FEU DE JOIE 



3 1 32 



powerful that is, to surrender 

 their land (since it was alienable) 

 to a lord, from whom they received 

 it back as his tenants or vassals. 

 Custom established the right of 

 hereditary succession in various 

 forms, and the claims a lord was 

 entitled to make upon his tenants. 

 Broadly speaking, on the con- 

 tinent of Europe, it was generally 

 held that the vassal owed allegi- 

 ance only to his immediate lord, 

 the result being that the king's great 

 vassals, dukes or counts, could, if 

 they chose to resist him, call upon 

 their own vassals to serve against 

 the king ; the royal power de- 

 pended hi effect on the loyalty of 

 the great vassals who individually, 

 or by combination, were strong 

 enough to defy him. Thus when a 

 duke of Aquitaine, a vassal of the 

 French crown in respect of Aqui- 

 taine, happened also to be king of 

 England in respect of which he 

 was independent of the French 

 crown, he was able singly to defy 

 his overlord ; so also when one 

 person was at once duke of Aqui- 

 taine, duke of Normandy, and 

 count of Anjou. 



In England the feudal system 

 was not accompanied by an equal 

 danger, because until the 15th 

 century no single feudatories held 

 sufficiently extensive domains to 

 be strong enough to defy the crown 

 except by means of widespread 

 combination. Also, in England, 

 the doctrine prevailed from the 

 first that allegiance to the over- 

 lord prevailed over allegiance to 

 the immediate lord. The last 

 remaining relics of feudalism 

 were abolished by the Law of 

 Property Act, 1922. See Manor; 

 Villeinage ; consult also Constitu- 

 tional History of England, W. 

 Stubbs, 1897. 



Feu de Joie (Fr., joy-fire). Run- 

 ning fire of musketry used gener- 

 ally on occasions of rejoicing. 

 Ranks of soldiers fire one after 

 another, beginning on the right of 

 the front rank and continuing from 

 the left of the second rank, etc. 



Feuerbach, LUDWIG (1804-72). 

 German philosopher. Born at 

 Landshut, Bavaria, July 28, 1804, 

 he attended 

 Hegel's lectures 

 at Berlin, and 

 became a tutor 

 at Erlangen. 

 He abandoned 

 teaching for a 

 literary career 

 in consequence 

 of the excite- 

 Ludwig Feuerbach, ment caused 

 German philosopher byhisThoughts 



on '_. Death and Immortality 

 (published anonymously 1830), 

 in which he denied the im- 



mortality of man. Subsequently 

 inclining towards atheism, he de- 

 clared the reconciliation of faith 

 and science to be impossible, and 

 in the place of theology substi- 

 tuted anthropology. The body is 

 the very essence of man ; the idea 

 of a superhuman power is a fiction 

 of man's own imagination. Man is 

 only what he eats. Sensuous en- 

 joyment is the supreme good, but 

 only attainable by man as a 

 member of society. He died near 

 Nuremberg, Sept. 13, 1872. Hia 

 other works include The Essence 

 of Christianity, 1841, Eng. trans. M. 

 Evans, 1854 ; and The Philosophy 

 of the Future, 1843. 



Feuillants. Religious order 

 that flourished in France from the 

 16th century. It was an offshoot of 

 the Cistercians, and the ri^me 

 originated in their monastery at 

 Feuillant, near Toulouse. The 

 abbot there, Jean de la Barriere, 

 got into trouble with the authori- 

 ties, so with a following he migrated 

 to Paris in 1587, and founded the 

 new order, one adopting a stricter 

 form of life. A home was given to 

 them in Paris by Henry III, and in 

 1589 they were recognized for- 

 mally by the Pope. A later pope 

 divided the order into two 

 branches, French and Italian. The 

 French kept the original name, and 

 at the Revolution had in France 

 24 monastic houses, including one 

 in the Rue St. Honore, Paris. 



Feuillants. Name of one of the 

 parties that sprang up during the 

 French Revolution. It was given 

 to the members of a club because 

 they met in the building in Paris 

 formerly occupied by the religious 

 order bearing this name. They 

 originated with some Jacobins 

 who, in 1791, refused to ask for the 

 deposition of Louis XVI, and 

 thereafter they formed the moder- 

 ate wing of the revolutionary party. 



They wished to maintain the con- 

 stitution and to set up a stable 

 government, and at the outset they 

 called themselves the Society of 

 Friends of theConstitution, but they 

 never secured any great amount 

 of support from the populace, 

 although they were the largest 

 party in the Constituent Assembly. 

 Sieyes, Barere, and Lafayette were 

 perhaps the most prominent mem- 

 bers. Their wealth and their con- 

 servatism brought them under the 

 suspicion of the extremists, and, 

 after the rising of Aug. 10, 1792, 

 their names were published as ene- 

 mies of France. This put an end to 

 their activities, although the name 

 was still used to describe men 

 holding moderate opinions. 



Feuillet, OCTAVE (1821-90). 

 French novelist and dramatist. 

 Born at St. L6, in La Manche, Aug. 



11, 1821, he became an assistant to 

 Dumas the elder. When he started 

 on independent work he soon 

 achieved con- 

 siderablepopu - 

 I a r i t y with 

 plays and with 

 the novel, Le 

 Roman d'un 

 Jeune Homme 

 Pauvre, 1858 ; 

 this was fol- 

 lowed by the 



mystical romance Histoire de 

 Sybille, 1863. In 1862 he was 

 elected to the Academy, and was 

 later made librarian at Fontaine- 

 bleau. Monsieur de Camors, 1867 ; 

 and Le Journal d'une Femme, 

 1878, were the more notable of his 

 later works. His stories are charac- 

 terised by a blend of romanticism 

 and realism. He died hi Paris, 

 Dec. 29, 1890. 



Feuilleton (Fr., leaflet). French 

 word for the part of a newspaper, 

 usually the lower part of a page, 

 devoted to gossip, literary, artistic 

 or dramatic criticism, and especi- 

 ally serial fiction. The practice, 

 though not the name, has been 

 traced to the section in Defoe's 

 Review headed Mercure Scandale, 

 but the feuilleton, as at present 

 understood, originated in the Jour- 

 nal des Debats in the early years 

 of the 19th century. 



Fever (Lat. febris). Condition 

 of the body, the most characteris- 

 tic feature of which is a rise of 

 temperature. Accompanying symp- 

 toms are increase in the pulse-rate, 

 headache, thirst, and, in the early 

 stages, sensations of chilliness which 

 in severe cases may amount to fits 

 of acute shivering or rigors. The 

 skin is usually dry at first, but 

 later there is profuse sweating, 

 and the skin is hot and flushed. 

 The urine may be diminished in 

 amount and is highly coloured. 

 The tongue is often coated, and in 

 children vomiting is frequent. The 

 normal temperature of the body in 

 health varies between 98 and 99 

 F. Up to 102 F. the fever may be 

 spoken of as " moderate." Tem- 

 peratures of 105 or 106 are high, 

 and above 106 the term hyper- 

 jjyrexia may be employed. A 

 temperature of 107 F. is very 

 grave and recovery is improbable. 



The cause of fever is most often 

 the circulation of a poison in the 

 blood, and in most cases the poison 

 is a product of bacterial actiyity in 

 an acute infectious disease.^ It is 

 now recognized that the rise of 

 temperature indicates the reaction 

 of the body against the poison in 

 the blood, and, provided it does 



