BOURBONN AIS -BOURDON. 



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The population consists of 17,000 whites, 6,000 free 

 Negroes, and 60,000 slaves. Its commerce is im- 

 peded by the want of good harbours. The principal 

 articles of export are coffee, sugar, rice, tobacco, 

 spices, indigo, pepper, maize, &c. The coffee was 

 brought from Mocha, and is of an excellent quality. 

 The capital is St Denis, a pretty town, with about 

 8,000 inhabitants. The heat is excessive from No- 

 vember to April ; the evenings, however, are re- 

 freshed by the sea-breezes, and the mornings by the 

 land-breezes. The island is of volcanic origin, and 

 seems to be composed of two enormous volcanic 

 mountains, in one of which the fire is extinct : the 

 other is still in activity. The loftiest summit, le Pi- 

 ton de Neige, or the Snowy Spike, is about 10,000 

 feet above the level of the sea. 



BOCRBONNAIS; a province and government of Old 

 France, with the title, first of a county, and after- 

 wards of a duchy, lying between the Nivernais, Ber- 

 ry, and Burgundy. It now forms the department of 

 the Allier. It derived its name from the small town 

 of Bourbon rArchambaud, from which the reigning 

 family of France and the dukes of Bourbon also re- 

 ceived their title. See Bourbon. 



BOURDALOUE, Louis, the reformer of the pulpit, and 

 founder of genuine pulpit eloquence in France, was 

 born at Bourges, in 1632, and was sixteen years old 

 when he entered the society of Jesuits. His instruc- 

 tors successively intrusted to him the chairs of polite 

 letters, rhetoric, philosophy, and moral theology. In 

 1669, he entered the pulpit, and extended his repu- 

 tation by attacking, with u powerful and religious 

 eloquence, free from the bad taste of the age, the 

 passions, vices, and errors of mankind. The dignity 

 of his delivery and the fire of his language made him 

 distinguished amidst the victoties of Turenne and the 

 feasts of Versailles, among the master-spirits of the 

 arts and of literature, in the time of Corneille and 

 Racine. Louis XIV. invited him, at the time of 

 advent, in 1670, to preach before the court, and B. 

 acquitted himself with so much success, that he after- 

 wards received invitations at ten different times. 

 After the repeal of the edict of Nantes, he was sent 

 to Languedoc, in order to explain to the Protestants 

 the doctrines of the Catholic faith, and he succeeded 

 in this difficult business in reconciling the dignity of 

 his office with the rights of mankind. In his latter 

 days, he renounced the pulpit, and devoted himself 

 to the care of hospitals, prisons, and religious institu- 

 tions. He well knew how to accommodate his man- 

 ner to the capacity of those to whom he gave instruc- 

 tion, advice, or consolation. With the simple he 

 was simple ; with the learned, he was a scholar ; 

 with free-thinkers, he was a logician ; and came off 

 successful in all those contests in which the love of 

 his neighbour, religious zeal, and the duties of his 

 office, involved him. Beloved alike by all, he exer- 

 cised authority over the minds of all ; and no con- 

 sideration could make him give up his openness and 

 integrity of character. He died in 1704. His ser- 

 mons have been translated into several languages. 



BOTODEAUX, a large and opulent commercial city of 

 France (Ion. 0" 34' W. ; lat. 44 5a 14" N.), in the 

 Bordelais district of the ancient Guyenne or Aquita- 

 nia. It is the metropolis of the department of the 

 Gironde, and the head or an arrondissement contain- 

 ing thirteen cantons, 1,632 square miles, and 223,863 

 inhabitants. It lies on the left bank of the Garonne, 

 and is connected with the opposite side by the new 

 bridge erected by Louis XVIII., 700 feet long, and 

 supported by seventeen arches, sixteen leagues from 

 the mouth of the river. It numbers 7,800 houses, 

 and 100,000 inhabitants. It is an antique and gloomy 

 city, having nineteen gates, twelve of which lead to 

 the river, and seven to the adjacent country ; also 



two suburbs (Los Chartrons and St Severin), splendid 

 public places, delightful promenades, forty- six Catho- 

 lic churches, and one Protestant. Among the build- 

 ings deserving of mention are the cathedrals, the 

 council- house of Lambriere (in which the ancient 

 dukes of Guyenne resided, and the parliament after- 

 wards held its sessions), the exchange, the hotel del 

 fermes, the theatre, the Vauxhall, the palace, built 

 by Bonaparte in 1810, and a newly invented mill, 

 with twenty-four sets of stones, put in motion wholly 

 by the ebb and flow of the tide. B. is encircled by 

 walls and strong towers. The small fortifications of 

 Haa and St Louis, or St Croix, and the stronger works 

 of the chateau Trompette, protect the harbour, which 

 is entered without difficulty by the largest merchant- 

 vessels during the flow of the tide, which sometimes 

 rises to the height of twelve feet ; but it has been 

 unfortunately injured by the accumulation of sand. 

 B. has more than 900 merchant-ships. It exports, 

 on an average, 100,000 hogsheads of wine, and 

 20,000 of French brandy. Other articles of export 

 are vinegar, dried fruits, ham, firewood, turpentine, 

 glass bottles, cork, honey, &c. Among the articles 

 of import are colonial wares, British tin, lead, copper, 

 and coal, dye-stuffs, timber, pitch, hemp, leather, 

 herrings, salted meat, cheese, &c. B. has the great- 

 est share of any city in France, except Nantes, in the 

 French and American trade. It contains a bank, an 

 insurance company, &c. Its fairs, in March and Oc- 

 tober, are of the utmost importance to all the west of 

 France. Its merchants carry on the whale and cod 

 fisheries through the harbours of Bayonne, St Jean 

 de Luce, and St Malo. B. is the seat of an arch- 

 bishop, a Protestant consistory, a prefect, and of the 

 commander-in-chief of the eleventh division of the 

 militia. It has a royal court of justice, a chamber of 

 commerce, a commercial court, a university (estab- 

 lished in 1441), an academy of sciences (instituted in 

 1712, which has a library of more than 55,000 

 volumes), an academy of fine arts (founded in 1670, 

 and renewed in 1768), a museum, a lyceum, a Lin- 

 naean society, fn institution for the education of the 

 deaf and dumb, a school of trade and navigation, &c. 

 The most important manufactories are fourteen sugar- 

 houses, several glass-houses, potteries, manufactories 

 of woollen and lace. 



Bourdeaux is the Burdigala of the Romans. In 

 the 5th century, it was in possession of the Goths, and 

 at length pillaged and burned by the Normans. By 

 the marriage of Eleonora, daughter of William X., 

 the last duke of Guyenne, to Louis VII., It fell into 

 the hands of France. But, in 1152, the princess was 

 repudiated by her husband, and afterwards united in 

 marriage with the duke of Normandy, who ascended 

 the throne of England, and transferred B. to that 

 crown. After the battle of Poictiers, Edward, the 

 black prince, carried John, king of France, prisoner 

 to B., where he resided eleven years. Under Charle 

 VII., in 1451, it was restored again to France. In 

 1548, the citizens rebelled on account of a tax on 

 salt, and the governor De Morems was put to death, 

 for which the constable of Montmorency inflicted a 

 severe punishment on the city. During the revolu- 

 tion, it was devastated as the rendezvous of the Gi- 

 rondists, by the terrorists, almost as completely as 

 Lyons and Marseilles. The oppressiveness of the 

 continental system to the trade of B. made the inha- 

 bitants disaffected to the government of Napoleon, so 

 that they were the first to declare for the house of 

 Bourbon, March 12, 1814. The Roman poet Au- 

 sonius was a native of B. Montaigne and Montes- 

 quieu were born in the neighbouring country, and 

 the latter lies buried there in the church of St Ber- 

 nard. For the wines of Bourdeaux, see Bordelais. 



BOURDON, Sebastian ; a celebrated French painter, 



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