SEMOIS (also spelt SEMOY and SEnzoYS)  , a river of less than 12o m. in length rising near Arlon in Belgium, and flowing into the Meuse near Montherme in France . It is Belgian for about oo m. and French for the remainder, entering France a short distance west of the village of Bohan . It passes through the most picturesque scenery in Belgium and is remarkable for its sinuous course, its length of 120 M. representing only 47 in a straight line . Bouillon is the only town on its banks, and since it is not navigable it has escaped the contamination of manufacturing life; its valley remains an ideal specimen of sylvan scenery and medieval tranquillity . S ' MONVILLE, CHARLES LOUIS HUGUET, MARQUIS DE (1759-1839), French diplomat, was born in Paris on the 9th of March 1759, the son of one of the royal secretaries . Minister and envoy extraordinary of France at Genoa in 1790-1791, he was instructed by Dumouriez to go to Turin to detach Victor Amadeo III. of Sardinia from the Austrian alliance, but was not permitted to cross the Sardinian frontier . In 1793 he had started with H . B . Maret (afterwards duc de Bassano) for Italy where they had missions to Florence and Naples respectively, when the two envoys were kidnapped by Austrian orders in the Valtelline . They remained in a Tirolese prison until December 1795, when there was an exchange of prisoners on the release of Madame Royale, daughter of Louis XVI., from the Temple . In 1799 Bonaparte, through whose influence his release had been obtained, sent him to the Hague to consolidate the alliance between France and the Batavian Republic . In this mission he was entirely successful, and he is credited with another diplomatic success in the inception of the Austrian marriage .

He accepted the Restoration and sat on the

commission which drew tin the charter . Semonville, who enjoyed a great measure of Louis XVIII.'s confidence, took no part in the Hundred Days . A frank opponent of the extremist policy of Charles X., he tried to save him in 1830; in company with Antoine d'Argout he visited the Tuileries and persuaded the king to withdraw the ordinances and to summon the Council . He had been made a count of the Empire in 18o8, and marquis in 1819 . He died in Paris on the 11th of August 1839 .