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 afford of the writer’s own tenderness and fidelity. Her Lettres were edited by Voltaire (1787), by J. Ravenel, with a notice by Sainte-Beuve (1846) and by Eugène Asse (1873). Mlle. Aïssé has been the subject of three plays: by A. de Lavergne and P. Woucher (1854), by Louis Bouilhet (1872) and by Dejoux (1898).

AITON, WILLIAM Scottish botanist, was born near Hamilton in 1731. Having been regularly trained to the profession of a gardener, he travelled to London in 1754, and became assistant to Philip Miller, then superintendent of the Physic Garden at Chelsea. In 1759 he was appointed director of the newly established botanical garden at Kew, where he remained until his death on the 2nd of February 1793. He effected many improvements at the gardens, and in 1789 he published Hortus Kewensis, a catalogue of the plants there cultivated. A second and enlarged edition of the Hortus was brought out in 1810–1813 by his eldest son, (1766–1849), who succeeded him at Kew and was commissioned by George IV. to lay out the gardens at the Pavilion, Brighton. AITZEMA, LIEUWE VAN (1600–1669), Dutch historian and statesman, was born at Doccum, in Friesland, on the 19th of November 1600. In 1617 he published a volume of Latin poems under the title of Poemata Juvenilia, of which a copy is preserved in the British Museum. He made a special study of politics and political science and was for thirty years resident for the towns of the Hanseatic League at the Hague, where he died on the 23rd of February 1669. His most important work was the Saken van Staet in Oorlogh in ende omtrent de Vereenigte Nederlanden (14 vols. 4to, 1655–1671), embracing the period from 1621 to 1668. It contains a large number of state documents, and is an invaluable authority on one of the most eventful periods of Dutch history.

AIVALI (Gr. Kydonia), a prosperous town on the W. coast of Asia Minor, opposite the island of Mitylene. Pop. 21,000. It stands near the site of the Aeolian Heraclea, on rising ground at the end of a bay which is separated from the Gulf of Adramyttium, and protected from the prevailing winds by the Moschonisi Islands (Hecatonnesoi). In 1821 it was burned to the ground during a fight between the Turks and the Greeks, and a large number of its Greek population killed or enslaved. It is one of the most thriving towns in the Levant, with a purely Greek population distinguished for its commercial, industrial and maritime enterprise. The exports are olive oil, grain and wood, and a fleet of fishing-boats supplies Constantinople and Smyrna with fish; the exports in 1902 were valued at £987,070, and the imports at £336,693. AIWAN, the reception-hall or throne-room of a Parthian or Sassanian palace. AIX, a city of south-eastern France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Bouches-du-Rhône, 18 m. N. of Marseilles by rail. Pop. (1906) 19,433. It is situated in a plain overlooking the Arc, about a mile from the right bank of the river. The Cours Mirabeau, a wide thoroughfare, planted with double rows of plane-trees, bordered by fine houses and decorated by three fountains, divides the town into two portions. The new town extends to the south, the old town with its wide but irregular streets and its old mansions dating from the 16th, 17th and 18th centuries lies to the north. Aix is an important educational centre, being the seat of the faculties of law and letters of the university of Aix-Marseille, and the north and east quarter of the town, where the schools and university buildings are situated, is comparable to the Latin Quarter of Paris. The cathedral of St Sauveur, which dates from the 11th, 12th and 13th centuries, is situated in this portion of Aix. It is preceded by a rich portal in the Gothic style with elaborately carved doors, and is flanked on the north by an uncompleted tower. The interior contains tapestry of the 16th century and other works of art. The archbishop’s palace and a Romanesque cloister adjoin the cathedral on its south side. The church of St Jean de Malte, dating from the 13th century, contains some valuable pictures. The hôtel de ville, a building in the classical style of the middle of the 17th century, looks on to a picturesque square. It contains some fine wood-work and a large library which includes many valuable MSS. At its side rises a handsome clock-tower erected in 1505. Aix possesses many beautiful fountains, one of which in the Cours Mirabeau is surmounted by a statue of René, count of Provence, who held a brilliant court at Aix in the 15th century. Aix has thermal springs, remarkable for their heat and containing lime and carbonic acid. The bathing establishment was built in 1705 near the site of the ancient baths of Sextius, of which vestiges still remain. The town, which is the seat of an archbishop and court of appeal, and the centre of an académie (educational circumscription), numbers among its public institutions a court of assizes, tribunals of first instance and of commerce, and a chamber of arts and manufactures. It also has training-colleges, a lycée, a school of art and technics, museums of antiquities, natural history and painting, and several learned societies. The industries include flour-milling, the manufacture of confectionery, iron-ware and hats, and the distillation of olive-oil. Trade is in olive-Oil, almonds and stone from the neighbouring quarries.

Aix (Aquae Sextiae) was founded in 123 by the Roman consul Sextius Calvinus, who gave his name to its springs. In 102 its neighbourhood was the scene of the defeat inflicted on the Cimbri and Teutones by Marius. In the 4th century it became the metropolis of Narbonensis Secunda. It was occupied by the Visigoths in 477, in the succeeding century was repeatedly plundered by the Franks and Lombards, and was occupied by the Saracens in 731. Aix, which during the middle ages was the capital of the county of Provence, did not reach its zenith until after the 12th century, when, under the houses of Aragon and Anjou, it became an artistic centre and seat of learning. With the rest of Provence, it passed to the crown of France in 1487, and in 1501 Louis XII. established there the parlement of Provence which existed till 1789. In the 17th and 18th centuries the town was the seat of the intendance of Provence. AIX-LA-CHAPELLE (Ger. Aachen, Dutch Aken), a city and spa of Germany, in the kingdom of Prussia, situated in a pleasant valley, 44 m. W. of Cologne and contiguous to the Belgian and Dutch frontiers, to which its municipal boundaries extend. Pop. (1885) 95,725; (1905) including Burtscheid, 143,906. Its position, at the centre of direct railway communications with Cologne and Düsseldorf respectively on the E. and Liège–Brussels and Maestricht-Antwerp on the W., has favoured its rise to one of the most prosperous commercial towns of Germany. The city consists of the old inner town, the former ramparts of which have been converted into promenades, and the newer outer town and suburbs. Of the ancient gates but two remain, the Ponttor on the N.W. and the Marschiertor on the S. Its general appearance is that rather of a spacious modern, than of a medieval city full of historical associations.

Of the cluster of buildings in the centre, which are conspicuous from afar, the town hall (Rathaus) and the cathedral are specially noteworthy. The former, standing on the south side of the market square, is a Gothic structure, erected in 1353–1370 on the ruins of Charlemagne’s palace. It contains the magnificent coronation hall of the emperors (143 ft. by 61 ft.), in which thirty-five German kings and eleven queens have banqueted after the coronation ceremony in the cathedral. The two ancient towers, the Granusturm to the W. and the Glockenturm to the E., both of which to a large extent had formed part of the Carolingian palace, were all but destroyed in the fire by which the Rathaus was seriously damaged in 1883. Their restoration was completed in 1902. Behind the Rathaus is the Grashaus, in which Richard of Cornwall, king of the Romans, is said to have held his court. It was restored in 1889 to accommodate the municipal archives. The cathedral is of great historic and architectural interest. Apart