BERNARD BERNI. 



513 



Nordlingen (q. v.), August 24, 1634. He himself 

 narrowly escaped being made prisoner. The pru- 

 dence of Oxenstiern, and the valour of B., soon 

 made amends for this fault. France, now entering 

 into a closer alliance with Sweden, concluded a 

 separate treaty with B., who went to Paris, Oct. 16, 

 1634. B. promised, for 4,000,000 livres, to raise an 

 army of 18,000 men on the Rhine, to act against 

 Austria. He now carried on the war in the country 

 adjoining to the Rhine, took the fortress of Zabern, 

 in Alsace, spread his army over Lorraine and Bur- 

 gundy, and vanquished the forces of the emperor in 

 several battles. At the commencement of the year 

 1638, he laid siege to Rheinfelden, not far from 

 Bale. Here he was unexpectedly attacked in his 

 camp, Feb. 18, by an Austrian army that had advanc- 

 ed to raise the siege. B. was obliged to retreat be- 

 fore superior numbers; but, having soon collected 

 his forces, he attacked the Austrians by surprise, 

 Feb. 21, and obtained a complete victory. Several 

 Austrian generals were made prisoners, and the 

 fortress ot Rheinfelden was obliged to surrender, 

 May 13, He then undertook the siege of Brisach, 

 the possession of which was necessary for maintaining 

 himself in Alsace. An imperial army, under the 

 command of general Goetze, that approached with 

 the intention of raising the siege, was defeated with 

 a great loss by B., July 30. B. captured several 

 places of inferior importance, during the siege of 

 Brisach, which, however, did not surrender until he 

 had repeatedly defeated the Austrians, and then 

 upon very moderate conditions, which B. signed in 

 his own name, without mentioning France. The 

 possession of Alsace, which he had oefore ceded to 

 France under certain conditions, was now secured ; 

 but he also demanded Brisach as an appurtenance to 

 Alsace. He garrisoned all the conquered places 

 with German troops, and ordered money to be coined 

 with the Saxon coat of arms and that of Brisach. In 

 vain were the efforts of France to deprive the duke 

 of the possession of Brisach, by proposing to place a 

 French garrison in the fortress : the duke declined 

 not only this proposal, but also an invitation to Paris, 

 and the offer of a marriage with the duchess 

 d'Aiguillon, niece of cardinal Richelieu. Instead of 

 that match, he proposed one with the princess of 

 Rohan, to which, however, the French court would 

 not accede, lest the party of the Huguenots should 

 be strengthened. It is probable that Richelieu had 

 recourse to secret means, in order to rid France of 

 the duke, who was become formidable by his grow- 

 ing power. He was suddenly seized with a disorder, 

 which terminated his life, July 8, 1639. Most of the 

 contemporary writers conjectured that Richelieu 

 caused him to be poisoned : the duke himself had 

 no doubt that he had swallowed poison. Immediately 

 after his death, several French commissioners ap- 

 peared, who enlisted his troops into the French 

 army : the command of them was committed to mar- 

 shal Guebriant With B. fell one of the chief sup- 

 ports of the Protestants. His successors, Banier and 

 Torstensohn (q. v.), pursued his victorious course, 

 and France seriously exerted herself, in the war 

 which continued, for the benefit of the Protestants. 

 In B. a graceful person, intelligence and valour were 

 united with a magnanimity which could not be 

 sliaken by adverse events : his only fault was too 

 great impetuosity. 



BERNARD, Pierre Joseph ; son of a statuary, born 

 at Grenoble, 1710 ; died at Choisy, near Paris, 1775 ; 

 studied with the Jesuits in Lyons, and entered as a 

 clerk into the service of a notary in Paris. He was 

 iifterwards admitted into the service of the marshal 

 de Coigny, as secretary, and, by Louis XV., appoint- 

 ed treasurer of the dragoons, and, afterwards, libra- 



rian of Choisy. In 1771 , he lost his memory by the 

 apoplexy, and remained in this condition till his 

 death. Among the poets who have sung in praise 

 of pleasure, of whom the French nation possesses so 

 many, B. is esteemed. In 1737, he brought the 

 opera Casto and Pollux on the stage, which is a 

 master, piece of lyric-dramatic poetry. Rameau's 

 music contri )uted to heighten the general applause 

 with which it was received. I? Art < Aimer was not 

 published until after his death, but had been before 

 communicated to his friends : it is, in part, an imita- 

 tion of Ovid. Voltaire called B. le gentil. The 

 whole of his works appeared at Paris, 1796. 



BERNARDI, Augustus Frederic, a German scholar, 

 born in Berlin, in 1768, died there in 1820. In his 

 youth, his attention was directed to universal lan- 

 guage (that is, to language as far as it is common to 

 all rational beings), to the mystery of its construc- 

 tion, the mathematics, as it were, of language. B., 

 considering all different languages as a whole, en- 

 deavoured to discover a universal grammar common 

 to them all. The result of his researches appears in 

 his works, Reine Sprachlehre (Abstract Grammar), 

 1801, 2 vols. ; Angewandte Sprachlehre (Grammar 

 in its Application), 1803 ; and Anfangsgrunde der 

 Sprachwissenschaft (Elements of the Science of Lan- 

 guage), in which many philosophical principles of 

 language are laid down. B. was a man of cultivated 

 mind and extensive knowledge. He was also a 

 professor and director of a classical school in Berlin. 



BERNARDIN DE ST PIERRE. See Pierre, St. 



BERNARDINE MONKS. See Cistercians. 



BERNBURG, Anhalt ; one of the three dukedoms of 

 Anhalt (253 square miles), seven towns, fifty-one 

 villages, with 38,400 inhabitants. The income is 

 valued at 450,000 guilders. Its contingent to the 

 army of the German confederation is 370 men. In 

 1820, the Lutheran and Calvinistic parts of the 

 population were united. The capital of this duke- 

 dom is Bernburg, on the Saale, with 4900 inhabi- 

 tants. The public debt amounts to 1 ,034,500 guilders. 

 Napoleon made the princes of Bernburg dukes. 



BERNEHS, or BARNES, Juliana ; an English lady of 

 the 15th century, of whom little more is known than 

 that she was prioress of the nunnery of Sopewell- 

 near St Alban's, and has her name prefixed, as the 

 writer or compiler, to one of the earliest and most 

 curious productions of the English press. The title 

 of the second edition, printed in the abbey of St 

 Alban's, in 1486, is, The Boke of Haivkyng and 

 Huntyng, with other Pleasures dyverse, and also 

 Cootarmuries. The first edition (1481) does not 

 treat of coat-armour or heraldry. This work, under 

 the title of the Book of St Alban's, became a popular 

 manual of sporting science, and was several times 

 reprinted in the 16th century. As a typographical 

 curiosity, a small impression of it was published, in 

 1811, by Mr Haslewood. 



BERNI, Francesco (also Berna, and Bernia) ; a 

 poet of the 16th century, born at Lamporecchio, in 

 the territory of Tuscany, towards the close of the 

 15th century, of a noble but poor Florentine family ; 

 went to Florence, and, at the age of nineteen, to 

 Rome, where he lived under the care of his relation, 

 cardinal Bibiena, who, as he himself says, did him 

 neither good nor harm, and he was at length obliged 

 to enter the service of the bishop of Verona, Ghiberti, 

 datary of the papal chancery, as secretary. In the 

 hope of promotion, he took orders ; but, disgusted 

 with the duties of his office, he sought recreation in 

 amusements, which displeased the prelate. A society 

 had been established at Rome, consisting of young 

 ecclesiastics of a jovial temper, like B., and a poetical 

 vein, who, in order to denote their love for wine, 

 and their careless gayety. called themselves ivigna 



