REFRACTOR REGIMENT. 



835 



REFRACTOR, OR REFRACTING TELE- 

 SCOPE. See Telescope. 



REFUGE, CITIES OF, among the Hebrews ; 

 six cities belonging to the Levites, in which a per- 

 son, who had committed involuntary murder, might 

 take refuge from the vengeance of his pursuers, 

 until his case was investigated. (Deut. xxxv, (j.) 

 If the murder was proved to have been intentional, 

 the culprit was given up to the avenger of blood ; 

 if otherwise, the latter could not injure him within 

 the precincts of the city. See Asylum. 



REFUGEES. This name is given particularly 

 to the French Protestants, who fled from their native 

 country on account of the persecutions to which 

 they were exposed after the repeal, in 1685, of the 

 edict of Nantes, under which the reformed doctrines 

 had enjoyed toleration from the year 1598. (See 

 Huguenots, Maintenon, and Louis XI V.) The 

 cruelties which inquisitorial zeal had produced in 

 other countries, were renewed in France, against 

 the heretics, as they were called. Dragoons were 

 quartered on them, and were to compel them, by 

 oppressions of every description, to renounce their 

 faith ; and those wtio could not be made to recant, 

 either died under the sabre, or were obliged to pass 

 their lives in prison, or in banishment beyond the 

 sea. To escape this state of misery, many fled 

 from their native land. But the government did 

 all which they could to deprive them of this means 

 of escape. The frontiers of France were occupied 

 by troops, and every Protestant, who fell into their 

 hands, was abused, deprived of his property, loaded 

 with chains, and confined in the galleys with the 

 most abandoned criminals ; children were taken 

 from their parents, and educated, in monasteries, in 

 the Catholic faith. Nevertheless, 800,000 Protest- 

 ants, at least, were able by artifice, and in some 

 cases by force, to escape from their native country. 

 England, Denmark, Holland, Switzerland, Germany, 

 in the latter especially Saxony, Bradenburg, and 

 Hesse, received these fugitives with hospitality. 

 Merchants and manufacturers went to England and 

 Holland, whither they could more easily convey 

 their property, and at the same time employ it more 

 profitably. The nobility, soldiers, artists, literati, 

 mechanics, and manufacturers, went to the states of 

 Brandenburg. In many of these countries, the go- 

 vernments gave to the emigrants equal privileges 

 with their other subjects, and received large addi- 

 tions to their resources from the wealth and skill 

 which a fanatical king had driven from his own 

 kingdom. In the Brandenburg states, where these 

 refugees obtained the most extensive civil privileges, 

 they became the founders of a large part of the 

 manufactures, which at the present time constitute 

 so considerable a part of the wealth of the Prussian 

 monarchy. They exerted a still more important 

 influence on the intellectual and moral culture of 

 the countries to which they fled. Concerning the 

 reception of the fugitive French Protestants, in the 

 electoral states of Brandenburg, see the Denkwilr- 

 digkeiten of Christian William von Dohm (5th vol., 

 475.) 



REGALIA (jura regalia) ; in general, the pri- 

 vileges connected with the sovereign power. They 

 are either such as necessarily originate from the 

 nature of government, or such as are accidentally 

 attached to the sovereign. Of the former sort is 

 the power of judicature ; of the latter, such rights 

 as that of collecting amber, which belongs to the 

 king of Prussia. Some rights are now so intimately 

 connected with the public order, that they belong 

 to the former class, though many states have existed 

 without them (e. g. the privilege of coining money, 

 whkb was exercised by certuin families in ancient 



Rome.) As states and governments have gradually 

 grown up from rudeness and lawlessness, it may 

 easily be imagined how much ignorance, in some 

 cases, and force in others, have influenced the idea 

 of regalia. Among some German tribes, the pre- 

 cious metals and stones were considered as belong- 

 ing exclusively to the sovereign ; and even now a 

 citizen has not, in all countries, the right to work 

 mines on his own ground. Some tribes allowed 

 their princes the sole privilege of hunting all the 

 larger animals, except animals of prey ; some sove- 

 reigns declared all unclaimed property, as waifs, 

 estrays, or newly formed land on the seashore, &c., 

 regalia. These regalia are also called majora 

 (comprehending what relates to the sovereign's 

 power and dignity) and minora (what relates to his 

 fiscal or pecuniary prerogatives.) 



Regalia also denotes, in England, the regal in- 

 signia, the sceptre with the cross, sceptre with the 

 dove, St Edward's staff, four several swords, the 

 globe, the orb with the cross, and other articles 

 used at the coronation. 



Regalia of the church denotes, in England, those 

 rights and privileges which cathedrals, &c., enjoy 

 by the concessions of kings. 



Regalia is sometimes also used for the patrimony 

 of a church. 



REGARDANT, in heraldry, is applied to a lion 

 or other beast of prey, in the attitude of looking 

 with his eyes towards his tail. 



REGATTA, a public diversion in Venice, in 

 which boats run races on the canals that intersect 

 the city. Each boat contains one person only, and 

 the boat which first reaches the goal, receives a 

 small prize in money. The number of spectators 

 present, in ornamented gondolas, make the principal 

 attraction of this festival. 



REGENSBURG. See Ratisbon. 



REGENT. Regent, in a general sense, is a 

 ruler, the ruler of a state ; in a more limited sense, 

 one who exercises the highest power vicariously 

 during the absence or incapacity of the lawful sove- 

 reign. The right to the regency is created by law, 

 agreement, or by last will and testament. By a 

 testamentary appointment, a ruler can legally estab- 

 lish a regency only when the right of a third person 

 to the regency, founded upon law, is not injured. 

 The same is true in respect to regencies made by 

 agreement. Among the regencies of modern times, 

 that of Philip, duke of Orleans, during the minority 

 of Louis XV. of France (from 1715 to 23), was de- 

 plorable in its consequences for France, and, indeed, 

 all Europe. Our times have seen the regency of 

 George, prince of Wales (George IV), and the short 

 regencies of the former empress of France, Maria 

 Louisa, and that of the queen of Etruria of the same 

 name ; the regency of the crown-prince Frederic of 

 Denmark (1784 1808), when he ascended the 

 Danish throne under the name of Frederic VI. It 

 is worthy of remark, that, within the last fifty years, 

 three regencies of crown princes have taken place 

 in Europe on account of the mental imbecility or 

 insanity of the kings of Great Britain, Portugal and 

 Denmark. Of late, when Belgium separated her- 

 self from the kingdom of the Netherlands, and 

 Poland rose against Russia, persons were placed at 

 the head of affairs with the title of regent, indicating 

 that the revolted countries did not declare them- 

 selves against monarchy. 



REGGIO. See Modena. 



REGGIO, DUKE OF. See Oudinot. 



REGIMENT ; a body of troops, either infantry 



or cavalry, consisting in the former case of one or 



more battalions, in the latter, of several squadrons. 



The average number of a regiment of infantry, in 



3o 2 



