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LOUVRE LOWELL. 



replied, tliat, to spare his majesty's conscience, he 

 li.id already despatched a courier with orders to that 

 etlect. Louis, tilled with indignation, was prevented 

 Irom striking his minister only by the interference of 

 niiidniiif ill 1 Miiintenon. Soon after, on presenting 

 himself at the royal council, he discovered, or fancied 

 lie discovered, in the countenance and words of the 

 kin, marks of severity, and was obliged by faintness 

 to retire to his hotel, where he died within half an 

 hour. Whatever may be our feelings at the arro- 

 jnuice, cruelty, and despotism of Louvois, we cannot 

 deny him the merit of having organized Uie brilliant 

 victories of the reign of Louis. 



LOUVRE; the old royal palace at Paris, on the 

 north bank of the Seine, a splendid quadrangular 

 edifice, with a court in the centre, completed by 

 Napoleon. The origin of its name, and the time of 

 the erection of the oldest part of it, are unknown. 

 We only know that Philip Augustus, in 1214, built a 

 fort and a state prison in this place; that Charles V., 

 during the years 1364 80, added some embellish- 

 ments to the building, and brought his library and 

 his treasury thither; and that Francis I., in 1528, 

 erected that part of the palace which is now called 

 the old Louvre. Henry IV. laid the foundation of 

 the splendid gallery which connects the Louvre, on 

 the south side, with the Tuileries; Louis XIII. 

 erected the centre; and Louis XIV., according to 

 the plan of the physician Perrault, the elegant fagade 

 towards the east, together with the colonnade of the 

 Louvre, which, even now, is the most perfect work 

 of architecture in France. At a later period, Louis 

 XIV. chose the palace built by him at Versailles for 

 his residence. After Napoleon had taken possession 

 of the Tuileries, he began a second gallery, opposite 

 to the former, by which the two palaces would have 

 been made to form a great whole, with a large 

 quadrangular court in the centre; only 600 feet of it 

 were completed at the time of his abdication, and it 

 has not since been continued. Since the revolution, 

 the collection of antiquities has been kept in the 

 lower floor of the Louvre. Here, also, the exhibi- 

 tions of national industry take place, and the acade- 

 mies hold their sessions. 



To have the privilege of the Louvre, formerly 

 meant, in France, a permission to drive, with a coach, 

 into the courts of all the royal palaces. At first, 

 this was the prerogative of the princes only; but, in 

 1607, when a duke, under the pretence of indisposi- 

 tion, rode into the Louvre, Henry IV. gave him 

 (and, in 1609, the duke of Sully also) permission 

 constantly to do so. At last, during the minority of 

 the king Louis XIII., all the high officers of the 

 crown, and dukes, obtained this privilege from Mary 

 of Medici. 



LOVAT (SIMON FRAZER, commonly called) lord; 

 a Highland chieftain, who figured in the two civil 

 rebellions of the last century, was born in 1667. He 

 was educated in France, among the Jesuits, and, 

 returning to his native country, he entered the army. 

 In 1692, he was a captain in the regiment of Tulli- 

 bardine. After having committed some acts of 

 violence in taking possession of his hereditary estate, 

 he fled to France, and gained the confidence of the old 

 pretender, which he made use of, on his return to 

 Scotland, in order to ruin his personal enemies. He 

 again went to France, where he was imprisoned in 

 the Bastile, and was liberated only on condition of 

 taking religious orders, in pursuance of which engage- 

 ment he is said to have become a Jesuit. In 1715, 

 he a second time betrayed the pretender, and he was 

 rewarded by the government of George I. with the 

 title of Lovat, and a pension. He now led a quiet 

 life, uniting in his own person the contradictory 

 characters of a Catholic priest and a father of a 



family, a colonel and a Jesuit, a Hanoverian lord, 

 and a Jacobite laird. Notwithstanding the favours 

 he liad received, he engaged in the rebellion in 

 1745; and, after having displayed his usual craft and 

 audacity, he was finally seized, tried, condemned, 

 and executed in April, 1747, at the ag:e of eighty. 

 Notwithstanding his age, infirmities, and a conscience 

 supposed to be not wholly void of ofl'ence, he died, 

 says Smollett, like a Roman, exclaiming, Dulce et 

 decorum pro patria mori. A volume of autobiogra- 

 phical memoirs, by this restless and unprincipled 

 politician, was published in 1797 (8vo). 



LOVE-FEAST. See Agape. 



LOVELACE, RICHARD, a poet of the seventeenth 

 century, was born about 1618, and educated at 

 Oxford. On leaving Oxford, he repaired to court, 

 entered the army, and became a captain. He ex- 

 pended the whole of his estate in the support of the 

 royal cause, and, after entering into the French 

 service, in 1648, returned to England, and was im- 

 prisoned until the king's death, when he was set at 

 liberty. His condition was, at this time, very desti- 

 tute, and strongly contrasted with Anthony Wood's 

 gay description of his handsome person and splendid 

 appearance in the outset of life. He died in great 

 poverty, in an obscure alley, in 1658. His poems, 

 which are light and elegant, but occasionally involved 

 and fantastic, are published under the title ofLucasta, 

 under which name he complimented Miss Lucy 

 Sacheverell, a young lady to whom he was attached, 

 who, on a false report of his death, married another 

 person. Colonel Lovelace, who, for spirit and gal- 

 lantry, has been compared to Sir Philip Sidney, 

 also wrote two plays, the Scholar, a comedy, and the 

 Soldier, a tragedy. 



LOVER'S LEAP; the name of a cliff, 144 feet 

 high, in the island of Leucadia (q. v.). 



LOW COUNTRIES. See Netherlands. 



LOW DUTCH and HIGH DUTCH; used im- 

 properly for Dutch and German. The two languages 

 are quite distinct, so that a German and a Dutchman 

 cannot understand each other any better than a 

 Frenchman and a German. In fact, the Dutch lan- 

 guage resembles the English more than it does the 

 German, so that a German understands it much easier, 

 if he has a knowledge of English. The reason is, 

 that both, Dutch and English, are mainly derived 

 from the Low German. The frequent confusion of 

 the terms Dutch and German probably arises from 

 the circumstance, that the proper name of German 

 is Deutsch, and that of Germany, Deutschland, and 

 that the Germans and Dutch were originally con- 

 sidered as one nation by the inhabitants of Britain. 

 See Dutch, and Low German. 



LOW WATER; the lowest point to which the 

 tide ebbs. See the article Tide. 



LOWELL; an American town, situated twenty- 

 five miles N. W. from Boston; noted for the extent 

 of its water power, its manufacturing establishments, 

 and the rapidity of its growth. It was incorporated 

 in 1826, and named from Francis C. Lowell, of Bos- 

 ton, who was distinguished by his successful efforts 

 in introducing the cotton manufacture into the United 

 States. The hydraulic power of Lowell is produced 

 by a canal, completed in 1823, one mile and a half in 

 length, sixty feet wide, and carrying eight feet in 

 depth of water. A portion of the waters of the 

 Merrimack is forced through this canal by a dam at 

 the head of Pawtucket falls, and is distributed in 

 various directions, by channels branching off from 

 I the main canal, and discharging into the Concord 

 j and Merrimack rivers. The entire fall is 30 feet, 

 ' and the volume of water which the canal is capable 

 of carrying, is estimated at 1250 cubic feet per 

 second, furnishing 50 mill powers of 25 cubic feet 



