VIENNA

Wien flows through part of the town to join the canal. Vienna proper (pop. in 1880, 726,000; in 1890, 831,472) consists of the Inner City (Innere Stadt) and eight districts or sections completely surrounding it-viz. Leopoldstadt, Landstrasse, Wieden, Margarethen, Mariahilf, Neubau, Alsergrund, and Favoriten. These, with the exception of the last, an artisans' quarter, are enclosed by fortifications known as the Lines (Linie), though that name is now usually confined to the fifteen gates of the fortifications. Immediately beyond the Lines are nine populous suburbs included (since 1890) within the Vienna police-district, which has a total area of 51 sq. m., and pop. (1890) of 1,364,548. The irregular hexagon formed by the Inner City was until 1858 enclosed by an inner line of fortifications, the site of which is now occupied by the Ringstrasse, a series of handsome boulevards, 55 yards wide, which bound five of its sides. The sixth side is bounded by the Franz-Josefs Quay, on the Danube Canal. Though Vienna contains buildings of the 14th and even of the 13th century, it is, in its present form, essentially a modern city; nearly all the most conspicuous and pretentious public buildings date from the later half of the 19th century. Modernity too is characteristic of the Viennese; they are sprightly, good-tempered, and pleasure-loving, fond of music, dancing, and the theatre. The Inner City and the Ringstrasse are the handsomest and most fashionable quarters. In the former are the cathedral of St Stephen (1300-1510), with a tower 450 feet in height; the Hofburg or imperial palace, a large and irregular pile of very various dates; and many palaces of the nobility. On one side or other of the Ringstrasse rise the Exchange; the University (1874-84); the huge Gothic New Rathhaus (1873-83), built at a cost of over three-quarters of a million sterling; the Parliament House; the Supreme Law Courts; the Imperial Museums of Natural History and of Art (1872-86), twin buildings on either side of the imposing monument of the Empress Maria Theresa (unveiled 1888); the imperial Opera-house; the Academy of Art; the Austrian Museum of Art and Industry, &c. In other parts of the city are the Arsenal; the Josephinum, a medical college founded in 1784; the Votive Church, an admirable specimen of modern Gothic, built in 1856-79 to commemorate the emperor's escape from assassination in 1853; and many other handsome sacred and secular edifices. Vienna is well provided with public parks, the largest being the Prater (7 sq. m.), one of the finest parks in Europe, opened in 1766. In educational, scientific, artistic, and benevolent institutions the city is very rich. The university, founded in 1365 and renowned throughout the world as a medical school, has a teaching staff of 350 and over 6000 students. The magnificent public picture-gallery, formerly in the château of Belvedere, now in the Museum of Art, is specially famous for its unrivalled examples of the Venetian school, Rubens, and Dürer. There are also several noted private galleries. The Public Hospital, with 2000 beds, is perhaps the largest hospital in Europe. Vienna is the chief industrial city in the empire, the factories being mostly in the districts of Neubau and Mariahilf and outside the Lines. Machinery, scientific and musical instruments, artistic goods in bronze, leather, terra-cotta, porcelain, &c., bent-wood furniture, meerschaum-pipes, &c. are among the noted manufactures of Vienna. As a centre of trade and finance Vienna is no less important. Grain, flour, cattle, seeds, wines, and manufactured goods of all kinds are annually handled here to an immense aggregate value. Over 2 million pounds were spent in 1868-81 in regulating the channel of the Danube so as to render the

river navigable at all times, and a new mercantile quarter is gradually springing up between the canal and the main stream. The chief local authority is the Gemeinderath, or city council (consisting of a burgomaster, two vice-burgomasters, and 120 councillors), which is assisted by local committees or councils in the various districts.

Vienna occupies the site of the Roman Vindobona, which was established in 14 A.D. as the successor of the Celtic settlement of Vindomina. The beginning of its present importance, however, dates only from the period of the Crusades, which directed a steady stream of traffic through it. In 1276 it became the capital of the Hapsburg dynasty. The famous siege of Vienna by the Turks lasted from July 14 to September 12, 1683, when it was relieved by John Sobieski of Poland. Treaties have been concluded at Vienna in 1738, between the Emperor Charles VI. and the Infanta of Spain as to the kingdom of the Two Sicilies; in 1809, between Napoleon and the Austrians, after the defeat of the latter at Wagram; in 1864, settling affairs after the war of Prussia and Austria against Denmark; and in 1866, between Francis Joseph of Austria and Victor Emmanuel of Italy, ceding Venetia to Italy. The great Congress of Vienna (20th September 1814 to 10th June 1815) met to regulate the affairs of Europe after the overthrow of the Napoleonic empire, and restore the balance of power.' Alexander I. and Nesselrode were there in the interests of Russia; the king of Prussia was supported by Hardenberg; Castlereagh, and afterwards Wellington, represented Britain; Metternich was Austrian plenipotentiary; Talleyrand secured a hearing for France; Spain, Portugal, Sweden, Denmark, Rome, and the minor German states were also represented. The chief final outcome was that Austria obtained Lombardy, Venetia, Illyria, Dalmatia, Tyrol, Vorarlberg, Salzburg, and East Galicia; Prussia the province of Saxony, Posen, Swedish Pomerania, Westphalia, and the Rhenish Province; Hanover, extended in area and made a kingdom, fell to the Hanoverian dynasty in Britain; Britain secured Malta, Heligoland, Cape Colony, and Mauritius, and the protectorate of the Ionian Islands; Belgium and Holland were united as the Kingdom of the Netherlands; Norway was confirmed to Sweden; the Duchy of Warsaw (Poland) was made over to Russia, and the republic of Cracow was constituted; the neutrality of Switzerland was guaranteed, and Neuchâtel (under Prussian sovereignty) added to the confederation; the German confederation was constituted with numerous internal rearrangements; and the former ruling houses were reinstated in Naples, Sardinia (to which Genoa was annexed), Tuscany, and Modena, Parma being given to the ex-empress Maria Louisa ; the papal see recovered nearly all its possessions; and France was restricted to very nearly the territory it possessed before the Revolution. The signing of the treaty (9th June) was hastened by the news of Napoleon's return from Elba. Å second, but futile, congress took place for a few days in 1855, representatives of Britain, France, Turkey, and Russia being present.

For the topography of Vienna, see works by Weiss (1886), Waagen (1867), Lützow (1878), and guidebooks by Forster, Seis, Bermann, Maurer, Winkler, &c.; histories by Hormayr (1824), Weiss (1882), and Bermann (1880); on the congress there are, besides the Acts (9 vols.), works by Flassan (Par. 1829) and Angeberg (Par. 1864).

Vienne, a dept. in the west of France, constituted mainly of the old province of Poitou, lies between Indre and Deux-Sèvres; area, 2691 sq. m.; pop. (1881) 340,295; (1891) 344,355. The Vienne, an affluent of the Loire, is the principal river, and has the Creuse as its chief tributary. The surface is mostly flat, with a gradual slope

toward the north. The country consists almost wholly of fertile plains, fine pasture-lands, and extensive forests. The mineral riches comprise iron, manganese, and quarries of stone, including lithographic stones. The dept. is divided into the five arrondissements of Poitiers, Châtellerault, Civray, Loudun, Montmorillon. Poitiers is capital. Vienne, one of the most ancient towns of France, in the dept. of Isère (far away from the dept. of Vienne), on the left bank of the Rhone, 19 miles S. of Lyons by rail. The river Gère passes through the town, and here joins the Rhone, after having supplied motive-power to a number of mills and factories. Vienne was the chief town of the Allobroges, is mentioned by Caesar, and by Martial, who terms it opulenta Vienna; in the time of the Roman emperors it was the rival of Lyons. Besides numerous water-conduits, &c. of Roman construction, there are a Corinthian temple of Augustus and Livia, remains of a theatre, and an obelisk, called L'Aiguille, 72 feet high; and the museum contains many relics of Roman antiquity. The cathedral of St Maurice, partly Romanesque, partly Gothic, was built in 1107-1251; St Peter's dates from the 6th century. The town was prominent under the Burgundian princes, and its archbishop disputed with his neighbour of Lyons the primacy of Gaul. In 1312 a council was held here, in which Pope Clement V. pronounced the suppression of the order of the Templars. There are manufactures of woollens, silk, paper, leather, and iron goods, and trade in grain and wine. Pop. (1872) 21,430; (1891) 22,814.

Vienne, HAUTE, an interior dept. of France, south-east of Vienne, bounded on the W. by the depts. of Vienne, Charente, and Dordogne. Area, 2130 sq. m.; pop. (1872) 322,447; (1891) 363,182. It is watered by the Vienne and its tributaries. The surface is for the most part level, though not fertile, but is traversed by ranges of low hills, including the Monts du Limousin. There is much cattle-breeding. Kaolin is the chief mineral produce, and much porcelain is made. The dept. is divided into four arrondissements-Limoges, Bellac, Rochechouart, and Saint-Yrieix; capital, Limoges. Viersen, a town of Rhenish Prussia, 20 miles NW. of Düsseldorf by rail, with manufactures of plush, silk, cotton, and flax. Pop. (1890) 22,143.

Vierzon Ville, a French town in the dept. of Cher, 20 miles NW. of Bourges by rail, with manufactures of porcelain, glass, &c. Pop. 10,559.

Vieta, FRANCISCUS (François Viète), a great French mathematician, was born at Fontenay-leComte, near La Rochelle, in 1540. He studied law at Poitiers, practised there as an advocate, was councillor of the Parlement of Brittany, under Henry IV., of that at Tours, next a privy-councillor to the king, and died at Paris in February 1603. We are told that he discovered the key to a Spanish cipher of over 500 characters. Schooten collected most of his writings (Leyden, 1646).

Vieuxtemps, HENRI, violinist and composer, was born 20th February 1820 at Verviers in Belgium, began to give concerts in his thirteenth year, and after completing his studies at Vienna and Paris spent most of his time in travelling from place to place as a performer till in 1870 he became a teacher in the Brussels conservatoire. He retired in 1873, and died 6th June 1881. His works comprise concertos, fantasias, and dances for the violin. See Kufferath, Henri Vieuxtemps (Brussels, 1883). Vigan, LE, a town of France, dept. Gard, 45 miles WNW. of Nîmes by rail. Pop. 4350. Vigevano, a town of Northern Italy, 20 miles NW. of Pavia by rail, with an old cathedral, silk manufactures, and some trade. Pop. 13,684.

Vigfusson, GUDBRAND, Scandinavian scholar, was born in the district of Broadforth, Iceland, 13th March 1827, and studied at Copenhagen, where he lived from 1849 till 1864. In 1856 he was appointed one of the stipendiaries of the Arna Magnaean Commission. His master in the chosen work of his life was John Sigurdsson, to whom he dedicated his edition of Eyrbyggja Saga Earlier and later works were his (Leip. 1864). Timatal (1855), an essay in Icelandic on the chronology of the sagas; Biskupa Sögur (185878); the Forn-Sögur (with Th. Möbius, 1860); the Flatejarbók (with Unger, Christ. 1860-68); the Icelandic Dictionary (1873), undertaken by Cleasby, and carried on from 1864 by Vigfusson; the Sturlunga Saga (2 vols. Oxford, 1878); and the magnificent Corpus poeticum boreale (with F. York Powell, 2 vols. Oxford, 1883). In 1864 he had settled in London, whence he moved to Oxford, where he was appointed in 1884 lector in Icelandic, and died January 31, 1889. He had received the doctorate from Upsala in 1877, the order of the Dannebrog in 1885.

Vigil, originally the watch kept, with public prayer, on the night before a feast, is traceable in the very earliest centuries, and is one of the usages against which Vigilantius inveighs, and which Jerome vindicates in his reply, though he admits the abuses that often accompanied it, and which ultimately brought about its suppression. The old observance survives in the Roman Church now only in the Matins and Lauds and the midnight mass before Christmas, and the term is applied to the day and night preceding a feast, on certain of which fasting is obligatory (in England, on the vigils of Whitsunday, the Assumption, SS. Peter and Paul, All Saints, and Christmas). Vigils are marked in the Book of Common Prayer; no special services are appointed for them, but the collect of the next day is used at evensong. The 'watchnight' service at New Year (q.v.) is analogous.

Vigilance Societies, in the United States, include not only Regulators and other extreme exponents of Lynch Law (q.v.), but also the illegal associations which spring up from time to time in all parts of the country for the compulsory improvement of local morals, and the punishment of those who either refuse or fail sufficiently to reform their lives. Such organisations as the White Caps, at home in the eastern and central states, have for their professed objects the suppression of vice and idleness; they send formal warnings to those citizens whom they consider to be neglectful of their homes, too partial to card-playing, drinking, &c.; and if this warning be disregarded, inflict such punishment as whipping, destruction of property, &c. The methods of the modern White Caps are the same as those of the Ku-Klux Klan (q.v.).

Vigilantius, an opponent of monachism and of the worship of martyrs and relics, was born at Calagurris in western Gaul in the later half of the 4th century. Ordained a presbyter at Barcelona in 395, he journeyed to Jerusalem carrying a recommendation from Paulinus of Nola to Jerome, whose whole theological system was as completely repellant to him as his vehement and intolerant temper. From Jerome's Contra Vigilantium we gather that he denounced the worship of martyrs and relics as a relapse to paganism, vows of celibacy and poverty as unnatural and creating a fictitious scale of morality. See Lindner, De Joviano et Vigilantio (Leip. 1840).

Vignette, properly an ornament like vinetwigs and leaves with grapes; but the name is now given to any small engraving (as on the titlepage of a book), design, or photograph which is not circumscribed by a definite border.

VIGNY

Vigny, ALFRED VICTOR, COMTE DE, French author, born of ancient family during his parents' imprisonment in the prison at Loches (Indre-etLoire), 27th March 1797, entered the army at the Restoration, and served fourteen years. Garrison life wearied a soul athirst for glory, but his pride found a solitary consolation in verse. As early as 1822 he published anonymously a small volume of verse, followed in 1824 by Eloa, ou la Sœur d'un Ange, an exquisite piece of mystic phantasy. Before the Revolution of July he had published his collected Poemes antiques et modernes (1826), containing Moïse and Dolorida; Cinq Mars (1826), a historical romance; a translation of Othello (1829); and a drama, La Maréchale d' Ancre (1830). After that year he published only works in prose: Stello (1832), Grandeur et Servitude Militaires (1835), and a drama, Chatterton (1835)—the highest moment of his fame. From that time he ceased not to write but to print. He left a volume of verse-Destinées -published in 1864, which contains some of his finest and most virile work, and a collection of personal notes, printed with doubtful wisdom by Louis Ratisbonne under the title Journal d'un Poète (1867). While still young he attached himself to the Romanticists, with Hugo, Deschamps, Mme. Desbordes-Valmore, and Malle. Delphine Gay. But he was never a militant or thorough-going member of the party-'he retired,' says Sainte-Beuve, 'to his ivory tower before the heat of the day.' His Cinq Mars was a romance based on the most tragic of the crimes of Richelieu, inspired by Scott, but intended to be minutely true to history throughout. The author's connection with the theatre led to an equivocal friendship with Mme. Dorval, commencing about the close of 1830, but the woman's heart soon found poetry a poor substitute for passion, and the tragedy left the poor idealist stripped of his last illusion. In 1845 Vigny was gratified by election to the Academy, on which occasion he made a long and wearisome address, which was listened to with unconcealed impatience. Thereafter till the close he lived but little in the world, in familiarity with no one, not even himself, his thoughts wrapped up in a pessimistic gloom from which he found escape only by the avenues of art. His was that profoundest kind of moral misery which needs no external reason for its being, incurable because itself its own poison. He died at Paris after the long agony of cancer, 17th September 1863. Vigny's work was elegant but cold. No poet has had grander conceptions than the few fundamental ideas that inform his work, and it is not so much inspiration as meditation that gives the key-note to all his poetry. It is formed,' says M. Montégut, not as beautiful living things are born, by fervent generation, but in the way those lovely, precious, and cold things are produced-pearls, coral, the diamonds, to which they have a close affinity by agglutination, slow cohesion, invisible condensation. His fundamental defect as a poet has been well stated by M. Faguet to be not by any means want of imagination, but rather a certain richness and suppleness of imagination, the result of which is not only that one of the most vigorous thinkers amongst poets has produced so little, but also that his most perfect work is ever marred by incompleteness and inequality. Vigny the artist is inferior to Vigny the poet; his poetic execution to his creation of poetic ideas. Quite unlike Hugo, whose magnificent execution casts a splendid veil over a certain fundamental poverty of ideas. But if a poet's domain be small, it is something if it be all his own, and Alfred de Vigny the poet was at least original. Perhaps, when all is said, Montégut is right in putting the three novels which compose Servitude et Grandeur Militaires as his finest work.

VILLAFRANCA

479

The form of this book is noble as its thought, and simple as the souls whose silent sacrifice and obscure heroism it relates. The day on which he wrote it he took counsel only with his own inborn nobility of nature, and gave their congé to all his feelings of bitterness and melancholy, as if to a troop of importunate and troublesome guests who hindered him from discovering his true self. Is it not piquant to see given by the mouth of a misanthrope himself, to the pessimistic doctrines of the misanthropes on human nature, the most eloquent denial they have received in our time?' An exquisite if uncertain artist, Vigny remained true to his fundamental definition, 'L'art est la vérité choisie.' To him genius was a sublime and fatal gift, which imprisoned him in grandeur, solitude, and sadness; the whole universe an arena of infamy and wrong; the stern decrees of fate to be endured with stoicism if possible; their individual victims to be regarded with a pity, profound indeed, although half begotten of contempt. Vigny married an Englishwoman (Lydia Bunbury) in 1828, and the influence of English taste is as marked in his work as in that of his contemporary, Alfred de Musset; indeed Gautier, in speaking of what he calls the intellectual fatherland' of his contenporaries, expressly says 'Musset and Vigny are English.'

See the monographs by Maurice Paléologue, in 'Les Grands Ecrivains Français' (1891), and M. Dorison (1892); and the earlier studies by Sainte-Beuve, Portraits Contemporains (vol. ii.), Portraits Littéraires (vol. iii.), and Nouveaux Lundis (vol. vi.); and Caro, Poètes et Romanciers; but especially Émile, Montégut, Nos Morts Contemporains (série i.), and Émile Faguet, Dix-Neuvième Siècle: Etudes Littéraires.

Vigo, a seaport on the north-west coast of Spain, by rail. Its beautiful situation and fine climate on a deep bay or inlet, 20 miles SW. of Pontevedra make it an admirable health-resort. Pop. (1887) 15,044. The Bay of Vigo has an inland sweep of 20 miles, and is 5 miles wide at its mouth. Vigo was taken by Drake in 1585 and 1589, and by Lord Cobham in 1719; and in 1702 the Spanish galleons, destroyed by a British and Dutch force under Lord defended by a French fleet, were captured or

Ormonde and Rooke. See CASSITERIDES.

Vihara. See INDIA (ARCHITECTURE), p. 108. Vijayanagar, a ruined city 8 miles in circuit, in Madras province, about 40 miles to the NW. of Bellary, in a plain encumbered with granite rocks, many of which have been rudely sculptured into a variety of forms. After having been for two centuries the metropolis of a powerful Hindu kingdom, Vijayanagar was sacked and ruined by the Mohammedans of the Deccan in 1565. At that date it is described as 24 miles round. The ruins of the ancient city, the building of which was begun in 1336, now cover 9 sq. m. The modern village on its site is called Hampi; pop. 700.

Viking (Dan.; Icel. vikingr; A.S. wicing), a name given to the piratical Northmen who infested the coasts of the British Islands and of France in the 8th, 9th, and 10th centuries. This word is quite unconnected with king,' being derived from the Scandinavian vik, 'a bay' (the same which appears in the names Lerwick, Berwick, &c.), and this class of marauders were so called because their ships put off from the bays and fiords. See NORTHMEN.

Village Communities, the means by which many scholars contend that great part of Europe must have been brought into cultivation. A clan of settlers took a tract of land, built their huts thereon, and laid out common fields, which they cultivated in common as one family. The land was divided out every few years into family lots, but the whole continued to be cultivated by the community subject to the established customs as interpreted in the village-council by the sense of the village-elders. This may still be seen in the villages of Russia, and even in some parts of England may still be traced the ancient boundaries of the great common field, divided lengthwise into three strips (one fallow, the two others in different kinds of crop), and again crosswise into lots held by the villagers. This theory, often called the Mark system, was started by Von Maurer in Germany, but mainly owes its currency to Sir Henry Maine, who in his work entitled Village Communities in the East and West (1871) pointed out close parallels in the archaic land communities in India. The first serious attack upon the theory was made by Mr F. Seebohm, in his work The English Village Community Examined (1883; 4th ed. 1890), which labours to prove that the ancient village community was not originally free, but traces back to the Roman manorial system of a community in serfdom under a manor with its lord. Fustel de Coulanges dealt Von Maurer's theory a still more deadly blow by turning against him the evidence of the Leges Barbarorum and early chartularies on which his argument mainly relied. He proves also that the Russian mir does not represent agrarian communism, the soil belonging not to it but to some one else, and the peasants merely paying rent collectively as well as cultivating the land collectively. The primitive Mark, the association of the Mark (Markgenossenschaft), the original common-land (Gemeinland or Allmende)-all the evidence for these he weighs and finds wanting, contending that the whole imposing structure of argument has been erected out of a series of misunderstandings, national communism having been confused with the common ownership of the family, tenure in common with ownership in common, agrarian communism with village commons.

Mr Gomme considers Lauder and Kells as surviving types of the tribal community in its most primitive form; besides the example of Hitchin, from which Mr Seebohm started working back, he examines the cases of Aston village, in the parish of Bampton, Oxfordshire, Chippenham in Wiltshire, Malmesbury, and others, his conclusion being that the village community is no modern institution, but one beginning far back in the history of human civilisation, and probably a phase through which all peoples have passed. In the hill cultivation and settlement, of which many traces remain, he sees evidence of pre-Aryan influence analogous to similar customs surviving in India. The community in its tribal form was the prominent feature, the village of serfs the subordinate: groups of kindred occupying their several homesteads and the lands around; small villages of serfs occupying cottage homes massed together, and using the lands around them in intermixed or run-rig occupation. Thus Mr Seebohm's formula, defining the English institution as a manor with a village community in serfdom under it, he would rewrite as a tribal community with a village in serfdom under it.

Besides the books named, see G. L. Von Maurer, Einleitung zur Geschichte der Mark- Hof- Dorf- und Stadtverfassung (1854), and Geschichte der Markverfassung (1856); E. Nassé, in Cont. Rev. for May 1872, and his Agricultural Community of the Middle Ages (1871); also E. de Laveleye, Primitive Property (Eng. trans.

1878); G. L. Gomme, The Village Community (1890); and Fustel de Coulanges, The Origin of Property in Land (Eng. trans. 1891). And see the articles FEUDALISM, GAU, LAND LAWS, RUSSIA (Vol. IX. p. 37). Villareal, a Spanish town of 12,887 inhabitants, 40 miles NE. of Valencia by rail.

Vil'lari, PASQUALE, historian, was born at Naples in 1827, took part in the revolution of 1848, and, after holding a professorship in Pisa and travelling in France and England, became professor of History at Florence in 1866. He has repeatedly sat in the Italian parliament, and in February 1891 became minister of Public Instruction. He has written on the legends that illustrate Dante, essays in criticism, &c., but his best-known works are the great lives of Savonarola (2 vols. 1859; 2d ed. 1887) and of Machiavelli (3 vols. 1877-82), both translated by his wife, Linda Villari (née White), an English lady who has written a series of novels, tales, and sketches (Camilla's Girlhood, A Double Bond, In Change Unchanged, On Tuscan Hills and Venetian Waters, &c.).

Villars, CHARLES LOUIS HECTOR, DUC DE, marshal of France, one of the most illustrious of the great captains of Louis XIV.'s time, was born at Moulins, 8th May 1653. He distinguished himself in the wars of the Low Countries, on the Rhine, and in Hungary, fighting against the Turks. From 1699 till 1701 he represented France at Vienna, and by his sleepless vigilance foiled the tortuous policy of the Austrian ministers. On his return he was employed in Italy under Villeroi, and was for the first time (1702) raised to independent command, when he was sent to succour the Elector of Bavaria. Towards the close of 1702 Villars crossed the Rhine, defeated the Markgraf of Baden at Friedlingen, and next year again crossed the Rhine, traversed the Black Forest, and joined the Elector. His bold scheme for advancing upon Vienna was defeated by what he regarded as the stupid obstinacy of his colleague, the Elector; and after his skill and genius had been taxed to the utmost to keep the Austrians at bay, and he had been relieved, he returned in disgust to France. He was next commissioned to put down the insurrection of the Camisards (q.v.). Villars was then sent to watch over the north-eastern frontier, which he successfully defended against Marlborough, who retreated; upon which Villars entered Alsace and captured the enemies' reserves of supplies and artillery. 1708 he defeated all the attempts of Prince Eugene to penetrate into France. In 1709 he was sent to oppose Marlborough in the north; but at the comniencement of the battle of Malplaquet (q.v.) he was severely wounded, and rendered unfit for service. But in 1711 he headed the last army France could raise, and with it fell upon the British and Dutch under Albemarle, who were entrenched at Denain (24th July 1712), carried their entrenchments sword in hand, and captured the most of them; he then turned upon Prince Eugene, and drove him under the walls of Brussels. This magnificent series of successes saved the honour of France, and brought about the peace of Rastatt (q.v.), which Villars signed as plenipotentiary, 6th May 1714. After the peace he became the principal adviser on military affairs and on questions of foreign policy; was a strong opponent of Law's financial measures; but through the intrigues of Fleury lost favour at court. outbreak of war in 1732, however, brought out the old hero from his retirement, and he went to head the French army in the Milanese. The campaigns of 1733-34 showed that the weight of years had left Villars' military genius and spirit untouched; but discontent with his ally, the king of Sardinia, determined him to solicit his recall;

In

The

VILLARSIA

and he accordingly set out for France, but fell ill at Turin, and died 17th June 1734.

See his Mémoires (ed. by De Vogüé, 2 vols. 1884-87), and the biographies by Anquetil (1784), Giraud (1881), and De Vogüé (1888).

Villarsia, a genus of plants of the natural order Gentianacea, the species of which are widely distributed over the world, and are either aquatic or marsh plants, with entire leaves and yellow flowers. V. (Limnanthemum) nymphæoides is a native of England, but rare; it is more common in many parts of Europe, from Denmark to the Mediterranean, and is very abundant in Holland, often covering large tracts of the canals with its beautiful flowers and leaves. V. indica is regarded as a valuable medicine in India, being given internally to persons bitten by cobra. Several species from South Africa and Australia are cultivated in British aquariums for the beauty of their flowers. Villefranche, or VILLAFRANCA, a small port in the French dept. of Alpes Maritimes, 3 miles E. of Nice. The harbour, which is defended by forts, is much used by ships of war. The climate is very fine. Pop. 3295.-(2) Villefranche de Rouergue, in Aveyron, 70 miles NE. of Toulouse by rail, has a pop. of 7588.-(3) Villefranche-sur-Saone, in the dept. of Rhone, 20 miles NW. of Lyons, has cotton manufactures and a pop. of 12,463.

Villehardouin, GEOFFROI DE, marshal of Champagne, the first, and far from the least, of French historians, was born about 1160 at Villehardouin in Aube, took a distinguished part in the so-called Fourth Crusade the complicated and entirely secular operations in alliance with Venice that established the Latin empire of Constantinople became marshal of Romanie,' seigneur of Messinople in Thrace in 1207, and was dead before 1213. His famous Conquête de Constantinople relates with order and clearness the course of events from the preaching of the crusade in 1198 down to the death of his patron, the Marquis de Montferrat, in 1207. It is probable, as Gaston Paris says, that he did not write himself, and that we should take in its proper sense-which is not always the case in Old French-the word dicter which he uses several times in speaking of the composition of his book. The style is vigorous, direct, often singularly strong and graphic without effort or even consciousness; yet preserving from the preceding age something of the epic tone, it recalls the Chanson de Roland just as Herodotus recalls Homer. Sincere history as it is, it is of far greater value as literature than history, for it throws the strongest light upon the thoughts and feelings of the crusaders, especially the leaders. Strange to say, it is supplemented here by another prose narrative of a sharer in the crusade, Robert de Clari, whose book is much less admirable in style, but reveals the inner life of the crusaders of lower rank.

Editions are by Du Cange (1657), Dom Brial (1823), and especially N. de Wailly (1872; 3d ed. 1882). See Sainte-Beuve's Causeries du Lundi, vol. ix.

Villein. See SLAVERY.

Villemain, ABEL FRANÇOIS, scholar and critic, was born at Paris, June 11, 1790, and at twenty was appointed professor of Rhetoric at the Lycée Charlemagne, shortly after at the École Normale. He filled the chair of Eloquence at the Sorbonne (1816-26), held various government offices under Louis XVIII., was made a peer in 1831, and served as minister of Public Instruction under Soult and Guizot, retiring in 1840. He was long perpetual secretary of the French Academy, and died 8th May 1870.

His principal works are the invaluable Cours de Littérature Française (1828-30), Mélanges (1823) and Nouveaux Mélanges (1827), Souvenirs Contemporains

d'Histoire et de Littérature (1853), Choix d'Études sur la Littérature Contemporaine (1857), La Tribune Contemporaine, M. de Chateaubriand (1857), Essais sur le Génie de Pindare et sur la Poésie Lyrique (1859). His Histoire de Cromwell (1819) and Lascaris, ou les Grecs du XV. Siècle (1825), brought him great popularity. Villemarqué. See LA VILLEMARQUÉ.

Villena, a town of Spain, 25 miles NW. of Alicante by rail, with manufactures of linen and soap, and a pop. (1887) of 14,450.

Villeneuve, the name of numerous French towns, the largest Villeneuve-sur-Lot, or d'Agen, in Lot-et-Garonne, 15 miles N. of Agen by rail, with trade in wine and fruit and a pop. of 9339.

Villeneuve, PIERRE CHARLES JEAN BAPTISTE SYLVESTRE DE, Nelson's antagonist at Trafalgar, was born at Valensoles (Basses-Alpes), December 31, 1763, entered the navy in his fifteenth year, and passed as captain at thirty. Captain of division by 1796, he commanded the rear division at the battle of the Nile, and saved his own vessel, the Guillaume Tell, and four others. Vice-admiral in 1804, he next year took command of the Toulon squadron. At Cadiz he was joined by the Spanish fleet under Gravina, and, in order to keep the British fleet from the coasts of Europe, bore away westwards across the Atlantic, reaching the Antilles on 14th May. A month later he sailed back, still pursued by Nelson. At the Azores he fought an undecided battle with Sir Robert Calder, and, unable to reach Brest, again returned to Cadiz, where he was strictly blockaded by Nelson. This completely ruined Napoleon's scheme for the invasion of England, and Villeneuve, knowing that he was about to be superseded, determined to fight Nelson before his successor could arrive at Cadiz. On that memorable day of English glory Villeneuve's flag-ship, the Bucentaure, was dismasted and forced to strike. The admiral lay a prisoner in England till April 1806. On the journey to Paris he stopped at Rennes to learn how the emperor would receive him. On the morning of April 22 he was found dead in bed, with six knife-wounds in his heart. See NELSON.

Villeroi, FRANÇOIS DE NEUVILLE, DUC DE, French marshal, was born 7th April 1644, and educated at court with Louis XIV., but was banished to Lyons for a love-affair. In 1680 he returned to court, and in 1693 became a marshal, having distinguished himself at Neerwinden. As commander in the Netherlands in 1695-96 he showed great incapacity; and sent in chief command to Italy in 1701, he was there defeated and taken prisoner by Prince Eugene. Again he commanded in the Netherlands, but was defeated by Marlborough at Ramillies. Madame de Maintenon got him made guardian to Louis XV. Orleans sent him to live on his estate in 1722, because of his intrigues; but he was subsequently governor of Lyons, and died at Paris, 18th July 1730.

Villiers. See BUCKINGHAM (DUKE OF). Villiers, CHARLES PELHAM, corn and poorlaw reformer, was born January 19, 1802, a younger brother of the fourth Earl of Clarendon (q.v.). He was educated at Haileybury and St John's College, Cambridge, and was called to the bar at Lincoln's Inn in 1827. He was returned for Wolverhampton as a Free Trader in 1835, and sat its constant and consistent member for about sixty years, being again returned unopposed as a Liberal Unionist in 1892. He made his first motion in favour of Free Trade in 1838, and thereafter year by year till triumph was won. Chairman of the Select Committee on Public Houses, he sat with cabinet rank as President of the Poor-law Board (1859-66). The Union Chargeability Act (1865)