512 



OBITUARIES, FOREIGN. (BEATTY-KINGSTON Bixxs.) 



of the Towey, or Sketches of South Wales; The 

 Baronet's Family; Simplicity and Fascination 

 (1855); Nothing Venture, Nothing Have (1804); 

 Country Courtships (1869); Fay Arlington 

 (1875) ; The Pennant Family (1870) ; The Miller's 

 Daughter (1877); Rose Mervyn of Whitelake 

 (ISTiii: Gladys, the Reaper (1881); Idonea 

 (1881) ; The Queen o' the May (1882) ; The Young 

 Refugee (1882); Squire Lisle's Bequest (1883); 

 Fisher Village (1885); Seven Years for Rachel 

 (ISSti); Courtleroy (1887); Restitution (1888); 

 and Charlie is my Darling (1897). 



Beatty-Kingston. William, an English jour- 

 nalist, born in 1837; died at sea, Oct. 4, 1900. He 

 obtained an appointment in the Public Record 

 Oilice in 1852, and four years later entered the 

 Austrian consular service as vice-chancellor of the 

 consulate general in London, but was transferred 

 in 1857 to Cardiff. He remained at Cardiff until 

 1805, when he became a special correspondent of 

 the London Daily Telegraph, and in this capacity 

 he lived in various Continental cities, and was 

 present in the Austro-Prussian, Franco-Prussian, 

 and Russo-Turkish campaigns. From 1879 he was 

 on the editorial staff of the Daily Telegraph. His 

 published books are The Battle of Berlin (1871); 

 William I, German Emperor and King of Prussia 

 (1883) ; Our Chancellor, translated from the Ger- 

 man of Moritz Busch (1884) ; Music and Manners: 

 Personal Reminiscences and Sketches of Character 

 (1887); Monarchs I Have Met (1887); A Wan- 

 derer's Notes (1888); The Chumplebunnys, and 

 Some Other Oddities (1889); A Journalist's Jot- 

 tings (1890); Men, Cities, and Events (1895). 



Benedetti, Count Vincent, a French diploma- 

 tist, born in Bustia, Corsica, April 27, 1817; died 

 in Paris, March 28, 1900. His father was the 

 local magistrate, and he went to Paris to study 

 law. After taking his degree he began his career 

 in 1840 as a clerk in the consulate at Alexandria, 

 where he performed his duties so well that in 

 1845 he was appointed consul in Cairo. In 1848 

 he became consul general at Palermo, and in 1852 

 his early chief and patron, on being appointed 

 ambassador at Constantinople, called him thither 

 us secretary of legation. He declined the lega- 

 tion to Persia in 1855, and returned to Paris to 

 take the office of director of political relations in 

 the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, serving in 1856 

 as secretary of the Congress of Paris. From 1857 

 till 1802 he was minister to Turin, whence he was 

 recalled on account of the active sympathy that 

 he showed for the cause of Italian unification. In 

 1864 he was sent as ambassador to Berlin. He 

 endeavored without success to hinder the ag- 

 grandizement of Prussia as the result of the 

 I'ru>so-Austrian War of I860, and was even 

 cajoled into proposing the annexation of Belgium 

 to France as compensation, furnishing Count Bis- 

 marck with a document that proved very dam- 

 aging to Napoleon when made public at the be- 

 ginning of the Franco-Prussian War. Benedetti 

 asserted in a pamphlet published after his retire- 

 ment that the Belgian proposal was Bismarck's, 

 and that he had written it out from Bismarck's 

 dictation. The question of French compensation 

 for the aggrandizement of Prussia was the subject 

 of negotiations in Berlin and Paris from the time 

 of the Austrian campaign. P.eiiedetti was in a 

 difficult position after lie had presented Napo- 

 leon's proposal to obtain compensation in German 

 territory. The negotiations were spun out by 

 P.i-inarck while Pru>-ia \va> perfecting her arma- 

 ments. All that I'.cncdctti could obtain was the 

 neutralization of Luxembourg, with the sugges- 

 tion that France seek compensation elsewhere 

 than in German territory. When affairs between 



France and Prussia approached a crisis he did 

 little to avert war. lie was unable to fathom 

 the designs of Bismarck or influence the decisions 

 of Napoleon and his ministers. When he de- 

 manded from King Wilhelm a pledge that the 

 Hohenzollern candidature for the Spanish throne 

 should not be renewed he foresaw discomfiture as 

 clearly as when he proposed French expansion on 

 the Rhine. He carried out the orders of his Gov- 

 ernment, and he was not gruffly rebuffed by the 

 King, as has been reported. He was a diplomatist 

 of fine Italian tact and delicacy of feeling, not 

 hostile to German unity, but seeking the advan- 

 tage of his own country, shrewd and capable in 

 affairs, though unable to match the cunning of 

 Bismarck, knowing that the King preferred peace, 

 yet scenting war in the atmosphere of Paris as 

 well as Berlin. His personal agreeableness and 

 cleverness enabled him to stave off the rupture 

 on occasions when a less experienced and less 

 subtle ambassador would have been entrapped 

 into the indiscretion that Bismarck and Moltke 

 desired, so that they finally had to resort to the 

 device of altering the King's dispatch, making 

 it read as a decisive announcement when it was 

 intended to leave negotiations still open. Bene- 

 detti was retired when he returned to Paris, and 

 since then he has lived quietly there, in Ajaccio, 

 or in Italy. Napoleon gave him the grand cross 

 of the Legion of Honor in 1866, and in 1869 made 

 him a count. 



Bertrand, Joseph, a French mathematician, 

 born in Paris, March 11, 1822; died there, April 3. 

 1900. He was an infant prodigy who passed 

 the entrance examination of the Ecole Polytech- 

 nique at the age of eleven, and when he entered 

 at seventeen he astonished his teachers by the 

 power and maturity of his reasoning faculties. 

 He served in the mining bureau after leaving col- 

 lege until he was appointed a professor in the 

 St. Louis Lyceum, and after that he was succes- 

 sively examiner and then professor in the Poly- 

 technique, professor in the Ecole Normale, and 

 professor in the College de France. He was 

 elected a member of the Academy of Sciences in 

 1856, and in 1874 he succeeded Elie de Beaumont 

 as perpetual secretary. In 1884 he succeeded the 

 chemist Dumas in the French Academy. Of his 

 treatise on the differential and integral calculus 

 the third part never appeared, the manuscript 

 having been burned in the fires of the Commune. 

 His lectures on the calculus of probabilities, on 

 thermodynamics, and on electricity have been 

 published, and innumerable original papers on 

 mechanics and geometry printed in mathematical 

 journals or the reports of the Academy of Sci- 

 ences. His principal contributions to literatim 

 are studies of D'Alembert, Lavoisier, August < 

 Comte. and Pascal. 



Betz, Franz, a German singer, born in Mainz. 

 March 19, 1835; died in Berlin, Aug. 12. 1000. 

 He was educated at the Polytechnic, in Carlsn 

 His tl flint was made at Hanover, in ]85fi, and ln> 

 remained in the operatic company of that city 

 until 1859. when he was engaged for the Royal 

 Opera in Berlin, where he remained duriiiff his 

 life. His Berlin <1 flint was in the role of !>>'i 

 Carlos in Ernani, a part in which he was alw 

 very popular. He was the original Hans Sacli- 

 in Wagner's Meistersinger in Munich. .June -Jl. 

 1868, and Wotan at the Hayreuth festival of 1S7C. 

 In 1802 he visited England and sang at the Cry-i:'l 

 J'alace. May and 27. All these occasions weir 

 during his vacations from the Berlin Opera. 



Binns, Richard William, an Kntrlish porcelain 

 manufacturer, horn in Dublin. Ireland, in 1S1!'-. 

 died in Worcester, England, Dec. 28, 1900. He 



