BLUCHER 



BLUCHER, blu'Kur, GERHARD LEBRECHT 

 VON, Prince of Wahlstadt (1742-1819), the fa- 

 mous Prussian general whose timely arrival 

 with reinforcements saved the day for the 

 allies at the Battle of Waterloo and crushed 

 Napoleon Bonaparte. He began his military 

 career in the Swedish army at the age of six- 

 teen, but soon entered the Prussian service and 

 fought under Frederick the Great in the Seven 

 Years' War, and later in the wars of the 

 allied nations, against the French Revolu- 

 tionists. Throughout the wars with Napoleon 

 he was one of the most bitter and untiring foes 

 of that conqueror, and even after the Peace 

 of Tilsit, when Prussia was made a dependent 

 state of Napoleon's empire, he was never 

 shaken in his belief that his country could be 

 liberated. 



When the Prussians renewed the war against 

 the French in 1813, Blucher was given an im- 

 portant command and shared in the glory of 

 Napoleon's defeat at Leipzig. After Napoleon's 

 return from Elba, Blucher was placed at the 

 head of the Prussian troops and led his army 

 to Belgium. On June 16, 1815, Napoleon de- 

 feated the Prussians at Ligny, and then turned 

 swiftly to attack the English, concentrated 

 near Waterloo under the Duke of Wellington. 



On June 18 the great Battle of Waterloo was 

 fought. Throughout the day the French hurled 

 themselves in vain against the squares of Brit- 

 ish troops, while Wellington, knowing that his 

 soldiers were growing tired, anxiously waited 

 for reinforcements and prayed for either 

 "Blucher or night!" At last, as the French 

 were making a final desperate charge, the 

 Prussians swept upon the field, and the Battle 

 of Waterloo was won. 



That he might suitably reward Blucher for 

 his services, Frederick William III of Prussia 

 created in his honor the Order of the Iron 

 Cross, and in 1819 a colossal bronze statue of 

 the great general was erected in his native town 

 of Rostock. See IRON CROSS; WATERLOO, BAT- 

 TLE OF. 



BLUE, one of the primary colors. It appears 

 in nature most permanently and brilliantly in 

 stones, such as the turquoise, sapphire, lapis 

 lazuli and labradorite, and in the clear sky 

 and sea, in Sowers and in the feathers of fowls, 

 the peacock and blue bird. There are many 

 blue paints and dyes prepared from minerals 

 or from plants. Only a few of them are perma- 

 nent colors; of these ultramarine, prepared 

 from the mineral lapis lazuli, and cobalt blue, 

 made by mixing aluminum and cobalt salt, are 



780 BLUEBEARD 



the best known. Indigo is the most common 

 vegetable source of blue. 



Blue is used in painting and printing and 

 dyeing. It is the second of the three colors 

 used in the three-color process of reproducing 

 colored pictures. Mixed with yellow it pro- 

 duces green; with red, purple. See COLOR; 

 PHOTOGRAPHY, subhead Color Photography. 



As an Emblem. Blue has been adopted at 

 various times as a badge or symbol. The 

 Scotch Covenanters of the seventeenth century 

 chose it as their emblem in opposition to the 

 royal red, and from this circumstance came 

 the expression true blue, originally applied to 

 a loyal Presbyterian. The winner of the Derby 

 in the English races is sr.id to carry off the 

 blue ribbon, this expression having originated 

 in the use of a blue ribbon as the distinguishing 

 badge of the Knights of the Garter, an order 

 founded by Edward III. The phrase boys in 

 blue, applied to soldiers on the Union side in 

 the War of Secession, to distinguish them from 

 the Confederates, the boys in gray, has become 

 current. There is a well-known Memorial Day 

 poem by Francis Miles Finch which has as its 

 refrain 



Under the sod and the dew, 

 Waiting the Judgment Day ; 

 Under the one the blue ; 

 Under the other, the gray. 



BLUEBEARD, blu' beerd, the bloodthirsty 

 hero of a famous legend, who murdered in 

 succession six wives and was himself killed by 

 the brothers of the seventh. The story first 

 appeared in a book of fairy tales written in 

 the seventeenth century by a French author, 

 Charles Perrault. The chief character is sup- 

 posed to have been suggested by an historic 

 personage of the fifteenth century, Gilles de 

 Laval, who was remembered chiefly on account 

 of his inhuman acts of cruelty. 



In Perrault's story, Bluebeard, so called be- 

 cause of the tint of his beard, entrusted to his 

 wife Fatima the keys of his castle, warning 

 her not to open the door of a certain room 

 while he should be away. Lured by her 

 curiosity, Fatima opened the forbidden door 

 and discovered a chamber in which lay the 

 bodies of the six wives who had preceded her. 

 On his return home Bluebeard learned of her 

 act of disobedience by the blood on the key, 

 and only the. timely arrival of her brothers, who 

 speedily put an end to the brutal husband, 

 saved her from sharing the fate of her prede- 

 cessors. The essential details of this story are 

 found in the folk lore of various peoples. F.J.C. 



