in 1758, the French court wished to obtain a loan of 50,000,000 of livres from the Spanish court, the latter would not close the transaction without Laborde's guarantee. Upon this, Laborde was made court banker, and the first minister, Choiseul, gave him his entire confidence. After the fall of this statesman, Laborde retired from the greatest part of his business. At the breaking out of the American revolution, he alone was able to furnish the government 12,000,000 livres in gold, at Brest, which enabled the expedition under Rochambeau to set sail. At a later period, Laborde employed his fortune in useful and splendid buildings. The palaces of St. Ouen (since the property of Mons. Ternaux), of St. Leu (afterwards belonging to the duke of Orleans), of La Ferté Vidame (belonging to the duke of Penthièvre), and that at Méréville, near Paris, were built by him, as well as the finest houses in the Chaussée d'Antin, a street of Paris, which, in his time, was a large garden, belonging to his hotel. He devoted 24,000 francs, yearly, to the support of the poor. Towards the erection of four large hospitals, at Paris (1788), he contributed 400,000 francs. With this truly royal beneficence he combined the most delicate manners. He never spoke of the good he had done, nor suffered those whom he had served to feel oppressed by the obligation. Satisfied in the possession of the love and esteem of his fellow citizens, he declined external marks of distinction. Louis XVI raised his estate of Laborde (his family name was Dort; his ancestors, who, in 1620, had purchased the small domain Laborde, called themselves Dort Laborde) to a marquisate; but he made no use of this title. During the period of terror, Laborde lived in retirement on his estate at Méréville, but, like Malesherbes and Lavoisier, who resembled him in nobleness of character, he fell a sacrifice to the fury of the popular leaders. Gendarmes dragged the venerable old man to the tribunal of blood. His whole commune, consisting of 1200, offered to defend their father and benefactor; but he declined it, and exhorted them to keep the peace. These worthy people sent a deputation to the convention, but in vain; the benefactor of thousands fell, at the age of 70 (April 18, 1794), under the guillotine. His crime was being rich. Laborde had four sons. Three of these served in the navy; two accompanied the unfortunate La Peyrouse. They met their death, before the loss of La Peyrouse's vessel, in an act of

heroism, which this navigator relates in the account of his voyage, and for which he had a monument erected to their memory, at Port Francois, on the coast of California. The oldest of these three, after having retired from the navy, was appointed treasurer, and, in 1789, member of the constituent assembly. His reports on the state of the finances were printed by order of the chamber. He died, 1801, a voluntary exile at London.

LABORDE, Alexander Louis Joseph, count de, the youngest son of the preceding, born 1774, at Paris, entered the Austrian service, where, in consequence of a letter from his father to Joseph II, who entertained great esteem for the old Laborde, and had expressed the wish to see one of his sons in his service, he was appointed lieutenant in the regiment Wenzel-Colloredo, and was afterwards removed to the light-horse regiment Kinsky, as captain. Laborde would willingly have served his country in the French revolutionary war, but his name was on the list of emigrants. At that time, while lying wounded at Heidelberg, he made the acquaintance of general Oudinot (who had been taken prisoner by the regiment Kinsky) and others of his countrymen. This strengthened him in his resolution. As soon as the peace of Campo-Formio was concluded, he left the Austrian service, and obtained the erasure of his name from the list of emigrants. On his return to France, he devoted himself to science, made a journey to England, Holland, Italy and Spain, and, on his return, published his splendid work, Voyage pittoresque et historique de l'Espagne (4 vols., fol.); his Itinéraire de l'Espagne (5 vols.); his Description of the Collection of Greek Vases belonging to Count Lamberg; his Voyage pittoresque en Autriche (2 vols., folio); and the commencement of his work on the monuments of France, in chronological order. He was elected a member of the institute, and Napoleon intrusted him with important business as counsellor of state. He likewise accompanied the emperor to Spain and Austria. In 1814, Laborde commanded a division of the national guard of Paris, and concluded, together with Tourton, in the name of marshal Moncey, the capitulation with the Russians. After the restoration, he made a second journey through England, and, on his return, published the first book in France on the system of mutual instruction. During three years, he was likewise first secretary to the central society for the extension of this method of education.

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In 1818, he was again appointed counsellor of state, but was soon displaced on suspicion of liberal principles. In 1822, the department of the Seine elected him its representative. In this capacity, he has always opposed the encroaching spirit of the ultras with energy, and sometimes with success. His work on the prisons in Paris effected a material improvement in them. His treatise on the better construction of water-works, sluices, wells and pavements, drew the attention of the authorities to these objects.

LABORING of a ship implies pitching or rolling heavily in a turbulent sea-an effect by which the masts and hull are greatly endangered; because, by the rolling motion, the masts strain upon their shrouds with an effort which increases as the sine of their obliquity; and the continual agitation of the vessel often loosens her joints, and makes her extremely leaky. LABRADOR; an extensive country of N. America, lying between Hudson's bay, the Atlantic ocean, and Canada, and extending from the 50th to the 60th degree of north latitude, or nearly 700 miles in length, from north to south. It is about 500 miles in breadth, but has never been fully explored, and is little known, the severity of the climate and the barrenness of the region confining the visits of foreigners principally to the coasts. These are bordered by innumerable islands, so close together as to bear the appearance of main land, broken by inlets: this has given rise to much confusion in the charts. The sum mer is short, but extremely hot, and the winters are very rigorous. Great numbers of fish, of various kinds, particularly cod and salmon, are found on the shores, and in the small rivers. The islets are covered with flocks of sea-fowl, particularly eider ducks. Bears, wolves, foxes, hares, martens, &c., are numerous. The population is small. The natives of the coast are Esquimaux. The tribes of the interior are little known. Labrador belongs to Great Britain, and is annexed to the government of Newfoundland. The Labrador fishery, in 1829, was calculated to employ 2108 vessels, and 24,100 seamen; 600 of the vessels, manned with 9110 men, and producing 678,000 cwt. of fish, and 6730 hhds. of oil, were British; and 1500 vessels, manned with 15,000 men, and producing 1,100,000 cwt. of fish, and 11,000 hhds. of oil, were from the U. States. (See Fisheries.)

LABRADORITE, OF LABRADOR FELDSPAR. This mineral scarcely differs from feldspar (q. v.) in the properties of its crys

talline structure, except in having one of its cleavages somewhat less distinct. In hardness, also, it is nearly identical with that species; but its specific gravity is somewhat higher, being 2.75. The remarkable opalescent and iridescent tints which it exhibits, constitute its most striking character. Its ordinary color is a dark gray. Its reflections, which, for variety and intenseness of color, vie with those of the opal, are visible only upon two opposite sides of any crystal or mass. Blue and green colors are the most common; but occasionally these are intermingled with rich flame-colored tints. It is sawed into slabs by the lapidaries, and employed in inlaid work. The finest pieces are very highly esteemed. A square table, composed of two pieces of this stone, and whose dimensions were 13 inches by 20, and 8 lines in thickness, was sold, in Paris, for 1800 francs. The Labradorite is composed of 54.6 silica, 29.0 alumine, 11.8 magnesia, and 4.6 soda. It was first distinguished by the reverend B. Latrobe, among a number of specimens sent to him from Labrador by the Moravian missionaries. It occurs, not only in pebbles on the shore, but in spots in the rocks about Nain, and particularly near a lagoon about 50 or 60 miles inland. Its colors, darting through the limpid crystal of the lake, and flashing from the cliffs, more especially when moistened by a shower of rain, changing continually with every alteration in the position of the spectator, are described as almost realizing a scene in fairy land. Labrador feldspar is also found upon the borders of the gulf of Finland, and at Fredericksvorn, in Norway, and at some other places.

LABYRINTH, with the ancients; a building containing such a number of chambers and galleries, one running into the other, as to make it very difficult to find the way through it. The Egyptian labyrinth, the most famous of all, was situated in Central Egypt, above lake Maris, not far from Crocodilopolis, in the country now called Fejoom. According to some writers, it was built by the Dodecarchs (650 B. C.); according to others, by Psammetichus; according to others, by Ismandes, who is also said to have been buried there. In all probability, it was a sepulchre. The building, half above and half below the ground, was one of the finest in the world, and is reported to have contained 3000 rooms, the arrangement of which seems to have been symbolic of the zodiac and solar system. All these

rooms were encircled by a common wall and by columns; but the passages were so intricate, that no stranger could find the way without a guide. It is said, that, in the lower rooms, the coffins of the builders of this immense fabric, and of the sacred crocodiles, were deposited, and that the upper rooms excelled, in splendor and art, all human works. At present, only 150 rooms are reported to be accessible: the others are dark, and choked with rubbish. Respecting the interior construction and the destination of the labyrinth of Crete we know still less. The ancient writers consider this subterranean cavern to have been built by Dædalus, in imitation of that of Egypt, but on a smaller scale, by order of Minos, who confined there the Minotaur. According to others, it was a temple of the latter, The labyrinth at Clusium was erected by king Porsenna, probably for his own sepulchre. It was a square building of stone, 50 feet in height and 30 on each side. At each corner stood a pyramid, and also one in the centre, each 150 feet high, and at the base, 75 feet wide. These edifices were not built for the purpose of making people lose their way; this was merely an accidental peculiarity, on account of which every confused mass of things, difficult to be disentangled, has been called a labyrinth. The same name is also given to a part of the ear. (q. v.)

LAC, LAK, LAAK, and LAK'н, are different ways of spelling the vulgar derivatives from the Sanscrit words laksha and laksha, i. e. one hundred thousand; a name given by the Hindoos to the coccus lacca and gum-lac, for which they have six different terms; "but they generally call it laksha," says sir William Jones (As. Res. ii, 364), "from the multitude of small insects which, as they believe, discharge it from their stomachs, and at length destroy the tree on which they form their colonies." The gum-lac is probably discharged by the coccus, as a defence for its eggs, which are deposited on the bihar tree. Four kinds are known-stick-lac, seed-lac, lump-lac, and shell-lac. The first is the gum before its separation from the twigs, which it incrusts; and the best is of a red purplish color: the second is the gum in a granulated form, stripped from the twigs, and perhaps boiled, by which a portion of the color is lost: the third is the seed-lac, melted into cakes: and the fourth, the common form in which it is known in Europe, is the purified gum. The best is amber-colored and transparent. In the East, it is much used for

trinkets. It is the basis of sealing-wax. It forms varnishes, furnishes a brilliant red dye, and, mixed with thrice its weight of fine sand, is made into polishing stones. (See Coccus.) Lac, in its original meaning, is applied to the computation of money in the East Indies. Thus a lak of rupees is 100,000, which, supposing them to be sicca, or standard, equal £12,500. LACAILLE. (See Caille.)

LACCADIVE ISLANDS; a group of small islands in the Indian sea: the nearest is about 120 miles from the coast of Malabar; lon. 71° 15′ to 73° 30′ E.; lat. 10° to 12° 40 N. These islands are supposed to be what Ptolemy called Insula Numero XIX; but, in fact, they are 32, all of them small, and covered with trees. They are rocky on their sides, mostly as if laid on a bottom of sand, attended with reefs, and the channels between them very deep. They are commonly visited by English ships, in their way from India to the Persian gulf or Red sca. The principal traffic of the inhabitants is in the produce of the cocoa palm, such as the oil, the cables and cordage prepared from this plant; and in fish, which is dried and sent to the continent of India, from whence they get rice, &c., in return. They also trade to Mascat, in large boats, and bring back, in return for their commodities, dates and coffee. Ambergris is often found floating off these islands. The inhabitants are mostly Mohammedans, called Moplays.

LACE is a species of net-work, made of silk, thread, or cotton, upon which, in old times, patterns were embroidered by the needle, after its construction: they are now, for the most part, formed during the knitting itself. The best laces are made at Mechlin, Brussels, Antwerp, Ghent and Valenciennes. In England, Buckinghamshire chiefly furnishes lace knit by hand, which requires much patience and assiduity. The lace made by machinery is largely manufactured at Nottingham. The invention of lace knitting is attributed by Beckmann (ii. 313) to Barbara, wife of Christopher Uttman of St. Annaberg, in 1561. Paulus Jenisius, in his history of that town, states as follows: Hoc anno (1561), filum album retortum in varias formas Phrygio opere duci cæpit; and there are many other authorities for the name of the work woman. It may be, however, that she introduced the manufacture, rather than invented it. Lace worked by the needle is of far older date. It is found richly and abundantly in church furniture of great antiquity, and is supposed to have been originally made in

Italy, particularly at Genoa and Venice. The Opus Phrygianum, to which allusions are made by Plautus (Menæchmi, ii, 3; Aulularia, iii, 5), and by Pliny (viii, 74), is considered by Beekmann to have been no more than needle-work; and so the expressions of the latter writer are understood by Holland: “As for embroderie itself, and needle-worke, it was the Phrygians' invention, and hereupon embroderers, in Latine, bee called Phrygiones." Point-lace is that embroidered by the needle, and, from the great labor required, is therefore most expensive. In the lace knit by hand, as many threads are employed as the pattern and breadth require. These are wound upon the requisite number of bobbins (made of bone, whence the name bone-lace), which are thrown over and under each other in various ways, so that the threads twine round pins stuck in the holes of the pattern-a stiff parchment stretched on a cushion or pillow-and by these means produce the openings which give the desired figure. In that made by machinery, the meshes are all formed by a continuation of a single thread. The coarsest is called Mechlin-net, the finest, bobbin-net, from the employment of bobbins. Lace made by the loom is generally known as British lace.

LACEDEMON. (See Sparta.)

LACÉPÈDE, Bernard Germain Étienne, count Delaville sur Illon de, naturalist, peer of France, born at Agen, 1756, was, from his youth, passionately attached to natural history and music: he consequently abandoned the military profession, for which he was destined, and devoted himself to the study of natural history. His teachers and friends, Buffon and Daubenton, procured him the important situation of keeper of the collections belonging to the department of natural history in the jardin des plantes. At the breaking out of the revolution, he was elected a member of the legislative assembly, and belonged to the moderate party. To with draw from the storms of the period of terrorism, he resigned his situation, and retired to his country-seat Leuville. He again made his appearance under the directory, and was appointed one of the first members of the institution. Napoleon made Lacépède a member of the conservative senate, and conferred on him the dignity of grand chancellor of the legion of honor. Lacépède became one of the most zealous adherents of the emperor, and, during the 10 years of the imperial reign, few public celebrations occurred at

which he did not appear as an orator. His benevolence and his inattention to his own affairs involved him in debt. Napoleon, therefore, gave him a salary of 40,000 francs. After the first restoration, Lacepède lost his situation of grand chancellor of the legion of honor, but was raised to the peerage by the king. During the hundred days, the emperor appointed him grand master of the university; but he declined this office, and devoted himself' solely to the sciences. In 1817, he published a new edition of Buffon's works, and announced, at the same time, that, at the desire of his deceased friend Lagrange, he intended to publish his Theory on the Formation of Comets. He likewise published a continuation of the work on the Cetacea, commenced by his great predecessors. His History of Fishes (5 volumes, 4to.), is considered his principal work. The complete collection of his works, in which are included two small novels, which appeared anonymously, and the opera Omphale, is voluminous. Lacépede could adorn the driest subjects with the graces of a brilliant style. He died Oct. 6, 1825, at his country-seat Epinay, near St. Denis, of the small-pox. Villeneuve wrote his Éloge Historique (Paris, 1826). Of Lacépède's very defective Histoire Civile et Militaire de l'Europe (from the end of the fifth, till the middle of the eighteenth century), in 18 volumes, the two first volumes appeared after his death (Paris, 1826).

LACHAISE, François d'Aix de, confessor of Louis XIV, member of the congregation of Jesuits, was born in the chateau d'Aix, in August, 1624. The family D'Aix de Lachaise was one of the most respectable in France, and a grand uncle of François de Lachaise, father Cotton, had been confessor of Henry IV. In the Jesuit college at Rohan, which had been founded by one of his ancestors, Lachaise commenced his course of studies, and finished it at Lyons. He was the provincial of his order, when Louis, on the death of his former confessor, father Ferrier, appointed Lachaise his successor. This appointment occasioned surprise, because, on the one hand, the disputes between the parties of Jansenists, Molinists, &c., divided the court of Louis XIV, already infected, by the example of the king, with a sickly kind of devotion, as also the capital, which fluctuated, in imitation of the court, between licentiousness and bigotry; and, on the other hand, no Jesuit, since father Cotton, had been chosen to this important situation. The new confessor was soon

involved in a web of court intrigues. Mme. de Montespan and Mme. de Maintenon, the Jansenists and Jesuits, stood opposed to each other, and Louis, moved by sensuality and superstition, wavered like a reed between these parties. Nevertheless, Lachaise maintained his ground, although he was equally obnoxious to Mme. de Montespan and Mme. de Maintenon, who frequently expressed their dislike to him in bitter sarcasms. On every occasion-at the famous declaration of the French clergy respecting the liberties of the Gallican church, at the revocation of the edict of Nantes, on occasion of the disputes of the Quietists, at the marriage of Mme. de Maintenon with the king (1686), and similar important events of the time-father Lachaise, in consequence of his office, was more or less forced to play a part; and, although he reflected well on every step he took, he constantly received the severest reproaches from both parties. The most intelligent men, however, never judged unfavorably of his private character and his conduct; and St. Simon, who was no friend to the Jesuits, as well as Voltaire, in his account of the age of Louis XIV, De Boza, Spon, and others, acknowledge, that the confessor of the vainest monarch, and the mediator between the most exasperated parties, knew how to conduct himself, under all circumstances, with address, coolness and sagacity, and that, although a zealous Jesuit, he never allowed himself to be drawn into violent measures against his opponents. That Louis formally married Mme. de Maintenon, Voltaire attributes principally to the counsels of Lachaise; but that this marriage remained secret, and was not publicly acknowledged, according to the desire of that ambitious woman, may likewise be attributed to Lachaise, who, on this account, had constantly to endure her hatred. Lachaise, maintaining his ground in the favor of his monarch till his end, and acting as his counsellor, even when age and weakness had almost converted him into a living skeleton, and weakened his faculties, died January, 1709, at the age of 85. He left philosophical, theological and archæological works. His taste for the study of numismatics, and the great share which he had in the improvement of this branch of science in France, are well known. Louis XIV had a country-house built for him at the end of the present Boulevard neufs, which, at that time, owing to its situation on a hill, received the name of Mont-Louis. Its extensive garden now forms the cemetery

of Père Lachaise, the largest in Paris. (See Cemetery.) Many splendid monuments now adorn the place, where, formerly, the courtiers of Louis XIV used frequently to meet, to pay their respects to the confessor of their absolute master. The situation of the burying-place, on the declivity of a hill, affords one of the most delightful views of a principal part of the city and its suburbs. At the approach of the allies, in 1814, this burialplace was fortified, and defended by the students of the polytechnical and veterinary school. The Russians, in storming it, did great injury: the shaded walks, particularly, suffered by the bivouac of the troops, but have since been repaired. A short time previous to the second taking of Paris (1815), viz. from June 24 till July 8, no burials took place in the cemetery of Père Lachaise, on account of the troops which surrounded the capital. During this time, the dead were buried in the cemetery of Ste. Marguerite, situated in the town, which had been long out of use.

LACHRYME CHRISTI (Latin, tears of Christ); a superior kind of Italian wine, so called, it is said, because it drops like tears from the press, before the grapes are subjected to any pressure except their own weight. It is dark-red, and the grape grows at the foot, and, to a certain height, on the sides, of mount Vesuvius. On several of the Greek islands, also, a kind of wine is produced in the same way.

LACHRYMATORIES (i. e. tear-bottles; from lachryma, Latin, a tear); small glass or earthen vessels found in tombs, so called, because they were supposed to have been used by the ancient Romans to collect the tears of the friends of the deceased. Some of them contain the impression of one or of two eyes. They are now considered to have been used for containing aromatic liquids, to be poured upon the funeral pile.

LACLOS, Pierre-François-Choderlos de, author of the famous romance Les Liaisons dangereuses, which first appeared in 1782, was born at Amiens, in 1741, and, before the revolution, was a French officer of artillery, and secretary to the duke of Orleans. Laclos was considered, when he was young, as one of the most talented and agreeable, and, in a moral point of view, as one of the most dangerous men. His enemies have maintained that he has drawn his own character in that of the viscount de Valmont, in his romance. Others celebrate the simplicity, honesty and good nature of his character, at least