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CHAMPOLLION-FIGEAC 



CHANCELLOR 



and hieroglyphic, were essentially one ; and that 

 the hieroglyphs were not signs for ideas, but for 

 sounds. The first results of his labours were 

 published in De Vficriture hieratique des anciens 

 Bgyptiens ( 1821 ) and his famous Lettre a M. 

 Dacier (1822); and in his Precis du Systeme 

 hieroglyphiqiie (1824; 2d ed. 1828) he established 

 the conclusion that the hieroglyphs were partly 

 phonetic or alphabetic characters. The final 

 solution by which he arrived at the whole alphabet 

 of twenty-five letters (see HIEROGLYPHICS) was 

 pronounced by Niebuhr to be the greatest discovery 

 of the century. Champollion was sent by the king 

 on a scientific mission to Italy in 1824-26, and in 

 1826 was appointed conservator of the Egyptian 

 collections ; and about the same time he published 

 his Pantheon figyptien (1823), with drawings of 

 Egyptian deities from the papyrus-rolls and notes 

 regarding their Egyptian designations, and his 

 Lettres relatives au Musee royal figyptien de Turin 

 (2 vols. 1824-26). In 1828-30 he accompanied a 

 scientific expedition sent to Egypt by the king of 

 France. On his return to Paris he was made a 

 member of the Academic des Inscriptions (1830), 

 and a new chair of Egyptology was founded for 

 him in the College de France. He died March 4, 

 1832. The MSS. which he left unpublished, ex- 

 tending to more than 2000 pages, were bought by 

 the Royal Library at Paris for 50,000 francs. His 

 posthumous works are Lettres ecrites dfigypte et de 

 Nubie (1833; new ed. 1867); Grammaire figypti- 

 enne, his principal work (3 vols. 1836-41) ; Monu- 

 ments de Vfigypte et de la Nubie (5 vols. 1835-45) ; 

 Dictionnaire Eqyptien en ecriture hieroglyphique 

 (1842-44); and Monuments de Vfiqypte et de la 

 Nubie (1844), the last work being afterwards con- 

 tinued and completed under the superintendence of 

 Rouge. 



Champollion-Figeac, JEAN JACQUES, an 

 archaeologist, was born 5th October 1778 at Figeac, 

 in the department of Lot. After holding at 

 Grenoble the offices of librarian and professor of 

 Greek, he was appointed in 1828 conservator of 

 MSS. in the Royal Library in Paris ; but after the 

 February revolution was deposed from office by 

 Carnot. In 1848 he was appointed librarian of the 

 palace of Fontainebleau. Besides the Antiquites de 

 Grenoble (1807) and Recherches sur les patois de 

 France ( 1809), his chief works include the Annales 

 des Lagides (2 vols. 1819; supplement, 1821), Les 

 Tournois du Roi Rene (1827-28), and numerous 

 publications of French historical documents. After 

 the death of his younger and more celebrated 

 brother, Champollion-Figeac prepared, with the 

 help of his MbS., L'figypte ancienne et moderne 

 (1840) and L' ecriture demotique egyptienne (1843). 

 Along with his son Aime he wrote the text to 

 Silvestre's Palceographie universelle (4 vols. 1839- 

 41). He died 9th May 1867. AIMS' (1812-94) 

 wrote on the Dukes of Orleans, Francis I., and 

 Les Deux Champollions (1888). 



Chance (through the French from Low Lat. 

 cadentia), in its original and strict meaning, may 

 be defined as that which determines the course of 

 events, in the absence of law, ordinary causation, 

 or providence. Strictly speaking, it is an idea 

 which few would now be disposed to admit as 

 corresponding to anything which really exists ; the 

 religious mind excluding it as inconsistent with 

 the belief in the divine government, and the philo- 

 sophical mind rejecting it as inconsistent with a 

 recognition of universal laws of causation. As a 

 word, however, it has always been, and always 

 will be popularly accepted ; and its use is correct 

 so far as we overlook, or choose for the moment to 

 throw out of view, the more universal connection 

 of events, and regard them as their emergence, on 



a superficial view, appears to be determined. It 

 is clear that chance, being only legitimate as an 

 expression in popular parlance, is a term which 

 is much too indefinite to admit of any kind of 

 measurement. What is sometimes called the 

 Doctrine of Chances is more properly the Theory 

 of Probabilities, and will be dealt with under the 

 head of PROBABILITIES. For games of chance, see 

 GAMBLING. 



Chancel ( Lat. cancellus, ' a screen ' ). The 

 chancel, choir, or eastern part of a church was, 

 often separated from the nave by a screen of 

 lattice- work, so as to prevent general access thereto, 

 though not to interrupt either sight or sound. As 

 it was in this part of the church that the service 

 was always performed previous to the Reformation, 

 the clergy were held to have a special right to it, 

 in return for which its repairs in general still fall 

 on the inipropriator, rector, or vicar, and not on the 

 parish. The chief pew in the chancel belongs to the 

 rector or inipropriator, but the disposal of the seats 

 in the church, with this exception, belongs to the 

 ordinary, or, practically, to the churchwardens, to 

 whom the authority of the ordinary is delegated. 

 No monument, moreover, can be set up without 

 the ordinary's consent. And where the freehold of 

 the chancel vests in a lay impropriator, nevertheless 

 the right of possession in it for public worship vests 

 in the minister or churchwardens, so that they 

 cannot be excluded from it, nor be charged with 

 tresspass for making a door into it from the church- 

 yard. The term chancel is usually confined to 

 parish churches which have no aisles around the 

 choir, or chapels behind it or around it ; and in this 

 case the chancel and the choir have the same signi- 

 fication. In small churches which have no con- 

 structional chancel, the space within the altar rails 

 is sometimes called by this name, but is more 

 strictly styled the 'sanctuary.' But in larger 

 churches there are sometimes chancels at the ends 

 of the side aisles, and this whether the choir has the 

 character of a choir in the larger sense, or of a 

 chancel. See CHURCH. 



Chancellor (Lat. cancellarius). It is said 

 that the chief notary or scribe of the Roman 

 emperor was called chancellor, either because he 

 was intrusted with the power of obliterating, 

 cancelling, or crossing out ( cancellare, ' to make 

 lattice-work ' ) such expressions in the edicts of the 

 prince as seemed to him to be at variance with 

 the laws, or otherwise erroneous ; or ( more prob- 

 ably) because he sat intra cancellos, within the 

 lattice- work or railings ( cancelli ) which were erected 

 to protect the emperor from the crowding of the 

 people when he sat in judgment. Neither the title 

 nor the office of chancellor is at all peculiar to 

 England. The chancellor of France ( Chancelier de 

 France) from a very early time was an officer of 

 state of great power and dignity, under whom 

 several other officers, bearing also the title of 

 chancellor, were employed in the administration 

 of justice and in the defence of the public order. 

 The office was abolished at the Revolution ; and 

 though it was restored by the Bourbons, many of 

 the functions of the old chancellor were transferred 

 to the minister of justice, and have ever since been 

 held by him. 



In most of the other countries of Europe there 

 are officers of state who bear this or analogous 

 titles, though their powers and duties are very 

 various. In medieval Germany the archbishop and 

 elector of Mainz was Arch-chancellor of the Holy 

 Roman empire, and appointed a Vice-chancellor. 

 The chief functionary in the Austrian empire has 

 often been termed chancellor ; and on the reconsti- 

 tution of the German empire, Prince Bismarck was 

 made 'Chancellor of the Empire' (Reichskanzler). 



