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 1809, to which admiring crowds were attracted by his lucid exposition and by his graceful oratory. The freedom of his language in 1809, when Napoleon had arrested the pope and declared the annexation of Rome to France, led to a prohibition of his lectures; and the dispersion of the congregation of Saint Sulpice in 1811 was followed by his temporary retirement from the capital. He returned with the Bourbons, and resumed his lectures in 1814; but the events of the Hundred Days again compelled him to withdraw into private life, from which he did not emerge until February 1816. As court preacher and almoner to Louis XVIII., he now entered upon the period of his greatest public activity and influence. In connexion with the controversy raised by the signing of the reactionary concordat of 1817, he published in 1818 a treatise entitled Vrais Principes de l’église Gallicane sur la puissance ecclésiastique, which though unfavourably criticized by Lamennais, was received with favour by the civil and ecclesiastical authorities. The consecration of Frayssinous as bishop of Hermopolis “in partibus,” his election to the French Academy, and his appointment to the grand-mastership of the university, followed in rapid succession. In 1824, on the accession of Charles X., he became minister of public instruction and of ecclesiastical affairs under the administration of Villèle; and about the same time he was created a peer of France with the title of count. His term of office was chiefly marked by the recall of the Jesuits. In 1825 he published his lectures under the title Défense du christianisme. The work passed through 15 editions within 18 years, and was translated into several European languages. In 1828 he, along with his colleagues in the Villèle ministry, was compelled to resign office, and the subsequent revolution of July 1830 led to his retirement to Rome. Shortly afterwards he became tutor to the duke of Bordeaux (Comte de Chambord) at Prague, where he continued to live until 1838. He died at St Géniez on the 12th of December 1841.

See Bertrand, ''Bibl. Sulpicienne'' (t. ii. 135 sq.; iii. 253) for bibliography, and G. A. Henrion (Paris, 2 vols., 1844) for biography.

FRÉCHETTE, LOUIS HONORÉ (1839–1908), French-Canadian poet, was born at Levis, Quebec, on the 16th of November 1839, the son of a contractor. He was educated in his native province, and called to the Canadian bar in 1864. He started the Journal de Lévis, and his revolutionary doctrines compelled him to leave Canada for the United States. After some years spent in journalism at Chicago, he was in 1874 elected as the Liberal candidate to represent Levis in the Canadian parliament. At the elections of 1878 and 1882 he was defeated, and thereafter confined himself to literature. He edited La Patrie and other French papers in the Dominion; and in 1889 was appointed clerk of the Quebec legislative council. He was long a warm advocate of the political union of Canada and the United States, but in later life became less ardent, and in 1897 accepted the honour of C.M.G. from Queen Victoria. He was president of the Royal Society of Canada, and of the Canadian Society of Arts, and received numerous honorary degrees. His works include: Mes Loisirs (1863); La Voix d’un exilé (1867), a satire against the Canadian government; Pêle-mêle (1877); Les Fleurs boréales, and Les Oiseaux de neige (1880), crowned by the French academy; La Légende d’un peuple (1887); two historical dramas, Papineau (1880) and Felix Poutré (1880); La Noël au Canada (1900), and several prose works and translations. An exponent of local French sentiment, he won the title of the “Canadian Laureate.” He died on the 1st of June 1908.

FREDEGOND (Fredigundis) (d. 597), Frankish queen. Originally a serving-woman, she inspired the Frankish king, Chilperic I., with a violent passion. At her instigation he repudiated his first wife Audovera, and strangled his second, Galswintha, Queen Brunhilda’s sister. A few days after this murder Chilperic married Fredegond (567). This woman exercised a most pernicious influence over him. She forced him into war against Austrasia, in the course of which she procured the assassination of the victorious king Sigebert (575); she carried on a malignant struggle against Chilperic’s sons by his first wife, Theodebert, Merwich and Clovis, who all died tragic deaths; and she persistently endeavoured to secure the throne for her own children. Her first son Thierry, however, to whom Bishop Ragnemod of Paris stood godfather, died soon after birth, and Fredegond tortured a number of women whom she accused of having bewitched the child. Her second son also died in infancy. Finally, she gave birth to a child who afterwards became king as Clotaire II. Shortly after the birth of this third son, Chilperic himself perished in mysterious circumstances (584). Fredegond has been accused of complicity in his murder, but with little show of probability, since in her husband she lost her principal supporter.

Henceforth Fredegond did all in her power to gain the kingdom for her child. Taking refuge at the church of Notre Dame at Paris, she appealed to King Guntram of Burgundy, who took Clotaire under his protection and defended him against his other nephew, Childebert II., king of Austrasia. From that time until her death Fredegond governed the western kingdom. She endeavoured to prevent the alliance between King Guntram and Childebert, which was cemented by the pact of Andelot; and made several attempts to assassinate Childebert by sending against him hired bravoes armed with poisoned scramasaxes (heavy single-edged knives). After the death of Childebert in 595 she resolved to augment the kingdom of Neustria at the expense of Austrasia, and to this end seized some cities near Paris and defeated Theudebert at the battle of Laffaux, near Soissons. Her triumph, however, was short-lived, as she died quietly in her bed in 597 soon after her victory.

See V. N. Augustin Thierry, Récits des temps mérovingiens (Brussels, 1840); Ulysse Chevalier, Bio-bibliographie (2nd ed.), s.v. “Frédégonde.”

FREDERIC, HAROLD (1856–1898), Anglo-American novelist, was born on the 19th of August 1856 at Utica, N.Y., was educated there, and took to journalism. He went to live in England as London correspondent of the New York Times in 1884, and was soon recognized for his ability both as a writer and as a talker. He wrote several clever early stories, but it was not till he published Illumination (1896), followed by Gloria Mundi (1898), that his remarkable gifts as a novelist were fully realized. He died in England on the 19th of October 1898.

 FREDERICIA, a seaport of Denmark, near the S.E. corner of Jutland, on the west shore of the Little Belt opposite the island of Fünen. Pop. (1901) 12,714. It has railway communication with both south and north, and a steam ferry connects with Middelfart, a seaside resort and railway station on Fünen. There is a considerable shipping trade, and the industries comprise the manufacture of tobacco, salt and chicory, and of cotton goods and hats. A small fort was erected on the site of Fredericia by Christian IV. of Denmark, and his successor, Frederick III., determined about 1650 to make it a powerful fortress. Free exercise of religion was offered to all who should settle in the new town, which at first bore the name of Frederiksodde, and only received its present designation in 1664. In 1657 it was taken by storm by the Swedish general Wrangel, and in 1659, after the fortress had been dismantled, it was occupied by Frederick William of Brandenburg. It was not till 1709–1710 that the works were again put in a state of defence. In 1848 no attempt was made by the Danes to oppose the Prussians, who entered on the 2nd of May, and maintained their position against the Danish gunboats. During the armistice of 1848–1849 the fortress was strengthened, and soon afterwards it stood a siege of two months, which was brought to a glorious close by a successful sortie on the 6th of July 1849. In memory of the victory several monuments have been erected in the town and its vicinity, of which the most noticeable are the bronze statue of the Danish Land Soldier by Bissen (one of Thorvaldsen’s pupils), and the great barrow over 500 Danes in the cemetery of the Holy Trinity Church, with a bas-relief by the same sculptor. On the outbreak of the war of 1864, the fortress was again strengthened by new works and an entrenched camp; but the Danes suddenly evacuated it on the 28th of April after a siege of six weeks. The Austro-Prussian army partly destroyed the fortifications, and kept possession of the town till the conclusion of peace.