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364 LERMONTOFF LEEOUX Ste. Marguerite (anc. Lero), situated opposite Cannes, between Capes Roux and Guaroupe, and a number of islets and shoals. Ste. Mar- guerite, about 2 m. long, is occupied only by a garrison and by fishermen. It contains a castle, used as a state prison, in which "the man in the iron mask " and other famous per- sonages were detained. Marshal Bazaine was imprisoned there in 1873, and escaped in the night of Aug. 9, 1874. Francis I., while on his way to Spain as a prisoner, was confined in a monastery here originally dedicated to Ste. Marguerite. St. Honorat, smaller but much more attractive than Ste. Marguerite, derived celebrity from the earliest abbey of the Gauls, founded here by St. Honoratus, which in the 5th century, under the influence of St. Eucherius, and particularly of St. Maxi- mus, became the principal theological centre of Europe. St. Hilary, St. Lupus, Faustus, and St. Vincent de Lerins were among its eminent abbots. It began to decline at the end of the 6th century, and became the scene of discord at the close of the 7th, when the monks assassinated their abbot. Subsequently it was destroyed by the Saracens, who mas- sacred the inmates ; but it was rebuilt during the middle ages by the Benedictines, and en- dowed with many privileges. Members of the Guise and Bourbon families were among its commendatory abbots in the 16th and 17th centuries. But early in the 18th only a few monks remained at the abbey, which was en- tirely suppressed after the outbreak of the revolution of 1789. LERMONTOFF, Mikhail, a Russian poet, born in October, 1814, killed in a duel in the Cauca- sus in July, 1841. He was of noble birth, and in early manhood became an officer of the im- perial guards. The death of Pushkin in a duel in 1837 seems to have been his first incentive to poetical composition; but his poem com- memorating this event proved so distasteful to the emperor Nicholas, that he struck the name of Lermontoff from the list of officers of the guard, and sent him to serve in the army of the Caucasus, where he remained until his death. During this brief period he composed the greater part of his poems, which have gained for the author the title of the poet of the Caucasus. Among his chief productions are : " The Novice, or the Young Circassian," illustrating the strong love of the Circassians for their native mountains; "The Dream of Valerika;" "Hadj-Abrek," a drama; "Ismail Bey;" "The Demon," published in Berlin in 1857 ; and the " Song of the Czar Ivan Vasilie- vitch." Most of these were collected at St. Petersburg after his death. A third edition of them was published there in 1852, and in the same year a German translation by Bo- denstedt appeared in Berlin. During his resi- dence in the Caucasus Lermontoff also wrote a remarkable novel entitled "A Hero of our Time." A fellow officer, feeling himself por- trayed in it, challenged and killed him. LERO (anc. Leros), a small island of the Gre- cian archipelago, belonging to the Sporades, lying off the W. coast of Asia Minor, about 30 m. S. of Samos; length about 9 m., average breadth 4 m. ; pop. about 3,000. The surface is rocky and mountainous, but the soil is fertile in parts, producing fruits, wheat, maize, &c. The island is famous for its honey. The prin- cipal pla*ce is a town of the same name on the E. coast, and there is a commodious harbor, called Partheni, on the N. side. It is the seat of a Greek bishop, and has a castle and con- siderable trade. The earliest inhabitants of the island were a colony of Milesians. Strabo describes the Lerians as dishonest. They had a celebrated temple of Diana. LEROT. See DORMOUSE. LEROUX, Pierre, a French socialist, born in Paris in 1798, died there, April 12, 1871. Af- ter studying several years in the college of Rennes and in the polytechnic school of Paris, he became a compositor and afterward proof reader in a printing office, and in 1824 was selected to be one of the editors of the Globe, a philosophical and literary journal, the or- gan of the doctrinaire party, having for col- laborators De Broglie, Guizot, Jouffroy, and Cousin. The revolution of 1830 dispersed the editorial corps, and Leroux, who had zealously embraced Saint-Simonism, effected the trans- formation of the Globe into the organ of his new doctrines. He separated from Enfantin in 1831 on the question of the emancipation of woman, and with Jean Reynaud he edited for three years (1832-'5) the Revue Encyclo- pedique, which they made the organ of their Neo-Saint-Simonism, but which failed of suc- cess. They began in 1838 the Encyclopedic nouvelle, which still remains incomplete. He furnished numerous philosophical articles to the Revue des Deux Mondes during the first six or seven years of the reign of Louis Philippe. In 1840 appeared his most important work, De Vhumanite, de son principe et de son avenir. In 1841 he founded, with Viardot and George Sand, the Revue Independante. In 1845 he founded a printing establishment at Boussac, in Creuse, and published two journals and numerous pamphlets. He proclaimed the re- public there after the revolution of 1848, and was chosen mayor of his commune. The same year he was elected to the national assembly, where he voted constantly with the radical party. But the arena of practical politics was unsuited to his mind. He left France after the coup d'etat of Dec. 2, 1851, and established himself on a farm in the island of Jersey. The general amnesty of 1860 permitted his return to France, but he made his home at Lausanne till 1869, when he went back to Paris. His various works contain a complete philosophy of life, embracing on the one side religious and metaphysical doctrines that incline to mysti- cism, and on the other a system of social or- ganization. Besides the works which have been mentioned, his principal publications are :