357 



VIDA, MARCO GIROLAMO. 



VIDOCQ, FRANCOIS-JULES. 



358 



the Canton river. Both attacks were successful, numerous junks 

 were destroyed, a quantity of cannon taken, and a large part of the 

 enemy's force killed. June 17, the mutineers in India attacked 

 Cawnpore, but were repulsed. They however renewed their attacks; 

 the British commander, Sir Hugh Wheeler, was killed, and on June 

 20 the garrison was obliged to surrender to Nena Sahib, the Mahratta 

 chief of Bhitoor, on an agreement of being allowed to depart for 

 Alluhabad. When they were embarked in boats on the Gauges for 

 that purpose, cannon were fired on them, many boats were sunk, and 

 those who lauded were cut down. July 3, General Havelock marched 

 against Cawupore, and, after defeating the enemy in three battles, 

 regained possession of the town on July 17. June 25, an order in 

 Council directed that in future Prince Albert was to be prayed for in 

 the churches and addressed as the Prince Consortr. July 10, the Oaths 

 Bill, by which Jews would have been admitted to parliament, was 

 rejected in the House of Lords, after being carried in the Commons 

 by a large majority. August 7, the laying down the Submarine Cable 

 between Valentia in Ireland and St. John's, Newfoundland, was com- 

 menced. After laying down nearly 300 miles, the cable broke, and 

 the undertaking failed for the present. 



VIDA, MARCO GIRO'LAMO, born at Cremona about the year 

 1490, studied at Padua and Bologna, and distinguished himself in the 

 classical studies, and especially in Latin poetical composition. He 

 afterwards entered the order of the regular canons of the Lateran. 

 He went to Rome about the beginning of the pontificate of Leo X., 

 who happening to see his little Latin poem on chess, ' Scacchia ludus,' 

 and another entitled ' Bombyx,' or the Silkworm, took him into favour, 

 and urged him to undertake the composition of a more important and 

 regular poem on the life of our Saviour, and in order to enable him 

 to apply himself undisturbed to his poetical studies, the pope bestowed 

 upon him the priory of San Silvestro at FrascatL Vida accordingly 

 began his poem entitled ' Christiados,' of which he presented two 

 cantos to Leo X., who praised them greatly, but the poem was not 

 finished for many years after. Meantime he published, in 1527, his 

 didactic poem ' De Arte Poetica,' which has been extolled by Scaliger, 

 Batteux, and other critics, as being his best work. It has been trans- 

 lated into English, and has been praised by Dr. Johnson, and by Pope 

 in his ' Essay on Criticism.' 



Clement VII. appointed Vida apostolic protonotary, and in 1532 

 made him bishop of Alba in Piedmont. Ughelli, in his ' Italia Sacra,' 

 speaks at length of the meritorious conduct of Vida during the thirty- 

 four years that he administered the see of Alba. When the French 

 besieged that place in 1542, the bishop assisted at his own expense 

 the poor inhabitants, and supported the spirit of the garrison until 

 the besiegers were obliged to raise the sjege. Vida afterwards repaired 

 to the Council of Trent, where he became intimate with the Cardinals 

 Pole, Cervini, and Dal Monte, and with the learned Marcantonio Fla- 

 minio, and in the familiar conversations which he had with them he 

 conceived the plan of his dialogues ' De Dignitate Reipublicse,' which 

 he afterwards published and dedicated to Cardinal Pole. In the year 

 1549, on the occasion of a dispute about precedence between the towns 

 of Cremona and Pavia, the citizens of the former intrusted their 

 townsman Vida with the defence of their claims, which were to be laid 

 before the senate of Milan for its decision. Vida wrote three orations : 

 ' Cremonensium Actiones Tres adversus Papienses in Controversia 

 Principatus.' In these compositions Vida gave way perhaps too much 

 to municipal feelings, and indulged in invective against the people of 

 Pavia, for which his orations were called Vida'a ' Verrince.' Giulio 

 Salerno, on behalf of Pavia, replied to Vida, in his ' Pro Ticinensibus 

 adversus Cremonenscs de Jure Possessionis,' which however were not 

 printed, as the question was dropped. 



Vida died at Alba, in September 1566, and was buried in the cathe- 

 dral of that town. It seems that he died poor. Besides the works 

 mentioned in the course of this article, he wrote sacred hymns in 

 Latin, and other minor compositions both in Latin and Italian, Vida 

 was one of the most learned scholars and most elegant Latin writers 

 of the 16th century. His contemporary Sadoleto, a competent judge, 

 affirms that his Latin verse approached near to the dignity of classical 

 poetry. His poem on the Life of Christ, in six books, is a close imita- 

 tion of Virgil, for which the author was styled ' the Christian Virgii.' 

 Vida wrote also a small poem on the challenge and fight between 

 thirteen Italians and the same number of Frenchmen in Apulia, in 

 February 1503, in which the Italians remained victorious. Of this 

 inedited poem a fragment was published at Milan in 1818 : 'Marci 

 Hieronymi Vida) XIII. Pugilum Certamen.' There is an account of 

 this same occurrence in Italian pi-ose : 'Istoria del Combattimento 

 de' tredici Italian! con altrettanti Francesi, fatto in Puglia tra Andria 

 e Quarati,' by a contemporary and a spectator of the fight, which has 

 furnished the subject of Azeglio's historical novel, ' Ettore Fieramosca 

 o la Disfida di Barletta.' 



(Corniani, I Secoli della Letteratura Italiana; Tiraboschi, Storia 

 delta Letteratura Italiana; Giraldi, De Poetis Suorum Temporum; 

 and the biography of Vida, in the edition of his works published at 

 Oxford, 1722.) 



VIDOCQ, FRANCOIS-JULES, the chief of the detective brigade 

 (Brigade de surete"), at the prefecture of the Paris police, established 

 in 1812, whatever must be thought of his early life as a thief and 

 inmate of the convict yards, undoubtedly did real service to France, 



by his active pursuit of the marauders, who levy contributions on 

 their neighbours' goods. He was born at Arras, the chief town in the 

 department of the Pas de Calais on the 23rd of July 1775. His father 

 was a baker, and was chosen to supply the local government, during 

 the revolution, with bread, flour, &c. Young Francois was employed 

 in the business before he was thirteen ; but formed acquaintances who 

 led him to purloin his father's money by means of several artful con- 

 trivances. These being detected, the boy began to pilfer the stock, 

 spending the proceeds with his companions at a neighbouring wine 

 shop. A watch was at length set over him ; which did not prevent 

 hia stealing ten silver forks and spoons, and pledging them. For this 

 offence his father gave him in charge, when he was sent to the House 

 of Correction for a few days. While in confinement he was incited by 

 a young fellow-prisoner to rob his father again, by picking the lock of 

 the till, and taking out the whole contents, amounting to 80. Having 

 divided this money with his accomplice, he left Arras, intending to 

 sail for the United States ; but the high price of the passage made 

 him change his mind; and being 'at Ostend a few days after, he was 

 plundered by a sharper of all his ill-gotten gains. 



In this state of destitution, he hired himself to an itinerant show- 

 man, who kept a small mdnagerie. His allotted task consisted at first 

 in sweeping out the cage and the reception room. His master, 

 after promoting him to the rank of tumbler and acrobat, wanted him 

 to play the part of a savage who eats raw flesh and drinka blood. 

 The wretched boy refused to undertake this new character, and was 

 discharged. He next took service with the master of a puppet 

 show ; from whom he passed into the hands of a peregrinating quack- 

 doctor. At length weary of this hard probation of vagrant life, 

 which had lasted two years, the seeming penitent returned home, and 

 a kind old priest prevailed on his father to forgive him and receive 

 him. This was in 1791, in his 16th year. 



But he was too idle and restless for regular work ; so he enlisted 

 (after one or two escapades), in the regiment of Bourbon, and set out 

 for Belgium, then the seat of the new war, between France and 

 Austria. He was present in several actions, and was made a corporal ; 

 but, having quarrelled with his drum-major, and challenged him to 

 fight, he deserted to avoid a court martial. He then enlisted in the 

 llth chasseurs, and fought at the battle of Jemappes, November 6, 1792. 

 Having distinguished himself at the capture of Longivy, under Kel- 

 lermann, October 20, 1792, and being of unusual stature for his age, 

 he was made a corporal of grenadiers. A day or two after he was 

 recognised as a deserter, when he made his escape to the Austrian 

 outposts. Unwilling however to fight against his own countrymen, 

 he counterfeited illness, and began to teach fencing. 



After a short stay with the Austrians, he got back to France, 

 entered the 14th regiment, and then returned to the llth, being present 

 at several actions, and being wounded three times. One of his wounds 

 obliged him to return to Arras, where in consequence of a quarrel ho 

 was denounced to the Revolutionary Tribunal as a 'Mode're,' and 

 thrown into prison. However he was soon after released, owing to 

 the good offices of Mademoiselle Chevalier, the daughter of the noto- 

 rious Joseph Lebon. He married her in 1793, but they separated 

 almost immediately. The next year he went to Brussels, became a 

 professed gambler, made love to a countess under a feigned name, 

 and repenting of his treachery or fearing punishment for bigamy, just 

 as he was about being married to her, confessed the imposture, was 

 rewarded with a considerable sum of money, and took the diligence 

 for Paris, which he entered for the first time in 1796, at the age of 

 twenty-one. 



He had not been in the capital many weeks, before the dangerous 

 society of gamblers, swindlers, and loose women, left him once more 

 penniless , which compelled him to return to the army of tho 

 north. Several fresh instances of folly, three imprisonments, and as 

 many escapes, succeeded ; after this he was confined in the prison of 

 Douai, where he remained eight months. During his confinement, 

 he was mixed up in a case of forgery, which in his autobiography he 

 tries to explain as an act of inadvertence, rather than of guilt. For 

 this however he was tried, convicted, and sentenced to eight years' 

 penal servitude at the galleys. As they conducted him, bound to the 

 chain, he excited a revolt among the convicts, but the attempt to 

 escape having failed, he reached Brest, and remained six years at the 

 bagne. In this place he completed his studies of the manners, the 

 crafts, the habits of every class of thief. Two years before the expi- 

 ration of his penalty, he contrived to escape from the convict-yard, 

 assumed the name of Duval, and returned to his own neighbourhood, 

 where he became an usher to a school at Ambricourt, near Lille. He 

 was soon re-captured, and sent to Toulon. From this convict-yard, 

 he then made what he calls " his finest escape." After this he joined 

 a band of freebooters in the south, who plundered the stage-coaches 

 on the highroads. But these malefactors having detected the brand 

 of the convict on his shoulder, dismissed him from their company, 

 having first made him swear not to betray them. He resolved to 

 be revenged; and this incident became the turning point in his 

 fortune. 



As he was making for the north, Vidocq, having no passport, was 

 arrested and taken before a magistrate, to whom he offered to give 

 such intelligence as would enable him to surprise his late comrades in 

 the act of plunder. For this purpose, he applied for a temporary 



