to France and England—where he stayed a year—and a second short residence in Berlin, he remained till 1819, when he removed to Munich. He painted historical and mythological subjects. Among his more noted pictures were the "Death of Abel," painted for the king of Prussia; a Belisarius, &c. From his removal to Munich Rehberg chiefly occupied himself with lithography. He published at Rome in 1794, from his drawings made at Naples, a series of twelve plates by Piroli, of Attitudes of Lady Hamilton—a work he reproduced in lithography at Munich in 1840. Later he published "Raphael Sanzio aus Urbino," in two parts of text and two of lithographs. He also prepared a work on the principles of drawing, but in a fit of ill humour defaced the lithographic stones. He died at Munich in 1835.—J. T—e.
REICHA, Anton, a celebrated musical theorist, was born at Prague in 1770. At a very early age he quitted his native country, and resided with his uncle, Joseph Reicha, chapel master to the elector of Cologne, at Bonn, where he received his education. When still a boy he had an irresistible propensity for music,
