CHARLES

See also:

• ANNE (1665-1714)
• ANNE (1693-1740)

ANNE

See also:

• CHARLES ANNE LAISANT (1841– )

LAISANT (1841– )  , French politician, was born at Nantes on the 1st of November 1841, and was educated at the Ecole Polytechnique as a military engineer . He defended the fort of Issy at the siege of Paris, and served in Corsica and in Algeria in 1873 . In 1876 he resigned his commission to enter the Chamber as deputy for Nantes in the republican interest, and in 1879 he became director of the Petit Parisien . For alleged libel on General Courtot de Cissey in this paper he was heavily fined . In the Chamber he spoke chiefly on army questions; and was chairman of a commission appointed to consider army legislation, resigning in 1887 on the refusal of the Chamber to sanction the abolition of exemptions of any kind . He then became an adherent of the revisionist policy of General Boulanger and a member of the League of Patriots . He was elected Boulangist deputy for the 18th Parisian arrondissement in 1889 . He did not seek re-election in 1893, but devoted himself thenceforward to mathematics, helping to make known in France the theories of Giusto Bellavitis . He was attached to the staff of the Ecole Polytechnique, and in 1903-1904 was president of the French Association for the Advancement of Science . In addition to his political pamphlets Pourquoi et comment je suis Boulangiste (1887) and L'Anarchie bourgeoise (1887), he published mathematical works, among them Introduction a l'etude des quarternions (1881) and Theorie et applications des equipollences (1887) . LAI-YANG, a city in the Chinese province of Shan-tung, in 37° N., 120 55' E., about the middle of the eastern peninsula, on the highway running south from Chi-fu to Kin-Kia or Tingtsu harbour . It is surrounded by well-kept walls of great antiquity, and its main streets are spanned by large pailous or monumental arches, some dating from the time of the emperor Tai-ting-ti of the Yuan dynasty (1324) .

There are extensive suburbs both to the

north and south, and the total population is estimated at 50,000 . The so-called Ailanthus silk produced by Saturnia cynthia is woven at Lai-yang into a strong fabric; and the manufacture of the peculiar kind of wax obtained from the la-shu or wax-tree insect is largely carried on in the vicinity .