SAMBHAR

LAKE  , a salt lake in Rajputana, India, on the borders of the two states of Jodhpur and Jaipur . The town of the same name has a railway station 53 M . N.E. from Ajmer: pop . (1901) 10,873 . The area of the lake when full is about 90 sq. m., but it usually dries up altogether in the hot season . Since 1870 the British government has worked the salt under a lease from the two states interested, supplying great part of N. and Central India . The annual output averages about 126,000 tons, yielding a profit of more than half a million sterling . SAMBLANcAY, or SEMBLANCAY, a French noble family of Touraine, sprung from the merchant class . The founder of the family was JEAN DE BEAUNE (d. c . 1489), treasurer of Louis XI., who narrowly escaped death for conspiracy under Charles VIII . His son, JACQUES DE BEAUNE, baron de Samblangay, vicomte de Tours, became general of finances before 1497, and from 1518 was superintendent of finances . Convicted of peculation in connexion with the supplies for the army in Italy, he was executed at Montfaucon on the 9th of August 1527 .

His eldest son,

MARTIN DE BEAUNE, who became archbishop of Tours in 1520, died in the same year as his father . Another son, GUILLAUME DE BEAUNE, general of finances under his father, and banished from 1527 to 1535, was the father of the famous prelate, RENAUD DE BEAUNE (1527-1606), archbishop of Bourges (1581) and of Sens (1595) . His efforts at pacification during the wars of religion culminated in the conversion of Henry IV., and it was he who presided at the ceremony of the king's abjuration of Protestantism on the 25th of July 1593 . Renaud was one of the most famous orators of his time, and some of his productions have come down to us, as well as his Reformation de l'universite de Paris (1605 and 1667) . A less honourable descendant of Jacques de Beaune was CHARLOTTE DE BEAUNE-SAMBLANQAY (c.1550-1617), a courtesan whom Catherine de Medici employed to discover the secrets of her courtly enemies . She counted among her lovers and dupes the king of Navarre (Henry . IV.), the duc d'Alencon (Henry III.), Henry I., duc de Guise and others . The duc de Guise was killed when leaving her apartments in the early morning of Christmas Day 1588 . She was married early in life to Simon de Fizes, baron de Sauves, a secretary of state, and again in 1584 to Francois de la Tremoille, marquis de Noirmoutiers, by whom she had a son, Louis, 1st duc de Noirmoutiers, a ducal line which became extinct in 1733 . Charlotte died on the 3oth of September 1617 .