Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 19.djvu/90

Rh 80 P I C P I C Picliegru feigned to besiege Ypres, he again dashed at Clerfayt and defeated him at Rousselaer and Hooglede, while Jourdan came up with the new army of the Sambre and Meuse, and utterly routed the Austrians at Fleurus on June 27, 1794. After a pause Picliegru began his second campaign by crossing the Meuse on October 18, and after taking Ximeguen drove the Austrians beyond the Rhine. Instead of going into winter-quarters, he prepared his army for a winter campaign. On December 28th he crossed the Meuse on .the ice, and stormed the island of Bommel, then crossed the Waal in the same manner, and, driving the English before him, entered Utrecht on January 19, and Amsterdam on January 20, and soon occupied the whole of Holland. This grand feat of arms was marked by many points of interest, such as the capture of the Dutch ships which were frozen in the Helder by the French hussars, and the splendid discipline of the ragged battalions in Amster dam, who, with the richest city of the Continent to sack, yet behaved with perfect self-restraint. This conquest aroused a storm of admiration in France. The former friend of Saint Just now offered his services to the Thermidorians, and after receiving from the Convention the title of Sauveur de la Patrie, subdued the sans-culottes of Paris, when they rose in insurrection against the Convention on 12 Germinal (1 April). Honoured by the republicans, and with the greatest military reputation in France, Picliegru then took command of the armies of the Xorth, the Sambre and Meuse, and the lihine, and crossing the Rhine in force took Mannheim in May 1795. When his fame was thus at its height he be came a traitor, and for the promise of a marshal s baton, the governorship of Alsace, the castle of Chambord, 1,000,000 francs in cash, and 200,000 francs a year, sold his army and his country. He allowed Jourdan to be beaten before Mannheim, and betrayed all his plans to the enemy. His intrigues were suspected, and when he offered his resigna tion to the Directory in October 1795 it was to his surprise promptly accepted. He retired in disgrace, but hoped to serve the royalist cause by securing his election to the Council of Five Hundred in May 1797. He was there the royalist leader, and planned a cvu-p d etat, but on the 18th Fructidor he was arrested, and with fourteen others de ported to Cayenne in 1797. Escaping, he reached London in 1798, and served in the archduke Charles s staff in the campaign of .1799. He went to Paris in August 1803 with Georges Cadoudal tohead a royalist rising against Napoleon; but, betrayed by a friend, he was arrested on February 28, 1804, and on April 15th was found strangled in prison. It has often been asserted, but without a shadow of proba bility, as he was certain to have been condemned if brought to trial, that he was murdered by the orders of Napoleon. Pichegru s campaigns of 1794 are marked by traits of an audacious genius which would not have disgraced Napoleon ; like him, lie per ceived the intrinsic fitness of the French soldiers for strokes of daring rather than for sustained battles. But a more thorough traitor never commanded an army. He flattered in turn Saint Just and the Terrorists, the Thermidorians and the Directors, and seemed altogether unmoved by considerations of loyalty or patriotism. There is no really jrood life of Pichcgru; perhaps the best is Gassier s Vie rlu general I icheijru, Paris, 1814. For his trtusmi, Mini, and duuh consult Mont- galllard l Mf moires euncernant la trahison &amp;lt;I? Pichegrv, 1804; Kauche-Iionl s Memoire*, Savary, Memoires fur la Mort &amp;lt;le I ichcgru, Pari&amp;lt;, 1825; und G. Pierret, 1 ich gru, sent I roce* ft son Mort, 182(&amp;gt;. PICKLES. The term pickie was originally applied to herrings preserved in salt brine, and by a pickle is still meant any preservative solution for either animal or vegetable food, that for flesh and fish being a brine of common salt, usually with saltpetre, sugar, and certain spices added, while for vegetable substances vinegar is the principal pickling medium. Preparations of the latter description vegetables saturated with vinegar constitute the ordinary pickles of domestic use. Acid fruits and suc culent fleshy vegetables are the proper materials for pickles. The vegetable substances principally treated in this way- are beetroot, cabbage, cauliflower, gherkins (small cucum bers), capers, French beans, onions, shallots, mushrooms, green peaches, mangoes, green walnuts, and several tropical fruits besides those mentioned. These are variously dealt with. Such as are soft -and in themselves hot and spicy require simply to have vinegar of the proper strength poured over them, after the materials have been carefully selected, washed, and, if necessary, shred. Vegetable sub stances of a harder and tougher character require first to- be steeped in salt brine for some time, then washed, and the vinegar poured over them hot ; and yet more leathery and fibrous vegetables must be softened with boiling brine,, and then prepared with boiling vinegar. The vinegar employed may be either wood or strong malt vinegar ; the former, being free from mucilage, has no tendency to fer mentation, and can be obtained of greater strength than that prepared from malt. The vinegar is commonly flavoured with spices or aromatic herbs, flavours being chosen with special reference to the fruit or vegetable operated on. The flavouring materials, of which pepper, allspice, red pepper,, cloves, horse-radish, garlic, and ginger are examples, are either added whole to the pickle or may be separately infused in the vinegar. For the preservation of pickles it. is necessary that the jars in which they are stored should be secured with stoppers tied over with bladder and sealed, so as to render them as far as possible air-tight. It is of the utmost consequence that in the compounding and storing of these acid preparations no vessels or fittings of copper, brass, zinc, or lead, which yield, with acetic acid,, poisonous products, should be used. Contamination with copper is especially to be avoided ; yet, as small quantities, of acetate of copper give to pickled vegetables a fine, fresh green, natural colour, such an adulteration is not unfre- quently practised ; and some of the older cookery books, actually recommend the use of copper vessels, and even the addition of small pieces of verdigris, to improve the colour of the pickles. As food adjuncts, pickles should be sparingly used, their chief merit being piquancy, though the acid they contain exercises a solvent influence on the more directly nutritious constituents of food, and, the added spices having a stimulating effect, they thus aid the process of digestion. PICO, GIOVANNI, OF MIRANDOLA (1463-1494), was the youngest son of Giovanni Francesco Pico, prince of Mirandola, a small territory about 30 Italian miles west of Ferrara, afterwards absorbed in the duchy of Modena. The family was illustrious and wealthy, and claimed descent from Constantine. From his childhood Pico was remark able for his quick and tenacious memory, and gave promise of his future distinction as a scholar. In his fourteenth year he went to Bologna, where he studied for two years, and was much occupied with the Decretals. The tradi tional studies of the place, however, disgusted him; he was eager to know all the secrets of nature, and devoting him self wholly to speculative learning he spent seven years wandering through all the schools of Italy and France and collecting a precious library. Like most men with brilliant faculties of acquisition and assimilation, Pico was constitu tionally an eclectic ; and he owes his place in the history of learning and thought to the indefatigable spirit of inquiry which left him dissatisfied with current teaching and drove him to studies then new and strange. P&amp;gt;esides Greek and Latin he knew Hebrew, Chaldee, and Arabic ; and his Hebrew teachers (Eliah del Medigo, Leo Abarbanel, j and Jochanan Aleman see L. Geiger, Johtntn Rnu-lilin [1871], p. 167) introduced him to the Kabbalah, which had great fascinations for one who loved all mystic and theosophic speculation. His learned wanderings ended at Home, where he set forth for public disputation a list of nine hundred questions and conclusions in all branches of