116 



GAUSSEN 



GAVAZZI 



by Sartorius von Waltershausen (2d ed. 1877) and 

 Winnecke (1877). 



Gaussen, FRANCOIS S. K. Louis, a Swiss 

 Reformed theologian,' born at Geneva, 25th August 

 1790, was pastor at Satigny near Geneva, and took 

 an active part in the church controversies of the 

 time, until dismissed in 1831 by the State Council 

 of Geneva, because he, with Merle d'Aubigne, had 

 taken part in establishing the Societe Evangelique, 

 one object of which was the founding of A new- 

 theological school for the maintenance of the old 

 Calvinism. From 1836 till his retirement in 1857 

 he lectured with success in the new college, and 

 died at Lea Grottes, Geneva, 18th June 1863. . Of 

 his writings may be named La Theopnemtie, ou 

 Pleine Inspiration des Saintes Ecritures (1840), a 

 defence of plenary inspiration, which became popular 

 in England and America ; and Le Canon des Saintes 

 Ventures au double point de vue de la Science et de 



Gautama. See BUDDHISM. 



Gailtier, THEOPHILE, one of the most accom- 

 plished of recent French poets and prose-writers, 

 was born at Tarbes, August 31, 1811, and educated 

 at the grammar-school ot his native town, and after- 

 wards at the College Charlemagne in Paris. He 

 applied himself at first, but without much success, 

 to painting, turned to literature, and attracted the 

 notice of bainte-Beuve at eighteen by the style of 

 several essays, the results of his studies in the 

 earlier French literature. He soon attached him- 

 self to the school of Victor Hugo, and outdid all the 

 other romanticists in the extravagance of his admir- 

 ation and partisanship. His belief in the ' poet of 

 the wind, the sea, and the sky ' was the one serious 

 belief of his life. In 1830 he published his first 

 long poem, Albertus, an extravagantly picturesque 

 legend, full of the promise of his later flexibility of 

 diction, followed in 1832 by the striking Comedie de 

 la Mart. But his poetry did not reach its highest 

 point till the Etnaux et Camees ( 1856). In 1835 ap- 

 peared his celebrated novel, Mademoiselle de Mau- 

 pin, with its defiant preface, which was taken 

 seriously by the critics, instead of being regarded 

 as merely the escapade of an unscrupulously clever 

 youth, and the advertisement of a publisher who 

 wanted a ' sensational ' novel. He wrote many 

 other novels and shorter stories, the chief being 

 Les Jeune-France (1833), Fortunio (1838), Une 

 Larme du Diable (1839), Miiitona (1847), La Peau 

 de Tigre (1852), Jettatiira (1857), Le Capitaine 

 Fracasse ( 1863), La Belle Jenny ( 1865), and Spirite 

 ( 1866). Merimee alone contests with him the palm 

 as the prince of writers of short stories. He was 

 drawn early to the lucrative task of feuilleton 

 writing, and for more than thirty years contributed 

 to the Paris newspapers criticisms on the theatre 

 and on the salon. The first half of his theatrical 

 criticisms were collected in 1859 in 6 volumes, 

 under the ambitious title of UHistoire de I'Art 

 Dramatique en France; his accounts of the Salon, 

 which have yet to be republished, form perhaps the 

 best history, if the least didactic, of the French art 

 of his day. Hisleisure he devoted to travels inSpain, 

 Holland, Turkey, England, Algeria, and Russia, of 

 which he published characteristic accounts in his 

 Caprices et Zigzags, Constantinople, Voyage en 

 Russie, and Voyage en Espagne, admirable feats of 

 description, relating solely to the look of the coun- 

 tries visited, not at all to their institutions, yet 

 forming perhaps the most delightful books of travel 

 in existence. Gautier died in Paris, October 23, 

 1872. Other works were an enlarged edition of his 

 inimitable &maux et Camees ( 1872) ; Les Grotesques 

 (1844), on the writers of the 16th and 17th cen- 

 turies ; Honore de Balzac ( 1858) ; Menagerie Intime 

 (1869), a kind of informal autobiography ; Histoire 



du Romantisme (1872); and the posthumous 

 works, Portraits et Souvenirs Litteraires ( 1875), and 

 L 'Orient ( 1877). Gautier's name has become a kind 

 of watchword and battle-cry. Writers with more 

 enthusiasm than good sense have made him an idol, 

 and elevated the paradoxes of his scepticism into a 

 theory of life, while the sturdy moralists of the press 

 use his name as a synonym for everything in art 

 that is effeminate, and for all the affectations of the 

 boudoir poetaster. The truth is that Gautier was 

 nothing greater or less than a consummate artist 

 in prose and verse. He is neither moral nor im- 

 moral ; has absolutely no fixed faith of any sort, 

 except in the pleasantness of pleasant impressions, 

 holding even his aesthetic principles with good- 

 humoured laxity. His whole philosophy is a philo- 

 sophy of paradox, his ideal of life hardly more than 

 a picturesque viciousness. His besetting sin was a 

 childish desire to say something clever and wicked 

 to shock the Philistines. He himself never ex- 

 pected his lewd romance to be taken seriously, to 

 be adopted as the gospel of a school, and charac- 

 terised with grave absurdity as ' the golden book of 

 spirit and sense.' See the collections of reminis- 

 cences by Ernest Feydeau (1874) and Bergerat 

 (1878); also Henry James's French Poets and 

 Novelists (1878). 



Gauze, a light transparent silk fabric, supposed 

 to have derived its name from having first been 

 manufactured in Gaza, a city of Palestine. France 

 and Switzerland produce large quantities. The 

 openness of texture is obtained by crossing the warp 

 threads between each thread of the weft, so that 

 the weft passes through a succession of loops in the 

 warp, and the threads are thus kept apart, without 

 the liability to sliding from their places, which 

 would take place if simple weaving were left so 

 loose and open. It is used for dress purposes, and 

 largely also for sifting flour. What is made for the 

 latter purpose is sometimes called bolting-cloth. 

 The light open cotton fabric known as leno, and 

 used for window-curtains, has the same structure 

 as gauze. Cheap textiles of the nature of gauze 

 are used for the dresses of ballet-girls. 



Gavarni, PAUL, a French caricaturist whose 

 proper name was Sulpice Guillaume Chevalier, 

 was born at Paris in 1801, and started life as a 

 mechanical engineer. But, being a skilful draughts- 

 man, he abandoned engine-making to become a 

 caricaturist for Les Gens du Monde, and after- 

 wards for Le Charivari. During the early part 

 of his career he ridiculed the follies, vices, and 

 habits of the citizens of Paris with a sort of good- 

 humoured irony ; but later in life a deeper earnest- 

 ness, and sometimes even bitterness, showed itself 

 in the productions of his pencil. This tendency 

 was greatly strengthened by a visit to London in 

 1849, and from that date he reproduced in the 

 newspaper V Illustration the scenes of misery 

 and degradation he had witnessed in the English 

 capital. Gavarni also illustrated several books, 

 the most notable being Sue's Juif Errant, Balzac's 

 works, the French translation of Hoffmann's tales, 

 &c. He died at Auteuil, near Paris, 23d November 

 1866. A collection of his drawings, engraved on 

 wood, appeared at Paris, under the title of (Euvres 

 Choisies, with text by Janin, Gautier, Balzac, and 

 others (4 vols. 1845-48). This was followed by 

 a second collection, Perleset Parures (2 vols. 1850). 



Gavazzi, ALESSANDRO, a popular Italian 

 preacher and reformer, was born at Bologna in 

 1809. He became a monk of the Barnabite order, 

 and was appointed professor of Rhetoric at Naples, 

 where he speedily acquired great reputation as an 

 orator. On the accession of Pius IX. to the papal 

 chair, Gavazzi was one of the foremost supporters 

 of the liberal policy that inaugurated that pontiff's 



