LOMBOK (called by the natives Sasak)  , one of the Lesser Sunda Islands, in the Dutch East Indies, E. of Java, between 8° 12' and 9° 1' S. and 115° 46' and 116° 40' E., with an area of 3136 sq. m . It is separated from Bali by the Strait of Lombok and from Sumbawa by the Strait of Alas . Rising out of the sea with bold and often precipitous coasts, Lombok is traversed by two mountain chains . The northern chain is of volcanic formation, and contains the peak of Lombok (11,810 ft.), one of the highest volcanoes in the Malay Archipelago . It is surrounded by a plateau (with lower summits, and a magnificent lake, Segara Anak) 8200 ft. high . The southern chain rises a little over 3000 ft . Between the two chains is a broad valley or terrace with a range of low volcanic hills . Forest-clad mountains and stretches of thorny jungle alternating with rich alluvial plains, cultivated like gardens under an ancient and elaborate system of irrigation, make the scenery of Lombok exceedingly attractive . The small rivers serve only for irrigation and the growing of rice, which is of superior quality . In the plains are also grown coffee, indigo, maize and sugar, katyang (native beans), cotton and tobacco . All these products are exported . To the naturalist Lombok is of particular interest as the frontier island of the Australian region, with its cockatoos and megapods or mound-builders, its peculiar bee-eaters and ground thrushes .

The Sasaks must be considered the

aborigines, as no trace of an earlier race is found . They are Mahommedans and distinct in many other respects from the Hindu Balinese, who vanquished but could not convert them . The island was formerly divided into the four states of Karang-Asam Lombok on the W. side, Mataram in the N.W., Pagarawan in the S.W. and Pagutan in the E . Balinese supremacy dated from the conquest by Agong Dahuran in the beginning of the 19th century; the union under a single raja tributary to Bali dated from 1839 . In July 1894 a Dutch expedition landed at Ampanam, and advanced towards Mataram, the capital of the Balinese sultan, who had defied Dutch authority and refused to send the usual delegation to Batavia . The objects of that expedition were to punish Mataram and to redress the grievances of the Sasaks whom the Balinese held in cruel subjection . The first Dutch expedition met with reverses, and ultimately the invaders were forced back upon Ampanam . The Dutch at once despatched a much stronger expedition, which landed at Ampanam in September . Mataram was bombarded by the fleet, and the troops stormed the sultan's stronghold, and Tjakra Negara, another chieftain's citadel, both after a desperate resistance . The old sultan of Mataram was captured, and he and other Balinese chiefs were exiled to different parts of the Malay Archipelago, whilst the sultan's heir fell at the hands of his warriors . Thus ended the Balinese domination of Lombok, and the island was placed under direct Dutch-Indian control, an assistant resident being appointed at Ampanam . Lombok is now administered from Bali by the Dutch resident on that island .

The

people, however, are in undisturbed exercise of their own laws, religions, customs and institutions . Disturbances between the Sasaks and the Lombok (176o), and in 1763 was translated to the archbishopric of Toulouse . He had many famous friends, among them A . R . J . Turgot, the Abbe A . Morellet and Voltaire, and in 1770 became an academician . He was on three occasions the head of the bureau de jurisdiction at the general assembly of the clergy; he also took an interest in political and social questions of the day, and addressed to Turgot a number of me-moires on these subjects, one of them, treating of pauperism, being especially remarkable . In 1787 he was nominated as president of the Assembly of Notables, in which capacity he attacked the fiscal policy of Calonne, whom he succeeded as head of the conseil des finances on the 1st of May 1787 . Once in power, he succeeded in making the parlement register edicts dealing with internal free trade, the establishment of provincial assemblies and the redemption of the corvee; on their refusal to register edicts on the stamp duty and the proposed new general land-tax, he persuaded the king to hold a lit de justice, to enforce their registration . To crush the opposition to these measures, he persuaded the king to exile the parlement to Troyes (August 15th, 1787) . On the agreement of the parlement to sanction a prolongation for two years to the tax of the two vingtiemes (a direct tax on all kinds of income), in lieu of the above two taxes, he recalled the councillors to Paris .

But a further

attempt to force the parlement to register an edict for raising a loan of 120 million livres met with determined opposition . The struggle of the parlement against the incapacity of Brienne ended on the 8th of May in its consenting to an edict for its own abolition; but with the proviso that the states-general should be summoned to remedy the disorders of the state . Brienne, who had in the meantime been made archbishop of Sens, now found himself face to face with almost universal opposition; he was forced to suspend the Cour pleniere which had been set up to take the place of the parlement, and himself to promise that the states-general should be summoned . But even these concessions were not able to keep him in power, and on the 29th of August he had to retire, leaving the treasury empty . On the 15th of December following, he was made a cardinal, and went to Italy, where he spent two years . After the outbreak of the Revolution he returned to France, and took the oath of the Civil Constitution of the Clergy in 1790 (see FRENCH REVOLUTION) . He was repudiated by the pope, and in 1791 had to give up the biretta at the command of Pius VI . Both his past and present conduct made him an object of suspicion to the revolutionaries; he was arrested at Sens on the 9th of November 1993, and died in prison, either of an apoplectic stroke or by poison, on the 16th of February 1794 . The chief works published by Brienne are: Oraison funebre du Dauphin (Paris, 1766) ; Compte-rendu au roi (Paris, 1788) ; Le Conciliateur, in collaboration with Turgot (Rome, Paris, 1754) . See also J . Perrin, Le Cardinal Lomenie de Brienne ... episodes de la Revolution (Sens, 1896) .