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Rh agreed to admit Austria to the union, found themselves forced in 1853 to renew the old union, from which Austria was excluded. Delbrück now began, with the support of Bismarck, to apply the principles of free trade to Prussian fiscal policy. In 1862 he concluded an important commercial treaty with France. In 1867 he became the first president of the chancery of the North German Confederation, and represented Bismarck on the federal tariff council (Zollbundesrath), a position of political as well as fiscal importance owing to the presence in the council of representatives of the southern states. In 1868 he became a Prussian minister without portfolio. In October 1870, when the union of Germany under Prussian headship became a practical question, Delbrück was chosen to go on a mission to the South German states, and contributed greatly to the agreements concluded at Versailles in November. In 1871 he became president of the newly constituted Reichskanzleramt. Delbrück, however, began to feel himself uneasy under Bismarck’s leanings towards protection and state control. On the introduction of Bismarck’s plan for the acquisition of the railways by the state, Delbrück resigned office, nominally on the ground of ill-health (June 1, 1876). In 1879 he opposed in the Reichstag the new protectionist tariff, and on the failure of his efforts retired definitely from public life. In 1896 he received from the emperor the order of the Black Eagle. He died at Berlin on the 1st of February 1903.

DELCASSÉ, THÉOPHILE (1852–&emsp;&emsp;), French statesman, was born at Pamiers, in the department of Ariège, on the 1st of March 1852. He wrote articles on foreign affairs for the République française and Paris, and in 1888 was elected conseiller général of his native department, standing as “un disciple fidèle de Gambetta.” In the following year he entered the chamber as deputy for Foix. He was appointed under-secretary for the colonies in the second Ribot cabinet (January to April 1893), and retained his post in the Dupuy cabinet till its fall in December 1893. It was largely owing to his efforts that the French colonial office was made a separate department with a minister at its head, and to this office he was appointed in the second Dupuy cabinet (May 1894 to January 1895). He gave a great impetus to French colonial enterprise, especially in West Africa, where he organized the newly acquired colony of Dahomey, and despatched the Liotard mission to the Upper Ubangi. While in opposition he devoted special attention to naval affairs, and in speeches that attracted much notice declared that the function of the French navy was to secure and develop colonial enterprise, deprecated all attempts to rival the British fleet, and advocated the construction of commerce destroyers as France’s best reply to England. On the formation of the second Brisson cabinet in June 1898 he succeeded M. Hanotaux at the foreign office, and retained that post under the subsequent premierships of MM. Dupuy, Waldeck-Rousseau, Combes and Rouvier. In 1898 he had to deal with the delicate situation caused by Captain Marchand’s occupation of Fashoda, for which, as he admitted in a speech in the chamber on the 23rd of January 1899, he accepted full responsibility, since it arose directly out of the Liotard expedition, which he had himself organized while minister for the colonies; and in March 1899 he concluded an agreement with Great Britain by which the difficulty was finally adjusted, and France consolidated her vast colonial empire in North-West Africa. In the same year he acted as mediator between the United States and Spain, and brought the peace negotiations to a successful conclusion. He introduced greater cordiality into the relations of France with Italy: at the same time he adhered firmly to the alliance with Russia, and in August 1899 made a visit to St Petersburg, which he repeated in April 1901. In June 1900 he made an arrangement with Spain, fixing the long-disputed boundaries of the French and Spanish possessions in West Africa. Finally he concluded with England the important Agreements of 1904 covering colonial and other questions which had long been a matter of dispute, especially concerning Egypt, Newfoundland and Morocco. Suspicion of the growing entente between France and England soon arose on the part of Germany, and in 1905 German assertiveness was shown in a crisis which was forced on in the matter of the French activity in (q.v.), in which the handling of French policy by M. Delcassé personally was a sore point with Germany. The situation became acute in April, and was only relieved by M. Delcassé’s resignation of office. He retired into private life, but in 1908 was warmly welcomed on a visit to England, where the closest relations now existed with France.

 DEL CREDERE (Ital. “of belief” or “trust”). A “del credere agent,” in English law, is one who, selling goods for his principal on credit, undertakes for an additional commission to sell only to persons who are absolutely solvent. His position is thus that of a surety who is liable to his principal should the vendee make default. The agreement between him and his principal need not be reduced to or evidenced by writing, for his undertaking is not a guarantee within the Statute of Frauds. See also ;.

DELESCLUZE, LOUIS CHARLES (1809–1871), French journalist, was born at Dreux on the 2nd of October 1809. Having studied law in Paris, he early developed a strong democratic bent, and played a part in the July revolution of 1830. He became a member of various republican societies, and in 1836 was forced to take refuge in Belgium, where he devoted himself to republican journalism. Returning in 1840 he settled in Valenciennes, and after the revolution of 1848 removed to Paris, where he started a newspaper called La Révolution démocratique et sociale. His zeal so far outran his discretion that he was twice imprisoned and fined, his paper was suppressed and he himself fled to England, where he continued his journalistic work. He was arrested in Paris in 1853, and deported to French Guiana. Released under the amnesty of 1859, he returned to France with health shattered but energies unimpaired. His next venture was the publication of the Réveil, a radical organ upholding the principles of the Association internationale des travailleurs, known as the “Internationale.” This journal, which brought him three condemnations, fine and imprisonment in one year, shared the fate of his Paris sheet, and its founder again fled to Belgium. In 1871 he was elected to the National Assembly, becoming afterwards a member of the Paris commune. At the siege of Paris he fought with reckless courage, and met his death on the last of the barricades (May 1871). He wrote an account of his imprisonment in Guiana, De Paris à Cayenne, Journal d’un transporté (Paris, 1869).

 DELESSE, ACHILLE ERNEST OSCAR JOSEPH (1817–1881), French geologist and mineralogist, was born at Metz on the 3rd of February 1817. At the age of twenty he entered the École Polytechnique, and subsequently passed through the École des Mines. In 1845 he was appointed to the chair of mineralogy and geology at Besançon; in 1850 to the chair of geology at the Sorbonne in Paris; and in 1864 professor of agriculture at the École des Mines. In 1878 he became inspector-general of mines. In early years as ingénieur des mines he investigated and described various new minerals; he proceeded afterwards to the study of rocks, devising new methods for their determination, and giving particular descriptions of melaphyre, arkose, porphyry, syenite, &c. The igneous rocks of the Vosges, and those of the Alps, Corsica, &c., and the subject of metamorphism occupied his attention. He also prepared in 1858 geological and hydrological maps of Paris—with reference to the underground water, similar maps of the departments of the Seine and Seine-et-Marne, and an agronomic map of the Seine-et-Marne (1880), in which he showed the relation which exists between the physical and chemical characters of the soil and the geological structure. His annual Revue des progrès de géologie, undertaken with the assistance (1860–1865) of Auguste Laugel and afterwards (1865–1878) of Albert de Lapparent, was carried on from 1860 to 1880. His observations on the lithology of the deposits accumulated beneath the sea were of special interest and importance. His separate publications were: Recherches sur l’origine des roches (Paris, 1865); Étude sur le métamorphisme des roches (1869); Lithologie des mers de France et des mers principales du globe (2 vols. and atlas, 1871). He died at Paris on the 24th of March 1881.

 DELESSERT, JULES PAUL BENJAMIN (1773–1847), French banker, was born at Lyons on the 14th of February 1773, the son of Étienne Delessert (1735–1816), the founder of the first