677 



BERTHIER, LOUIS ALEXANDER 



BERTHOLLET, CLAUDE LOUIS. 



678 



established by the revolution of 1830. Berryer, though doubtless 

 sincere in his principles, in all his speeches shows much of the advo- 

 cate's readiness to avail himself of any plea that may serve his 

 present purpose ; there is consequently a strange inconsistency in the 

 line of argument pursued by him on different occasions. It is not 

 necessary however to track his parliamentary career. In 1834 he 

 vehemently opposed the stringent law proposed by the Due de Broglie's 

 cabinet against all associations. In 1838, when in consequence of the 

 attack of Fieschi on the king fresh restrictions were imposed on the 

 press, although there was no proof that the attempt of the one had 

 been excited by the other, Berryer was again a determined antagonist 

 to the measure. In this year also he opposed, as incomplete, vicious, 

 and premature, the law for the abolition of slavery. After the capture 

 of Louis Napoleon at Boulogne, Berryer was employed to plead for 

 him, and made an energetic though unsuccessful defence. In December 

 1843 he visited England to offer his solemn recognition of the Due de 

 Bordeaux, then residing in Belgrave-square ; for which act he was 

 severely censured by M. de Guizot, and could make but a feeble defence. 

 He would have withdrawn from the chamber, only he began to foresee 

 the danger in which the throne of Louis Philippe stood, and thought by 

 remaining he might hasten its fall. The revolution of February 1848 

 came; be was named representative for the department of Bouches- 

 du-Rhoae, and took an active part in tho proceedings in favour of 

 his own cause. But he felt that France was not prepared to receive 

 Henry V. He visited him at Wiesbaden, and then declared that the 

 " Count de Chambord had no power to enter France but with the title 

 that adhered to him the first Frenchman." When by the removal of 

 General Changarniir from his command the executive had broken with 

 the majority, Berryer joined Thiers and the other Orleanists in opposing 

 the pretensions of the president, though he evinced less personality. 

 On the 2nd of December 1851 he was one of the few constituents who 

 met to protest against the coup-d'etat, and spoke boldly and resolutely. 

 Since then he has not appeared in public except professionally. 

 (Souvclle Bioyraphie Univendle; Long, France and its Revolutions.) 

 BERTHIER, LOUIS ALEXANDRA, Prince of Wagrara, was 

 born at Versailles on November 20, 1753, the son of an officer of 

 engineers, who gave him a good military education. He entered the 

 army, and served with Lafayette and Rochambeau in the American war. 

 In 1789, when major-general of the national guards, he favoured the 

 flight of the Aunts of Louis XVI. He served under Lukner during 

 the insurrection in La Vendee, and in 1793 was appointed chief of a 

 division of the army in Italy under Bonaparte, who then, as first consul, 

 commanded there; and when Bonaparte left he took possession of 

 Rome in satisfaction of the death of General Duphot, and proclaimed 

 a republic : in this campaign he attached himself to Bonaparte, who 

 made a confidant of him. On the 18th Brumaire (November 1799) 

 Berthier was one of the generals who joined Bonaparte in putting an 

 end to the Directory ; and was rewarded afterwards with tbe post of 

 secretary of war. When Bonaparte became emperor he was still 

 further advanced : in rapid succession he was created mareclial, grand 

 huntsman, chief of the first cohort of the legion of honour, sovereign 

 prince of Neufchatel, and was married to a niece of the king of 

 Bavaria. These were his rewards : his services were also numerous. 

 Berthier was at the battle of Austerlitz, December 2, 1805, and 

 was left in command of the army when Bonaparte quitted the 

 camp for Munich. In the campaigns against Prussia and Russia, 

 ending with the treaty of Tilsit, Berthier took a pnrt, but was not in 

 a prominent position in any of the great battles. On the renewal of 

 the war with Austria in 1809, Berthier was appointed commander-in- 

 chief until Bonaparte himself arrived. After the battle of Wagram 

 Berthier was created Prince of Wagram on the field for his distin- 

 guished services. lu the campaigns of 1812, 1813, and 1814, he acted 

 under Bonaparte's eye as general quarter-master and chief of the 

 staff. For these situations he had admirable capabilities, which 

 Napoleon knew and appreciated; though he deemed him wholly 

 unfit to command in chief. After the fall of his great leader and 

 friend, Berthier evinced but little gratitude. He resigned the princi- 

 pality of Neufchatel, and repairing to Louis XVIII. at Compiegne, 

 made bin submission, and was rewarded by being created a peer of 

 France, a marshal, and a captain of the royal body-guards. Bona- 

 parte, though utterly selfish himself, could not credit this selfishness 

 in Berthier. He wrote to him from Elba explaining his views. 

 Berthier never answered : he could neither make up his mind to risk 

 his present fortune in the bold adventure of hU old master, nor could 

 he be faithful to his new patron by showing him the letter. On Bona- 

 parte's return in March 1815, he endeavoured to remain neuter, and 

 took refuge in Bamberg with his father-in-law. Here, on the 1st of 

 June 1815, it is said, six men ia masks entered his chamber, and 

 threw him out of the window ; another statement is, that looking out 

 of the window on some Russian troops, proceeding to attack France, 

 he threw himself out. It is at least certain that he was found on the 

 pavemen',, so crushed, that he died immediately. (Conversatiow- 

 Lexikon ; ffvuvelle Siographie UniverieUe.) 



BERTHOLLET, CLAUDE LOUIS, a distinguished chemical philo- 

 sopher, wai born at Talloire, near Annecy in Savoy, on the 9th of 

 December 1748. He commenced his studies at ChainWry, and com- 

 pleted them at the College des Provinces at Turin, an establishment 

 in which many eminent persons have been educated. Having obtained 



a medical degree, h'e soon afterwards went to Paris, where he con- 

 tinued chiefly to reside during the remainder of a long life devoted to 

 the acquisition of knowledge. 



Berthollet became acquainted at Paris with M. Tronchin, a medical 

 practitioner of eminence and a native of Geneva, and through him 

 obtained the appointment of physician to the Duke of Orleans ; in this 

 situation he studied chemistry with great assiduity and success, and 

 soon made himself advantageously known by his ' Essays ' on the 

 subject. In 1781 he was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences ; 

 and a few years afterwards the Duke of Orleans procured for him 

 the situation of government commissary aud superintendent of 

 dyeing processes, which had been occupied by Macquer. To this 

 appointment chemistry was indebted for his work on dyeing, which 

 contains a better account both of the theory and practice of the art 

 than any which had before made its appearance. 



At a meeting of the Academy of Sciences in 1785, Berthollet 

 announced his belief in the antiphlogistic doctrines recently pro- 

 pounded by Lavoisier, ani he was the first French chemist of any 

 celebrity who did so. On one subject he, indeed, differed from tliis 

 illustrious chemist, for he did not admit oxygen to ba the acidifying 

 principle; and the justness of Berthollet's views is now universally 

 admitted. In this year he completed the discovery of tho composi- 

 tion of ammonia, by following out the previous experiments of 

 Priestley. He also published his first essay ou dephlogisticated marine 

 acid, now called chlorine, aud proposed the use of it in the process of 

 bleaching; an application which has been moat extensively and 

 beneficially adopted. 



When the French revolution broke out, aud France became involved 

 in war, it was found necessary to obtain, if possible withiu the limits 

 of the French territories, many of the requisites for carrying on war, 

 which had previously been imported. Berthollet accordingly visited 

 almost every part of the country, for the purpose of pointing out the 

 means of extracting and purifying saltpetre to be used in the manu- 

 facture of gunpowder; he was also employed with other men of 

 science in teaching the processes of smelting iron and converting it 

 into steel. In tho year 1792, being appointed one of the commis- 

 sioners of the Mint, he introduced considerable improvements into 

 the processes employed in it. In 1794 he was made a member of the 

 commission of agriculture and arts, and professor of chemistry at the 

 Polytechnic and Normal Schools. 



When the Institute was organised in 1795, he became an active 

 member of it, and in the following year he was appointed by the 

 Directory to proceed, in company with Monge, to Italy, iu order to 

 select works of science and art to be sent to the French capital. On 

 this occasion he became acquainted with Bonaparte, which led to his 

 joining the expedition to Egypt, and the subsequent formation of the 

 Institute of Cairo, the memoirs of which body were printed in one 

 volume at Paris iu the year 1800. 



Berthollet in conjunction with Lavoisier, Guyton de Morveau, and 

 Fourcroy, planned aud proposed a new and philosophical chemical 

 nomenclature. This, even with all the errors and omissions necessarily 

 attendant upon so new an attempt, has been of essential service to 

 chemical science, aud reflects much honour upon its authors. Ber- 

 thollet was the author of moro than eighty memoirs, some of the 

 earlier of which were inserted in the memoirs of the Academy ; Ms 

 later memoirs are generally printed in the ' Annales de Chimie," 

 'Journal de Physique,' and the ' Mdmoires de Physique et de Chimie 

 de la SocitStiS d'Arcueil,' so called from the place in which Berthollet 

 lived, at whose house the sittings were held. 



Some of the first memoirs which he published were on sulphurous 

 acid, on the volatile alkali, and the decomposition of nitre ; in these 

 he adopted, and for some time strenuously defended, the phlogistic 

 theory. In a paper on soaps, he showed that they are chemical com- 

 pounds, iu which the oil, by combining with the alkali, acts the part 

 of an acid. In 1785, following and extending the experiments of 

 Priestley, he proved that ammonia is a compound of threo volumes of 

 hydrogen gas, and one volume of azotic gas. About the same time 

 he read a paper ou the dephlogisticated marine acid, as it was called 

 by Scheele its discoverer, on which occasion he renounced the doctrine 

 of phlogiston ; iu his experiments on this supposed acid he found that 

 water impregnated with it, when exposed to light, lott its green tint, 

 gave out oxygen gas, and became common marine acid. This experi- 

 ment seemed satisfactorily to provo, that dephlogisticated marine acid 

 was composed of oxygen and muriatic, then calle 1 marine acid ; 

 Berthollet accordingly gave it the name of oxygenised muriatic acid, 

 shortened by Kirwan into oxymuriatic acid. In this experiment 

 however the agency of water was not taken iuto the account, and the 

 incorrectness of Berthollet's opinion has been fully demonstrated by 

 the experiments of Davy, Gay-Lussao, and Theuard ; the name of 

 chlorine is now given to this body. In his essay on sulphuretted 

 hydrogen, in 1778, he showed that this gas, though containing no 

 oxygen, possessed acid properties ; and in 1787, in an essay on prussic 

 acid, he further proved the same fact, determining, by au analysis 

 attended with great difficulties, that this acid contained no oxygen, 

 and consequently exhibited an additional proof that oxygen was not, 

 as Lavoisier had supposed, the acidifying principle. 



Berthollet was also the discoverer of the ainmoniuret of silver, 

 generally called fulminating silver ; and he first obtained hydrate of 



