140 



CHAMPION CHAMPOLLION. 



formed. His health soon began to decline, and his 

 income was scarcely sufficient to meet iiis expenses. 

 Chabanon, his most intimate friend, who enjoyed a 

 pension of 1200 livres, compelled Champfort to ac- 

 cept of it. After he was restored to health, he re- 

 tired to the country to labour and to study. He 

 prepared some of the most important articles in the 

 Dictionninre Dramatiifiie (1776, 3 vols.), and com- 

 pleted his tnigedy Mustapha et Zeangir. This pro- 

 duction prtK'iired for him the office of secretary to the 

 prince of Comic, which he occupied for a time, and 

 then retired to Aim-nil. In 1781, he was admitted to 

 the Academic Francaise. His fine inaugural address 

 was his last purely literary work. After this, he 

 married, and lived in retirement, till the death of his 

 wife, when he became reader to the princess Eliza- 

 beth, the sister of the king. At the beginning of 

 die revolution, Champfort was connected with the 

 leading diameters of the two parties which hastened 

 tlie approach of the revolution, the one by upholding, 

 the other by attacking, abuses. He endeavoured in 

 vain to enlighten the former party, and, being com- 

 pelled to choose between them, he sacrificed his in- 

 terest, and joined the one whose character and prin- 

 ciples were most agreeable to his own. His con- 

 nexion with Mini beau and others at first absorbed his 

 whole attention. He had an important part in seve- 

 ral of Mirabeau's speeches and writings. After a 

 time, Champfort's condition was altered, but his prin- 

 ciples remained the same. He lost his pension and 

 his office, and supported himself wholly by his own 

 exertions. He was appointed, by the minister Ro- 

 land, librarian in the great national library ; and thus 

 his situation was, for a short time, improved. But, 

 disgusted with the horrors of the revolution, he ex- 

 pressed himself without reserve, and was thrown into 

 prison with Barthelemy and two other officers of the 

 library. He was soon set at liberty ; but his short 

 confinement had filled him with such horror, that, 

 when he was to be thrown into prison a second time, 

 he attempted to put an end to his existence. The 

 care of his friends, and medical aid, saved him for a 

 time ; but he died in April, 1794, in consequence of 

 his wounds. His writings bear the marks of much 

 study and pure taste. His integrity, fidelity, and 

 disinterestedness, cannot be disputed. His works 

 were published in 1795, by Ginguene, in 4 vols., 

 and two editions have appeared since. 



CHAMPION. In the rudest state of society, men 

 revenge their own wrongs without restraint. One 

 step is made towards a better state of things, when 

 the state (rude as the beginnings of political society 

 may be) confines this right within certain bounds, 

 and allows it to be exercised only with certaji form- 

 alities. In some countries, however, particularly hi 

 England, the legal recognition of the right of private 

 combat (see Combat) had this injurious effect, that the 

 practice became so settled as to be allowed to con- 

 tinue, even after more rational ideas had grown up 

 on the subject of the administration of justice. The 

 combat, after it had become a common means of set- 

 tling disputes, was not always waged by the con- 

 tending parties. This was the ca'se, indeed, in ap- 

 peals of felony, and if the hen-, either from sex or 

 age, was incapable of waging his battle, as it was 

 called, the question was left to a more rational mode 

 of settlement But, in the writ of right, the last and 

 most solemn decision respecting real property, the 

 tenant was required to produce his champion, who 

 threw down his glove as a challenge to the cham- 

 pion of the demandant, and the latter, by taking 

 it up, accepted the challenge. The laws author- 

 ising judicial combat, though fallen into disuse 

 continued to disgrace the English statute-book till 

 the beginning of the reign of George IV., when 



an appeal of murder having been made in the case of 

 Abraham Thornton (reported 1 Barnwell and Alder- 

 son), he was advised by his counsel to claim his right of 

 trial by battle. (See Appeal.) As the judges de- 

 cided that this could not be refused him, the next heir, 

 the brother of the deceased, a lad of sixteen, declin- 

 ed any further proceedings. Even the right to the 

 English crown was, in some degree, put in issue, by 

 appeal to judicial combat ; and the appearance of a 

 champion, offering battle to any one who gainsays the 

 right of the king to the crown, is still a part of the cere- 

 monial of an English coronation. At the last coro- 

 nation a question was long agitated in the court of 

 claims, as to the right of a champion to appoint a de- 

 puty, in case of his personal incapacity, either through 

 age or profession. The eldest son of the official cham- 

 pion (Mr Dymocke, in whose family the champion- 

 ship is hereditary, and who was himself in holy orders) 

 was at length allowed to appear as his father's repre- 

 sentative. " When I see," says a German writer, 

 " the number of follies with which governments have 

 leisure to concern themselves, I cannot think that na- 

 tions are very difficult to be governed." 



CHAMPLAIN ; a lake of America lying between 

 New York and Vermont, extending from Whitehall, 

 in New York, to St John's in Lower Canada ; about 

 130 miles long, and from one to fifteen broad, con- 

 taining 600 square miles, about two-thirds of which 

 lie in Vermont. It contains upwards of sixty islands, 

 the largest of which are North and South Hero, and 

 Motte island, and receives the waters of several rivers. 

 Otter creek, Onion river, Lamoile and Missisqueflow 

 into it from Vermont ; and the Chazy, Saranac, Sable, 

 Bouquet, and Wood rivers from New York. It dis- 

 charges its waters northward into the St Lawrence by 

 the Richelieu or Sorelle. Two steam-boats ply on 

 this lake, between Whitehall and St John's. The 

 shipping on the lake, in 1816, amounted to 800 tons, 

 belonging chiefly to Burlington. The principal towns 

 on the lake are Burlington, St Alban's, Plattsburg, 

 and Whitehall. Sept. 11, 1814, commodore Mao 

 donough, commander of the American fleet, gained a 

 victory over the British fleet, on this lake, in Cum- 

 berland bay, which lies directly in front of the town 

 of Plattsburg. 



Champlain Canal, in the state of New York, forms 

 a communication between lake Champlain and the 

 navigable waters of the river Hudson. It commen- 

 ces at Whitehall, at the south end of the lake, reach- 

 es the Hudson at Fort Edward, is continued along the 

 west bank of the river, and forms a junction with the 

 Erie canal at Watervliet. the whole length, including 

 about seventeen miles of unproved natural navigation 

 in Wood creek and Hudson river, being sixty-four 

 miles. It is forty feet wide on the surface, twenty- 

 eight at the bottom, and four deep. The amount of 

 lockage is eighty-four feet. This canal was begun 

 in June, 1818, and completed in November, 1822. 

 See Canal. 



CHAMPLAIN, SAMUEL DE ; a French naval offi- 

 cer in the seventeenth century, who explored the gulf 

 of St Lawrence, in North America, founded Quebec 

 and Montreal, in Canada, and gave his name to an 

 inland lake, which it still retains. He was king's 

 lieutenant, and afterwards governor-general of Cana- , 

 da, where he died in 1634. M. de Champlain was the 

 author of a curious work, entitled Voyages and Tra- 

 vels in New France, or Canada (1632, 4to). 



CHAMPOLLION; two French literati of this 

 name, viz : 



Champollion (J. F.) the Younger, was born at Fi- 

 geac, 1790, became professor of history at Grenoble, 

 studied the Coptic and other Oriental languages, in- 

 vestigated the inscription on the Rosetta stone (q. v.) 

 and several rolls of papyrus particularly while he 



