Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 9.djvu/27

 LA BOOHtrOUOAULD-LUMOOnaT

BAMTuiN. CEucret. «d, L&VBiuiikas (Quebw, 1870);

ABD. Hisloire du Camida.tA. Tsou (Faiu. 1S6B): Lk-

«™, £y™;.(««inm( dt la Fai CPstia. 16011; wJn'i— -f—

I. Rdatioa dt 15*1 IQuebtc. 185S); Pa

poeed during the last ye&is of the rciKn of Loub ,_. to the government of Maupcou, and the friend of all the reformers who BUrrouniied Louis XVI, he owed to the influence of these economists the favour of the king.

rage for rural life which characterized the last years of the old regime, La Rochefoucauld made his estate at Liancourt an experimental station, wishing to im- prove both the eoil and the peaaantry. He intro- duced new methods of farming, founded the first model technical school in Franco (intended for the children of poor soldiers), and started two factories. Politically, he was a partisan of a democratic regime of which the king was to be the bead, and throughout his life was faithful to this dream. Deputy for the Dobility of Clermont in Beauvabis at the States-Gen- eral, he voted unhesitatingly for the "reunion of the three orders". It waa he who in the night which foUowod the taking of the Bastille (14 July, 1780)

Assembly from 20 July to 3 August, 1789. On the night of 4 August he was one of the most enthusiastic in voting the abolition of titles of nobility and privi- leges. As grand master of the wardrobe he accom- mnied Louis XVI from Veruaillea to Paris on 5 and 6 October, 1789. Aa president of th« coimnitt<« of mendicancy, he made a supreme effort at the Constit- uent Assembly to organize public relief; he determined the extent and the limits of the rights of every citiien to assistance, determined the obligations of the State, and established a budget of State assi:jtancc which amounted annually to five millions and a half of francs, and which implied the national confiscation of hospital property, of ecclesiastical charitable property, and of tno mcomo from privat* foundations.

Liancourt is one of the most undisceming repre- sentatives of the tendency which led the revolutionary

floastoprenii but Louis A

of constitutional deputies. Ijb. Rochefoucauld- Li- ancourt emigrated shortly after 10 August, and re- sided in England until 1794, afterwards in the United States (1794-7). He took advantage of his residence b that country to write eight volumes on the United States, to induce Washington to interfere in favour of Lafayette, and to gather ideas upon education and Mriculturc which ho attempted later to appl;]^ in France. After 18 Brumaire, Natx>lcon auttiorizcd him to return to tiis Liancourt estate, which was re- stored to him. This former duke and peer gloried in being appointed, during the First Empire (1806). general in><pector of the " Ecole dos arts et metiers at Chalons, of which his Liancourt school had been a forerunner. The IxHjk "Prisons de Philadelphie", which he composed in America and published in 1706, was meant to initiate a penitentiary reform in France; at the Restoration in 1814 he begged but one favour— to be appointed prison inspector. In 1819 he became inspector of one of the twenty-eight 'ir- rondiMemenla into which Prance was divided for peni- tentiary puiposea. LouisXVIIIeave him back neither Ihe blue ribbon nor the mastership of the wardrobe, and in the House of Peers he sat with the opposition.

5 LA BOOHEJAOQUELBIH

La Roohefoucauld-Lioncourt was the Franklin of the Revolution. An aristocrat by birth, a liberal in his views, in touch with all the representatives of the new commerce, be availed himself of this concurrence of circumstances to become the leader of every cam- paign for the people's protection and l)etterment:im- Sirovenient of sanitary conditions in hospitals and oundlinjt asylums, reorganization of schools according to the theories of Lancaster, whosc book be had translated (Systt^me anglais d'Inst ruction). He brought into use the method of mutual instnietion, and the pupils between 1816 and 1820 increased from 165,000 to 1,123,000. In 1818 ho established the first savings bank and provident institution in Paris. On 19 Nov., 1821, he founded the Society of Cliristian Morals, over which he presided until 1825. It was at timeB looked upon with suspicion by the police of the Res- toration. At ita meetings were such men as Cliarles de Rfimusat, Charles Coquerel, Guizot the pedagogue, Oberlin, and Llorento, historian of the Inquisition. Broglie, Guizot, and Benjamin Constant were chairmen in turn, and Dufauro,Tocqueville, and Laiiiariine made there their maiden speeches. In these meetings prov- ident institutions, rather than charitalilc ones, were discussed; slavery, lottery, gambling were comlwitted, and the matter of prison inspection was taken up. When La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt dieil, the Resto- ration would not permit tlic students of Citrons to carry his coffin, and the two chambers were much con- cerned over such extreme measures. La Rochefou- cauld-Liancourt was a typical philnnthropist, with all that this word implies of generous inti'ntions and prac- tical innovations; but also with a certain naive pride, inherited from the philosophy of the eighteenth cen- tury, which led him to mistrust the charitable initia- tive of the Church, and to forget that the Church, the most perfect representative of the spirit of brother- hood, is still called in our modern society to win the victory for this spirit by putting it to practical uses, as she alone can.

Ii^am-VAHD-Daavrus, t/a pAilnnlArojir d'autrefiiii: La Rocht/oueaiM-LianrouH, ITiT-ISt7 (Paris. ]90a).

(Jkohuks Gotau.

LsRochejacqaelein.HENfti-AunusTE-GEOROEanD

Vbbgibk, Comte db, French politician; b. at the chateau of Citran (Gironde), on 28 Se|iieiuber. ISd-'j; d. on 7 January, 1867. He belonged to an old illus- trious French fam-

Saint Louii^'s Cru- sade in 1248, His father, Louis del.!i Rocbejacquelcin, andhisuncloHenri had won fame b' royalist generals in the wars of the Vend fans agaiiwt the National Con- vention. Hi mother left inter- esting memoirs which have been

jacquelein entered the military academy at Saintly rat theageof sixteen and in 182-? he received acommission aa second lieutenant in the cavalrv. He took part in the Spanish War(1823) and in the Jluaso-Tiirkish War of 1828. In 182,5 he had been made a peer, but he re- signed shortly after the Revolution of 1S30, which brought the younger branch of the House of Bourbon to Ifae tlur(»ie of France. The Department o{ Uq^Mt