604 REICHENBACH, KARL VON 



EEISACE, CHARLES A. 



For several days in the early part of 1851, he 

 was at the head of the War Department, and 

 after the coup d'etat was appointed a Senator. 

 In 1849 Marshal Regnaud was made Grand 

 Officer of the Legion of Honor, and since 1854 

 he had commanded the Imperial Guards. The 

 weight of declining years had prevented him 

 from taking any very active part in the stormy 

 events of the last decade. 



REICHENBACH, Baron KAEL vo^, Ph. D., 

 a German naturalist, chemist, technologist, and 

 author, horn at Stuttgart, February 12, 1788 ; 

 died at Leipsic, January 19, 1869. He was 

 educated at Tubingen, where he received the 

 degree of Doctor of Philosophy. At the age of 

 sixteen years he had formed the project of 

 establishing a new German state in the islands 

 of the South Sea, and being of a wealthy family 

 he prosecuted his design with great zeal for 

 three years, when the French Government, 

 which at that time had possession of Stuttgart, 

 suspecting that he was entertaining revolution- 

 ary plans, arrested him, and imprisoned him for 

 some months. Upon his release he turned his 

 attention to technological science, and after a 

 thorough investigation of the great manufac- 

 tories and smelting-furnaces of France and 

 Germany, pursued through several years, he 

 established manufactories at Villingen and at 

 Hausach. In 1821 he entered into partnership 

 with Count Hugo von Salen, and the two es- 

 tablished a large number of chemical works in 

 Moravia, which in a few years realized for them 

 great fortunes, and enabled Von Reichenbach 

 to purchase several fine estates. The King of 

 Wurtemberg about this time raised him to the 

 rank of baron. Possessing an intense fondness 

 for physical science, and having made extensive 

 attainments in several branches of it, Baron 

 von Reichenbach, in 1831, published his dis- 

 covery of paraffine, and, in 1833, that of creo- 

 sote. He had also the honor of being the first 

 author of a geological treatise in Austria his 

 " Geological Researches in Moravia " appearing 

 in Vienna in 1834. Not long after this publi- 

 cation he became interested in the experiments 

 of Mesmer and others, in the so-called Mesmer- 

 ism or animal magnetism, and commenced. a 

 series of elaborate investigations, carried on 

 with German precision and care for fifteen or 

 twenty years, into the character of this mys- 

 terious force. The result of his observations 

 was first made public in a work translated and 

 republished both in England and the United 

 States, and by which he is best known in this 

 country : " Physico-Physiological Researches 

 upon Magnetism, Electricity, etc., and their 

 Connections with the Vital Force." 3 vols. 

 1849. In this work he first announced his 

 theory of a new imponderable agent, differing 

 from both electricity and magnetism, to which 

 he gave the name of Od, and to which he attrib- 

 uted the phenomena of clairvoyance, magnetic 

 writing, table-tipping, etc. This work pro- 

 duced great excitement among the philosophers 

 throughout Europe ; and the materialist school 



opposed his views most vehemently, one of 

 them (Charles Vogt) going so far as to attack 

 it in a very bitter review under the title of 

 "The Collier's Hearth and Science," in allusion 

 to Baron von Reichenbach's career as a manu- 

 facturer. The baron replied with equal se- 

 verity in a volume with the title of " The Col- 

 lier's Hearth and False Science," and defended 

 and extended his investigations in the follow- 

 ing works: "Odic-Magnetic Letters," 1852; 

 " The Sensitive Man and his Connections with 

 Od," 1854; "Who is Sensitive, and Who is 

 Not ? " Among his somewhat diversified pur- 

 suits, Von Reichenbach had included that of a 

 collector of minerals, meteorites, etc. His col- 

 lection of the latter at his chateau in Reisen- 

 berg was said to be altogether the finest in 

 Europe. He had also purchased and arranged 

 the noble herbarium of Sieber, which was the 

 most complete on the Continent. 



REISACH, CHAKLES AUGUSTS, Count DE, 

 a cardinal bishop of the Catholic Church, born 

 at Roth, Bavaria, July 6, 1800 ; died in Annecy, 

 Savoy, December 23, 1869. He was the scion 

 of an old noble family of the eleventh century, 

 and had been reckoned among the counts and 

 barons of the German empire since 1737. Ho 

 studied theology and law in the German uni- 

 versities, and was ordained a priest in 1828. 

 Immediately after entering the priesthood he be- 

 came noted for his energetic defence of the inter- 

 ests of the Church, and, for his devotion to the 

 ultramontane theories, soon became the recip- 

 ient of many honors on the part of the Pope. 

 During a prolonged stay in Rome he was made 

 domestic prelate of the Pope, and consultor 

 of the Congregation of the Index. In 1836 

 the influence of Rome secured his appoint- 

 ment as Bishop of Eichstadt when only thirty- 

 six years old, an age at which nowadays the 

 episcopal dignity is rarely obtained. In 1841 

 he became coadjutor of the Archbishop of 

 Munich, and in 1846 Archbishop of Munich. 

 Thus placed at the head of the Episcopate 

 of Bavaria, he showed himself, in his relations 

 with the Government and as a member of 

 the first Chamber of Bavaria, an uncompromis- 

 ing champion of all the claims of his Church, 

 though at the same time he was eminently 

 successful in avoiding serious conflicts with the 

 Government. His zeal in the interest of Rome 

 was, in 1855, rewarded with a cardinal's hat, 

 the Pope creating him a cardinal priest, with 

 the presbyterial title of St. Anastasia, which, 

 in 1861, was changed to that of Santa Cecilia. 

 Not only was he received among the- cardi- 

 nals, but he was desired by the Pope to resign 

 the Archbishopric of Munich, and to take up 

 his permanent abode in Rome, in order to be 

 the chief adviser of the Holy See in all the 

 many and complicated transactions with the 

 churches and the Governments of the German 

 nation. In this position he gained the complete 

 confidence of the Pope, who, July 22, 1868, 

 bestowed upon him an honor which is rarely 

 received by any non-Italian, by making him 



