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KLENZE, LEO VON. 



KLENZE, LEO VON. 



JSO 



of Turkish troops had been stationed in the village of Matarieh, and 

 a movement was made by the division of Regnier to cut it off before 

 the remainder of the army could come up to its support. No sooner 

 did the Janizaries perceive the approach of the hostile columns than, 

 sallying forth from their entrenchments, they attacked them with des- 

 perate courage. But Regnier drove the Turks back to their entrench- 

 ments, while the grenadiers, pressing on over masses of the dead and 

 dying, scaled the works, and became masters of the camp. This com- 

 bat was but the prelude to a general attack, for the vizier's army was 

 marching to avenge the destruction of its advanced guard. Vast masses 

 of Turkish cavalry soon enveloped the compact squares, by whose 

 murderous fire they fell so rapidly that a barrier of bodies was formed 

 around them, and impeded the renewed attacks of the impetuous 

 horsemen. Asiatic valour could not long withstand European discip- 

 line, and the Turks at last fled in confusion towards the desert. 

 Kle'ber, following up his success, hastened to El Kangah, where was 

 posted the remainder of the enemy's army, who seeing themselves so 

 closely pressed, hastily retired, leaving behind them the whole of their 

 baggage and munitions. Thus ended the battle of Heliopolis, important 

 in its results, and attended by little loss to the French, who numbered 

 only two or three hundred killed and wounded. 



The relief of Cairo, in whose citadel two thousand men under General 

 Verdier were closely besieged, was the next object. The firing had 

 scarcely ceased in the plains of Heliopolis when the sound of a distant 

 cannonade was heard from Cairo ; it informed Kle'ber that fresh exer- 

 tions were required, and he instantly proceeded to the rescue of his 

 countrymen. The Turks under Ibrahim Bey, who formed the besieg- 

 ing army, agreed, on hearing the result of the previous battle, to 

 evacuate the town ; but the excited populace of Cairo refused to listen 

 to any terms, and prepared themselves for a desperate resistance. It 

 became necessary to take by storm Boulak, a fortified suburb, and the 

 French, who had returned from the pursuit of the Grand Vizier, 

 invested the city. On a further refusal to surrender, a severe cannonade 

 was directed against it, and it was finally entered by assault. A des- 

 perate struggle ensued between the besieged, who occupied the houses, 

 and the besiegers, who were pressing on in the streets. Night alone 

 terminated the contest; and on the following morning the Turks 

 offered to capitulate, aud were permitted to do so on favourable terms. 

 Kle'ber, in this instance, as in many others, enhanced his victory by his 

 moderation and humanity. About the time that these events were 

 taking place, another body of the Turkish army had laid down their 

 arms to General Belliard ; and Mourad Bey, the chief of the Mamelukes, 

 deprived of every hopo of ultimate success, concluded an honourable 

 convention with the French commander. Thus, within a month of 

 the battle of UeliopolU, the French were again in possession of their 

 previous conquests. 



Released from immediate danger, Klcber now began to direct his 

 energies to more pacific labours, and to apply them to the administra- 

 tion of the conquered country. His plan appears to have been to 

 distribute portions of laud among the veterans of his army, aud to 

 adopt a course similar to that pursued by the British government in 

 India, of enlisting in his service the native troops. Scarcely however 

 hud he entered on this work when he became the victim of an obscure 

 uuaain. A young man, a native of Aleppo, named Suleiman, was 

 incited to the atrocious act by religious fanaticism and the prospect of 

 an ample reward. He had performed the pilgrimages of Mecca and 

 Medina, and his mind was deeply imbued with the tenets of the Mussul- 

 mans' faith. Having armed himself with a poignard, ho followed 

 Kle'ber several days without being able to effect his purpose, when he 

 at length determined upon concealing himself in an abandoned cistern 

 in the garden attached to the mansion which the general occupied. 

 On the 14th of June 1SOO, Kle'ber was walking in that garden with 

 Protain, the architect of the army, and he was pointing out to him 

 some repairs which the building required, when Suleiman presented 

 himself before him as a suppliant for alms ; while Kle'ber was listen- 

 ing to his petition, he seized the opportunity of rapidly striking him 

 several times with his dagger. The architect, who was armed with a 

 stick, attempting to interfere, received a severe though not deadly 

 wound. The guards having hastened at the cries of Klcber, secured 

 the assassin, whom they found concealed behind some ruins. A 

 military commission was immediately assembled to try the assassin, 

 who boldly confessed, aud even gloried in his crime. Four sheiks, the 

 partaken of his confidence, were beheaded, and Suleiman was impaled 

 alive. 



Thus prematurely perished this distinguished general, and with him 

 the hopes of the eastern expedition. He had formed many important 

 designs for colonising the country, and French writers believe, as 

 Bonaparte used to assert, that under his rule it might have been pre- 

 served a valuable acquisition to the French Republic. According to 

 Dr. O'Meara, Napoleon L declared, that of all his generals Desaix and 

 Kle'ber possessed the greatest talents. 



* KLENZE, LEO VO.V, architect, who has designed the greater 

 number of the remarkable series of edifices with which the ex-king 

 Lndwig of Bavaria enriched his capital and kingdom, was born in 1784, 

 at Hililesheim, in a principality of that name at the foot of the Harz 

 Mountains. Here his father was a magistrate ; and Klenze was sent 

 to the Collegium Caroliuum at Brunswick, and afterwards.to Berlin, 

 where he received a general and scientific education. He adopted 



architecture in preference to any other pursuit, having attended the 

 Bau-Akademie at Berlin, where he had made some progress in 

 the study of art under Professor Gii y, the master of the architect 

 Schinkel. His choice of architecture as a profession did not imme- 

 diately meet with his father's approval ; for the events at the outset of 

 the present century gave little promise of either fame or profit in 

 connection with the undertaking in Germany of any public works. 

 The objections to his choice however were not persisted in, so that in 

 one or two years after his residence at Berlin he was able to enter 

 upon a tour of study in France, England, and Italy. He spent some 

 time at the Polytechnic School at Paris, where he was under Durand 

 and others. In Sicily his studies helped to consolidate that love of 

 the old Greek architecture which he has retained through life, and 

 which has in some of his works operated against the full develop- 

 ment of his real powers as to new design. In Genoa he made the 

 acquaintance of a lover of art, the owner of one of the palaces, who 

 became his patron, and who afterwards filling a high office in the 

 court of King Jerome of Westphalia procured Klenze in 1808 the 

 appointment there of Court Architect, and afterwards a similar 

 appointment in CasseL These appointments were not of much 

 value, and on the change of political affairs in 1813 they were lost, 

 when Kleuze resorted to Munich, where he soon became known to the 

 crown prince, afterwards King Ludwig, who had already conceived 

 projects for the works of his reigu, and who was especially attached to 

 classical art. Even prior to this the idea had been conceived of 

 erecting a Walhalla, or Hall of Heroes, in Germany ; and in 1814 the 

 king Maximilian I. of Bavaria issued a programme for designs by 

 architects for such a building. Whether designs were actually 

 received we do not find stated. At the time of the congress of 

 Vienna, Klenze was in that capital, and thence he went to Paris, where 

 he again met with the crown-prince, through whom he was invited in 

 1815 to settle at Munich as Court Architect. In 1816 he was com- 

 missioned to prepare designs for the Walhalla ; but that work was not 

 commenced till fourteen years later, though in 1S21 some materials 

 were prepared. In 1816 also it would seem the Glyptothek was 

 thought of, as the depository of a collection forming since 1808, and 

 as one of an intended group of buildings, each to exhibit its distinct 

 order of columual architecture. These buildings, three in number, 

 namely, the Glyptothek, the Propylou, and the Exhibition Building, 

 have since been erected. In 1819 Klenze was named Hof-bau- 

 iuteudant, or building- inspector for the court; and in 1820, aa 

 generally stated, the Glyptothek was commenced. In 1823 he accom- 

 panied the crown-prince to Italy, who was received with acclamation 

 at Rome by the rising school of German artists. In 1825 Louis 

 ascended the throne, and from that time Klenze was the friend and 

 adviser of the monarch in those efforts by which he added one great 

 work nearly every year to the buildings of Bavaria. From 1826 the 

 office held by Klenze was that of Oberbaurath. The Glyptothek was 

 hardly completed till the year 1830, in which year the Walhalla was 

 commenced. In that year he was named President of the Council for 

 Buildings ; and in 1831 he was made a privy councillor, and elevated 

 to the rank of nobility. During the progress of the Glyptothek 

 Klenze built the Reit-Bahn, or Riding-house, commenced in 1822; 

 the Kriegs Ministerium, or War Office, 1824 ; the Odeon, 1826; the 

 Allerheiligen Kapelle, 1826 ; the Pinakothek, 1826, commenced on 

 the 7th of April, the birthday of Raffaelle ; the new wings of the 

 Residenz, or palace, called Konigsbau and Festsaalbau, 1827 ; the 

 palace of Prince Maximilian, 1828 ; and the Ionic Monopteral edifice, 

 decorated in polychromy, in the English Garden, 1833. The style of 

 these buildings is very varied. Klenze was also the architect of some 

 private residences in the Florentine style ; of the restoration of the 

 monument of Adulph of Nassau, in the cathedral of Speyer; of the 

 new street called the Linden-strasse at Munich ; of the bazaar in a 

 so-called 'Venetian' style; and of the wing of the Post- Office. 

 Besides the Walhalla, his later works include the Ruhmeshalle, in the 

 Grecian style, with the Doric order the colossal figure of Bavaria 

 being in front of the building. He was also employed by the Emperor 

 Nicholas of Russia to erect the new Imperial Museum at St. Peters- 

 burg a Graeco-ItaUan building, and one of the best of his works. 



The styles exhibited in these works are very varied, including not 

 merely in the exterior of the Walhalla, a reproduction of the 

 Parthenon, but beyond that Greek style, a modified and highly artistic 

 version of Greek expressed in the Glyptothek, and on an Italian 

 groundwork in the Imperial Museum ; and more direct transcripts 

 of Italian, Florentine, Byzantine, and Lombardic, and attempts at 

 Gothic. With this extended range of efforts it was impossible to 

 attain equal success: the attempts doubtless were dictated by the 

 king. Where Klenze does his powers as an artist most justice, it has 

 usually been with the aid of Greek models, which however he does 

 not always reproduce, as in the exterior of the Walhalla with the 

 exception of the terraces and steps ; but he can, as in the interior 

 of the same building, preserve all the pleasure of association with an 

 old style, and yet engraft on it new design, and fresh aud beautiful 

 forms of art In other works he has invented an extraordinary 

 number of ornaments and details, which are at once consistent with 

 the style, new and beautiful. In such points of view his works 

 present a great contrast to the contemporary attempts at the repro- 

 duction of Greek architecture in England. The Glyptothek and the 



