685 



BOURGEOIS, SIR FRANCIS. 



EOURMONT, COUNT DE. 



died at Paris in 1671 aged fifty-Bye. He had two daughters, miniature 

 painters, who survived him. 



Bourdon had a most fertile genius, an ardent spirit, and great 

 facility, which enabled him to indulge too much in a careless mode of 

 study. He had no fixed style of painting, but followed his own caprice, 

 imitating many ; and he painted with equal facility in history, genre- 

 pieces, landscapes, battle-pieces, and comic subjects. His colour is 

 fresh, and his touch light and sharp; his expressions are lively, and his 

 invention ready ; but his drawing is hurried, and his extremities are 

 modelled with great carelessness. He did not finish highly, nor are 

 his most finished pictures his best. His execution was so rapid that 

 he is said to have completed twelve heads after nature, and of the size 

 of life, in a single day, and they were esteemed equal to some of his best 

 productions. This surprising facility enabled him to enrich his land- 

 scapes with some of the moat singular and happy effects from nature. 

 When at Venice he had studied the works of Titian with great atten- 

 tion, and his admirers trace some of the beauties of the Venetian in 

 his landscapes ; they partake also of the style of Poussin, and have a 

 wildness and singularity peculiar to himself. (D'Argenville ; De 

 Pile*). 



BOURGEOIS, SIR FRANCIS, was the descendant of a family of 

 respectability in Switzerland, where, it has been said, many of his 

 ancestors filled offices of considerable trust in the state. The father of 

 Sir Francis however resided for several years in England, it is believed, 

 under tha patronage of Lord Heathfield ; and Francis was born in 

 London in 1756. His early destination was the army, but having been 

 instructed while a child in the rudiments of painting by a foreigner of 

 inconsiderable merit as a painter of horses, he became so attached to 

 the study that he soon relinquished all thoughts of the military pro- 

 fession, and resolved to devote his attention solely to painting. For 

 tbU purpose he was placed under the tuition of Loutherbourg ; and 

 having from his connections ami acquaintance access to many of the 

 moat distinguished collections in the country, he soon acquired con- 

 siderable reputation by his landscapes and sea pieces. In 1776 he 

 travelled through Italy, France, and Holland, where his correct know- 

 ledge of the languages of each country, added to the politeness of his 

 address and the pleasantness of his conversation, procured him an intro- 

 duction to the best society, and the most valuable repositories of art. 

 On his return to England Bourgeois exhibited several specimens of his 

 studies at the Royal Academy, which obtained him reputation and 

 patronage. In 1791 he was appointed painter to the king of Poland, 

 whose brother, the prince primate, had been much pleased with his 

 performances during his residence in this country; and at the same 

 time he received the knighthood of the Order of Merit, which was 

 afterwards confirmed by the king of England, who in 1794 appointed 

 him his landscape painter. Previous to this he had, in 1792, been 

 elected a member of the Royal Academy. 



Ai a painter Sir Francis has no claim to remembrance. He is without 

 invention or imagination, and unskilled in composition ; his drawing 

 is tame and lifeless, his colouring leaden and monotonous, and his 

 touch heavy; and though there is an appearance of labour in the pro- 

 cess, the result is insipid and unfinished. He is one of the evidences 

 that a painter may obtain a certain amount of fashionable, and even 

 royal patronage though devoid of all professional merit. 



But though worthless as a painter, as the bequeather of the Bour- 

 geois collection to the custody of Dulwich college for the use of the 

 public, he has considerable claim to our gratitude. The collection was 

 formed by Noel Desenfans, an eminent picture-dealer, who dying left 

 it to Sir Francis, with whom he had lived in close friendship. Sir 

 Francis, at his death, left it to the widow of his friend, with the 

 greater part of his property, for life ; bequeathing 2000/. to Dulwich 

 collage, the foundation of Alley u the actor [A i.i KVN|, for the purpose 

 of building a gallery for the pictures, the reversion of which they were 

 to have, together with the rest of the property, charged with expenses 

 of preserving the pictures, and altering and enlarging the chapel. 

 Desenfans had been interred in a chapel attached to Bourgeois's house, 

 but Sir Francis desired in his will that their bodies might be 

 removed and deposited together in a mausoleum in the chapel of 

 Dulwich college, which was accordingly done. 



The Dulwich gallery, as it is generally termed, comprises upwards 

 of 300 pictures, mostly of a cabinet size. The collection contains some 

 very beautiful specimens of Poussin, Cuyp, Rembrandt, Wouvermans, 

 Murillo, besides other masters, chiefly of the Dutch and Flemish 

 schools ; there are also examples of the Italian masters in the collec- 

 tion, but the greater part of them are of little value, and many are of 

 doubtful authenticity. 



BOURQOING, JEAN FRANCOIS, BARON DE, was descended 

 from a noble house, not unknown in the history and literature of 

 France. One member of the family, Edmond de Bourgoing, prior of 

 a monastery of Jacobins at the time of the 'Ligue,' eulogised the 

 regicide Jacobin Jacques Clement, declaimed and fought against 

 Henri IV., and was sentenced by the parliament of Tours to be torn 

 to pieces by four horses. Noel, Jean, and two Francis de Bourgoiug, 

 have since successively published works, now forgotten, upon history, 

 finance, jurisprudence, philology, and divinity. 



Jean Francois Bourgoing, the subject of the present article, was born 

 at Nevern, the capital of the department of Nievres, November 20, 

 1748. He was educated first at the Ecole Militaire, Paris, whence he 



moo. DIV. vou i. 



proceeded, at the age of 16, to the University of Strasbourg. On leaving 

 the uuiversity he was named officer of the regiment of Auvergne, and 

 soon after was employed as Secretary of Legation. In that capacity, 

 iu the year 1777, he accompanied M. de Montmorin, the French 

 Ambassador to the court of Spain, to Madrid, where he resided nine 

 years, for the laat two as Charge' d' Affaires. During this period he 

 diligently collected information relative to the condition of Spain, 

 political, statistical, and social, which upon his return to France he 

 embodied in his ' Nouveau Voyage en Espagne, ou Tableau de 1'Etat 

 actuel de cette Monarchic,' published in 1789, and then esteemed the 

 best work extant upon Spain. In 1791 Bourgoing returned to Spain 

 as minister plenipotentiary, and remained there until 1793, when he 

 collected additional materials for his book, of which a second edition 

 thus enlarged appeared iu 1797. Third and fourth editions, with 

 successive additions of new information, bringing down the picture of 

 Spain to later dates, appeared in 1803 and 1807, under the title of 

 'Tableau de 1'Espague Moderne.' It is upon this work, which has 

 been translated into the English, German, and Spanish languages at 

 least, that the Baron de Bourgoing's claims to notice rest. He lived 

 retired from the time of his quitting Spain until Bonaparte assumed 

 the government of France, when he was again employed in several 

 diplomatic missions. He died July 20, 1811, whilst serving as French 

 envoy to Saxony. His other works are 'Mdmoires Historiques et 

 Philosophiques sur Pie VI. et son Pontifical ;' ' Correspondance d'un 

 jeune Militaire, ou Mdmoires du Marquis de Lusigny et d'Hortense de 

 S. Just; ' some translations from the German, and some articles in the 

 ' Biographie Universelle." 



(Allgemeine Deutsche Seal Encydopddie ; Biographic Universelle; 

 Biographie Gontemporuine.) 



BOURIGNON, ANTOINETTE, was a celebrated religious enthu- 

 siast, and founder of a sect which acquired considerable importance 

 under the name of the Bourigniau Doctrine. 



Antoinette Bourignou was the daughter of a merchant at Lille, where 

 she was born, January 13, 1616. She is said to have been so singularly 

 ugly that a family consultation was held upon the propriety of des- 

 troying the infant as a monster. This fate she escaped, but remained 

 an object of dislike to her mother, in consequence of which her child- 

 hood was passed in solitude and neglect, and the first books she got 

 hold of chancing to be ' Lives of the early Christians,' and mystical 

 tracts, her ardent imagination acquired the visionary turn that marked 

 her life. It has been asserted that her religious zeal displayed itself 

 so early that at four years of age she entreated to be removed to a 

 more Christian country than Lille, where the unevangelical lives of 

 the townspeople shocked her. 



As Antoinette was a considerable heiress her ugliness did not pre- 

 vent her being sought in marriage; and when she reached her twentieth 

 year one of her suitors was accepted by her parents. But the enthu- 

 siast had made a vow of virginity, and on the very day appointed for 

 celebrating her nuptials she fled iu man's clothes. She now obtained 

 admittance into a convent, where she first began to make proselytes, 

 and gained over so many of the nuns that the confessor of the sister- 

 hood procured her expulsion not only from the convent but from the 

 town. Antoinette now wandered about France, the Netherlands, 

 Holland and Denmark, everywhere making converts, and supporting 

 herself by the labour of her hands until the year 1618, when she 

 inherited her father's property. She was then appointed governess of 

 a hospital at Lille, but soon afterwards was expelled the town by the 

 police, on account of the disorders that her doctrines occasioned. She 

 then resumed her wanderings. About this timo she was again perse- 

 cuted with suitors, two of whom were so violent, each severally 

 threatening to kill her if she would not marry him, that she was 

 obliged to apply to the police for protection, and two men were sent 

 to guard her house. She died iu 1680, and left her property to the 

 Lille hospital of which she had been governess. 



At Amsterdam she appears to have made a formal renunciation of 

 Roman Catholic doctrines. But she did not become a member of any 

 other community. She taught that the true church was extinct, and 

 God had sent her to restore it. She allowed no Liturgy, worship being 

 properly internal Her doctrines were highly mystical, and sho 

 required an impossible degree of perfection from her disciples. She 

 is said to have been remarkably eloquent, and was at least equally 

 diligent, for she wrote twenty-one bulky 8vo volumes which were 

 published at Amsterdam 1679-84. Most of her writings were printed 

 at a private press which she kept for the purpose. After her death 

 Poiret, a mystical Protestant divine, and a disciple of the Cartesian 

 philosophy, wrote her life, and reduced her doctrines into a regular 

 system. 



BOURMONT, LOUIS AUQUSTE VICTOR DE CHAISNE, 

 MARSHAL COUNT DE, was born at Paris, or, according to other 

 accounts, at the castle of Bourmont iu Anjou, in the year 1773. 

 Having entered the army in 1788 at the age of fifteen, he served as an 

 officer in the Royal French Guards until 1790, when he emigrated, 

 and joined the army of the Prince de Cond<5. His sanguine disposition 

 and earnest character recommended him so strongly to the emigrant 

 leader, that he was immediately employed in fomenting the insurrection 

 of the western provinces. In October 1793 he was despatched by the 

 prince to the head-quarters of the Viscount de SciSpeaux, under whoso 

 orders he commanded one of the corps of the Vendean troops, and was 



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