Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 14.djvu/335

 L A R L A R 317 The Mud-Lark, Rock-Lark, Titlark, and Tree-Lark are PIPITS (q.r.). The Grasshopper-Lark is one of the aquatic WARBLERS (q.v.), while the Meadow-Lark of America, as has been already said, is an ICTERUS (vol. xii. p. G97). Sand-Lark and Se&amp;gt;Lark are likewise names often given to some of the smaller members of the Limicolx. Of the true Larks, Alaudidse, there may be perhaps about one hundred species, and it is believed to be a physiological character of the Family that they moult but once in the year, while the Pipits, which in general appearance so much resemble them, undergo a double moult, as do others of the Motacillukv, to which they are most nearly allied. (A. K.) LARXACA, or LARNICA. See CYPRUS. LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, FRANCOIS DE (1613-1680), the greatest maxim writer of France, one of her best memoir writers, and perhaps the most complete and accom plished representative of her ancient nobility, was born at Paris iu the Rue des Petits Champs on ths 15th of September 1613. His family was one of the most ancient and noble in France, counting twenty-one descents in the direct male line from Foucauld, Seigneur de la Roche in the province of Angoumois, who flourished early in the llth century. The house of Rochefoucauld took the Pro testant side for a time in the quarrels of the IGth century, but was faithful to Henry IV. in religion as in politics. La Rochefoucauld s father was a favourite of Louis XIII., and was created by him duke and peer in 1622, the posses sions of the family in Angoumois and the neighbouring provinces being very considerable. The author of the Maxims, who during the lifetime of his father and his own most stirring years bore the title of Prince de Marcillac, was somewhat neglected in the matter of education, at least of the scholastic kind ; but he joined the army before he was sixteen, and almost immediately began to make a figure in public life. He had been nominally married a year before to Andree de Vivonne, of whom little enough is known to satisfy even a Greek. She seems to have been an affectionate wife, and not a breath of scandal touches her, two points in which La Rochefoucauld was perhaps more fortunate than he deserved. For some years Marcillac continued to take part in the annual campaigns, where he displayed the utmost bravery, though he never obtained credit for much military skill. Then he fell under the influence of Madame de Chevreuse, the first of three cele brated women who successively influenced his life. Through Madame tie Chevreuse he became attached to the queen Anne of Austria, and in one of her quarrels with Richelieu and her husband a wild scheme seems to have been actually formed, according to which Marcillac was to carry her off to Brussels on a pillion. These caballings against Richelieu, however, had no more serious results than occasional exiles, that is to say, orders to retire to his father s estates. After the death of the great minister (1642), opportunity seemed to be favourable to the vague ambition which then animated half the nobility of France. Marcillac became one of the so-called important,?, and took an active part in reconciling the queen and Cond6 in a league against Gaston of Orleans. But the growing credit of Mazarin came in his way, and the liaison in which about this time (1645) he became entangled with the beautiful duchess of Longueville made him irrevocably a Frondeur. He was a conspicuous figure in the siege of Paris, fought desperately in the desultory engagements which were constantly taking place, and was severely wounded. In the second Fronde Marcillac followed the fortunes of Conde&quot;, and the death of his father, which happened at the time (1650), gave rise to a characteristic incident. The nobility of the province gathered to the funeral, and the new duke de la Rochefoucauld took the opportunity of persuading them to follow him in an attempt on the royalist garrison of Saumur, which, however, was not successful. We have no space to follow La Rochefoucauld through the tortuous cabals and negotiations of the later Fronde ; it is sufficient to say that he was always brave and generally unlucky. His run of bad fortune reached its climax in the battle of the Faubourg Saint Antoine (1652), where he was shot through the head, and it was thought that he would lose the sight of both eyes. It was nearly a year before he recovered, and then he found him self at his country seat of Yerteuil, with no result of twenty years fighting and intriguing except impaired health, a seriously embarrassed fortune, and some cause for bearing a grudge against almost every party and man of importance in the state. He spent some years in this retirement, and he was fortunate enough (thanks chiefly to the fidelity of Gourville, who had been in his service, and, passing into the service of Mazarin and of Conde, had acquired both wealth and influence) to be able to repair in some measure the breaches in his fortune. He did not, however, return to court life much before Mazarin s death. Louis XIV. was then in the full adolescence of his absolute power, and the turbulent aristocratic anarchy of the Fronde was a thing utterly of the past. Somewhat earlier, La Rochefoucauld had taken his place in the salon of Madame de Sable, a member of the old Rambouillet coterie, and the founder of a kind of successor to it. It was known that La Rochefoucauld, like almost all his more prominent contemporaries, had spent his solitude in writing memoirs, while the special literary employment of the Sable&quot; salon was the fabrication of Sentences and Maximes. In 16G2, however, more trouble than reputation, and not a little of both, was given to him by a surreptitious publication of his memoirs, or what purported to be his memoirs, by the Elzevirs. Many of his old friends were deeply wounded, and he hastened to deny flatly the authenticity of the publication, a denial which (as it seems, without any reason) was not very gene rally accepted. Three years later (1665) he published, though without his name, the still more famous Maxims, which at once established him high among the men of letters of the time. About the same date began the friend ship with Madame de la Fayette, which lasted till the end of his life. The glimpses which we have of him hence forward are chiefly derived from the letters of Madame de Sevigne, and, though they show him suffering agonies from gout, are on the whole pleasant. He had a circle of devoted friends ; he was recognized as a moralist and man of letters of the first rank ; he might have entered the Academy for the asking ; and in the altered measure of the times his son the Prince de Marcillac, to whom some time before his death he resigned his titles and honours, enjoyed a considerable position at court. Above all, La Roche foucauld was generally recognized by his contemporaries from the king downward as a type of the older noblesse as it was before the sun of the great monarch dimmed its brilliant qualities. This position he has retained until the present day. He died at Paris on the 17th of March 1680, of the disease which had so long tormented him. La Rochefoucauld s character, if considered without the prejudice which a dislike to his ethical views has sometimes occasioned, is thoroughly respectable and even amiable. Like almost all his contemporaries, he saw in politics little more than a chessboard where the people at large were but pawns, and the glory and profit were reserved to the nobility. The weight of testimony, however, inclines to the conclusion that he was unusually scrupulous in his conduct, and that his comparative ill success in the struggle arose more from this scrupulousness than from anything else. He has been charged with irresolution, and there is some ground for admitting the charge so far as to pronounce him one of those the keenness of whose intellect, together with