campaign as chief of the staff to Marshal Lannes. He was at the battles of Saalfeld, Jena, and Pultsk. In January, 1807, he was on his way to inspect the siege-works of Dantzic and Colberg, when he was taken prisoner in his carriage by some Prussian troopers. Speedily exchanged, he bore a prominent part in the bloody battle of Friedland, and received from the emperor a marshal's baton and the title of Duke of Belluno. After the treaty of Tilsit he was made governor of Berlin. In the autumn of 1808 he commanded a corps in Spain, routed Blake's army, and entered Madrid with Napoleon. Directed to march into Portugal, he defeated General Cuesta, but did not approach the English army until Madrid seemed threatened. He reached Talavera, where he was well beaten by Lord Wellington. Marshal Victor subsequently occupied Seville and invested Cadiz, from which he was recalled in April, 1812, to take a command in the expedition to Russia. He was first set to watch Prussia, then to maintain the communications of the grand army at Moscow and the country west of the Niemen. In the disastrous retreat from Russia Victor kept a good face to the enemy, and fought several engagements with Wittgenstein and others. At the fatal passage of the Beresina he succeeded in silencing several Russian batteries that were causing frightful carnage among the fugitives. Before he reached Germany the corps commanded by the marshal had virtually disappeared. When the emperor had raised another army Victor was sent into Bohemia at the head of the second corps. He did good work at the battle of Dresden (27th August, 1813), and strove desperately against fate in the fierce conflict of Leipsic, which opened to the allies the road to Paris. When France itself became the field of war, the duke of Belluno bravely contested the ground with the invaders for three months. Towards the close of these operations it happened that Victor and his wearied troops reached Montereau later than they ought to have done—a mistake which led to severe losses, and the death before his eyes of the marshal's son-in-law. General Chataux. Napoleon in anger dismissed Victor from his command, and when appealed to by the veteran, poured forth, as was his custom, a torrent of reproaches on the luckless general. The latter reminded the emperor of his many services, but when he came to the recent death of his relative he burst into sobs and exclaimed—"I will take a musket; I have not forgotten my old trade. Victor will take his place in the ranks of the guard!" The emperor was overcome by this touch of nature, and shaking the marshal by the hand, gave him the command of two brigades of the guards. The end, however, was at hand. Napoleon abdicated at Fontainebleau, and the marshal swore allegiance to Louis XVIII., who gave him the command of the second military division. He kept his oath even during the Hundred Days; and having vainly endeavoured to lead a corps from Chalons against the invader from Elba, "the man who," he said in a proclamation, "had tyrannized, desolated, and betrayed France," he joined the royalist court at Ghent. At the second restoration he was appointed president of the commission, whose painful duty it was to judge old companions in arms, and to condemn to death men like Marshal Ney. He filled various important posts after this, and in 1821 was made minister of war, an office he held until the expedition into Spain in 1823, when having incurred the displeasure of the Duc d'Angoulême, he was obliged to resign. At the revolution of 1830 Victor offered his services to Marmont, but they were declined by the dauphin even in that critical moment. Under the sway of Louis Philippe the marshal, though very conservative and royalist, lived in tranquil retirement until his death, which took place on the 1st of March, 1841.—R. H.
VICTOR I., Bishop of Rome at the close of the second century and beginning of the third. Very few particulars of his life are known. His episcopate continued from 194 till 203. During the controversy between the christians of Asia Minor and others respecting the celebration of Easter, he wrote an imperious letter to the Asiatic bishops, admonishing them to follow the example of others as to the time of observing Easter; and when Polycrates of Ephesus replied in their name he separated them from his communion. He wrote several letters on the subject, not now extant. Two spurious epistles bear his name. Victor's intemperate zeal was condemned by Irenæus and others.—S. D.
VICTOR II., a Swabian by birth, was bishop of Eichstadt when chosen to succeed Leo IX. in 1055. His name was Gebhard or Gerhard. Henry III. of Germany, whose friend and adviser he was, was very reluctant to part with him; nor was Victor glad at his elevation. He was, however, received at Rome with great joy. He distinguished himself by his zeal against the prevailing corruption and immorality, as well as by his efforts to suppress errors in doctrine. For this purpose he sent Hildebrand, then a cardinal, into France to put down simony, and to act against the heresy of Berengarius. With all his efforts, however, to abolish the sale of clerical dignities in France and Italy, and to reform the morals of the clergy, he had little success. The emperor, Henry III , sent for him to Germany, but died before his arrival, recommending his young son to the care of one in whom he had such great confidence. Victor succeeded in healing the breach between the empress and some noblemen in the kingdom, by which means he secured the succession to her son. He died on his way back to Rome at Florence in 1057, after a reign of two and a half years, leaving behind him the reputation of a pious and upright man.—S. D.
VICTOR III. (Desiderius) was born at Benevento in 1027, became abbot of the monastery of St. Casino, and succeeded Gregory VII. as pope in 1086. He was most reluctant to leave the solitude of his convent, and had at last to be brought to Rome by the princes of Capua and Solerno under the escort of soldiers, whose arms put him in possession of the greater part of the city. But his opponent the antipope Clement III., and the party of Henry IV. in Rome, did not allow him to stay long there. In a few days he was obliged to leave. At Terracina he laid down all the insignia of office, and returned to his monastery, where he spent a year without molestation. He consented, however, to return to St. Peter's after the antipope had been expelled, and was solemnly consecrated in that sacred edifice. A few days after he returned to Casino, where the affairs of the church continued to occupy his mind. The Saracens then threatened the papal territory. He collected against them an army out of all the Italian states, and sent it forth against the foes, who were defeated in Africa. He also summoned a council at Benevento, at which Guibert the antipope (Clement III.) was excommunicated and deprived of his archbishopric. The decrees of Gregory VII. against the right of investiture by laymen were renewed. Before the end of the council he sickened, and was taken to Casino, where he died 16th September, 1087, after presiding over the church a year and quarter. It is said that he was poisoned.—S. D.
VICTOR IV. (Octavianus), antipope, became a cardinal in 1138, and was chosen pope by the imperial party after Hadrian IV.'s death, in opposition to Alexander III. whom the Sicilian party appointed in 1159. The emperor, Frederick I., called a council at Pavia, and invited both popes to it. Victor, who appeared, was solemnly recognized as the proper vicar of St. Peter, and continued to maintain his ground against his rival till he died at Lucca in 1164.—S. D.
VICTOR AMADEUS I. ascended the throne of Savoy in 1630. The peace of Ratisbon, signed in the same year, had not secured his dominions, for the possession of which France and Spain were contending. By the treaty of Cherasco he regained all save Pinerolo, which Richelieu insisted on retaining to France. The treaty of Millefleurs consecrated this usurpation, and entailed on Savoy a French alliance exceedingly disadvantageous for the welfare of the smaller state. His subjects rebelled; his royal relatives, partisans of Spain, took umbrage; his brother abandoned him, and accepted the command of the Spanish troops; Prince Maurice, cardinal of Savoy, retired to Rome, and the queen mother to Spain. Compelled by Richelieu to join France in her wars against Spain, he was victorious in two battles; then after a rapid illness, suspected to be caused by poison, died in the seventh year of his reign.—[M.]
VICTOR AMADEUS II. seemed but little inclined to follow his brother's crouching servility to France. On the contrary, summoned by Louis XIV. to join his forces to the French army, he allied himself with the confederates of Augsburg, and declared war against France. His people applauded, but Catinat, the French general, defeated him, and stripped him of Saluces, Susa, and later of Nice, Carmagnole, Montmelian, invading the whole of Savoy. To compensate him for his losses, the emperor named him generalissimo of his armies. Once more he tried to recover his rights by an appeal to arms, but vainly; and after Catinat's victory at Marsaille he was compelled to sign a treaty of peace, whereby his possessions were restored, but he was compelled to serve in the French army against Milan; thus illustrating his favourite proverb that "a man must have two strings to his bow."
