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 marriage, in 1537, procured for him the post of counsellor to the parlement of Paris. This office he held until 1547, when he was sent by Henry II. on a mission to Bologna, where the council of Trent was at that time sitting; after sixteen months of wearisome inactivity there, he was by his own desire recalled at the close of 1548. L’Hôpital now for some time held the position of chancellor to the king’s sister, Margaret, duchess of Berry. In 1553, on the recommendation of the Cardinal of Lorraine, he was named master of the requests, and afterwards president of the chambre des comptes. In 1559 he accompanied the princess Margaret, now duchess of Savoy, to Nice, where, in the following year, tidings reached him that he had been chosen to succeed François Olivier (1487–1560) in the chancellorship of France.

One of his first acts after entering on the duties of his office was to cause the parlement of Paris to register the edict of Romorantin, of which he is sometimes, but erroneously, said to have been the author. Designed to protect heretics from the secret and summary methods of the Inquisition, it certainly had his sympathy and approval. In accordance with the consistent policy of inclusion and toleration by which the whole of his official life was characterized, he induced the council to call the assembly of notables, which met at Fontainebleau in August 1560 and agreed that the States General should be summoned, all proceedings against heretics being meanwhile suppressed, pending the reformation of the church by a general or national council. The States General met in December; the edict of Orleans (January 1561) followed, and finally, after the colloquy of Poissy, the edict of January 1562, the most liberal, except that of Nantes, ever obtained by the Protestants of France. Its terms, however, were not carried out, and during the war which was the inevitable result of the massacre of Vassy in March, L’Hôpital, whose dismissal had been for some time urged by the papal legate Hippolytus of Este, found it necessary to retire to his estate at Vignay, near Étampes, whence he did not return until after the pacification of Amboise (March 19, 1563). It was by his advice that Charles IX. was declared of age at Rouen in August 1563, a measure which really increased the power Of Catherine de’ Medici; and it was under his influence also that the royal council in 1564 refused to authorize the publication of the acts of the council of Trent, on account of their inconsistency with the Gallican liberties. In 1564–1566 he accompanied the young king on an extended tour through France; and in 1566 he was instrumental in the promulgation of an important edict for the reform of abuses in the administration of justice. The renewal of the religious war in September 1567, however, was at once a symptom and a cause of diminished influence to L’Hôpital, and in February 1568 he obtained his letters of discharge, which were registered by the parlement on the 11th of May, his titles, honours and emoluments being reserved to him during the remainder of his life. Henceforward he lived a life of unbroken seclusion at Vignay, his only subsequent public appearance being by means of a mémoire which he addressed to the king in 1570 under the title Le But de la guerre et de la paix, ou discours ''du chancelier l’Hospital pour exhorter Charles IX. à donner la'' paix à ses sujets. Though not exempt from considerable danger, he passed in safety through the troubles of St Bartholomew’s eve. His death took place either at Vignay or at Bellébat on the 13th of March 1573.

After his death Pibrac, assisted by De Thou and Scévole de Sainte-Marthe, collected a volume of the Poemata of L’Hôpital, and in 1585 his grandson published Epistolarum seu Sermonum libri sex. The complete Œuvres de l’Hôpital were published for the first time by P. J. S. Dufey (5 vols., Paris, 1824–1825). They include his “Harangues” and “Remonstrances,” the Epistles, the Mémoire to Charles IX., a Traité de la réformation de la justice, and his will. See also A. F. Villemain, Vie du Chancelier de l’Hôpital (Paris, 1874); R. G. E. T; St-René Taillandier, Le Chancelier de l’Hospital (Paris, 1861); Dupré-Lasalle, Michel de l’Hospital avant son élévation au poste de chancelier de France (Paris, 1875–1899); Amphoux, Michel de l’Hospital et la liberté de conscience au XVIe siècle (Paris, 1900); C. T. Atkinson, Michel de l’Hospital (London, 1900), containing an appendix on bibliography and sources; A. E. Shaw, Michel de l’Hospital and his Policy (London, 1905); and Eugène and Émile Haag, La France protestante (2nd ed., 1877 seq.).

 LIAO-YANG, a city of China, formerly the chief town of the province of Liao-tung or Shêng-king (southern Manchuria), 35 m. S of Mukden. It is situated in a rich cotton district in the fertile valley of the Liao, on the road between Niuchwang and Mukden, and carries on a considerable trade. The walls include an area about 2 m. long by 2 m. broad, and there are fairly extensive suburbs; but a good deal even of the enclosed area is under cultivation. The population is estimated at 100,000. Liao-yang was one of the first objectives of the Japanese during the Russo-Japanese War, and its capture by them resulted in some of the fiercest fighting during the campaign, from the 24th of August to the 4th of September 1904. LIAS, in geology, the lowermost group of Jurassic strata. Originally the name seems to have been written “Lyas”; it is most probably a provincial form of “layers,” strata, employed by quarrymen in the west of England; it has been suggested, however, that the Fr. liais, Breton leach = a stone, Gaelic leac = flat stone, may have given rise to the English “Lias.” Liassic strata occupy an important position in England, where they crop out at Lyme Regis on the Dorsetshire coast and extend thence by Bath, along the western flank of the Cotswold Hills, forming Edge Hill and appearing at Banbury, Rugby, Melton, Grantham, Lincoln, to Redcar on the coast of Yorkshire. They occur also in Glamorganshire, Shropshire, near Carlisle, in Skye, Raasay (Pabba, Scalpa and Broadfoot beds), and elsewhere in the north of Scotland, and in the north-east of Ireland. East of the belt of outcrop indicated, the Lias is known to occur beneath the younger rocks for some distance farther east, but it is absent from beneath London, Reading, Ware, Harwich, Dover, and in the southern portion of the area in which these towns lie; the Liassic rocks are probably thinned out against a concealed ridge of more ancient rocks. The table on following page will serve to illustrate the general characters of the English Lias and the subdivisions adopted by the Geological Survey. By the side are shown the principal zonal ammonites, and, for comparison, the subdivisions preferred by Messrs Tate and Blake and by A. de Lapparent.

The important fact is clearly demonstrated in the table, that where the Lias is seen in contact with the Trias below or the Inferior Oolite above, there is, as a rule, a gradual passage from the Liassic formation, both downwards and upwards; hence Professor de Lapparent includes in his Liassique System the zone of Ammonites opalinus at the top, and the Rhaetic beds at the bottom (see ; ). Owing to the transgression of the Liassic sea the strata rest in places upon older Palaeozoic rocks. The thickness of the Lias varies considerably; in Dorsetshire it is 900 ft., near Bath it has thinned to 280 ft., and beneath Oxford it is further reduced. In north Gloucestershire it is 1360 ft., Northampton 760 ft., Rutland 800 ft., Lincolnshire 950 ft., and in Yorkshire about 500 ft.

The Lias of England was laid down in conditions very similar to those which obtained at the same time in north France and north Germany, that is to say, on the floor of a shallow sea; but in the Alpine region limestones are developed upon a much greater scale. Many of the limestones are red and crystalline marbles such as the “ammonitico-rosso-inferiore” of the Apennines; a grey, laminated limestone is known as the “Fleckenmergel.” The whitish “Hierlatzkalke,” the Adnet beds and the “Grestener beds” in the eastern Alps and Balkan Mountains are important phases of Alpine Lias. The Grestener beds contain a considerable amount of coal. The Lias of Spain and the Pyrenees contains much dolomitic limestone. This formation is widely spread in western Europe; besides the localities already cited it occurs in Swabia, the Rhenish provinces, Alsace-Lorraine, Luxemburg, Ardennes, Normandy, Austria-Hungary, the Balkan States, Greece and Scania. It has not been found north of Kharkov in Russia, but it is present in the south and in the Caucasus, in Anatolia, Persia and the Himalayas. It appears on the eastern side of Japan, in Borneo, Timor, New Caledonia and New Zealand (Bastion beds); in Algeria, Tunisia and elsewhere in North Africa, and on the west coast of Madagascar. In South America it is found in the Bolivian Andes, in Chile and Argentina; it appears also on the Pacific coast of North America.