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GIRARDIN, DELPHINE DE (1804–1855), French author, was born at Aix-la-Chapelle on the 26th of January 1804. Her mother, the well-known Madame Sophie Gay, brought her up in the midst of a brilliant literary society. She published two volumes of miscellaneous pieces, Essais poétiques (1824) and Nouveaux Essais poétiques (1825). A visit to Italy in 1827, during which she was enthusiastically welcomed by the literati of Rome and even crowned in the capitol, was productive of various poems, of which the most ambitious was Napoline (1833). Her marriage in 1831 to (see below) opened up a new literary career. The contemporary sketches which she contributed from 1836 to 1839 to the feuilleton of La Presse, under the nom de plume of Charles de Launay, were collected under the title of Lettres parisiennes (1843), and obtained a brilliant success. Contes d’une vieille fille à ses neveux (1832), La Canne de Monsieur de Balzac (1836) and Il ne faut pas jouer avec la douleur (1853) are among the best-known of her romances; and her dramatic pieces in prose and verse include L’École des journalistes (1840), Judith (1843), Cléopâtre (1847), Lady Tartufe (1853), and the one-act comedies, C’est la faute du mari (1851), La Joie fait peur (1854), Le Chapeau d’un horloger (1854) and Une Femme qui déteste son mari, which did not appear till after the author’s death. In the literary society of her time Madame Girardin exercised no small personal influence, and among the frequenters of her drawing-room were Théophile Gautier and Balzac, Alfred de Musset and Victor Hugo. She died on the 29th of June 1855. Her collected works were published in six volumes (1860–1861).

GIRARDIN, ÉMILE DE (1802–1881), French publicist, was born, not in Switzerland in 1806 of unknown parents, but (as was recognized in 1837) in Paris in 1802, the son of General Alexandre de Girardin and of Madame Dupuy, wife of a Parisian advocate. His first publication was a novel, Émile, dealing with his birth and early life, and appeared under the name of Girardin in 1827. He became inspector of fine arts under the Martignac ministry just before the revolution of 1830, and was an energetic and passionate journalist. Besides his work on the daily press he issued miscellaneous publications which attained an enormous circulation. His Journal des connaissances utiles had 120,000 subscribers, and the initial edition of his Almanach de France (1834) ran to a million copies. In 1836 he inaugurated cheap journalism in a popular Conservative organ, La Presse, the subscription to which was only forty francs a year. This undertaking involved him in a duel with Armand Carrel, the fatal result of which made him refuse satisfaction to later opponents. In 1839 he was excluded from the Chamber of Deputies, to which he had been four times elected, on the plea of his foreign birth, but was admitted in 1842. He resigned early in February 1847, and on the 24th of February 1848 sent a note to Louis Philippe demanding his resignation and the regency of the duchess of Orleans. In the Legislative Assembly he voted with the Mountain. He pressed eagerly in his paper for the election of Prince Louis Napoleon, of whom he afterwards became one of the most violent opponents. In 1856 he sold La Presse, only to resume it in 1862, but its vogue was over, and Girardin started a new journal, La Liberté, the sale of which was forbidden in the public streets. He supported Émile Ollivier and the Liberal Empire, but plunged into vehement journalism again to advocate war against Prussia. Of his many subsequent enterprises the most successful was the purchase of Le Petit Journal, which served to advocate the policy of Thiers, though he himself did not contribute. The crisis of the 16th of May 1877, when Jules Simon fell from power, made him resume his pen to attack MacMahon and the party of reaction in La France and in Le Petit Journal. Émile de Girardin married in 1831 Delphine Gay (see above), and after her death in 1855 Guillemette Joséphine Brunold, countess von Tieffenbach, widow of Prince Frederick of Nassau. He was divorced from his second wife in 1872.

GIRARDON, FRANÇOIS (1628–1715), French sculptor, was born at Troyes on the 17th of March 1628. As a boy he had for master a joiner and wood-carver of his native town, named Baudesson, under whom he is said to have worked at the château of Liébault, where he attracted the notice of Chancellor Séguier. By the chancellor’s influence Girardon was first removed to Paris and placed in the studio of François Anguier, and afterwards sent to Rome. In 1652 he was back in France, and seems at once to have addressed himself with something like ignoble subserviency to the task of conciliating the court painter Charles Le Brun. Girardon is reported to have declared himself incapable of composing a group, whether with truth or from motives of policy it is impossible to say. This much is certain, that a very large proportion of his work was carried out from designs by Le Brun, and shows the merits and defects of Le Brun’s manner—a great command of ceremonial pomp in presenting his subject, coupled with a large treatment of forms which if it were more expressive might be imposing. The court which Girardon paid to the “premier peintre du roi” was rewarded. An immense quantity of work at Versailles was entrusted to him, and in recognition of the successful execution of four figures for the Bains d’Apollon, Le Brun induced the king to present his protégé personally with a purse of 300 louis, as a distinguishing mark of royal favour. In 1650 Girardon was made member of the Academy, in 1659 professor, in 1674 “adjoint au recteur,” and finally in 1695 chancellor. Five years before (1690), on the death of Le Brun, he had also been appointed “inspecteur général des ouvrages de sculpture”—a place of power and profit. In 1699 he completed the bronze equestrian statue of Louis XIV., erected by the town of Paris on the Place Louis le Grand. This statue was melted down during the Revolution, and is known to us only by a small bronze model (Louvre) finished by Girardon himself. His Tomb of Richelieu (church of the Sorbonne) was saved from destruction by Alexandre Lenoir, who received a bayonet thrust in protecting the head of the cardinal from mutilation. It is a capital example of Girardon’s work, and the theatrical pomp of its style is typical of the funeral sculpture of the reigns of Louis XIV. and Louis XV.; but amongst other important specimens yet remaining may also be cited the Tomb of Louvois (St Eustache), that of Bignon, the king’s librarian, executed in 1656 (St Nicolas du Chardonneret), and decorative sculptures in the Galerie d’Apollon and Chambre du roi in the Louvre. Mention should not be omitted of the group, signed and dated 1699, “The Rape of Proserpine” at Versailles, which also contains the “Bull of Apollo.” Although chiefly occupied at Paris Girardon never forgot his native Troyes, the museum of which town contains some of his best works, including the marble busts of Louis XIV. and Maria Theresa. In the hôtel de ville is still shown a medallion of Louis XIV., and in the church of St Rémy a bronze crucifix of some importance—both works by his hand. He died in Paris in 1715.

GIRART DE ROUSSILLON, an epic figure of the Carolingian cycle of romance. In the genealogy of romance he is a son of Doon de Mayence, and he appears in different and irreconcilable