Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume X.djvu/379

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LE SUEUR sat in the parliament of 1685. He lost his office of censor at the revolution, and shortly after his mind failed. He wrote a great num- ber of violent political pamphlets, and made many translations, chiefly from the Latin. LE SUEUR, a S. E. county of Minnesota, bounded W. by the Minnesota river, and drained by numerous streams ; area, about 450 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 11,607. It has an undulating surface and fertile soil, and contains a number of small lakes. The St. Paul and Sioux City railroad passes through the W. part. The chief productions in 1870 were 248,609 bushels of wheat, 264,288 of Indian corn, 152,682 of oats, 61,520 of potatoes, 18,652 Ibs. of wool, 320,985 of butter, and 18,510 tons of hay. There were 2,088 horses, 3,695 milch cows, 1,678 working oxen, 5,223 other cattle, 5,233 sheep, and 9,337 swine ; 5 carriage factories, 6 flour mills, and 14 saw mills. Capital, Le Sueur. LESUEl'R, Eustache, a French painter, born in Paris in 1617, died there in 1655. He was a pupil of Vouet, and probably received advice and encouragement from Poussin on his visit to Paris. He assisted Vouet in some works ordered by Cardinal Richelieu, but remained unnoticed. Having married in 1642, he was long obliged to support his family by design- ing frontispieces of books, devotional pictures, <fcc. His masterpiece, " St. Paul healing the Sick by the Imposition of Hands," gained for him the surname of the "French Raphael." His grace of touch and composition is con- spicuous in a series of 19 pictures which he executed in the drawing room of the hotel Lambert, known as le salon des muses; but the peculiar character of his genius is still more thoroughly displayed in the 22 pictures repre- senting the "Life and Death of St. Bruno." See his Vie et ceuvres, by Yitet (Paris, 1849). LESUEUR, Jean Baptiste Ciceron, a French architect, born near Rambouillet, Oct. 5, 1794. He won the Roman prize at the school of fine arts in 1819, and spent several years in Italy. Returning to Paris, he designed the parish church of Vincennes (1828-'30), and subse- quently was associated with Godde in enlarging the hotel de ville. In 1846 he was admitted to the institute, and in 1852 became professor in the school of fine arts. In 1857 he com- pleted the conservatory of music at Geneva. He has written, among other works, Chrono- logic des rois d^Egypte, which received an academical prize in 1846, and was published at the expense of the government (1848-'50). LE SI Kill, Jean Francois, a French composer, born at Drucat-Blessiel, near Abbeville, Feb. 15, 1760, died near Paris, Oct. 6, 1837. He was educated in Amiens, where he acquired A con- siderable knowledge of the theory of music, and at 26 years of age was appointed chapel- master of Notre Dame in Paris. In 1795 he became one of the inspectors of studies in the conservatory; in 1804 chapelmaster to Napo- leon, which office he held until the restoration ; and in 1814 royal director of music and chapel- LETRONNE 373 master. He is the author of five operas very celebrated in their day: La caverne (1793), Paul et Virginia (1794), Telemaque (1796), Les Gardes (1804), and La mort d^Adam (1809). He also wrote, in connection with Persuis, L* Inauguration du temple de la Victoire (1807), and Le triomphe de Trajan (1807); and he was the author of more than 30 masses, oratorios, and sacred compositions, besides a highly esteemed work on the music adapted to sacred solemnities. LESZCZYNSKI. See STANISLAS I. LESZCZYNSKI. LETCHER, an E. county of Kentucky, bor- dering on Virginia, bounded S. E. by the Cum- berland mountains, and drained by the head waters of the Kentucky river ; area, about 300 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 4,608, of whom 129 were colored. The surface is mountainous, and the soil fertile in the valleys. The chief produc- tions in 1870 were 4,656 bushels of wheat, 124,478 of Indian corn, 10,744 of oats, 11,167 of potatoes, 6,582 Ibs. of tobacco, 10,631 of wool, 44,596 of butter, and 10,444 of flax. There were 736 horses, 1,592 milch cows, 3,102 other cattle, 6,444 sheep, and 8,844 swine. Capital, Whitesburg. LETHE, in Grecian mythology, the personi- fication of oblivion, called by Hesiod a daughter of Eris. It was also a stream of silver clearness in Hades, from which the shades drank forget- fulness of their earthly life, or at least of all their sorrows. According to Virgil, also, those souls destined to return to new bodies on earth drank of its waters, in order to forget Elysium. LETO. See LATONA. LETROME, Antoine Jean, a French archaeolo- gist, born in Paris, Jan. 25, 1787, died there, Dec. 14, 1848. From the age of 14 he supported his mother and aided his brother to complete his studies as a painter ; and while yet a youth became well known among the learned by his numerous restitutions of disputed passages in classic writers. In 1810-'12 he travelled in France, Italy, and Switzerland, and after his return his edition of the work of Dicuil on the measurement of the earth, and an article on the Pausanias of Clavier, caused him to be chosen by government to complete the trans- lation of Strabo, begun by Laporte-Dutheil. He was appointed inspector general of the university in 1819, and professor of history in the college de France in 1831. In 1832 he be- came keeper of antiquities in the royal library. In 1838 he was appointed administrator of the college de France and professor of archaeology, and in 1840 succeeded Daunou as keeper of the archives of the kingdom. He distinguished himself by his refutation of the assertions of Dupuis and others relative to the "zodiacs" discovered at Esne and Denderah, in which he showed that, instead of belonging to an incon- ceivably remote antiquity, they were no older than the days of the Caesars. His great work, the Becueil des inscriptions grecques et latines de VEgypte (2 vols. 4to, Paris, 1842, 1848), was unfinished at the time of his death.