506 



BERENHOUST BERGAMO. 



(1088). On the history of this controversy, which 

 has been very much misrepresented by the llcncdic- 

 tines, new light has been shed by Lessing, in his 

 Berengar (1770), and by Stautllin, who has 'likewise 

 published the work of B. nguinst Lanfranc. This B. 

 must not be confounded with 1'etcr Berenger of 

 Poitiers, who wrote a defence of his instructor 

 A be lard. 



BKRENHORST, Francis Leopold von ; one of the 

 first of the writers by whom the military art has been 

 founded on clear and certain principles. He was a 

 natural son of prince Leopold of Dessau, and was 

 born in 1733. In 1760, lie became the adjutant of 

 Frederic II. After the seven years' war, he lived at 

 Dessau. He died in 1814. 



BERENICE (Greek, a bringer of victory). 1. This 

 w.is the name of the wife of Mithridates the Great, 

 king of 1'ontus. Her husband, when vanquished by 

 Lucullus, caused her to lie put to death (about 

 the year 71 H. C.), lest she should fall into the 

 hands of his enemies. Monima, his other wife, and 

 hi> two sisters, Iloxana and Statira, experienced the 

 same fate. 2. The wife of Herod, brother to the 

 great Agrippa, her father, at whose request Herod 

 was made king of Chalcis, by the emperor Claudius, 

 but soon died. In spite of her dissolute life, she in- 

 sinuated herself into the favour of the emperor 

 Vespasian and his son Titus. The hitter was, at one 

 time, on the point of marrying her. 3. The wife of 

 Ptolemy Euergetes, who loved her husband with rare 

 tenderness, and, when he went to war in Syria, made 

 a vow to devote her beautiful hair to the gods, if he 

 returned safe. Upon his return, B. performed her 

 vow in the temple of Venus. Soon after, the hair 

 was missed, and the astronomer Conon of Samos de- 

 clared that the gods had transferred it to the skies as 

 a constellation. From this circumstance, the seven 

 stars near the tail of the Lion are called coma 

 Berenices (the hair of Berenice). 



BEREZINA ; a river in the Russian province of 

 Minsk, rendered famous by the passage of the French 

 army under Napoleon, Nov. 26 and 27, 1812. Admi- 

 ral Tschitschakoff, with the Moldavian army, forced 

 his way from ths south, to join the main army, which, 

 after Horizon" had been retaken, was to assist the 

 army led by Witgenstein from the Dwina, and, in 

 this manner, cut off Napoleon from the Vistula. 

 Napoleon was, therefore, obliged to make the great- 

 est efforts, notwithstanding immense difficulties occa- 

 sioned by the nature of the country, the climate, and 

 the critical situation of his troops, to reach Minsk, 

 or, at least, the B., and to pass it earlier than the 

 Russians. To effect this, it was necessary to sacri- 

 fice a great part of the baggage and artillery, Nov. 

 25. After the advanced guard of the Moldavian 

 army had been repelled to Borizoff, by Oudinot, and 

 the bridge there burnt by them, early in the morning 

 of Nov. 26, two bridges were built near Sembin, about 

 two miles above Borizoff, an undertaking the more 

 difficult, because both banks of the river were bor- 

 dered by extensive morasses, covered, like the river 

 itself, with ice not sufficiently strong to afford pas- 

 sage to the army, while other passes were already 

 threatened by the Russians. Scarcely had a few 

 corps effected their passage, when the greater part 

 of the army, unarmed and in confusion, rushed in 

 crowds upon the bridges. Discipline had long before 

 disappeared. The confusion increased with every 

 minute. Those who could not hope to escape over 

 the bridges sought their safety on the floating ice of 

 the Berezina, where most of them perished, while 

 many others were crowded into the river by their 

 comrades. In this fatal retreat, the duke of Reggio 

 (Oudinot) led the advanced guard, with the Poles 

 under Dombrowsky in front; the rear guard was 



formed by the corps of the duke of Belluno. Nov. 

 27, at noon, the dear-bought end was gained, and 

 the army, leaving the road to Minsk, took Unit of 

 Wilna to Warsaw, with the hope of providing for 

 their necessities in Wilna. Besides the multitudes 

 who were obliged to remain beyond the B., the 

 division of Portouneaux, which formed the rearguard, 

 was also lost. It was intrusted with the charge of 

 burning the bridges in its rear, but it fell into the 

 hands of the enemy. According to the French bulle- 

 tins, only a detachment of 2000 men, who missed 

 their way, was taken ; according to the Russian ac- 

 counts, the whole corps, 7500 men and five generals. 



BERU ; a duchy of Germany ; bounded on the 

 north by the duchy of Cleves, on the east by the 

 county of Mark and Westphalia, on the south by the 

 Westerwald, and on the west by the Rhine. It be- 

 longed, formerly, to the elector of Bavaria, but has 

 been included, since 1815, in the grand-duchy of the 

 Lower Rhine, which belongs to Prussia. It contains 

 1188 square miles, with 98o,000 inhabitants. There 

 are mines of iron, copper, lead, and quicksilver; but 

 the principal objects of attention are the manufac- 

 tures, which render it one of the most populous and 

 flourishing countries in Germany : of these, the prin- 

 cipal are iron, steel, linen, woolen, cotton, and silk. 

 The extent of the manufactures of B. is, in a great 

 measure, owing to the multitude of skilful workmen 

 whom the fury of the Spaniards, in the war against 

 the Netherlands, forced to leave their country. The 

 richest fled to London and Hamburg, the poorer 

 sort, which included a great proportion of the manu- 

 facturers, to the neighbouring Berg. At a later 

 period, when Louis XIV. revoked the edict of 

 Nantes, many of the most industrious of the French 

 Protestants fled also to this duchy, which thus be- 

 came the most manufacturing part of Germany. 

 Elberfeld is the most important ot the manufacturing 

 places of B. Another reason of the great prosperity 

 of this country is, that it has been under the govern- 

 ment of rich princes ; and the smallness of its terri- 

 tory has often enabled it to remain a long time 

 neutral, when all the other German states were de- 

 solated by war. The duchy of B. continued in the 

 possession of the electors of Bavaria until 1806, when 

 it was ceded to France, and bestowed by Napoleon on 

 his brother-in-law Murat, under the title of the grand- 

 duchy of Berg. There was, at the same time, added 

 to it part of Cleves, the counties of Homburg, Ben- 

 theim-Steinfurt, Hortsmar, Nassau-Dietz, Dillenburg, 

 Hadamar, and a number of lordships and scattered 

 bailiwicks and towns. On Murat's receiving the 

 kingdom of Naples, Napoleon named his nephew 

 Napoleon Louis, eldest son of the king of Holland, 

 hereditary grand-duke of Berg, with the condition 

 that the country should be under the immediate 

 management of the French government until the 

 young prince should be of age. At the same time, 

 the Prussian part of Munster and the county of Mark 

 were annexed to it, and the whole was divided into 

 the departments of the Rhine, the Ems, the Roer, 

 and the Sieg, having a population of 878,000 on 6908 

 square miles. At the congress of Vienna, in 1815, the 

 whole was given to the king of Prussia. 



BERG, BOOK OF. See Symbolic Books. 



BERGAMO, capital of the district of Bergamo (1150 

 square miles and 306,600 inhabitants), in the Lom- 

 bardo- Venetian kingdoms, is situated on hills between 

 the rivers Brembo and Serio, has a castle within the 

 city, and another called la capella, without it, besides 

 two suburbs encircled by walls, and four others thafc 

 are open, containing together 30,G80 inhabitants. 

 Amongst many distinguished men born here, is the 

 famous Tiraboschi, the historian of Italian Literature. 

 B. exported, formerly, more than 1200 bales of silk, 



