he reaped his reward in being sent ambassador to Constantinople in 1755. There, in a position of considerable difficulty, he discharged the duties of his office with his usual wisdom; for there can be little doubt that the neutrality to which he counselled Turkey—in opposition to the wishes of his own government, who sought to plunge her in hostilities with Russia—was the more prudent course. Vergennes, however, was recalled, and chance effected a declaration of war between the two powers. Subsequently Vergennes was nominated ambassador at the court of Sweden; and it was during his sojourn there that Gustavus III. achieved the bloodless but extraordinary revolution of 1772. When, in 1774, Louis XVI. ascended the French throne, Vergennes became minister for foreign affairs, a post he retained until the end of his life. His labours in this capacity were manifold and important. He died on the 13th February, 1787. Vergennes, while a skilled and successful diplomatist, was marked by integrity of character, and he was a faithful servant of his native country.—J. J.
VERGERIO, Pier Paolo, the elder, author, born at Capo d'Istria about 1349; died in Hungary perhaps in 1431, having been afflicted with intermittent madness towards the end of his life. Well-born but poor, he became professor of dialectics in Florence and Padua; distinguished himself as a lawyer; was attached to Francesco (subsequently Cardinal) Zabarella, first as a pupil, afterwards as an intimate friend; and in his company attended the council of Constance. Vergerio wrote a "History of the Princes of the House of Carrara," which commences with the founding of that family; a book, "De ingenuis moribus," much admired in its day; a life of Petrarca; and various other compositions, published and unpublished.—C. G. R.
VERGERIO, Pier Paolo, the younger (of the same family as the elder), a protestant controversial writer, born at Capo d'Istria about the commencement of the sixteenth century; died at Tübingen, 4th of October, 1565. Successively papal nuncio, ambassador of France, bishop of Capo d'Istria, refugee in the country of the Grisons, and minister of religion both there and in the Valtelline; having conferred with Luther, fled from the inquisition, and found a final resting-place in the territory of Wirtemburg; he has left various writings which record his enmity against the Roman see. Amongst the chief are—"Ordo eligendi pontificis;" "Quomodo concilium Christianum debeat esse liberum;" and "Operum adversus papatum," tom. i.—C. G. R.
VERGNIAUD, Pierre Victorin, a celebrated orator, and one of the leaders of the Girondist party, was born at Limoges in 1759. His father was an advocate, and he himself was of the same profession, which he followed at Bordeaux, where he was leader of the bar. In 1791 he was elected deputy to the legislative assembly by the department of the Gironde. At first Vergniaud was devoted to ease and pleasure; but he soon shook off his sloth, and became the head of his party in eloquence and vigour. In the first sittings of the legislative assembly he signalized himself by the violence of his attacks on monarchy; he also seconded the motions of Couthon and Chabot, that the words "sire" and "majesté" should be abolished. He proposed the confiscation of the goods and suppression of the possessions and rights of the emigrés, and denounced the priesthood. Amongst the ultra-Girondists he was one of the most ardent and eloquent, but he was hated by the Jacobins, who suspected him of being in secret communication with the king. Vergniaud has also been falsely accused of having demanded large sums for the monarch, but on all occasions his conduct seems to have been disinterested. He defended the king in the debates which took place before his trial, and that event inspired him with his most brilliant eloquence. Nevertheless he voted for the king's death, presided over the assembly on the day of his condemnation, and pronounced sentence upon him. When the Girondist party was overthrown by the Jacobins, Vergniaud, with other members of his party, was tried and sentenced to death. He was executed on the 31st of October, 1793, aged thirty-five.—W. J. P.
VERHEYEN, Philippus, anatomist and physician, was born at Verbrouck in the province of Waas in 1648. He was the son of an agricultural labourer, and himself worked in the fields until he was twenty-two. At that time his intelligence attracted the notice of the parish priest, who offered to teach him Latin. Verheyen's teacher was so satisfied with his progress, that at the end of two years he procured him admission into the college of the Holy Trinity at Louvain. After studying there for five years Verheyen obtained, in 1677, the highest place in the general examination of the four chief colleges. At that time it was his intention to make theology his chief pursuit, but a disease of his leg which necessitated amputation turned his thoughts in the direction of medicine; and on recovering he adopted it as his profession. He obtained a licentiate's degree in 1681, and after eight years' further study was appointed professor of anatomy at Louvain in 1689. The professorship of surgery was added in 1693. He did not take his doctor's degree until 1695. As an anatomical teacher he obtained great success, and his work, "Anatomia Corporis Humani," was widely used as a text book, and frequently reprinted. The first volume was published at Louvain in 1693; the second did not appear until after his death. The latter contains some physiological experiments, and a defence of the doctrine of the circulation. Verheyen died in 1710. Besides his anatomy, he published "Dissertatio de Thymo," 4to, Louvain, 1706; "Compendium Theoriæ Practicæ," 8vo, Cologne, 1683; "Vera Historia de Sanguine ex Oculis, Auribus, Naribus," &c., 12mo, Louvain, 1708. At his death he was engaged on a work, "De Tuendâ, Valetudine."—F. C. W.
VERMUYDEN, Sir Cornelius, Knight, the engineer, was born at St. Martin's Dyke, in the island of Tholen, in Zeeland, probably towards the close of the seventeenth century. Well-born and well-educated, he was trained as an engineer in a country where embanking was a necessary art. In 1621 he was invited to England to repair a breach in the embankment of the Thames, near Dagenham; and being afterwards employed in draining the royal park at Windsor, he attracted the favourable notice of James I. In 1626 he contracted with the crown for the drainage of the royal chase at Hatfield, forming a company of Dutch capitalists to supply the funds, and for his energy in conducting the operations he was knighted in 1629 by Charles I. Soon afterwards he undertook the drainage of the large district now known as the great Bedford level. When the funds of the principal promoter of the scheme, Francis, earl of Bedford, were exhausted, Vermuyden raised the money to pay the workmen, and had many thousands of acres conveyed to him as security. In 1642 he published "A Discourse on the Drainage of the Fens," &c., showing what remained to be done. In 1649 he resumed operations, and in 1652 he could point to forty thousand acres available either for tillage or pasture, and reclaimed by his exertions. To carry the operations to a close he had sold most of the lands conveyed to him; and when all was over heavy pecuniary claims were preferred against him. It is supposed that about 1666 he went abroad, and died "a poor broken-down old man, the extensive lands which he had reclaimed and owned having been conveyed to strangers," says Mr. Smiles in his Lives of the Engineers, the first volume of which contains a full and interesting account of Vermuyden and his work.—F. E.
VERNET: the name of three distinguished French painters.—Claude Joseph Vernet, the eldest, was born at Avignon in 1714. He was instructed by his father, Antoine, and going to Italy in 1732, devoted himself to landscape and marine painting; and after twenty years of labour and poverty, eventually succeeded in establishing a reputation, and in attracting the notice of his own countrymen. Louis XV. invited him to France in 1752, and he was elected a member of the French Academy in the following year; he was in the same year commissioned by the government to paint views of the seaports of France—fifteen of which views are now in the Louvre. He died at Paris, where he had apartments in the Louvre, in 1789. The Louvre possesses a large collection of his works.—Antoine Charles Horace Vernet, commonly called Carle Vernet, the son of Claude Joseph, was born at Bordeaux in 1758, and having gained the travelling pension, he also studied in Italy. He painted battles, and small pictures in various styles; but was chiefly distinguished for his horses, and for paintings of two of Napoleon's great victories—the "Battle of Marengo," 1804; and the "Morning of the Battle of Austerlitz," exhibited in 1808, and for which the emperor decorated him with the cross of the legion of honour. Carle Vernet was also a member of the Institute, and a chevalier of the order of St. Michel. He died in Paris, November 17, 1835. Not the least of his distinctions is that of having been the father and the teacher of the greatest of battle-painters, Emile Jean Horace Vernet, who was born in Paris on the 30th of June, 1789. Such was his ability, that he maintained himself by his drawings, when still a boy, from fifteen years of age; yet he failed to gain the travelling pension of the French Academy.
