765 



LAER, PETER VAN DE. ' 



LAFAYETTE, MARQUIS DE. 



768 



and writings, he was appointed in 1816 chief physician to the 

 Hdpital Necker, and it was there that he soon after made the remark- 

 able and important discovery of mediate auscultation. From this 

 time he devoted himself unceasingly to the perfecting of his new 

 system of diagnosis. In June 1818 he read his first memoir on it to 

 the Academy of Sciences, and in the following year he published his 

 ' Traite" de 1'Auscultation Mediate.' But the labour necessary for its 

 accomplishment so injured his health, which was naturally very 

 delicate, that he was immediately afterwards obliged to resign all 

 his studies as well as a large private practice, and to leave Paris for 

 his native province. He returned in 1821, with his health restored, 

 and having resumed his duties, he was soon after appointed professor 

 of medicine iu the College of France. In 1822 he was chosen pro- 

 fessor of clinical medicine, and he regularly delivered the lectures at 

 La Charitd till 1826, when, after the publication of a second edition 

 of his work, his health again failed him. Indications of consumption 

 wtre discovered by means of the art he had himself invented; and 

 although by retiring to Brittany he seemed again for a time recruited, 

 he died of consumption in the same year. 



Laennec's work on mediate auscultation is undoubtedly the most 

 important which the present century has produced in medical science. 

 But it must be remembered that only a small portion of hia high 

 reputation is due to the discovery of the stethoscope, although from 

 the tone of his work it is evident that he rested chiefly upon that as 

 the basis of his future fame. He, with many of Corvisart's pupils, 

 had long been in the habit not only of using percussion as a means of 

 diagnosis, but of applying the ear directly to the chest : the stethoscope 

 was merely a convenient auxiliary for the accomplishment of the 

 same purpose which they had in view, but so little essential that 

 many of the best physicians now employ it only when the direct 

 application of the ear is personally inconvenient. Had the stethoscope 

 been invented by any one of less genius and fitness fur the study of 

 diseases than Laennec, it would probably have fallen into the same 

 neglect as the more original discovery of the value of percussion by 

 Avenbruggcr bad till bis work wag translated and his practice imitated 

 by Corvisan. The invention however of a convenient auxiliary was 

 the fortunate means of leading Laennec to apply himself to the 

 special study of the diseases of the chest ; and he so far elucidated 

 their pathology that those diseases, which at the beginning of this 

 century were involved in the greatest obscurity, are now the mo-t 

 completely and clearly known of 11 which fall within the province of 

 the physician, who now i-tudies them with the ear with almost as 

 great accuracy and confidence as the surgeon can investigate the 

 diseases of which he takes charge, with the eye or the hand. 



Laennec's other publications, though thrown into the shade by his 

 great work, fully maintain his reputation. The chief of them are 

 published in the ' Dictionnaire des Sciences MeMicalus,' in the articles 

 ' Anatomic Pathologique,' ' Ascarides,' ' Cartilages Accident*!*,' 

 Degeneration,' 'Disorganization,' ' Detraehyceros,' ' Encephaloide,' 

 'Filaire.' A 'Life of Laeniiec' by Dr. Forbes is prefixed to his 

 Translation of the ' Traits' de 1' Auscultation Mediate.' 



LAKH, PETEIt VAN DE. [BiMBOccio.] 



LAFAYETTE, GILBEHT-M01T1ER, MARQUIS DE, was born 

 in September 1757, at Ctievagnac, near Brioude, in the present depart- 

 ment of the Haute Loire; his father having been killed shortly before 

 at the battle of Miudeu. He received a very imperfect education, 

 which in after life he found little time or inclination to remedy. 

 Left to follow his own inclinations he marri-d at the age of sixteen 

 Mademoiselle de Noailles d'Ayen, and his wife's relations offered him 

 a place at court, which he refused. While a schoolboy he was an 

 officer in the French army, but his military duties seem only to have 

 required his attendance at reviews. When the American revolution 

 broke out, Lafayette, who had adopted with enthusiasm the indefinite 

 liberal notions then in vogue among the younger members of the 

 French nobility, made an offer of his services to the American Com- 

 missioners then in Fans ; and Silai Deane fancying that the adhesion 

 of a wealthy young French noble and courtier would produce some 

 dclat, gladly accepted tbem, engaging at the same time that Lafayette 

 (then nineteen) should receive a major-general's commission in the 

 American army. Accordingly he armed a vessel at his own expense 

 and lauded at Charleatown in April 1777. He fought as a volunteer 

 at the battle of the Braudywine on the llth of September 1777, in 

 which he was wounded. He served in the north under Washington's 

 orders, and in May 1778 being sent forward with a detachment to 

 occupy Barren Hill, he only escaped from a superior British force by 

 a ha-ty retreat He was at the battle of Monmouth iu the following 

 June 1778, and afterwards received the thanks of Congress for his 

 gallant conduct, and the present of a valuable sword. About this 

 time his petulance and vanity were somewhat ludicrously manifested 

 by his sending a challenge to Lord Carlisle, for some reflections on 

 the conduct of France contained iu a public letter from the English 

 Cornmiwiouers to the President of the American Congress. In 1779 

 Lafayette returned to France, the government of that country having 

 acknowledged the independence of the American States, and hu 

 obtained assistance in men and money, with which he returned to 

 America, In 1780 ho commanded the advanced guard of Washing- 

 ton's army ; and he sat in the court-martial which condemned the 

 unfortunate Andre". In 1781 Lafayette was intrusted with the defence 



of Virginia against Lord Cornwallis, but his only military achieve- 

 ment while holding a separate command was that of eaciping by a 

 dexterous retreat from the English commander. Under Washington 

 he subsequently contributed to the operations iu consequence of which 

 Lord Cornwallis was obliged to capitulate at York Town. 



After the surrender of Cornwalli-s, Lafayette returned to France for 

 fresh reinforcements, but the peace of 1783 prevented his sailing 

 back to America. He however visited that country in 1784, and was 

 received with the greatest enthusiasm in all parts of the United 

 States. Washington maintained a friendly correspondence with 

 Lafayette as long as he lived. After Lafayette's return to France he 

 travelled through Germany, and was received with marked distinction, 

 by Frederick th Great and Joseph II. of Austria. 



When the threatening; state of affairs which preceded the outbreak 

 of the French revolution compelled the king to summon the Assembly 

 of Notables in 1787, Lafayette was returned a member, and he entered 

 heartily into the proceedings of that body. He advocated the abolition 

 of the lettres de cachet and of state-prisons, and he supported the 

 claims of the Protestants of France, who were still labouring under 

 civil disabilities. He also supported the convocation of the States- 

 General, of which assembly be was returned a member. Iu this 

 capacity he supported Mirabeau's motion for the removal of the mili- 

 tary from the neighbourhood of the capital; and iu July 1789, he 

 proposed the first declaration of rights, which formed the basis of 

 the following constitution. In the same month, being appointed 

 commandant-general of Paris, he organised the national guard, and 

 distributed among the soldiers a tricoloured cockade, namely, blue 

 and red, the colours of the commune of Paris, and white, the colour 

 of the lilies of France, and these became thenceforth the national 

 colours. On the 15th of October of that year he marched at the 

 head of the national guard to Versailles, where a tumultuous multitude 

 had preceded him : and he escorted the king and the royal family 

 back to Paris, whither the Assembly also removed their sittings. He 

 voted in the Assembly for the institution of the jury for the sup- 

 pression of hereditary nobility, for the political equality of all citizens, 

 &c. Mistrusting the effects of individual ambition in revolutionary 

 times, he moved and carried a resolution to the effect that the game 

 person should not have the command of the national guards of more 

 thau one department at once. He himself refused the appointment 

 of lieutenant-general of the king lorn. In conjunction with Uaily he 

 instituted the club of the Feuillans, which supported tha constitu- 

 tional monarchy on a popular basis. After the king's forced return 

 from the flight of Varennes, Lafayette supported the decree by which 

 the king was restored to the exercise of his regal office on swearing to 

 the new constitution. Upon this the republican party broke out 

 into an insurrection, which Lafayette aud the national guards put 

 down on the Champ de Mars. Soon afterwards Lafayette gave in 

 his resignation and retired into the country; but the war of the first 

 coalition having begun, he was appointed to the command of the 

 army of Flanders, and he defeated the allies at Philippeville aud 

 Maubeuge. He was however hated by the Jacobins at Paris, aud 

 mistrusted by the court. On the 16th of June 1792, he wrote a 

 strong letter to the Legislative Assembly, denouncing the plots of 

 those men " who, under the mask of democratic zeal, smothered 

 liberty under the excess of their licence." He suon after repaired to 

 Paris, and demanded of the Legislative Assembly the punishment of 

 the outrages committed against the king at the Tuileries on the 20th 

 of June. But the republican party was already preponderating in 

 that Assembly, aud Lafayette found that he was not sate in Paris. It 

 is said that he then proposed to the king and the royal family to 

 take shelter in his camp at Compiegne, but the advice was rejected 

 by Louis, or rather by those around him, who placed all their con- 

 fidence in the Duke of Brunswick and the Prussians. 



On the 30th of June the Jacobins of Paris burnt Lafayette in effigy 

 in the Palais Royal. Lafayette having returned to his camp, publicly 

 expressed to his officers his disapprobation of the attack ou the Tuil- 

 eries of the 10th of August, and on the 15th of that month he arrested 

 the commissioners sent by the Legislative Assembly to watch him. 

 Upon this he was outlawed, and was obliged to cross the frontiers with 

 a few friends. His intention was to repair to some neutral country, 

 but he was arrested by the Austriaus, aud carried to the fortress of 

 Olmutz, iu Moravia, where his wife aud daughter soon after joined him, 

 to console him iu his confinement. He remained in prison for five 

 years, and was released at last by the treaty of Campo-Formio ; but 

 not approving of the arbitrary conduct of the Directory he repaired 

 to Hamburg, and did not return to France till after the l)nh Bruiuaire, 

 1799. Here he found himself again in opposition to Bonaparte's am- 

 bition, aud he voted against the consulship for life, refused all employ- 

 ployment under that chief, and retired to the country, where he applied 

 himself to agricultural pursuits. 



In 1815 he was returned to the House of Representatives convoked 

 by Napoleon I. ou his return from Elba. After the defeat at Waterloo 

 he spoke strongly against any attempt to establish a dictatorship, and 

 moved that the house should declare its sittings permanent, and that 

 any attempt to dissolve it should be considered as treason. When 

 Lucieu appealed to the Assembly not to forsake his brother in his 

 adversity, Lafayette replied with great animation : " We have 

 followed your brother through the burning sands of Syria, as well as 



