SAINTES  , a

town of western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Charente-Inferieure, 47 M . S.E. of La Rochelle by the railway from Nantes to Bordeaux . Pop . (1906), .town, 13,744; commune, 19,025 . Saintes is pleasantly situated on the left bank of the Charente, which separates it from its suburb of Les Dames . It is of interest for its Roman remains, of which the best preserved is the triumphal arch of Germanicus, dating from the reign of Tiberius . This formerly stood on a Roman bridge destroyed in 1843, when it was removed and reconstructed on the right bank of the river . Ruins of baths and of an amphitheatre are also to be seen . The amphitheatre,larger than that of Nimes, and in area surpassed only by the Coliseum, dates probably from the close of the 1st or the beginning of the 2nd century and was capable of holding 20,000 spectators . A Roman building known as the Capitol was destroyed after the capture of the town from the English by Charles of Alencon, brother of Philip of Valois, in 1330, and its site is occupied by a hospital . Saintes was a bishop's see till 1790; the cathedral of St Peter, built in the first half of the 12th century, was rebuilt in the 15th century, and again after it had been almost destroyed by the Huguenots in 1568 . The interior has now an unattractive appearance .

The

tower (15th century) is 236 ft. high . The church of St Eutropius (founded at the close of the 6th century, rebuilt in the 11th, and had its nave destroyed in the Wars of Religion) stands above a very interesting well-lighted crypt—the largest in France after that of Chartres—adorned with richly sculptured capitals and containing the tomb of St Eutropius (4th or 5th century) . The fine stone spire dates from the 15th century . Notre-Dame, a splendid example of the architecture of the rlth and 12th centuries, with a noble clock-tower, is no longer devoted to religious purposes . The old hotel de ville (16th and 18th centuries) contains a library, and the present hotel de ville a museum . Bernard Palissy, the porcelain-maker, has a statue in the town, where he lived from 1542 to 1562 . Small vessels ascend the river as far as Saintes, which carries on trade in grain, brandy and wine, has iron foundries, works of the state railway, and manufactures earthenware, tiles, &c . Saintes (Mediolanum or Mediolanium) , the capital of the Santones, was a flourishing town before Caesar's conquest of Gaul ; in the middle ages it was capital of the Saintonge . Christianity was introduced by St Eutropius, its first bishop, in the middle of the 3rd century . Charlemagne rebuilt its cathedral . The Normans burned the town in 845 and 854 . Richard Cceur de Lion fortified himself within its walls against his father Henry II., who captured it after a destructive siege .

In 1242 St

Louis defeated the English under its walls and was received into the town . It was not, however, till the reign of Charles V. that Saintes was permanently recovered from the English . The Protestants did great damage during the Wars of Religion . ST ETIENNE, an industrial town of east-central France, capital of the department of Loire, 310 M . S.S.E. of Paris and 36 m . S.S.W. of Lyons by rail . Pop . (1906), town, 130,940; commune, 146,788 . St Etienne is situated on the Furens, which flows through it from S.E. to N.W., partly underground, and is an important adjunct to the silk manufacture . The town is uniformly built, its principal feature being the straight thoroughfare nearly 4 m. long which traverses it from N. to S . The chief of the squares is the Place Marengo, which has a statue of F . Gamier, the explorer, and is overlooked by the town hall and the prefecture, both modern .

The church of St Etienne dates from the 15th century, and the Romanesque church of the

abbey of Valbenotte is on the S.E. outskirts of the town . A valuable collection of arms and armour, a picture gallery, industrial collections, and a library with numerous manuscripts are in the Palais des Arts . St Etienne is the seat of a prefect, and has an important school of mining, and schools of music, chemistry and dyeing, &c . The town owes its importance chiefly to the coal-basin which extends between Firminy and Rive-de-Gier over an area 20 m. long by 5 M. wide, and is second only to those of Nord and Pas-de-Calais in France . There are concessions giving employment to some 18,000 workmen and producing annually between 3,000,000 and 4,000,000 tons . The mineral is of two kinds—smelting coal, said to be the best in France, and gas coal . There are manufactures of ribbons, trimmings and other goods made from silk and mixtures of cotton and silk . This industry dates from the early 17th century, is carried on chiefly in small factories (electricity supplying the motive power), and employs at its maximum some 5o,00o hands . The attendant industry of dyeing is carried on on a large scale . The manufacture of steel and iron and of heavy iron goods such as armour-plating occupies about 3000 workmen, and about half that number are employed in the production of ironmongery generally . Weaving machinery, cycles, automobiles and agricultural implements are also made . The manufacture of fire-arms, carried on at the national factory under the direction of artillery officers, employs at busy times more than 10,000 men, and can turn out 480,000 rifles in the year .

Private firms, employing 4500 hands, make both military rifles and sporting-guns, revolvers, &c . To these

industries must be added the manufacture of elastic fabrics, glass, cartridges, liqueurs, hemp-cables, &c . At the close of the 12th century St Etienne was a parish of the Pays de Gier belonging to the abbey of Valbenoite . By the middle of the 14th century the coal trade had reached a certain development, and at the beginning of the 15th century Charles VII. permitted the town to erect fortifications . The manufacture of fire-arms for the state was begun at St Etienne under Francis I. and was put under the surveillance of state inspectors early in the 18th century . In 1789 the town was producing at the rate of 12,000 muskets per annum; between September 1794 and May 1796 they delivered over 170,000; and ,00,00o was the annual average throughout the period of the empire . The first railways opened in France were the line between St Etienne and Andrezieux on the Loire in 1828 and that between St Etienne and Lyons in 1831 . In 1856 St Etienne became the administrative centre of the department instead of Montbrison . ST EUSTATIUS and SABA, two islands in the Dutch West Indies . St Eustatius lies 12 M . N.W. of St Kitts in 17° 5o' N. and 62° 40' W . It is 8 sq. m. in area and is composed of several volcanic hills and intervening valleys .

It contains Orangetown, situated on an open roadstead on the W., with a small export trade in yams and sweet potatoes . Pop . (1908) 1283 . A few

miles to the N.W. is the island of SABA, 5 sq. m. in extent . It consists of a single volcanic cone rising abruptly from the sea to the height of nearly 2800 ft . The town, Bottom, standing on the floor of an old crater, can only be approached from the shore 800 ft. below, by a series of steps cut in the solid rock and known as the " Ladder." The best boats in the Caribbees are built here; the wood is imported and the vessels, when complete, are lowered over the face of the cliffs . Pop . (1908) 2294 . The islands form part of the colony of Curacao (q.v.) . SAINT-EVREMOND, CHARLES DE MARGUETEL DE SAINT-DENIS, SEIGNEUR DE (1610-1703), was born at Saint-Denis-le-Guast, near Coutances, the seat of his family in Normandy, on the 1st of April Oro . He was a pupil of the Jesuits at the College de Clermont (now Louis-le-Grand), Paris; then a student at Caen . For a time he studied law at the College d'Harcourt .

He soon, however, took to arms, and in 1629 went with

Marshal Bassompierre to Italy . He served through great part of the Thirty Years' War, distinguishing himself at the siege of Landrecies (1637), when he was made captain . During his campaigns he studied the works of Montaigne and the Spanish and Italian languages . In 1639 he met Gassendi in Paris, and became one of his disciples . He was present at Rocroy, at Nordlingen, and at Lerida . For a time he was person-ally attached to Conde, but offended him by a satirical remark and was deprived of his command in the prince's guards in 1648 . During the Fronde, Saint-Evremond was a steady royalist . The duke of Candale (of whom he has left a very severe portrait) gave him a command in Guienne, and Saint-Evremond, who had reached the grade of marechal de camp, is said to have saved 50,000 livres in less than three years . He was one of the numerous victims involved in the fall of Fouquet . His letter to . Marshal Crequi on the peace of the Pyrenees, which is said to have been discovered by Colbert's agents at the seizure of Fouquet's papers, seems a very inadequate cause for his disgrace . Saint-Evremond fled to Holland and to England, where he was kindly received by Charles II. and was pensioned .

After

James II.'s flight to France Saint-Evremond was invited to return, but he declined . Hortense Mancini, the most attractive of Mazarin's attractive group of nieces, came to England in 1670, and set up a salon for love-making, gambling and witty conversation, and here Saint-Evremond was for many years at home . He died on the 29th of September 1703 and was buried in Westminster Abbey, where his monument still is in Poet's Corner close to that of Prior . Saint-Evremond never authorized the printing of any of his works during his lifetime, though Barbin in 1668 published an unauthorized collection . But he empowered Des Maizeaux to publish his works after his death, and they were published in London (2 vols., 1705), and often reprinted . His masterpiece in irony is the so-called Conversation du marechal d'Hocquincourt avet le Pere Canaye (the latter a Jesuit and Saint-Evremond's masterat school), which has been frequently classed with the Lettres provinciales . His (Euvres melees, edited from the MSS. by Silvestre and Des Maizeaux, were printed by Jacob Tonson (London, 2705, 2 vols.; 2nd ed., 3 vols., 2709), with a notice by Des Maizeaux . His correspondence with Ninon de Lenclos, whose fast friend he was, was published in 1752; La Comedie des academistes, written in 1643, was printed in 1650 . Modern editions of his works are by Hippeau (Paris, 1852), C . Giraud (Paris, 1865), and a selection (1881) with a notice by M. de Lescure . ST FLORENTIN, a town of north-central France, in the department of Yonne, 37 M . S.E. of Sens on the Paris-Lyon-Mediterranee railway .

Pop . (1906) 2303 . It stands on a

hill on the right bank of the Arrnance, half a mile from its confluence with the Armancon and the canal of Burgundy . In the highest part of the town stands the church, begun in the latter half of the 15th century, and though retaining the Gothic form, with great flying buttresses, is mainly in the Renaissance style .. It is approached through a narrow alley up a steep flight of steps, and contains a fine Holy Sepulchre in bas-relief and a choir-screen and stained glass of admirable Renaissance workmanship . The nave, left incomplete, was restored and finished between 1857 and 1862 . The market-gardens of St Florentin produce large quantities of asparagus . The town stands on the site of the Roman military post Castrodunum, the scene of the martyrdom in the 3rd century of Saints Florentin and Hilaire, round whose tomb it grew up . The abbey established here in the 9th century afterwards became a priory of the abbey of St Germain at Auxerre . The town and its territory belonged, under the Merovingians, to Burgundy, and in later times to the counts of Champagne, from whom it passed to the kings of France . Louis XV. raised it from the rank of viscounty to that of county and bestowed it on Louis Phelypeaux, afterwards Duc de la Vrilliere . ST FLOUR, a town of south-central France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Cantal, situated at a height of 2900 ft. on a basaltic plateau overlooking the Lander, a tributary of the Truyere, 47 M .

E.N.E. of

Aurillac by rail . Pop . (1906) 4090 . The streets are dark and narrow, but the town has spacious promenades established in the 18th century . St Flour grew up round the tomb of St Florus, the apostle of Auvergne, who died there in the 4th century . The abbey founded there about the beginning of the 11th century became in 1317 an episcopal chapter, and the town is still the seat of a bishopric . The cathedral (1396-1466) is the principal building . The manufacture of coarse woollen fabrics, of earthenware and candles is carried on . A few miles S.E. of the town the gorge of the Truyere is spanned by the fine railway viaduct of Garabit over 600 yds. long and at a height of 400 ft. above the river . ST GALL (Ger . St Gallen), one of the cantons of north-east Switzerland, on the border of the Austrian province of the Vorarlberg and of the independent principality of Liechtenstein . It entirely surrounds the canton of Appenzell, which, like a great part .of this canton, formerly belonged to the abbots of St Gall, while the " enclave " of Horn is in the canton of Thurgau .

Its area is 779.3 sq. m., of which 710.1 sq. m. are reckoned " productive," forests covering 157.1 sq. m. and vineyards 2.8 sq. m., while of the

remainder 2.8 sq. m. are occupied by glaciers . The altitude above the sea-level varies from 1306 ft . (the lake of Constance) to 10,667 ft . (the Ringelspitz) . The canton includes portions of the lake of Constance (21i sq. m.), of the Walensee (rather over 7 sq. m.), and of the lake of Zurich (4 sq. m.), and several small lakes wholly within its limits . Hilly in its N. region, the height gradually increases towards the S. border, while to its S . W. and E. extend considerable alluvial plains on the banks of the Linth and of the Rhine . The two rivers just named form in part its frontiers, the principal stream within the canton being the Thur (as regards its upper course), with the middle reach of its principal affluent, the Sitter, both forming part of the Rhine basin . It has ports on the lake of Constance (Rorschach) and of Zurich (Rapperswil), as well as Weesen and Walenstadt on the Walensee, while the watering place of Ragatz (q.v.) is supplied with hot mineral waters from Pfafers . The main railway lines from Zurich past Sargans for Coire, and from Sargans past Altstatten and Rorschach for Constance, skirt its borders, while the capital is on the direct railway line from Zurich past Wil to Rorschach, and communicates by rail with Appenzell and with Frauenfeld . In 1900 the population of the canton was 250,285, of whom 243,358 were German-speaking, 5300 Italian-speaking and 710 French-speaking, while there were 150,412 " Catholics " (whether ST GALL-SAINT-GAUDENS extensive collection of embroideries of all ages and dates . There are a number of fine modern buildings, such as the Bourse .

The town is the centre of the Swiss

muslin, embroidery and lace trade . About ro,000 persons were in 1900 occupied in and near the town with the embroidery industry, and about 49,000 in the canton . Cold and fogs prevail in winter (though the town is protected against the north wind), but the heat in summer is rarely intense . In 190o the population was 33,116 (having just doubled since 1870), of whom almost all were German-speaking, while the Protestants numbered 17,572, the Catholics (Roman or " Old ") 15,006 and the Jews 419 . The town of St Gall owes its origin to St Gall, an Irish hermit, who in 614, built his cell in the thick forest which then covered the site of the future monastery, and lived there, with a few companions, till his death in 640 . Many pilgrims later found their way to his cell, and about the middle of the 8th century the collection of hermits' dwellings was transformed into a regularly organized Benedictine monastery . For the next three centuries this was one of the chief seats of learning and education in Europe . About 954 the monastery and its buildings were surrounded by walls as a protection against the Saracens, and this was the origin of the town . The temporal powers of the abbots vastly increased, while in the 13th century the town obtained divers privileges from the emperor and from the abbot, who about 1205 became a prince of the Empire . In 1311 St Gall became a free imperial city, and about 1353 the gilds, headed by that of the cloth-weavers, obtained the control of the civic government, while in 1415 it bought its liberty from the German king Sigismund . This growing independence did not please the abbot, who struggled long against it and his rebellious subjects in Appenzell, which formed the central portion of his dominions . After the victory of the Appenzellers at the battle of the Stoss (1405) they became (1411) " allies " of the Swiss confederation, as did the town of St Gall a few months later, this connexion becoming an " everlasting " alliance in 1454, while in 1457 the town was finally freed from the abbot .

The abbot, too, became (in 1451) the ally of Zurich,

Lucerne, Schwyz and Glarus . In 1468 he bought the county of the Toggenburg from the representatives of its counts, a family which had died out in 1436, and in 1487 built a monastery above Rorschach as a place of refuge against the turbulent citizens, who, however, destroyed it in 1489 . The Swiss intervened to protect the abbot, who (1490) concluded an alliance with them which'reduced his position almost to that of a " subject district." The townsmen adopted the Reformation in 1524, and this new cause of difference further envenomed their relations with the abbots . Both abbot and town were admitted regularly to the Swiss diet, occupying a higher position than the rest of the " allies " save Bienne, which was on the same footing . But neither succeeded in its attempts to be received a full member of the Confederation, the abbot being too much like a petty monarch and at the same time a kind of " subject " already, while the town could not help much in the way of soldiers . In 1798 and finally in 1805 the abbey was secularized, while out of its dominions (save the Upper Toggenburg, but with the Altstatten district, held since 1490 by the Swiss) and those of the town the canton Santis was formed, with St Gall as capital . (W . A . B . C.) SAINT-GAUDENS, AUGUSTUS (1848-1907), American sculptor, was born in Dublin, Ireland, of a French father (a shoemaker by trade), and an Irish mother, Mary McGuinness, on the 1st of March 1848, and was taken to America in infancy . He was apprenticed to a cameo-cutter, studying in the schools of the Cooper Union (1861) and the National Academy of Design, New York (1865-1866) . His earliest work in sculpture was a bronze bust (1867) of his father, Bernard P .

E . Saint-Gaudens . In 1868 he went to Paris and became a pupil of

Jouffroy; in the 1 cole des Beaux-Arts . Two years later, with his fellow-student Mercie, he went to Italy, where he spent three years . At Rome he executed his statues " Hiawatha " and " Silence." He then settled in New York . In 1874 he-made a bust of the statesman, William M . Evarts, and was commissioned to execute a large I relief for St Thomas's Church, New York, which brought him Roman or " Old "), 99,114 Protestants and 556 Jews (mostly in the town of St Gall) . Its capital is St Gall, the other most populous places being Tablat (pop . 12,590), Rorschach (9140), Altstatten (8724), Straubenzell (8090), Gossau (6055) and Wattwil (4971) . In the southern and more Alpine portion of the canton the inhabitants mainly follow pastoral pursuits . In 1896 the number of " alps " or mountain pastures in the canton amounted to 304, capable of sup-porting 21,744 cows, and of an estimated total value of nearly 14 million francs . In the central and northern regions agriculture is generally combined with manufactures .

The canton is one of the most industrial in Switzerland . Cotton-

spinning is widely spread, though cloth-weaving has declined . But the characteristic industry is the manufacture, mostly by machines, of muslin, embroidery and lace . It is reckoned that the value of the embroideries and lace exported from the canton amounts to about one-seventh of the total value of the exports from Switzerland . The canton is divided into fifteen administrative districts, which comprise ninety-three communes . The existing constitution dates from 1890 . The legislature or Grossrat is elected by the communes, each commune of 1500 inhabitants or less having a right to one member, and as many more as the divisor 1500, or fraction.over 750, justifies . Members hold office for three years . For the election of the seven members of the executive or Regierungsrat, who also hold office for three years, all the communes form a single electoral circle . The two members of the federal St¢nderat are named by the legislature, while the thirteen members of the federal Nationalrat are chosen by a popular vote . The right of " facultative referendum " or of " initiative " as to legislative projects belongs to any 4000 citizens, but in case of the revision of the cantonal constitution ro,000 must sign the demand . The canton of St Gall was formed in 1803 and was augmented by many districts that had belonged since 1798 to the canton Linth or Glarus—the upper Toggenburg, Sargans (held since 1483 by the Swiss), Gaster and Uznach (belonging since 1438 to Schwyz and Glarus), Gams (since 1497 the property of the same two members), Werdenberg (owned by Glarus since 1517), Sax (bought by Zurich in 1615), and Rapperswil (since 1712 under the protection of Zurich, Bern and Glarus) .

ST GALL, capital of the Swiss canton of that name, is situated in the upland valley of the Steinach, 2195 ft. above the sea-level . It is by rail 9 m . S.W. of Rorschach, its

port on the lake of Constance, and J3 in . E. of Zurich . The older or central portion of the town retains the air of a small rural capital, but the newer quarters present the aspect of a modern commercial centre . At either extremity considerable suburbs merge in the neighbouring towns of Tablat and of Straubenzell . Its chief building is the abbey church of the celebrated old monastery . This has been a cathedral church since 1846 . In its present form it was constructed in 1756-1765 . The famous library is housed in the former palace of the abbot, and is one of the most renowned in Europe by reason of its rich treasures of early MSS. and printed books . Other portions of the monastic buildings are used as the offices of the cantonal authorities, and contain the extensive archives both of this monastery and of that of Pfafers . The ancient churches of St Magnus (Old Catholics) and of St Lawrence (Protestant) were restored in the 19th century .

The town library, which is rich in Reformation and post-Reformation MSS. and books, is in the buildings of the cantonal school . The museum contains antiquarian,

historical and natural history collections, while the new museum of industrial art has an into prominence . His statue of Admiral Farragut, Madison Square, New York, was commissioned in 1878; exhibited at the Paris Salon in 188o and completed in 1881 . It immediately brought the sculptor widespread fame, which was increased by his statue of Lincoln (unveiled 1887), for Lincoln Park, Chicago . In Springfield, Mass., is his " Deacon Chapin," known as " The Puritan." His figure of " Grief " (also known as " Death " and " The Peace of God ") for the Adams (Mrs Henry Adams) Memorial, in Rock Creek Cemetery, Washington, D.C., has been described as " an idealization complete and absolute, the rendering of a simple, natural fact—a woman in grief—yet with such deep and embracing comprehension that the individual is magnified into a type." His Shaw Memorial in Boston, a monument to Robert G . Shaw, colonel of a negro regiment in the Civil War, was undertaken in 1884 and completed in 1897; it is a relief in bronze, 11 ft. by 15, containing many figures of soldiers, led by their young officer on horseback, a female figure in the clouds pointing onward . In 1903 was unveiled his equestrian statue (begun in 1892) to General Sherman, at 59th street and Fifth avenue, New York; preceding the Union commander is a winged figure of " Victory." This work, with others, formed a group at the Paris Exposition of 1900 . A bronze copy of his " Amor Caritas " is in the Luxembourg, Paris . Among his other works are relief medallion portraits of Robert Louis Stevenson (in St Giles's Cathedral, Edinburgh) and the French painter Jules Bastien-Lepage; Garfield Memorial, Fairmount Park, Philadelphia; General Logan, Chicago; the Peter Cooper Memorial; and Charles Stewart Parnell in Dublin . Saint-Gaudens was made an officer of the Legion of Honour and corresponding member of the Institute of France . He died at Cornish, N.H., on the 3rd of August 1907 . His monument of Phillips Brooks for Boston was left practically completed .

Saint-Gaudens is rightly regarded as the greatest sculptor produced by America, and his work had a most powerful

influence on art in the United States . In 1877 he married Augusta F . Homer and left a son, Homer Saint-Gaudens . His brother Louis (b . 1854), also a sculptor, assisted Augustus Saint-Gaudens in some of his works . See Royal Cortissoz, Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1907) ;Lorado Taft, History of American Sculpture (1903), containing two chapters de-voted to Saint-Gaudens; Kenyon Cox, Old Masters and New (1905) ; C . Lewis Hind, Augustus Saint-Gaudens (1908) . ST GAUDENS, a town of south-western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Haute-Garonne, r m. from the left bank of the Garonne, 57 M . S.S.W. of Toulouse, on the railway to Tarbes . Pop . (1906), town, 4535; commune, 7120 . The church, once collegiate, dates chiefly from the 11th and 12th centuries, but the main entrance is in the flamboyant Gothic style .

The town has sawing-, oil- and flour-

mills, manufactures woollen goods, and is a market for horses, sheep and agricultural produce . St Gaudens derives its name from a martyr of the 5th century, at whose tomb a college of canons was afterwards established . It was important as capital of the Nebouzan, as the residence of the bishops of Comminges and for its cloth industry . SAINT-GELAIS, MELIN DE (1487-1558), French poet, was born at Angouleme on the 3rd of November 1487 . He was the natural son of Octavien de St Gelais (1466-1502), afterwards bishop of Angouleme, himself a poet who had translated the Aeneid into French . Melin, who had studied at Bologna and Padua, had the reputation of being doctor, astrologer and musician as well as poet . He returned to France in 1515, and soon gained favour at the court of Francis I. by his skill in light verse . He was made almoner to the Dauphin, abbot of Reclus in the diocese of Troyes and librarian to the king at Fontainebleau . He enjoyed immense popularity until the appearance of Du Bellay's Defense et illustration . . . in 1549, where St Gelais was not excepted from the scorn poured on contemporary poets . He attempted to ridicule the innovators by reading aloud the Odes of Ronsard with burlesque emphasis before Henry II., when the king's sister, Margaret of Valois, seized the book and read them herself . Ronsard accepted Saint-Gelais's apology for this incident, but Du Bellay satirized the offender in the Pate courtisan .

In 1554 he collaborated, perhaps with

Francois Habert (152o-1574?), in a translation of the Sophontsbe of Trissino which was represented (1554) before Catherine de Medicis at Blois . Saint-Gelais was the champion of the style marotique and the earliest of French sonneteers . He died in 1558 His fEuvres were edited in 1893 (3 vols., Bibl. elzevirienne) by Prosper Blanchemain . SAINT-GEORGES, GEORGES HENRI VERNOY DE (1799-1875), French dramatist, was born in Paris on the 7th of November 1799 . Saint-Louis ou les deux diners (1823), a vaudeville written in collaboration with Alexandre Tardif, was followed by a series of operas and ballets . In 1829 he became manager of the Opera Comique . Among his more famous libretti are: Le Val d'Andorre (1848) for Halevy, and La Fille du regiment (184o) for Donizetti . He wrote some fifty pieces in collaboration with Eugene Scribe, Adolphe de Leuven, or Joseph Mazillier, and a great number in collaboration with other authors . Among his novels may be mentioned Un Mariage de prince . Saint-Georges died in Paris on the 23rd of December 1875 . SAINT-GERMAIN, COMTE DE (c . 1710-c .

1780) called der Wundermann, a celebrated adventurer who by the assertion of his

discovery of some extraordinary secrets of nature exercised considerable influence at several European courts . Of his parentage and place of birth nothing is definitely known; the common version is that he was a Portuguese Jew, but various surmises have been made as to his being of royal birth . It was also stated that he obtained his money, of which he had abundance, from acting as spy to one of the European courts . But this is hard to maintain . He knew nearly all the European languages, and spoke German, English, Italian, French (with a Piedmontese accent), Portuguese and Spanish . Grimm affirms him to have been the man of the best parts he had ever known . He was a musical composer and a capable violinist . His knowledge of history was comprehensive, and his accomplishments as a chemist, on which be based his reputation, were in many ways real and considerable . He pretended to have a secret for removing flaws from diamonds, and to be able to transmute metals . The most remarkable of his professed discoveries was of a liquid which could prolong life, and by which he asserted he had himself lived 2000 years . After spending some time in Persia, Saint-Germain is mentioned in a letter of Horace Walpole's as being in London about 1743, and as being arrested as a Jacobite spy and released . Walpole says: " He is called an Italian, a Spaniard, a Pole; a somebody that married a great fortune in Mexico and ran away with her jewels to Constantinople; a priest, a fiddler, a vast nobleman." At the court of Louis XV., where he appeared about 1748, he exercised for a time extraordinary influence and was employed on secret missions by Louis XV.; but, having interfered in the dispute between Austria and France, he was compelled in June 176o, on account of the hostility of the duke of Choiseul, to remove to England .

He appears to have resided in London for one or two years, but was at St

Petersburg in 1762, and is asserted to have played an important part in connexion with the conspiracy against the emperor Peter III. in July of that year, a plot which placed Catherine II. on the Russian throne . Fie then went to Germany, where, according to the Memoires authentiques of Cagliostro, he was the founder of freemasonry, and initiated Cagliostro into that rite . He was again in Paris from 1770 to 1774, and after frequenting several of the German courts he took up his residence in Schleswig-Holstein, where he and the Landgrave Charles of Hesse pursued together the study of the " secret " sciences . He died at Schleswig in or about 1780-1785, although he is said to have been seen in Paris in 1789 . Andrew Lang in his Historical Mysteries (1904) discusses the career of Saint-Germain, and cites the various authorities for it . Saint-Germain figures prominently in the correspondence of Grimm and of Voltaire . See also Oettinger, Graf Saint-German (1846); F . Bulau, Geheime Geschichten and rathselhafte Menschen, Band i . (1850-1860); Lascelles Wraxall, Remarkable Adventures (1863); and U . Birch in the Nineteenth Century (January 1908) . SAINT-GERMAIN, CLAUDE LOUIS, COMTE DE (1707-1778), French general, was born on the 15th of April 1707, at the Chateau of Vertamboz . Educated at Jesuit schools, he intended to enter the priesthood, but at the last minute obtained from Louis XV. an appointment as sub-lieutenant .

He left France, according to the

gossip of the time, because of a duel; served under the elector palatine; fought for Hungary against the Turks, and on the outbreak of the war of the Austrian Succession (1740) joined the army of the elector of Bavaria (who later became emperor under the name of Charles VII.), displaying such bravery that he was promoted to the grade of lieutenant field-marshal . He left Bavaria on the death of Charles VII., and after brief service under Frederick the Great joined Marshal Saxe in the Netherlands and was created a field-marshal of the French army . He distinguished himself especially at Lawfeld, Rancoux and Maastricht . On the outbreak of the Seven Years' War (1956) he was appointed lieutenant-general, and although he showed greater ability than any of his fellow-commanders and was admired by his soldiers, he fell a victim to court intrigues, professional jealousy and hostile criticism . He resigned his commission in 176o and accepted an appointment as field-marshal from Frederick V. of Denmark, being charged in 1762 with the reorganization of the Danish army . On the death of Frederick in 1766 he returned to France, bought a small estate in Alsace near Lauterbach, and devoted his time to religion and farming . A financial crisis swept away the funds that he had saved from his Danish service and rendered him dependent on the bounty of the French ministry of war . Saint-Germain was presented at court by the reformers Turgot and Malesherbes, and was appointed minister of war by Louis XVI. on the 25th of October 1775 . He sought to lessen the number of officers and to establish order and regularity in the service . His efforts to introduce Prussian discipline in the French army brought on such opposition that he resigned in September 1777 . He accepted quarters from the king and a pension of 40,000 livres, and died in his apartment at the arsenal on the 15th of January 1778 . ST GERMAIN-EN-LAYE, a town of northern France, in the department of Seine-et-Oise, 13 M .

W.N.W. of Paris by rail . Pop . (1906), town, 14,974; commune, 17,288 . Built on a hill on the left bank of the Seine, nearly 300 ft. above the river, and on the edge of a forest xo,000 to 11,000 acres in extent, St Germain has a bracing

climate, which makes it a place of summer residence for Parisians . The terrace of St Germain, constructed by A.Lenotre in 1672, is 12 M. long and rooft.wide; it was planted with lime trees in 1745 and affords an extensive view over the valley of the Seine as far as Paris and the surrounding hills: it ranks as one of the finest promenades in Europe . A-monastery in honour of St Germain, bishop of Paris, was built in the forest of Laye by King Robert . Louis VI. erected a castle close by . Burned by the English, rebuilt by Louis IX., and again by Charles V., this castle did not reach its full development till the time of Francis I., who may be regarded as the real founder of the building . A new castle was begun by Henry II. and completed by Henry IV.; it was subsequently demolished, with the exception of the so-called Henry IV. pavilion, where Thiers died in 1877 . The old castle has been restored to the state in which it was under Francis I . The restoration is particularly skilful in the case of the chapel, which dates from the first half of the .13th century . In the church of St Germain is a mausoleum erected by George IV. of England (and restored by Queen Victoria) to the memory of James II. of England, who after his deposition resided in the castle for twelve years and died there in 1701 .

In one of the public squares is a statue of Thiers . At no great distance in the forest is the Couvent des Loges, a

branch of the educational establishment of the Legion of Honour (St Denis) . The fete des Loges (end of August and beginning of September) is one of the most popular in the neighbourhood of Paris . ST GERMANS, a small town in the Bodmin parliamentary division of Cornwall,England,pleasantly situated on the river Lynher, 92 m . W. by N. of Plymouth by the Great Western railway . Pop . (1901) 2384 . It contains a fine church dedicated to St Germanus . The west front is flanked by towers both of which are Norman in the lower parts,the upper part being in the one Early English and in the othei Perpendicular . The front itself is wholly Norman, having three windows above a porch with a beautiful ornate door-way . Some Norman work remains in the body of the church, but the most part is Perpendicular or Decorated . Port Eliot, a neighbouring mansion, contains an excellent collection of pictures, notably several works of Sir Joshua Reynolds .

St Germans is supposed to have been the

original seat of the Cornish bishopric . It was the see of Bishop Burhwold, who died in 1027 . Under Leofric, who became bishop of Creditor and Cornwall in ro46, the see was removed to Exeter . Bishop Leofric founded a priory at St Germans and bestowed upon it twelve of the twenty-four hides which in the time of the Confessor constituted the bishops' manor of St Germans . There was then a market on Sundays, but at the time of the Domesday Survey this had been reduced to nothing owing to a market established by the count of Mortain on the same day at Trematon castle . In 1302 the grant of infangenethef, assize of bread and ale, waif and stray by Henry III. was confirmed to the bishop, who in 1311 obtained a further grant of a market on Fridays and a fair at the feast of St Peter ad Vincula . In 1343 the prior sustained his claim to a prescriptive market and fair at St Germans . After the suppression the borough belonging to the priory remained with the crown until 1610 . Meanwhile Queen Elizabeth created it a parliamentary borough . From 1563 to 1832 it returned two members to the House of Commons . In 1815 John Eliot was created earl of St Germans, and in 1905 the first suffragan bishop of Truro was consecrated bishop of St Germans . ST GILLES, a town of southern France, in the department of Gard, on the canal from the Rhone to Cette, 122 M .

S.S.E. of Nimes by road . Pop . (1906) 5292 . In the middle ages St Gilles, the ancient Vallis Flaviana, was the seat of an abbey founded towards the end of the 7th century by St Aegidius (St Gilles) . It acquired

wealth and power under the counts of Toulouse, who added to their title that of counts of St Gilles . The church, which survives, was founded in 1116 when the abbey was at the height of its prosperity . The lower part of the front (12th century) has three bays decorated with columns and bas-reliefs, and is the richest example of Romanesque art in Provence . The rest of the church is unfinished, only the crypt (12th century) and part of the choir, containing a spiral staircase, being of interest . Besides the church there is a Romanesque house serving as presbytery . The decadence of the abbey dates from the early years of the 13th century when the pilgrimage to the tomb of the saint became less popular; the monks also lost the patronage of the counts of Toulouse, owing to the penance inflicted by them on Raymond VI. in 1209 for the murder of the papal legate Pierre de Castelnau . St Gilles was the seat of the first grand priory of the Knights Hospitallers in Europe (12th century) and was of special importance as their place of embarkation for the East . In 1226 the countship of St Gilles was united to the crown .

In 1562 the Protestants ravaged the abbey, which they occupied till 1622, and in 1774 it was suppressed . ST GIRONS, a town of south-western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of

Ariege, 29 m . W. of Foix by rail . Pop . (1906) 5216 . The town is situated on the Salat at the foot of the Pyrenees . There are mineral springs at Audinac in the vicinity, and the watering-place of Aulus, about 20 M. to the S.S.E., is reached by road from St . Girons . St Lizier-de-Couserans (q.v.), an ancient episcopal town, is x m . N.N.W . ST GOAR, a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine Province, on the left bank of the Rhine, opposite St Goarshausen and just below the famous Lorelei, 12 M. above Boppard by the railway from Coblenz to Mainz . Pop .

(1905) 1475 . It is in part surrounded by the ruins of its old walls, and contains an Evangelical church, with some Renaissance monuments, and a Roman

Catholic church with an image of St Goar of Aquitania, around whose chapel the place originally arose . Below the town, high on an eminence above the Rhine, stands Schloss Rheinfels, the property of the king of Prussia, the most perfect of the feudal castles on the banks of the river . In the later middle ages St Goar was the capital of the county of Katzenelnbogen, and on the extinction of this family it passed to Hesse-Cassel . It came into the possession of Prussia in 1815 . ST GOTTHARD PASS, the principal route from northern Europe to Italy . It takes its name (it is not known wherefore') from St Gotthard, bishop of Hildesheim (d . 1038), but does not seem to be mentioned before the early 13th century, perhaps because the access to it lies through two very narrow Alpine valleys, much exposed to avalanches . The hospice on the summit is first mentioned in 1331, and from 1683 onwards was in charge of two Capuchin friars . But in 1775 the buildings near it were damaged by an avalanche, while in 1799–1800 everything was destroyed by the French soldiery . Rebuilt in 1834, the hospice was burnt in March 1905 . The mule path (dating from about 1293) across the pass served for many centuries, for though Mr Greville, in 1775, succeeded in taking a light carriage across, the carriage-road was only constructed between 182o and 183o .

Now the pass is deserted in favour of the great

tunnel (pierced in 1872–188o, 91 M. in length, and attaining a height of J786 ft.), through which runs the railway (opened in 1882) from Lucerne to Milan (1751 m.), one of the greatest engineering feats of the 19th century . It runs mainly along the eastern shore of the Lake of Lucerne, from Lucerne to Fliielen (321 m.), and then up the Reuss valley past Altdorf and Wassen, near which is the first of the famous spiral tunnels, to Goeschenen (56 m. from Lucerne) . Here the line leaves the Reuss valley to pass through the tunnel and so gain, at Airolo, the valley of the Ticino or the Val Leventina, which it descends, through several spiral tunnels, till at Biasca (38 m. from Goeschenen) it reaches more level ground . Thence it runs past Bellinzona to Lugano (3o1 M. from Biasca) and reaches Italian territory at Chiasso, 35 M. from Milan . In 1909 the Swiss government exercised the right accorded to it by the agreement of 1879 of buying the St Gotthard Railway from the company which built it within thirty years of that date . (W . A . B . C.) ST HELENA, an island and British possession in the South Atlantic in 15° 55' 26" S•, 5° 42' 30" W . (Ladder Hill Observatory) . It lies 700 M . S.E. of the island of Ascension (the nearest land), 1200 M .

W. of

Mossamedes (the nearest African port), 1695 N.W. of Cape Town, and is distant from Southampton 4477 M . It has an area of about 47 sq. m., the extreme length from S.W. to N.E. being lot m. and the extreme breadth 84 . The island is of volcanic formation, but greatly changed by oceanic abrasion and atmospheric denudation . Its principal feature, a semi-circular ridge of mountains, open towards the south-east and south, with the culminating summit of Diana's Peak (2704 ft.) is the northern rim of a great crater; the southern rim has disappeared, though its debris apparently keeps the sea shallow (from 20 to 50 fathoms) for some 2 M . S.E. of Sandy Bay, which hypothetically forms the centre of the ring . From the crater wall outwards water-cut gorges stretch in all directions, widening as they approach the sea into valleys, some of which are woo ft. deep, and measure one-eighth of a mile across at bottom and three-eighths across the top (Melliss) . These valleys contain small streams, but the island has no rivers properly so called . Springs of pure water are, however, abundant . Along the enclosing hillsides caves have been formed by the washing out of the softer rocks . Basalts, andesites and phonolites, represent the chief flows . Many dikes and masses of basaltic rock seem to have been injected subsequently to the last volcanic eruptions from the central crater . The Ass's Ears and Lot's Wife, picturesque pinnacles standing out on the S.E. part of the crater ridge, and the Chimney on the coast south of Sandy Bay, are formed out of such injected dikes and masses .

In the neighbourhood of Man and

Horse (S.W. corner of the island), throughout an area of about .40 acres, scarcely 50 sq. yds. exist not crossed by a dyke . On the leeward (northern) side of St Helena the sea-face is generally formed by cliffs from 600 to r000 ft. high, and on the windward side these heights rise to about 2000 ft., as at Holdfast Tom, Stone Top and Oid Joan Point . The only practicable landing-place is on the leeward side at St James's Bay—an open roadstead . From the head of the bay a narrow valley extends for 11 m . The greatest extent of level ground is in the N.E. of the island, where are the Deadwood and Long-wood plains, over 1700 ft. above the sea . Climate.—Although it lies within the tropics the climate of the island is healthy and temperate . This is due to the south-east trade-wind, constant throughout the year, and. to the effect of the cold waters of the South Atlantic current . As a result the temperature varies little, ranging on the sea level from 68° to 84° in summer and 57° to 70° in winter . The higher regions are about 10 cooler . The.rainfall varies considerably, being from 30 to 50 in. a year in the hills . Flora.—St Helena is divided into three vegetation zones: (1) the coast zone, extending inland for i m. to 12 m., formerly clothed with a luxuriant vegetation, but now " dry, barren, soilless, lichen-coated, and rocky," with little save prickly pears, wire grass and Mesembryanthemum; (2) the middle zone (400-1800 ft.), extending about three-quarters of a mile inland, with shallower valleys and grassier slopes—the English broom and gorse, brambles, willows, poplars, Scotch pines, &c., being the prevailing forms; and (3) the central zone, about 3 in. long and 2 M. wide, the home, for the most part, of the indigenous flora . According to W .

B . Hemsley (in his

report on the botany of the Atlantic Islands),' the certainly indigenous species of plants are 65, the probably indigenous 24 and the doubtfully indigenous 5; total 94 . Of the 38 flowering plants 20 are shrubs or small trees . With the exception of Scir pus nodosus, all the 38 are peculiar to the island ; and the same is true of 12 of the 27 vascular cryptogams (a remarkable proportion) . Since the flora began to be studied, two species—Melhania melaiwxylon and Acalypha rubra—are known to have become extinct; and at least two others have probably shared the same fate—Heliotropium pennifolium and Demazeria obliterata . Melhania melanoxylon, or native ebony," once abounded in parts of the island now barren; but the young trees were allowed to be destroyed by the goats of the early settlers, and it is now extinct . Its beautiful congener Melhania erythroxylon (" redwood ") was still tolerably plentiful in 181o, but is now reduced to a few specimens . Very rare, too, has become Pelargonium cotyledons, called " Old Father Live-for-ever," from its retaining vitality for months without soil or water . Commidendron robustum (" gumwood "), a tree about 20 ft. high, once the most abundant in the island, was represented in 1868 by about 1300 or 1400 examples; and Commidendron rugosum (" scrubwood ") is. confined to somewhat limited regions . Both these plants are characterized by a daisy- or aster-like blossom . The affinities of the indigenous flora of St Helena were described by Sir Joseph Hooker as African, but George Bentham points out that. the Compositae shows, at least in its older forms, a connexion rather with South America . The exotic flora introduced from all parts of the world gives the island almost the aspect of a botanic garden .

The

oak, thoroughly naturalized, grows alongside of the bamboo and banana . Among other trees and plants are the common English gorse ; Rubus pinnatus, probably introduced from Africa about 1775; Hypochaeris radicata, which above 1500 ft. forms the dandelion of the country; the beautiful but aggressive Buddleia Madagascariensis; Physalis Peru viana; the common castor-oil plant; and the pride of India . The peepul is the principal shade tree in Jamestown, and in Jamestown valley the date-palm grows freely . Orange and lemon trees, once common, are now scarce . Fauna.—St Helena possesses no indigenous vertebrate land fauna . The only land groups well represented are the beetles and the land shells . T . V . Wollaston, in Coleoptera Sanctae Helenae (1877),,shows that out of a total list of 203 species of beetles 129 are probably aboriginal and'128 peculiar to the island—an individuality perhaps unequalled in the world . More than two-thirds are weevils and a vast majority wood-borers, a fact which bears out the tradition of forests having once covered the island . The Hemiptera and the land-shells also show a strong residuum of peculiar genera and species . A South American white ant (Termes tenuis, Hagen.), introduced from a slave-ship in 184o, soon became a plague at Jamestown, where it consumed a large part of the public library and the woodwork of many buildings, public and private .

Practically everything had to be rebuilt with

teak or cypress—the only woods the white ant cannot devour . Fortunately it cannot live in the higher parts of the island . The honey-bee, which throve for some time after its introduction, again died out (cf . A . R . Wa,lace; Island Life, 1880) . Besides domestic animals the only land mammals are rabbits, rats and mice, the rats being especially abundant and building their nests in the highest trees . Probably the only endemic land bird is the wire bird, Aegialitis sanctae Helenae; the averdevat, Java sparrow, cardinal, ground-dove, partridge (possibly the Indian chukar), pheasant and guinea-fowl are all common . The pea-fowl, at one time not uncommon in a wild state, is long since exterminated . There are no freshwater fish, beetles or shells . Of sixty-five species of sea-fish caught off the island seventeen are peculiar to St Helena; economically the more important kinds are gurnard,eel, cod,mackerel, tunny, bullseye, cavalley, flounder, hog-fish, mullet and skulpin . Inhabitants.—When discovered the island was uninhabited .

The majority of the population are of mixed European (British, Dutch, Portuguese), East Indian and African descent—the

Asiatic strain perhaps predominating; the majority of the early settlers having been previously members of the crews of ships returning to Europe from the East . From 184o onward for a considerable period numbers of freed slaves of West African origin were settled here by men-of-war engaged in suppressing the slave trade . Their descendants form a distinct element ' In the "Challenger" expedition reports, Botany, vol. i . (1885) . in the population . Since the substitution of steamships for sailing vessels and the introduction of new methods of preserving meat and vegetables (which made it unnecessary for sailing vessels to take fresh provisions from St Helena to avoid scurvy) the population has greatly diminished . In 1871 there were 6444 inhabitants; in 1909 the civil population was estimated at 3553 . The death-rate that year, 6.4 per 1000, was the lowest on record in the island . The only town, in which live more than half the total population, is Jamestown . Longwood, where Napoleon died in 1821, is 32 M . E. by S. of Jamestown . In 1858 the house in which he lived and died was presented by Queen Victoria. to Napoleon III., who had it restored to the condition, but unfurnished, in which it was at the time of Bonaparte's death .

Agriculture, Industries, &c.—Less than a third of the area of the island is suitable for farming, while much of the area which might be (and formerly was) devoted to raising crops is under grass . The principal

crop is potatoes, which are of very good quality . They were chiefly sold to ships—especially to " passing " ships . They are now occasionally exported to the Cape . Cattle and sheep were raised in large numbers when a garrison was maintained, so that difficulty has been found in disposing of surplus stock now that the troops have been withdrawn . The economic conditions which formerly prevailed were entirely altered by the substitution of steamers for sailing vessels, which caused a great decrease in the number of ships calling at Jamestown . A remedy was sought in the establishment of industries . An attempt made in 1869–1872 to cultivate cinchona proved unsuccessful . Attention was also turned to the aloe (Furcraea gigantea), which grows wild at mid elevations, and the New Zealand flax (Phormium tenax), an introduced plant, for their utilization in the manufacture of fibre . From 1875 to 1881 a company ran a mill at which they turned out both aloe and flax fibre, but the enterprise proved unremunerative . In 1907 the government, aided by a grant of £4070 from the imperial exchequer, started a mill at Longwood for the manufacture of phormium fibre, with encouraging results . Fish curing and lace making are also carried on to some extent .

Trade is chiefly dependent upon the few ships that

call at Jamestown—now mostly whalers or vessels in distress . There is also some trade with ships that " pass " without " calling."' In thirty years (1877–1907) the number of ships " calling " at the port sank from 664 with 449,724 tonnage to 57 with 149,182 tonnage . In the last-named year the imports were valued at £35,614; the exports (excluding specie) at £1787—but the goods supplied to " passing " vessels do not figure in these returns . In 1908 fibre and tow (valued at £3557) were added to the exports, and in 1909 a good trade was done with Ascension in sheep . St Helena is in direct telegraphic communication with Europe and South Africa, and there is a regular monthly mail steamship service . Government, Revenue, &c.—St Helena is a Crown colony . The island has never had any form of local legislative chamber, but the governor (who also acts as chief justice) is aided by an executive council . The governor alone makes laws, called ordinances, but legislation can also be effected by the Crown by order in council . The revenue, £10,287 in 1905, had fallen in 1909 to £8778 (including a grant in aid of £2500), the expenditure in each of the five years (1905–1909) being in excess of the revenue . Elementary education is provided in government and private schools . St Helena is the seat of an Anglican bishopric established in 1859 . Ascension and Tristan da Cunha are included in the diocese .

History.—The island was discovered on the 21St of May 1502 by the Portuguese navigator Joao de Nova, on his voyage home from India, and by him named St Helena . The Portuguese found it uninhabited, imported live stock,

fruit-trees and vegetables, built a chapel and one or two houses, and left their sick there to be taken home, if recovered, by the next ship, but they formed no permanent settlement . Its first known permanent resident was Fernando Lopez, a Portuguese in India, who had turned traitor and had been mutilated by order of Albuquerque . He preferred being marooned to returning to Portugal in his maimed condition, and was landed at St Helena in 1513 with three or four negro slaves . By royal command he visited Portugal some time later, but returned to St Helena, where he died in 1546 . In 1584 two Japanese ambassadors to Rome landed at the island . The first Englishman known to have visited it was Thomas Cavendish, who touched there in June 1588 during his voyage round the world . Another English " Calling " ships are those which have been boarded by the harbour master and given pratique . Since 1886 boatmen are allowed to communicate with ships that have not obtained pratique, and these are known as " passing " ships.seaman, Captain Kendall, visited St Helena in 1591, and in 1593 Sir James Lancaster stopped at the island on his way home from the East . In 1603 the same commander again visited St Helena on his return from the first voyage equipped by the East India Company . The Portuguese had by this time given up calling at the island, which appears to have been occupied by the Dutch about 1645 . The Dutch occupation was temporary and ceased in .

1651, the year before they founded Cape Town . The British East India Company appropriated the island immediately after the departure of the Dutch, and they were confirmed in possession by a clause in their

charter of 1661 . The company built a fort (1658), named after the duke of York (James II.), and established a garrison in the island . In 1673 the Dutch succeeded in obtaining possession, but were ejected after a few months' occupation . Since that date St Helena has been in the undisturbed possession of Great Britain, though in 1706 two ships anchored off James-town were carried off by the French . In 1673 the Dutch had been expelled by the forces of the Crown, but by a new charter granted in December of the same year the East India Company were declared "the true and absolute lords and proprietors" of the island . At this time the inhabitants numbered about 1000, of whom nearly half were negro slaves . In 18ro the company began the importation of Chinese from their factory at Canton . During the company's rule the island prospered, thousands of homeward-bound vessels anchored in the road-stead in a year, staying for considerable periods, refitting and revictualling . Large sums of money were thus expended in the island, where wealthy merchants and officials had their residence . The plantations were worked by the slaves, who were subjected to very barbarous laws until 1792, when a new code of regulations ensured their humane treatment and prohibited the importation of any new slaves . Later it was enacted that all children of slaves born on or after Christmas Day 1818 should be free, and between 1826 and 1836 all slaves were set at liberty .

Among the

governors appointed by the company to rule at St Helena was one of the Huguenot refugees, Captain Stephen Poirier (1697-1707), who attempted unsuccessfully to introduce the cultivation of the vine . A later governor (1741-1742) was Robert Jenkin (q.v.) of " Jenkin's ear " fame . Dampier visited the island twice, in 1691 and 17o1; Halley's Mount commemorates the visit paid by the astronomer Edmund Halley in 1676-1678—the first of a number of scientific men who have pursued their studies on the island . In 18r 5 the British government selected St Helena as the place of detention of Napoleon Bonaparte . He was brought to the island in October of that year and lodged at Longwood, where he died in May 1821 . During this period the island was strongly garrisoned by regular troops, and the governor, Sir Hudson Lowe, was nominated by the Crown . After Napoleon's death the East India Company resumed full control of St Helena until the 22nd of April 1834, on which date it was in virtue of an act passed in 1833 vested in the Crown . As a port of call the island continued to enjoy a fair measure of prosperity until about 187o . Since that date the great decrease in the number of vessels visiting Jamestown has deprived the islanders of their principal means of subsistence . When steamers began to be substituted for sailing vessels and when the Suez Canal was opened (in 1869) fewer ships passed the island, while of those that still pass the greater number are so well found that it is unnecessary for them to call (see also § Inhabitants) . The withdrawal in 1906 of the small garrison, hitherto maintained by the imperial government, was another cause of depression . During the Anglo-Boer war of 1899-1902 some thousands of Boer prisoners were detained at St Helena, which has also served as the place of exile of several Zulu chiefs, including Dinizulu .

(London, 1816) ; Extracts from the St Helena Records from 1693 to 1835 (compiled by H . R . Janisch, sometime governor of the island, James-town, 1885) ; Charles

Darwin, Geological Observations on Volcanic Islands (1844) . For a condensed general account consult (Sir) C . P . Lucas, Historical Geography of the British Colonies (vol. iii., West Africa, 2nd ed., Oxford, 1900) . See also M . Danvers, Report on the Records of the India Office, vol. i. pt. i . (London, 1887) ; The Africa Pilot, pt. ii . (5th ed., 1901) ; Report on the Present Position and Prospects of the Agricultural Resources of the Island of St Helena, by (Sir) D . Morris (1884; reprinted 1906) . (R .

L . A.; F . R . C.) ST HELENS, a market town and municipal, county, and parliamentary borough of

Lancashire, England, 14 M . E.N.E. from Liverpool, on the London & North-Western and Great Central railways . Pop . (1891) 72,413; (1901) 84,410 . A canal communicates with the Mersey . The town is wholly of modern development . Besides the town hall and other public buildings and institutions there may be mentioned the Gamble Institute, erected and presented by Sir David Gamble, Bart., for a technical school, educating some 2000 students, and library . Among several public pleasure grounds the principal are the Taylor Park of 48 acres, and the smaller Victoria and Thatto Heath Parks . This is the principal seat in England for the manufacture of crown, plate, and sheet glass; there are also art glass works, and extensive copper smelting and refining works, as well as chemical works, iron and brass foundries, potteries and patent medicine works .

There are collieries in the neighbourhood . To the north of the town are a few ecclesiastical ruins, known as Windleshaw Abbey, together with a well called St Thomas' well, but the history of the

foundation is not known . The parliamentary borough (1885) returns one member . The county borough was created in 1888 . The town was incorporated in 1868, and the corporation consists of a mayor, 9 aldermen and 27 councillors . Area 7285 acres . ST HELIER, the chief town of Jersey, the largest of the Channel Islands . Pop . (1901) 27,866 . It lies on the south coast of the island on the eastern side of St Aubin's Bay . The harbour is flanked on the W. by a rocky ridge on which stands Elizabeth Castle, and commanded on the east by Fort Regent on its lofty promontory . The parish church is a cruciform building with embattled tower, dating in part from the 14th century .

It contains a monument to

Major Peirson, who on the occasion of a French attack on Jersey in 1781 headed the militia to oppose them, and forced them to surrender, but was killed as his followers were at the point of victory . The French leader, Baron de Rullecourt, is buried in the churchyard . The spot where Peirson fell, in what is now called Peirson Place, is marked by a tablet . A large canvas by John Singleton Copley depicting the scene is in the National Gallery, London, and a copy is in the court house of St Helier . This building (la Cohue), in Royal Square, is the meeting-place of the royal court and deliberative States of Jersey . Victoria College was opened in 1852 and commemorates a visit of Queen Victoria and the prince consort to the island in 1846 . A house in Marine Terrace is distinguished as the residence of Victor Hugo (1851-1855) . Elizabeth Castle, which is connected with the main-land by a causeway, dates from 1551-1590; and in 1646 and 1649 Prince Charles resided here . In 1649 he was pro-claimed king, as Charles II., in Jersey by the royalist governor George Carteret . On actually coming to the throne he gave the island the mace which is still used at the meetings of the court and States . Close to the castle are remnants of a chapel or cell, from which the rock on which it stands is known as the Hermitage, dating probably from the 9th or loth century, and traditionally connected with the patron saint Helerius . SAINT-HILAIRE, AUGUSTIN FRANCOIS CESAR PROUVENCAL DE, commonly known as AUGUSTE DE (1799-1853), French botanist and traveller, was born at Orleans on the 4th of October 1799 .

He began to publish

memoirs on botanical subjects at an early age . In 1816-1822 and in 1830 he travelled in South America, especially in south and central Brazil, and the results of his study of the rich flora of the regions through which he passed appeared in several books and numerous articles in scientific journals . The works by which he is best known arethe Flora Brasiliae Meridionalis (3 vols., folio, with 192 coloured plates, 1825-1832), published in conjunction with A. de Jussieu: and J . Cambessedes, Histoire des plantes les plus remarquables du Bresil et de Paraguay (1 vol . 4to, 30 plates, 1824), Plantes usuelles des Bresiliens (1 vol . 4to, 70 plates, 1827-1828), also in con-junction with De Jussieu and Cambessedes, and Voyage dans le district des diamants etsur le littoral du Bresil (2vols., 8vo, 1833) . His Lecons de botanique, comprenant principalement la morphologic vegetale (184o), was a comprehensive exposition of botanical morphology and of its application totsystematic botany . He died at Orleans on the 3oth of September 1853 . ST HUBERT, a small town of Belgium in the province of Luxemburg and in the heart of the Ardennes . Pop . (19o4) 3204 . It is famous for its abbey church containing the shrine of St Hubert, and for its annual pilgrimage .

According to tradition the church and a monastery attached to it were founded in the 7th century by Plectrude, wife of

Pippin of Herstal . The second church was built in the 12th century, but burnt by a French army under Conde in the 16th century . The present building is its successor, but has been restored in modern times and presents no special feature . The tomb of St Hubert—a marble sarcophagus ornamented with bas-reliefs and having four statuettes of other saints at the angles—stands in one of the side chapels . The legend of the conversion of St Hubert—a hunter before he was a saint—by his meeting in the forest a stag with a crucifix between its antlers, is well known, and explains how he became the patron saint of huntsmen . The place where he is supposed to have met the stag is still known as " la converserie and is almost 5 M. from St Hubert on the road to La Roche . The pilgrimage of St Hubert in May attracts annually between thirty and fifty thousand pilgrims . The buildings of the old monastery have been utilized for a state training-school for waifs and strays, which contains on an average five hundred pupils . In the middle ages the abbey of St Hubert was one of the most important in Europe, owning forty villages with an annual income of over 8o,000 crowns . During the French Revolution, when Belgium was divided into several departments, the possessions of the abbey were sold for £75,000, but the bishop of Namur was permitted to buy the church itself for £1350, ST HYACINTHE, a city and port of entry of Quebec, Canada, and capital of St Hyacinthe county, 32 M . E.N.E. of Montreal, on the left bank of the river Yamaska and on the Grand Trunk, Canadian Pacific, Intercolonial, and Quebec Southern railways . Pop .

(1901) 9210 . It is the seat of a Roman Catholic bishop, and contains a classical college,

dairy school, two monasteries and several other educational and charitable institutions . It has manufactures of organs, leather, woollens and agricultural implements, and is an important distributing centre for the surrounding district .