787 



LANSDOWNE, MARQUIS OK. 



LANTIER, ETIENNE-FRANCOIS DE. 



798 



had sent to his assistance, seconded by Massdna, he checked the 

 advancing numbers of the Austrians. The French had reserved their 

 fire till the enemy had approached within a few yards of them, and 

 then commenced a most deadly struggle. At that critical moment 

 Lannes had dismounted from his horse, that he might be less exposed 

 to the sweeping fire of the Austrian artillery, when he was struck by 

 a cannon-ball, which carried away the whole of his right leg and the 

 foot and ankle of the loft. Napoleon was directing the position of 

 Borne batteries, when he beheld the almost lifeless body of his heroic 

 marshal borne off from the battle. Even in the critical circumstances 

 in which his army was then placed, and though the fate of his 

 empire was depending on the issue, Napoleon turned aside to address 

 a few words to the general whom of all his officers he most trusted. 

 On no other occasion it is said was Napoleon seen to evince such deep 

 emo'ion. For nine days Lannes lingered in the most agonising 

 sufferings, during which he was constantly visited by the emperor, 

 and on the 31st of May 1809, he expired. 



Lannes, unlike many of Napoleon's generals, had acquired a con- 

 stantly increasing military reputation. In the first part of his career 

 courage predominated over judgment; but experience was daily pro- 

 ducing in his mind a more just equilibrium between those^ two 

 qualities eo essential to a commander. " I found him a dwarf," said 

 the emperor to Las Cases, " and I lost him a giant." And in another 

 conversation with this faithful companion of his exile, he remarked of 

 this marshal that " he had great experience in war, having been in 

 fifty-four battles and three hundred combats. He was cool in the 

 midst of fire ; possessed of a clear penetrating eye, ready to take 

 advantage of any opportunity which might present itself. Violent 

 and hasty in his temper, even in my presence, he was however 

 ardently attached to me." Lannes had married Mademoiselle Louise 

 de Ghe'he'miec, a young woman of great beauty and prepossessing 

 manners. When she became a widow, Napoleon evinced by the most 

 assiduous attention to her the high respect he bore fur the memory 

 of her distinguished husband, t-he was afterwards appointed a lady 

 of honour to the Empress Maria Louisa. 



LANSDOWNE, HENRY PKTTY FITZ-MAURICE, TUIRD MAR- 

 QUIS OF, K.G., ia the second, but only surviving son of the first 

 Marquis, better known as the Earl of Shelburne, and was born July 2, 

 1780. Lord Henry Petty was sent to Wefltminster School; thence ho 

 was removed about the year 1795 to Edinburgh, where he was placed 

 under the care and tuition of Dugald Stewart, in whose society his 

 youthful mind became more deeply imbued than ever with liberal 

 and enlightened views on history, politics, and philosophy. Here he 

 strengthened his love not merely of constitutional government and 

 freedom, but of modern literature and scientific pursuits a taste 

 which has added lustre to his social and private life, and has rendered 

 his house for nearly half a century the resort and the home of the best 

 literary society of the age. In the Speculative Society of the Northern 

 Metropolis, in which Brougham, Homer, Jeffrey, Sidney Smith, and 

 other liberal politicians of that day first sharpened their oratorical 

 weapons, Lord Henry Petty also practised his skill in debate : and he 

 is eaid to have been stamped from that early time, among his contem- 

 poraries, with the promise of becoming an able statesman and 

 parliamentary leader. Having finished his course of studies at Edin- 

 burgh, he removed to Trinity College, Cambridge, where he graduated 

 M.A. in 1801. Having travelled for a few mouths upon the Continent 

 in company with Monsieur Dupont, he prepared to enter upon public 

 life, and shortly after attaining his majority he was returned to Parlia- 

 ment by the influence of his father as member for the borough of 

 Calne in Wiltshire. In the House of Commons some time elapsed 

 before he attempted to distinguish himself as a debater. In 1804 

 however he made his first parliamentary speech upon an Irish question. 

 The Tory party headed by Mr. Pitt were in power at the time, and 

 under the operation of the Bank Restriction Act the Irish people were 

 threatened with a serious calamity in consequence of the excessive 

 issue of paper-money by the private banks of the country. Lord Henry 

 Petty's pcech on this occasion, delivered in opposition to the views 

 of the ministry, was remarkable for the clearness and soundness of the 

 views which he expressed upon the general economic bearings of the 

 currency question, and the speaker unconsciously offered a tribute of 

 respect to the memory of Lis ancestor Sir William Petty, who has 

 been justly styled the ' father' of the science of political economy in 

 this country. In the following year Lord Henry Petty confirmed his 

 reputation as a parliamentary debater by his speech on the ca^e of 

 Lord Melville. In deference to the claims of party and private friend- 

 ship, Mr. Pitt defended bis colleague with great earnestness from the 

 charge of official corruption, and he was answered with proportionate 

 severity by Lord Henry Petty, whose honest and generous nature 

 instinctively shrank from even the suspicion of political dishonesty or 

 private peculation. Tfie Prime Minister died within the year, and the 

 Tory party being broken up by their leader's death, the Whigs came 

 into office under Grenville and Fox, who nominated Lord Henry Petty 

 Chancellor of the Exchequer in the place of Pitt, whom he also suc- 

 ceeded in the representation of the University of Cambridge. He now 

 became a frequent speaker, more especially on subjects connected with 

 finance; and had his party remained in office, he would probably have 

 attained reputation as a minister. But the duration of Lord Grenville's 

 ministry was scarcely sufficient to test Lord Henry Petty's abilities as 



_ financier ; it was long enough however to satisfy the public that he 

 was a statesman of no ordinary promise, aud that he might fairly look 

 : orward hereafter to the filling of a higher position in the adruiuistra- 

 ;ion of the country. This promise, it is true, has not been realised to 

 she letter; but on looking back over the history of the last half 

 century, we find the name of the Marquis of Lausdowue (for so we 

 must now style him, as he succeeded to the Peerage in 1809) asso- 

 ciated with all the leading measures of the liberal party ; such, for 

 example, as the Abolition of Slavery, which he advocated as early as 

 1807, and subsequently by specific motions in 1814 and 1821. It may 

 be safely said that in both Houses of the Legislature no question 

 was ever discussed involving the abolition of slavery and the slavo 

 trade, which has not received the support of his advocacy. He 

 was also from the very first a warm and energetic advocate of the 

 abolition of the penal laws against the Roman Catholics, and of the 

 granting civil and religious emancipation to that body. Ever steady 

 and earnest in this cause, some of Lord Lansdowne's best speeches 

 were made on its behalf. It was on this question that Lord Grenvillo 

 and his administration were compelled to retire from office in 1807. 

 The Religious Test Bill introduced by Lord Howick proved a fatal 

 blow to Lord Greuville and his friends ; and it also resulted in the loss 

 of Lord Henry Petty's seat for the University of Cambridge ; for at 

 the next general election he was left at the bottom of the poll : so 

 strong were the feelings of that constituency against the removal of 

 penal restrictions from the Roman Catholics. The subsequent political 

 career of Lord Lansdowne is identified with that of the Whig party, 

 over whose progress he has always exercised a moderating influence. 

 In 1820 he anticipated the enlightened measures of a more recent day 

 by a motion in favour of the principle of free trade both at home and 

 abroad. In 1822 we find him engaged in bringing forward a motion 

 for an inquiry into the suffering condition of Ireland and its causes ; 

 and in 1824 he strongly urged upon the ministry of Lord Liverpool 

 the necessity of acknowledging the independence of the Brazilian 

 Republics. After eighteen years exclusion from a share of the adminis- 

 tration, Lord Lausdowne again took office in 1828 as Secretary of 

 State for the Home Department under George Canning, and he also 

 held the seals of the Foreign Office under the short-lived administra- 

 tion of his successor, Viscount Uoderich, now Earl of Ripon. In this 

 position he had scarcely time to develope his capacity in the wide 

 range of foreign politics ; but the impression which he left on the 

 public mind was very favourable to his administrative abilities. Some 

 of his best speeches however during this period touched not on foreign 

 affairs, but on the question of Roman Catholic emancipation, in the 

 final settlement of which measure he took a leading part. After 

 remaining in the ranks, of the opposition from 1829 to 1831, during 

 the administration of the Duke of Wellington, Lord Lansdowne again 

 took office under Earl Grey in the latter year, when he became 

 President of the Council, a post in which his high character and 

 extended experience rendered his assistance peculiarly valuable to his 

 party. Having taken an active share in the passing of the Reform Act, 

 the principle of which he had advocated during the whole course of 

 his political life, he continued to hold the same post under the ministry 

 of Lord Melbourne down to the retirement of that nobleman from 

 office in 1841. On the accession of Sir Robert Peel in that year. Lord 

 Lausdowne became the recognised leader of the opposition in the 

 House of Lords, and in this position his dignity aud courtesy conciliated 

 the respect and esteem even of his opponents. In 1846 he resumed 

 his office and his functions as leader of the House of Lords, under the 

 administration of Lord John Russell. He resigned office together 

 with that nobleman in 1852, accompanying his resignation with a 

 speech of touching dignity, which will long be remembered as tlie 

 appropriate farewell of one who had become the Nestor of the Upper 

 House. Having remained iu opposition through the brief administra- 

 tion of the Earl of Derby, he declined to assume the reins of office on 

 Lord Derby's retirement iu December 1852, though requested by her 

 Majesty to take them; aud has been contented to hold under the 

 Earl of Aberdeen and Lord Palmerstou a seat in the cabinet without 



Lord Lansdowne married in 1808 a daughter of the second Earl of 

 Ilchester, by whom he has an only surviving son, Lord Shelburne, 

 Under Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, who has been recently 

 summoned to the House of Lords in his father's barony as Lord 

 Wycombe. 



LANTIER, KTIENNE-FRANCOIS DE, was born at Marseille, 

 September 1, 1734. Although passionately attached to literature, 

 Lantier did not appear as an author till 1778, when his comedy of 

 the ' L'Impatient ' was performed after having been retained in manu- 

 script for three years. Notwithstanding the very sinister predictions 

 of some of his friends, the piece had a decided success; and thus 

 encouraged, Lantier published his ' Tales,' in prose aud verse, which 

 latter La Harpe pronounced to be inferior only to those of Voltairo 

 and Lafoutaiue. He was admitted into the Academy of Marseille m 

 1786. and began collecting materials for his celebrated ' Voyages 

 d'Ant<5nor,' the idea of which had bem suggested to him by a visit 

 to Herculaneum. The success of this work, composed amid the storms 

 of the revolution, was almost unprecedented. Some critics would fam 

 have persuaded the public that this delightful production was merely 

 a feeble imitation of Barthelemy's ' Anacharsis,' although Lantier had 



