251 



VAILLANT, SEBASTIAN. 



VAKHTANG. 



252 



VAILLANT, SEBASTIAN, botanist, was born on the 26th of 

 May 1669, at Vigny, near Pontoise, being the eldest son of a shop- 

 keeper in that town. At a very early age he acquired a taste for 

 botany, and when only six years old had made a collection of the wild 

 plants of the country, which he cultivated in his father's garden. But 

 his father, fearing that his love of plants would be the ruin of him, 

 direct 'd his attention during his leisure hours to music; and so great 

 was his progress on the organ, that, at the age of eleven, on his tutor 

 dying, he was appointed organist in his place in the Benedictine con- 

 vent of St. Macloud. He also was distinguished by his attention to 

 his general studies at the grammar-school of Pontoise. He was after- 

 wards appointed resident organist in a nunnery near his native town, 

 and having a strong inclination for the study of medicine, he took every 

 opportunity to visit the sick in a neighbouring public hospital. His 

 progress in anatomical and medical reading having been great, he was 

 appointed assistant-surgeon to the hospital. At the age of nineteen 

 he left this position to pursue his medical studies at Evreux, in Nor- 

 mandy; and having been introduced to the Marquis de Goville, a 

 captain of the royal ftmleers, he was appointed by him surgeon to his 

 company, with the rank of lieutenant. In this position he was present 

 at the battle of Fleurus, where his patron having been killed, he left 

 the army and came to Paris in 1691. His intention was still further 

 to pursue medicine, but in the course of his studies he attended the 

 lectures of Tournefort, who was then at the height of his popularity 

 as a botanical teacher. His long-forgotten passion for plants again 

 broke forth, and he resolved to abandon himself entirely to the study 

 of botany. The period was favourable for this determination ; the genius 

 of Tournefort had just shed a brilliant light on many of the obscure 

 departments of botany, which served to show how much was yet to 

 be done. Vaillant soon gained the friendship of Tournefort, and was 

 afterwards introduced to M. Fagon, first physician to the king, and 

 professor of botany and subdemonstrator of plants in the Jardin du 

 Roi. Fagon made him his secretary, and appointed him, under him- 

 self, a director of the Jardin du Roi, and, in 1708, resigned in his 

 favour his professorship and subdemonstratorship, situations which 

 Tournefort was known to have been anxious to obtain. Soon after 

 his appointment to these positions, many improvements were made in 

 the gardens, and Vaillant was commissioned by the king to form a 

 museum of materia medica. In 1716 he was elected a member of the 

 Academy of Sciences, an honour which he had never sought, and 

 which he at first refused to accept. 



As a lecturer Vaillant WMS successful, and for many years he did 

 little else than publish his views through the medium of his lectures. 

 Although a pupil, an admirer, and a friend of Tournefort, he was 

 opposed to many of his views, and especially the system on which he 

 had arranged the vegetable kingdom ; and in 1721 he read before the 

 Academy of Sciences a criticism on the method of Tournefort, which 

 was published in the Memoirs of the Academy for 1723. He did not 

 however succeed in establishing any classification of his own ; and it 

 is not probable, even if lie had lived to have carried out his own views 

 on systematic botany, that he would have produced a system that 

 could have supplanted the one which was the basis of the 'Institu- 

 tiones Rei Herbarise/ and which laid the foundation for the labours 

 of Adanson, the Jussieus, and De Candolle. The most successful 

 portions of his criticisms directed against Tournefort were those with 

 regard to the functions of the stamens and pistils, which Tournefort 

 looked upon as only excretory organs, and held to be of very second- 

 ary importance in the structure of the flower. Vaillant published his 

 views on this subject in a paper, entitled 'Sermo de Structura Florum, 

 horum differentia usuque partium eos constituentium/ &c., Leyden, 

 1718. It was also published at the same time in French. Between 

 the years 1718 and 1722 he read several papers before the Academy 

 of Sciences on the genera and species of the natural order Composite, 

 which were very valuable contributions towards the elucidation of 

 the structure of that difficult order of plants. He did not publish 

 remarks on the foreign species of other orders, but Sir J. E. Smith 

 states that the remarks in his Herbarium, preserved at Paris, " display 

 astonishing instances of his profound knowledge and acute judgment 

 with respect to the genera, species, and synonymes of plants." 



Vaillant had evidently during his life been preparing for some great 

 work, but before he had arranged his materials he was attacked with 

 the symptoms of pulmonary consumption, which obliged him to aban- 

 don his design. There was one work however on which he had spent 

 a great deal of time and labour, and which he was. anxious to have 

 published, and that was on the plants growing around Paris. Tourne- 

 fort had, in his ' History of Plants which grow in the neighbourhood 

 of Paris,' attempted the same thing ; but this was admitted to be the 

 least successful of his efforts, and Vaillant obtained for his work the 

 assistance of Aubriet, the first botanical draughtsman of the day, who 

 had made upwards of 300 drawings : the descriptions of all the species 

 were very carefully made, with an accurate account of the synonyme?, 

 in which Tournefort's work was very deficient; and, in addition, he 

 had also examined to some extent the cryptogamic plants. Finding 

 that he could not publish this work before his death, he wrote to 

 the celebrated Boerhaave, requesting that he would consent to publish 

 it : a negociation was carried on between the two by means of our 

 countryman Dr. William Sherard [SHERARD, WILLIAM], and ended in 

 the consent of Boerhaave to publish the work. Vaillant, having been 



thus relieved of this last earthly anxiety, prepared composedly for his 

 death, which took place on his birth-day, May 26, 1722. 



The posthumous work, entitled 'Botanicon Parisiense,' was published 

 at Leyden in 1727, forming a large folio with 33 plates, containing 

 between 300 and 400 figures of plants. The figures are uncoloured, 

 and the plants are arranged in an alphabetical manner. The definition 

 of the species is in Latin ; the rest of the text is in French. 



Vaillant was a man of no ordinary talent and integrity. His 

 botanical works display the accuracy and originality of his mind, and 

 it is probable that had not his plans been too gigantic for his 

 enfeebled constitution find the shortness of his life, he would have 

 left behind him more abundant proofs of his genius. He began to 

 tread in the path which was so successfully followed up by Linnaeus ; 

 and his attempt at improving the nomenclature of botany is an 

 indication of his perception of the necessity of that change which was 

 effected by the subsequent efforts of Linnaeus. He was also one of those 

 who, before the time of Linmeus, distinctly taught and upheld the 

 doctrine of the sexuality of plants. He has been sometimes censured 

 for his attacks on Tournefort, .but these were directed, not towards 

 the man, for whom he entertained a profound regard, but towards 

 what he deemed his errors. When his friend and patron Fagon was 

 on his death bed, Vaillant was unremitting in his attentions through- 

 out a painful disease ; and when pressed to receive a sinecure under 

 government enjoyed by Fagon, as a reward for his attentions, he 

 refused. He left a widow, but no offspring. The genus Vaillantia of 

 De Candolle was named in honour of him. 



(Bischoff, Lehrbuch der Botanilc ; Haller, Sib. Hot. ; Biog. Univ. ; 

 Sir J. E. Smith, in Rees's Cyclopaedia. 



VAILLANT, WALLERANT, a distinguished portrait painter, was 

 born at Lille in 1623, and was the pupil of Erasmus Quellinus, at 

 Antwerp. He painted the portrait of the Emperor Leopold I. at 

 Frankfurt, and many of the people of his court. He subsequently 

 went with Marshal Qrammont to Paris, and was there equally distin- 

 guished by the French court. After having amassed considerable 

 riches he died at Amsterdam, in 1677. 



Vaillant was employed in 1656 at Brussels by Prince Rupert to 

 assist him in executing some plates in the new method of mezzotinto 

 engraving then communicated to the Prince by Siegen [SIEGEN, LDD- 

 WIG VON]. As Vaillant is the first artist who engraved in this style, 

 his prints have more than ordinary interest. Among these are two 

 portraits of Prince Rupert, one of which is inscribed Prins Robbert, 

 vinder van de Swarte Prent Konst, which is one of the principal 

 causes of Siegen's being so long deprived of the merit of his invention. 



Vaillant had four younger brothers, who were all painters or 

 engravers and his pupils. 



VAKHTANG, the name of several kings of Georgia. 



VAKHTANG THE FIRST, surnamed Goor Asian, was, according to the 

 chronicles of Georgia, the thirty-third king of that country, and a 

 descendant of Sapor the First, king of Persia, who ascended the 

 throne in A.D. 238, and having conquered Iberia, gave it to his son 

 Mirian, who founded the third dynasty of Georgia. Vakhtang tho 

 First died about the end of the 5th century. He was a great warrior, 

 and extended the frontiers of his empire, and strengthened them by 

 the construction of many fortresses. The Georgian chronicles of 

 that period are however very uncertain, and contain much fable 

 mingled with truth. 



VAKHTANG THE SECOND, of the dynasty of Bagratides, ascended 

 the throne of his country in 1289, with the consent of the Mongols, 

 whose dominion at that time extended over a great part of Asia. He 

 died after a reign of three years, regretted by his subjects on account 

 of his virtues. 



VAKHTANQ THE THIRD, of the same dynasty as the second of the 

 same name, ascended the throne in 1301. The Mongols wishing to 

 compel him and his nation to embrace Mohammedanism, he went to 

 the court of the khan, in order to induce him to desist from his design 

 against the Christians of Georgia. He did not succeed in his object, 

 was imprisoned, and afterwards murdered in 1304. He is revered as 

 a martyr. 



VAKHTANG THE FOURTH belonged to the same dynasty as the 

 preceding. He succeeded his father, Alexander, who became a monk 

 in 1442. Having' granted several provinces to his younger brothers, 

 who governed them as his vassals, he assumed the title of king of 

 kings. He died after a reign of three years, without issue. 



VAKHTANG THE FIFTH, king of Kartli, (one of the provinces into 

 which Georgia was divided) is also known under the name of Shah 

 Nawaz, which he assumed on being obliged outwardly to conform to 

 Mohammedanism. He ascended the throne in 1 665. He lived a long 

 time in Persia, at the court of Shah Abbas the Second, with whom he 

 enjoyed great favour. This and other favourable circumstances 

 enabled him to reunite under his dominion, with the approbation of 

 the Shah of Persia, the disjointed part of Georgia, and this country 

 enjoyed under his rule a repose of which it had been long deprived. 

 He died in 1676, having during his lifetime divided his dominions 

 between his two sons. 



VAKHTANG THE SIXTH, the legislator of Georgia, and the grandson 

 of the preceding, ascended the throne of Kartli in 1703, after his 

 brother Khosrew, who had become a Mohammedan, and during the 

 lifetime of his father Leo, who was detained in Persia. Vakhtaug 



