LOUIS

See also:

• JEAN

JEAN

See also:

• FRANCOIS (1558-1614)

FRANCOIS

See also:

• LOUIS JEAN FRANCOIS LAGRENEE (1724-1805)

LAGRENEE (1724-1805)  , French painter, was a pupil of Carle Vanloo . Born at Paris on the 3oth of December 1724, in 1755 he became a member of the Royal Academy, presenting as his diploma picture the " Rape of Deianira " (Louvre) . He visited St Petersburg at the call of the empress Elizabeth, and on his return was named in 1781 director of the French Academy at Rome; he there painted the " Indian Widow," one of his best-known works . In 1804 Napoleon conferred on him the cross of the legion of honour, and on the 19th of June 1805 he died in the Louvre, of which he was honorary keeper . LA GUAIRA, or LA GUAYRA (sometimes LAGUAIRA, &c.), a town and port of Venezuela, in the Federal district, 23 M. by rail and 62 m. in a direct line N.'of Caracas . Pop . (1904, estimate) 14,000 . It is situated between a precipitous mountain side and a broad, semicircular indentation of the coast line which forms the roadstead of the port . The anchorage was long considered one of the most dangerous on the Caribbean coast, and landing was attended with much danger . The harbour has been improved by the construction of a concrete breakwater running out from the eastern shore line 2044 ft., built up from an extreme depth of 46 ft. or from an average depth of 291 ft., and rising 191 ft. above sea-level . This encloses an area of 761 acres, having an average depth of nearly 28 ft . The harbour is further improved by 187o ft. of concrete quays and 1397 ft. of retaining sea-wall, with several piers (three covered) projecting into deep water .

These works were executed by a

British company, known as the La Guaira Harbour Corporation, Ltd., and were completed in 1891 at a cost of about one million sterling . The concession is for 99 years and the additional charges which the company is authorized to impose are necessarily heavy . These improvements and the restrictions placed upon the direct trade between West Indian ports and the Orinoco have greatly increased the foreign trade of La Guaira, which in 1903 was 52% of that of the four puertos habilitados of the republic . The shipping 1867-1877) . The first, second and third sections of this publication comprise respectively the papers communicated by him to the Academies of Sciences of Turin, Berlin and Paris; the fourth includes his miscellaneous contributions to other scientific collections, together with his additions to Euler's Algebra, and his Lecons elementaires at the Ecole Normale in 1795 . Delambre's notice of his life, extracted from the Mem. de l'Institut, 1812, is prefixed to the first volume . Besides the separate works already named are Resolution des equations numeriques (1798, 2nd ed., 18o8, 3rd ed., 1826), and Lecons sur le calcul des fonctions (1805, 2nd ed., 1806), designed as a commentary and supplement to the first part of the Theorie des fonctions . The first volume of the enlarged edition of the Mecanique appeared in 1811, the second, of which the revision was completed by MM Prony and Binet, in 1815 . A third edition, in 2 vols., 4to, was issued in 1853-1855, and a second of the Theorie des fonctions in 1813 . See also J . J . Virey and Potel, Precis historique (1813); Th .

Thomson's Annals of Philosophy (1813-1820), vols. ii. and iv.; H . Suter, Geschichte der math . Wiss . (1873); E . Duhring, Kritische Gesch. der allgemeinen Principien der Mechanik (1877, 2nd ed.) ; A . Gautier, Essai historique sur le probleme des trois corps (18j7); R . Grant, History of Physical Astronomy, &c.; Pietro Cossali, Eloge (Padua, 1813) ; L . Martini, Cenni biogrdfici (184o) ; Moniteur du 26 Fevrier (1814); W . Whewell, Hist. of the Inductive Sciences, ii. passim; J . Clerk Maxwell, Electricity and Magnetism, ii . 184; A . Berry, Short Hist. of Asir., p .

313; J . S .

Bailly, Hist. de l'astr. moderne, iii . 156, 185, 232; J . C . Poggendorff, Biog . Lit . Handworterbuch . (A . M . C.) LAGRANGE-CHANCEL [CHANCEL, FRANCOIS JOSEPH (1677-1758), French dramatist and satirist, was born at Perigueux on the 1st of January 1677 . He was an extremely precocious boy, and at Bordeaux, where he was educated, he produced a play when he was nine years old .

Five years later his

mother took him to Paris, where he found a patron in the princesse de Conti, to whom he dedicated his tragedy of Jugurtha or, as it was called later, Adherbal (1694) . Racine had given him advice and was present at the first performance, although he had long lived in complete retirement . Other plays followed: Oreste et Pylade (1697), Meleagre (1699), Amasis (1701), and Ino et Melicerte (1715) . Lagrange hardly realized the high hopes raised by his precocity, although his only serious rival on the tragic stage was Campistron, but he obtained high favour at court, becoming maitre d'hotel to the duchess of Orleans . This prosperity ended with the publication in 1720 of his Philippiques, odes accusing the regent, Philip, duke of Orleans, of the most odious crimes . He might have escaped the consequences of this libel but for the bitter enmity of a former patron, the duc de La Force . Lagrange found sanctuary at Avignon, but was enticed beyond the boundary of the papal jurisdiction, when he was arrested and sent as a prisoner to the isles of Sainte Marguerite . He contrived, however, to escape to Sardinia and thence to Spain and Holland, where he produced his fourth and fifth Philippiques . On the death of the Regent he was able to return to France . He was part author of a Histoire de Perigord left unfinished, and made a further contribution to history, or perhaps, more exactly, to romance, in a letter to Elie Freron on the identity of the Man with the Iron Mask . Lagrange's family life was embittered by a long lawsuit against his son . He died at Perigueux at the end of December 1758 .

He had collected his own works (5 vols., 1758) some months before his death . His most famous

work, the Philippiques, was edited by M. de Lescure in 1858, and a sixth philippic by M . Diancourt in 1886 . LA GRANJA, or SAN ILDEFONSO, a summer palace of the kings of Spain; on the south-eastern border of the province of Segovia, and on the western slopes of the Sierra de Guadarrama, 7 M. by road S.E. of the city of Segovia . The royal estate is 3905 ft. above sea-level . The scenery of this region, especially in the gorge of the river Lozoya, with its granite rocks, its dense forest of pines, firs and birches, and its red-tiled farms, more nearly resembles the highlands of northern Europe than any other part of Spain . La Granja has an almost alpine climate, with a clear, cool atmosphere and abundant sunshine . Above the palace rise the wooded summits of the Guadarrama, culminating in the peak of Pefialara (7891 ft.); in front of it the wide plains of Segovia extend northwards . The village of San Ildefonso, the oldest part of the estate, was founded in 1450 by Henry IV., who built a hunting lodge and chapel here . In entries of that year numbered 217, of which 203 entered with general cargo and 14 with coal exclusively . The exports included 152,625 bags coffee, 114,947 bags cacao and 152,891 hides . For 1905—1906 the imports at La Guaira were valued officially at £767,365 and the exports at £663,708 .

The city stands on sloping ground stretching along the circular coast line with a varying width of 130 to 330 ft. and having the

appearance of an amphitheatre . The port improvements added 18 acres of reclaimed land to La Guaira's area, and the removal of old shore batteries likewise increased its available breadth . In this narrow space is built the town, composed in great part of small, roughly-made cabins, and narrow, badly-paved streets, but with good business houses on its principal street . From the mountain side, reddish-brown in colour and bare of vegetation, the solar heat is reflected with tremendous force, the mean annual temperature being 84° F . The seaside towns of Maiquetia, 2 M . W. and Macuto, 3 M . E., which have better climatic and sanitary conditions and are connected by a narrow-gauge railway, are the residences of many of the wealthier merchants of La Guaira . La Guaira was founded in 1588, was sacked by filibusters under Amias Preston in 1595, and by the French under Grammont in 1680, was destroyed by the great earthquake of the 26th of March 1812, and suffered severely in the war for independence . In 1903, pending the settlement of claims of Great Britain, Germany and Italy against Venezuela, La Guaira was blockaded by a British-German-Italian fleet . LA GUERONNIERE, LOUIS ETIENNE ARTHUR DUBREUIL HELION, VICOMTE DE (1816—1875), French politician, was the scion of a noble Poitevin family . Although by birth and education attached to Legitimist principles, he became closely associated with Lamartine, to whose organ, Le Bien Public, he was a principal contributor . After the stoppage of this paper he wrote for La Presse, and in 185o edited Le Pays .

A

character sketch of Louis Napoleon in this journal caused differences with Lamartine, and La Gueronniere became more and more closely identified with the policy of the prince president . Under the Empire he was a member of the council of state (1853), senator (1861), ambassador at Brussels (1868), and at Constantinople (1870), and grand officer of the legion of honour (1866) . He died in Paris on the 23rd of December 1875 . Besides his Etudes el portraits politiques contemporains (1856) his most important works are those on the foreign policy of the Empire: La France, Rome et Italic (1851), L' Abandon de Rome (1862), De la politique interieure et exterieure de la France (1862) . His elder brother, ALFRED DUBREUIL HELION, Comte de La Gueronniere (1810-1884), who remained faithful to the Legitimist party, was also a well-known writer and journalist . He was consistent in his opposition to the July Monarchy and the Empire, but in a series of books on the crisis of 1870—1871 showed a more favourable attitude to the Republic .