Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume X.djvu/98

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92 LAEMLEIN B. C., died about 115. He was tribune of the people in 151, prsetor in 145, and consul in 140. Before his consulship he was assigned the province of Lusitania, and conducted a success- ful campaign against the formidable guerilla chief Viriathus. At the beginning of his po- litical career Laelius inclined to that party which sought to raise the masses to the condition of landed proprietors ; but the excitement and violence occasioned by the measures of the elder Gracchus so alarmed him that he with- drew from the popular side, and supported the aristocracy. In 132 he aided the consuls against the partisans of Tiberius Gracchus, and in 130 he opposed the passing of the Papirian roga- tion. For his course in that period, his friends and faction honored him with the cognomen of Sapiens, or the Wise. In common with the younger Scipio, he had early applied himself to the language and learning of Greece, and had imbibed the doctrines of the Stoics from Diogenes of Babylon and Pansetius. He is the Laelius of Cicero's De Amicitia, De Senectute, and De Eepublica. LAEMLEIN, Alexandra, a French paititer, born at Hohenfeld, Bavaria, Dec. 9, 1813. He went to Paris in his 10th year, to live with his uncle Alexandre Laemlein, the author of a cyclopae- dia of chess, and became a naturalized French citizen in 1848, and professor of drawing at the special school of design in 1855. His works include many historical portraits at Versailles, and many large paintings, as " The Chastity of Joseph," "The Awakening of Adam," and " Tabitha resuscitated by St. Peter." The last was purchased by the government for the church of Saint Pierre de Gobert near Agen, where it has become a shrine for pilgrims. His " Charity," " Jacob's Ladder," and " Vision of Zacharias" are all powerful paintings, which were much admired at the exhibition of 1855. Among his later works are "Music" (1852), " Diana and Endymion" (1857), "Job " (185V), "The Love of Angels" (1863), "Orpheus" (1866), and "Hope "(1868). LAEMEC, Rene Theodore Hyacinthe, a French physician, born in Quimper, Brittany, Feb. 17, 1781, died there, Aug. 13, 1826. In 1800 he went to Paris, and attached himself to the clini- cal school of the charity hospital, then directed by Corvisart. He obtained the degree of M. D. in 1814, and became principal editor of the Journal de Medecine. In 1816 he was appoint- ed chief physician of the Necker hospital, where he soon after discovered mediate auscultation ; and in 1819 he published his Traite de V aus- cultation mediate et des maladies des poumons et du co&ur (translated by Dr. Forbes of Chi- chester). In 1821 he was appointed professor of medicine in the college de France, but ill health soon compelled him to resign. LAER, or Laar, Pieter Tan. See BAMBOCCIO. LAFARGE, Marie Cappelle, a French woman notorious for her condemnation as a poisoner born at Villers-Hellon, Aisne, in 1816, died at Ussat, a watering place in the Pyrenees, Nov. LAFAYE 7, 1852. She belonged to a good family, and was accustomed to all the refinements of Pari- sian life. In 1838 she married Pouch-Lafarge, an owner of iron works at Glandier, in the department of Correze, who represented him- self as a wealthy country gentleman ; but being disappointed in her expectations, she quarrelled with him and exhibited the utmost rancor to- ward him. After about 16 months her husband was seized with a strange illness, and within a fortnight he died. Strong suspicion fixed upon Madame Lafarge, who, it was proved, had twice purchased arsenic under pretence of killing rats. She was arrested, and when in confine- ment was charged by one of her relations with having stolen a set of diamonds; and these having been found in her possession, she was sentenced to two years' imprisonment (April, 1840). Not daunted by this, she represented herself as the victim of a deep-laid conspiracy, and declared her innocence of both robbery and poisoning. The public at home and abroad became interested in her case. She secured the services of three eminent advocates; and the evidence against her was so slight that a verdict of acquittal was cpnfidently expected, when the celebrated Orfila, who had made a chemical examination of the body of the de- ceased, reported evidences of poison. Madame Lafarge was found guilty and sentenced to hard labor for life (September, 1840). Public opinion was still divided. The chemist Raspail impugned the report of Orfila, and a bitter controversy ensued. The convict, incarcera- ted at Montpellier, published her Memoires (4 vols. 8vo, 1841-'2), and continued to receive marks of sympathy. After five years of im- prisonment she was permitted to remove to the convent of St. Re"my, and the interest mani- fested in her behalf on account of her failing health contributed to procure her liberation in June, 1852. She removed to Ussat, where she soon died protesting her innocence. Her Heures de prison, containing her thoughts du- ring her confinement, was published after her death (3 vols. 8vo, 1853). LA FARINA, Giuseppe, an Italian author, born in Messina in 1815, died in September, 1863. He early wrote in the liberal interest, and fled from Sicily in 1837; being again molested af- ter his return there in 1839, he resided in Flor- ence till 1848, when he became a member of the Sicilian parliament and cabinet under the republican government, retiring to Turin in 1849. In 1861 he was elected to the Italian parliament as a representative of Palermo, and Kattazzi appointed him president of the na- tional Italian society. His works include illus- trated books of travel, "Souvenirs of Eome and Tuscany," several dramas, and histories of the Sicilian revolution of 1848-'9 (2 vols.) and of Italy from 1815 to 1850 (6 vols.), the latter being his most important publication. LAFAYE, or Lafaist, Prosper, a French painter, born at Mont Saint-Sulpice, Yonne, in 1806. He was at first a landscape and subsequently