CHAPELLE CHAPTAL. 



143 



library in Paris contains all the twenty-four books In 

 manuscript. 



CHAPELLE (properly CLAUDE EMANCEL LUL- 

 LIER) ; so called from La Chapelle, a village near Paris, 

 where he was born in 1626; one of the most amiable 

 and pleasing of the French poets. His lively and 

 convivial disposition, his wit and talents, procured 

 him the friendship of persons the most distinguished 

 for rank and learning : among the latter were Ra- 

 cine, Boileau, Moliere, Lafontaine, Bernier, &c. 

 The productions of Chapelle bear the stamp of his 

 characteristic ease, gayety, and wit. His descrip- 

 tion of a journey to Montpellier, Relation d' un Voy- 

 age fait en France (1662, 12mo), written jointly with 

 Bachaumont, is a model of ease and pleasantry. He 

 also wrote many songs, sonnets, and epistles. He 

 possessed, in a remarkable degree, the talent of say- 

 ing many witty things on a barren subject. He died 

 in 1688. 



CHAPLAIN properly signifies a person provided 

 with a chapel, or who discharges the duties thereof. 

 The name is applied to clergymen both hi the 

 Catholic and Protestant churches. The origin of the 

 term is generally explained in the following manner : 

 Bishop Martin (q. v.) is said to have worn a hood 

 (capa) which was valued as possessing miraculous 

 powers, and was, therefore, preserved, after his 

 death, hi a separate house, called, from this hood, 

 capella (chapel), and the person stationed in the 

 chapel to show it to pious spectators was termed 

 chaplain. Charlemagne is said to have possessed St 

 Martin's hood among his relics, and to have erected 

 a chapel, called by the name of St Martin, in Ger- 

 many, at the place where Furth afterwards arose. 

 This emperor is also related to have built similar 

 chapels at Nuremberg and Altenfurt. Another less 

 probable derivation deduces the word, indeed, from 

 capella, but explains it to signify the box in which 

 the first missionaries carried the requisites for cele- 

 brating the Supper, who were thence denominated 

 chaplains. 



CHAPPE D'AUTEROCHE, JEAN, born in the 

 year 1722, in Auvergne, took clerical orders, and 

 devoted himself to the study of astronomy. In 1760, 

 he was appointed by the academy to observe the 

 transit (q. v.) of Venus over the sun's disk, at To- 

 bolsk (June 6, 1761). He had the good fortune to 

 find the sky clear and serene at the tune when he 

 wished to make his observations. After an absence 

 of two years, he returned, and published a narrative 

 of his travels. Besides much valuable information, 

 it contains many unfavourable remarks on Russia, so 

 that the empress Catharine II. herself wrote a reply 

 to it, in a pamphlet, entitled Antidote centre le Voyage 

 de VAbbe Chappe. The same phenomenon, by which 

 Chappe had been attracted to the north, prompted 

 him, in 1769, at the suggestion of the academy, to 

 undertake a voyage to California; but, before he 

 could complete the object of his voyage, he died at 

 St Lucar, Aug. 1, 1769. His observations on this 

 voyage have been published by C. F. Cassini, under 

 the title Voyage de Californie (Paris, 1772, 4to). 

 They did not answer the expectations which had 

 been entertained of them. 



CHAPPE, CLAUDE, nephew of the above, was 

 born in 1763. He is celebrated as the inventor of 

 the telegraph, and attracted notice in his twentieth 

 year, by several valuable essays in the Journal de 

 Physique. AVishing to communicate with his friends, 

 who lived at the distance of several miles from him, 

 he conceived the idea of conversing with them by 

 means of signals ; and his experiments for this pur- 

 pose led him to his important invention. Having 

 succeeded in erecting his machine on a large scale, 

 lie laid a description of the work, which he called 



telegraph, before the national assembly, in 1792. The 

 establishment of the first telegraphic line was or- 

 dered in 1793 : the first event communicated by it 

 was the capture of Conde. The convention, having 

 received this news at the opening of a session, forth- 

 with decreed that Conde should be called, in future, 

 Nordlibre, and was apprized, in the same sitting, that 

 the edict had been delivered and published to the 

 army.* The method of interchanging messages by 

 signals was known to the ancients, and has been 

 used by navigators from tune immemorial. The tac- 

 tician ^Eneas mentions several attempts to express 

 the letters of the alphabet at a distance by signals ; 

 and, towards the end of the eighteenth century, a 

 trial of this kind was made by Amontons. The sys- 

 tem of the former, however, admits of only a very 

 limited application ; a whole night being hardly suf- 

 ficient to compose two or three words according to 

 his method. Amontons, who is generally placed 

 among the inventors of the telegraphic art, left no 

 sketch of the machine contrived by him. The pro- 

 blem, therefore, still remained to be solved. The 

 object was, to discover an expedient for conveying 

 any information with despatch to any place and at 

 any time. Chappe invented a machine, the signals 

 of which are very distinct, while its motions are easy 

 and simple. It may be erected at any place, defies 

 every kind of weather, and, notwithstanding its sim- 

 plicity, contains signs enough to convey any ideas, in 

 such a way that not more than two signals are com- 

 monly necessary. The honour of this invention was 

 contested by many persons. The chagrin which 

 these disputes produced hi the mind of Chappe threw 

 him into a deep melancholy, and, in 1805, he put a 

 period to his existence by precipitating himself into 

 a well. His brother, Jean Joseph, became director 

 of the telegraph in Paris. 



CHAPTAL, JEAN ANTOINE CLAUDE, count of 

 Chanteloup, peer of France, was born in 1756, and de- 

 voted himself to the study of medicine and the natural 

 sciences. Having been long known as a distinguished 

 physician, he rendered himself conspicuous as an 

 adherent to the cause of the revolution, at the assault 

 upon the citadel of Montpellier, in 1791. Being 

 called to Paris, in 1793, on account of the scarcity 

 of gunpowder, his chemical knowledge, and his ac- 

 tivity in the enormous factory at Grenoble, enabled 

 him to supply the necessary quantity, by the produc- 

 tion of 3500 pounds every day. In 1794, he returned 

 to Montpellier,. received a place in the administra- 

 tion of the department of the Herault, and the pro- 

 fessorship of chemistry, which had been founded 

 there for him. In 1798, he was made a member of 

 the Institute, favoured the revolution of the eigh- 

 teenth Brumaire (q. v.), was appointed by the first 

 consul, in 1799, counsellor of state, and, hi 1800, 

 minister of the interior, in which post he encouraged 

 the study of all the arts, and established a chemical 

 manufactory in the neighbourhood of Paris. In 

 1804, he fell into disgrace : the reason assigned is, 

 that he refused to declare, in one of his reports, that 

 sugar prepared from beets was better than that from 

 the sugar-cane. In 1805, however, he was made, by 

 the emperor, grand cross of the legion of honour, 

 and member ofthe conservative senate. After the 

 return of Napoleon from Elba, he was appointed di- 

 rector-general of commerce and manufactures, and 

 minister of state. On the restoration of the king, he 

 was obliged to retire to private life, and, at the same 



* The telegraph at Liverpool communicated intelligence 

 to that at Holy Head, 156 miles distant, and received an 

 answer, the whole within the period of thirty-five st-conds. 

 This is supposed to be the quickest interchange of communi- 

 cation that ever took place. Atlas (London paper), Sept. 

 27, 182. 



