Page:EB1911 - Volume 22.djvu/222

Rh  (Author:Henry Tiedemann)&emsp;  POTHIER, ROBERT JOSEPH (1699-1772), French jurist, was born at Orleans on the 9th of January 1699. He studied law for the purpose of qualifying for the magistracy, and was appointed in 1720 judge of the presidial court of Orleans, thus following in the footsteps of his father and grandfather. This post he held for fifty-two years. He paid particular attention to the correction and co-ordination of the text of the Pandects, his Pandectae Justinianae in novum ordinem digestae (Paris and Chartres, 1748-1752) being a classic in the study of Roman law. In 1749 he was made professor of law in the university of Orleans. He wrote many learned monographs on French law, and much of his work was incorporated almost textually in the French Code Civil. He died at Orleans on the 2nd of March 1772. Of his numerous treatises the following may be specially mentioned: Traité des obligations (1761); Du Contrat de vente (1762); Du Contrat de bail (1764); Du Contrat de société (1765); Des Contrats de prêt de consumption (1766); Du Contrat de depôt et de mandat (1766); Du Contrat de nantissement (1767), &c. His works have several times been published in collected form (edited by Giffrein, 1820-1824; by Dupin, 1823-1825, and by Bugnet, 2nd ed. 11 vols. 1861-1862).

 POTHOOK, an S-shaped metal hook for suspending a pot over a fire. While one extremity is hooked to the handle of the pot, the other is caught upon an iron crane moving on a pivot over the fire. Modern cooking-ranges have obviated the necessity for this arrangement, but it is still to be seen in great numbers of country cottages and farmhouse kitchens all over England, and in small artisans' houses in the west midlands and the north. In the elementary teaching of writing the “pothook” is a script of similar shape.  POTI, a seaport of Russian Transcaucasia, in the government of Kutais, at the mouth of the Rion on the coast of the Black Sea, 193 m. by rail W.N.W. of Tiflis and 35 m. by sea N. of Batum. Pop. (1882), 3112; (1897), 7666. The white walls of the fortress contrast with the green trees which surround them, and the lighthouse, 117 ft. high, is visible 17 m. Situated in a marshy delta not more than 2½ ft. above the level of the river, Poti is extremely unhealthy, fever and ague prevailing in summer and autumn. The Russians have improved the town and port, but the latter is still exposed to west and south-west gales. A new entrance was constructed in 1905, and a new inner harbour was at the same time under construction. The shipping trade amounts to £500,000 to £600,000 a year, almost entirely manganese ore, with some maize.

Poti represents the ancient Phasis, a commercial colony of the Greek city of Miletus. The present fortress was built in 1578 by Sultan Murad III. of Turkey at the time of a war with Persia. In 1640 it was destroyed by the Imeretians (Georgians), but it was restored and enlarged. The town was a great slave market. It was captured by the Russians in 1812 and 1829.  POTLATCH, a term, corrupted from a Nootka Indian word for “gift,” for a ceremonial custom among some of the Indian tribes of north-west America, consisting in the distribution by an individual of his property among his friends and neighbours, who make equivalent gifts, with interest, in return.  POTOCKI, IGNATY (1741-1809), Polish statesman and writer, son of Eustachy Potocki, general of artillery of the army of Lithuania, was born at Podhajce. He was educated first at Warsaw beneath the eye of the pedagogic reformer Stanislaw Konarski (1700-1773), and subsequently in Italy, where he proposed to take orders. On returning home, however, he

abandoned this idea, and as a member of the newly instituted commission of education rendered invaluable services to his country for the next sixteen years. He earnestly desired a reform of the constitution also, and was thus attracted to the party of the Czartoryscy. Elected deputy to every diet since 1778, he was a conspicuous member of the patriotic opposition. In matters of importance nothing was done without his advice, and he was esteemed as much for his character as for his talents. His influence was at its height during the Four Years' Diet, 1788-1792. He was appointed a member of the committee for the reform of the constitution, defended eloquently the right of the towns to the franchise, and was an advocate of an alliance with Prussia. Thus he was one of the creators of the constitution of the 3rd of May 1791, although his aristocratic antecedents prevented him from going the lengths of the more radical reformers. On the formation of the confederation of Targowica, Potocki emigrated to Dresden; but on the outbreak of the revolution of 1794 returned to Poland, was appointed a member of the national government, and entrusted with the conduct of foreign affairs. On the fall of Warsaw he surrendered to Suvarov and was sent to Russia, where he remained till 1796. On his return to Poland he retired to the village of Klimuntowo, where for the next thirteen years he devoted himself to literature. At the end of the war of 1809 he was commissioned to go to Vienna to present to Napoleon the petitions of the Galicians for the incorporation of their province with the grand duchy of Warsaw. He died at Vienna the same year. The most notable of Potocki's works is: Vom Entstehen und Untergange der polnischen Konstitutionen vom 3ten May 1791 (Lemberg, 1793).

(R. N. B.)&emsp;  POTOCKI, STANISLAW FELIX (1752-1805), Polish politician, son of Franciszek Salezy Potocki, palatine of Kiev, of the Tulczyn line of the family, was born in 1752. He entered the public service, and owing to the influence of his relations became grand standard-bearer of the Crown at the age of twenty-two. In 1782 he was made palatine of Russia, in 1784 a lieutenant-general, and in 1789 he purchased the rank of a general of artillery from the Saxon minister, Brühl, for 20,000 ducats. Elected deputy for Braclaw at the famous Four Years' Diet, he began that career of treachery which was to terminate in the ruin of his country. Yet his previous career had awakened many hopes in him. A grand seigneur ruling patriarch ally in his vast estates, liberal, enlightened, a generous master and a professed patriot, his popularity culminated in 1784 when he presented an infantry regiment of 400 men as a free gift to the republic. But he identified the public welfare with the welfare of the individual magnates. His scheme was the division of Poland into an oligarchy of autonomous grandees exercising the supreme power in rotation (in fact a perpetual interregnum), and in 1788 he won over to his views two other great lords, Xavier Branicki and Severin Rzewuski. The election of (q.v.) and Kazimierz Sapieha as marshals of the diet still further alienated him from the Liberals; and, after strenuously but vainly opposing every project of reform, he retired to Vienna whence he continued to carry on an active propaganda against the new ideas. He protested against the constitution of the 3rd of May 1791, and after attempting fruitlessly to induce the emperor Leopold to take up arms “for the defence of the liberties of the republic,” proceeded with his friends in March 1792 to St Petersburg, and subsequently with the connivance of the empress Catherine formed the confederation of Targowica for the maintenance of the ancient institutions of Poland (May 14, 1792), of which he was the marshal, or rather the dictator, directing its operations from his castle at Tulczyn. When the May constitution was overthrown and the Prussians were already in occupation of Great Poland, Potocki (March 1793) went on a diplomatic mission to St Petersburg; but, finding himself duped and set aside, retired to Vienna till 1797, when he settled down at Tulczyn and devoted himself for the remainder of his life to the improvement of his estates. He wrote On the