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VENEDEY office of papal legate in France. III. Louis Joseph, duke de, a French general, son of the preceding, born in Paris, July 1, 1654, died at Tifiaroz, Catalonia, June 11, 1712. He was first known as the duke de Penthievre, entered the array in 1672, distinguished himself in Alsace under Turenne and in Flanders under Crequi, and became governor of Provence in 1681. He distinguished himself at the battles of Steenkirk, Aug. 3, 1692, and Marsaglia, Oct. 4, 1693. In 1694 he became " general of the galleys," and in 1695 chief commander in Ca- talonia. In 1697 he besieged Barcelona, de- . feated the Spanish army which attempted to relieve the city, and forced it to surrender, Aug. 10; but in the same year it was restored to Spain in accordance with the treaty of Eys- wick. On the breaking out of the war of the Spanish succession, he was, after the cap- ture of Marshal Villeroi in Cremona, placed in command of the French army in Italy, and arrested the progress of Prince Eu- gene ; but he was overtaken by his opponent at Luzzara, August, 1702, and saved himself from a disastrous defeat only by his gen- eralship and intrepidity. After a fruitless at- tempt to reach Germany through Tyrol, he returned to Piedmont, where he took several strongholds, and defeated Prince Eugene at Cassano (1705), and Keventlow at Calcinato (1706). After the battle of Ramillies he was called to Flanders to command the French, army under the grandson of Louis XIV., the duke of Burgundy ; hampered in his movements by those who surrounded the young prince, he could not prevent the junction of Marlbo- rough and Eugene, failed to effect a junction with Berwick, and was defeated at Oudenarde (1708). Disgusted with the treatment he re- ceived, and feeling that he had lost the confi- dence of the king and was hated by Mme. de Maintenon, he retired from active service. In 1710 Philip V. of Spain, deserted by Louis XIV., his grandfather, who was now scarcely able to defend himself, asked that Vendome should be sent to his assistance. The old warrior went at once to Valladolid, gathered crowds of volunteers, inspired the adherents of Philip with new confidence, and brought him back to his capital ; then he defeated and captured at Brihuega an English corps under Stanhope, and finally won at Villaviciosa, Dec. 10, 1710, a decisive victory over the Austrian general Stahremberg, which firmly established Philip on his throne. He was completing the conquest of Catalonia when he died suddenly. VENEDEY, Jakob, a German author, born in Cologne, May 24, 1805, died near Badenweiler, Feb. 8, 1871. He studied at Bonn and Hei- delberg, and was employed in his father's law office at Cologne till 1832, when his work on juries and his participation in the Hambach festival caused him to be imprisoned ; but he escaped to France, and in 1835 established in Paris a monthly periodical, which resulted in his expulsion, and having returned he was VENEEK 289 again expelled in 1837. He retired to Havre, and was only permitted to reside in the capital after the appearance in 1840 of one of his works which was favorably received by the French academy, and caused Arago and Mi- gnet to interfere in his behalf. In 1848 he re- turned to Germany, and became a member of the Frankfort parliament and of the rump parliament at Stuttgart. Subsequently he was expelled from Berlin and Breslau, and resided chiefly at Bonn till 1853, when he became a lecturer at the university of Zurich. In 1855 he returned to Germany. He first published in French, then in German, Romerthum, Chris- tenthum, Germanenthum (Frankfort, 1840). His other works include Irland (Leipsic, 1844) ; England (1845) ; Das siidliche Frankreich (Frankfort, 1846); OeschicJite des deutschen Voiles (4 vols., Berlin, 1854-'62) ; and biogra- phies of Hampden (1843), Washington (1862), Franklin (1863), and Stein (1868). VENEER, a thin sheet of wood or other ma- terial used to give an exterior finish to articles of cabinet or other work, the body of which is of cheaper material. The art of veneering is not modern ; according to Pliny it was intro- duced about his time. Veneers were formerly cut with thin hand and pit saws, from blocks of wood. In 1806 Mr. Brunei patented a method of splitting them from straight-grained wood, but curved and knotted wood required to be sawed. Circular saws replaced the old straight saws. Veneer is now sawed by very thin reciprocating gang saws, which work with so much precision as to saw very wide strips as thin as cardboard. The work is done in establishments usually connected with saw mills. The cabinetmaker in applying the veneer roughens one surface, that the glue may hold it firmly to the body of the work. The outer surface of the veneer is af- terward dressed with planes and scrapers, and polished with sandpaper and brushes or pum- ice. Veneers of ivory and of bone are used for some purposes ; and in Paris a pianoforte has been entirely covered with a single sheet of ivory cut in a spiral from an elephant's tusk. The manufacturer advertised to supply such sheets 150 in. long and 30 in. wide. In the United States department of the great ex- hibition of 1851 there was a veneer of this kind 40 ft. long and 12 in. wide. The inlaying of thin strips of wood or veneers in wood of other colors has been treated in the article BUHL WOBK. A remarkable variety of veneer- ing has been introduced into the United States, called " pressed work." Any number of ve- neers are laid together, the grain of each one at right angles to that of the adjacent layers, and all after being well saturated with glue are strongly compressed until the whole is united in one mass. For curved work the pressure is applied upon the mass placed while hot in moulds. By this method the backs of chairs are made in graceful curves and of great strength, the crossing of the grain preventing