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VIENNEV1LI.A. 



lisli on the island of Walcheren induced the Aus- 

 trians to go on slowly. September 27, prince 

 Lichtenstein went, with full powers, to Sehon- 

 brunn, where Napoleon resided, and, October 14, 

 the peace was signed. Austria lost, 1. Salzburg 

 (ceded, with other territories, to Bavaria) ; 2. Gorz, 

 Austrian Friuli, Trieste, Carniola, part of Carin- 

 thia, Croatia, on the right bank of the Save, and 

 Dalmatia, of which Napoleon formed the govern- 

 ment general of Illyria ; 3. the lordship It ii/.n us. in 

 the Grisons ; 4. some Bohemian enclaves in Upper 

 Lusatia, given to Saxony; 5. the duchy of War- 

 saw, Western Galicia, with Cracow and Zamosc, 

 and her interest in the salt works of Wieliczka; 6. 

 to Russia, the eastern part of East Galicia, with 

 400,000 souls. The peace also confirmed the 

 abolition of the Teutonic order, pronounced by 

 Napoleon, April 24. Austria lost, by this peace, 

 her southern and western military frontier (45,000 

 square miles, with 3,505,000 inhabitants; see Mili- 

 tary Districts), and her seaports ; yet she was al- 

 lowed the right of export and import trade in 

 Fiume. She acknowledged Napoleon's arrange- 

 ments in Spain, Portugal and Italy (where he had 

 declared the papal dominions to be united to France, 

 by a decree dated Schonbrunn, May 17, 1809), 

 and joined the continental system against Britain. 

 Austria now consisted of 198,000 square miles, 

 with 20,738,000 inhabitants. This peace lasted 

 till August, 1813 Respecting the war of 1809, 

 see also Das Heer von Innerostreich, and general 

 Pelet's Memoires sur la Guerre de 1809 en Alle- 

 magne, &c. (Paris, 1824, 2 vols.). 



VIENNE ; the name of a department in France 

 (see Department} ; also of a river and of some towns. 

 Of the latter we mention only Vienne, the princi- 

 pal place of a district, in Isere ; Ion. 4 54' E. ; lat. 

 45 33' N.; population, 12,300. It contains a fine 

 Gothic cathedral, likewise fourteen churches, a high 

 school, and a museum, and has various manufactures. 

 It is situated on the left side of the Rhone, over 

 which was formerly a stone bridge, built in the year 

 1265, now destroyed. A Roman colony was 

 established here, and called Vienna Allobrogum; 

 and there are still to be seen various remains of its 

 ancient importance, as the ruins of a temple, a thea- 

 tre, an amphitheatre, aqueducts, &c. In the fifth 

 century, it was taken by the Burgundians, and the 

 kings made it their place of residence. In the 

 ninth century, it was the capital of the kingdom of 

 Provence. It was afterwards erected into an arch- 

 bishopric, and became the capital of a province 

 called Viennois. In 1311, a council was held here 

 under the pontificate of Clement V. by which the 

 order of the Templars was abolished. See Cle- 

 ment V. 



VIERWALDSTADTERSEE, (i. e. the Lake 

 of the Four Forest Towns ; called also the Lake of 

 the Four Cantons') ; a romantic lake of Switzerland, 

 lying in the cantons of Lucerne, Unterwalden, Uri 

 and Schweitz, and deriving its name from this posi- 

 tion. Its length is about twenty-five miles, and its 

 breadth very unequal, as it consists of several de- 

 tached parts, which form, in a manner, separate 

 lakes, and take their names from the chief places 

 on their banks ; thus it is called, in different places, 

 the lake of Lucerne, the lake of Alpnach, the lake 

 of Stan;, and the lake of Uri. The waters are 

 clear and of a light green. It contains only one 

 island, called Altstad. The environs are among 

 the most beautiful regions of Switzerland. In the 

 neighbourhood of Lucerne (q. v.), which seems to 



rise with its spires out of the waves, the banks are 

 low, and adorned with pretty country seats, villages 

 and orchards. To these succeed valleys, with 

 hamlets built on the sides of the mountains, and 

 solitudes where the rocks sink plumb down to the 

 lake. From its bosom may be counted more than 

 twenty-five mountains, comprising some of the 

 highest summits of the Alps, mount Pilate, Riglii, 

 and Furca. 



VIGIL. This word is derived from the Latin 

 ri'iilnr, which denoted the watches and guards 

 among the Roman soldiers by night, in contradis- 

 tinction to the excubicE, who kept guard by day, 

 either in the camp, or at the gates and intrench- 

 ments. The proper vigilice were four, which kept 

 guard successively, three hours each. The four 

 watches took their name from this custom. In the 

 language of the church, vigil (in French, veille) was 

 at first the evening, and afterwards the whole day, 

 preceding a great festival. This name originated 

 from the circumstance, that the first Christians 

 spent a part of the night preceding such festivals in 

 prayer, to prepare themselves for the coming cele- 

 bration. 



Vigil is further used to denote the custom, yet 

 existing among Catholics, to sing or pray in the 

 church the evening before All-Souls day a custom 

 also sometimes observed the day before the per- 

 formance of a mass for the dead. 



Linnaeus gave the name of vigils or watchings to 

 the time of the day when certain flowers open and 

 close their petals. 



VIGNE. See Vineis. 



VIKINGR, OR SEA KINGS, among the Danes 

 or Normans ; leaders of piratical squadrons, who 

 passed their lives in roving the seas in search of 

 spoil and adventures. The younger sons of the 

 Scandinavian kings and jarls, having no inheritance 

 but the ocean, naturally collected around their 

 standards the youth of inferior order, who were 

 equally destitute with themselves. These were 

 the same, who, in England and Scotland, under the 

 name of Danes, and on the continent under that of 

 Normans, at first desolated the maritime coasts, 

 and afterwards penetrated into the interior of coun- 

 tries, and formed permanent settlements in their 

 conquests. See Normans. 



VILLA signified, with the Romans, a country 

 seat, with its appendages. To it belonged three 

 different kinds of houses : the villa urbana, where 

 the master lived, the real country seat ; villa rustica, 

 where the farmer or peasant lived ; and the villa 

 fructuaria, the barns. Some of these villas, to- 

 wards the end of the republic, and under the em- 

 perors, were real palaces. By degrees, numbers of 

 bouses were built around them ; and thus the vil- 

 lages originated. The word villa has passed, with 

 various changes, into all the languages of Western 

 Europe ville, village, weiler, &c. As the inhabit- 

 ants of remote villages were not converted to Chris- 

 tianity till after those of cities (see Pagans'), and 

 as the cultivators of the ground in the middle ages 

 laboured under many legal disabilities, we find in 

 many modern languages words derived from villa, 

 which express vileness or servitude, as villenage and 

 villain. Besides, servitude and villany naturally go 

 hand in hand (cattivo, in Italian, from captivus, a 

 prisoner, means bad ; and the word for free in Dutch 

 also signifies beautiful). The modern Italians call 

 the season during which they live in their villas, 

 vitteggiatura. Some of the modern Italian villas 

 are yet splendid, e. g. the Borghese, Aldobrandini, 



