Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/197

Rh "And I," savagely replied Saint-Just, "will make him carry his like a Saint-Denis." The threat was not vain : Desmoulins accompanied Danton to the scaffold. The same ferocious inflexibility animated Saint-Just with refer- ence to the external policy of France. He proposed that the national convention should itself, through its com- mittees, direct all military movements. This was agreed to, and Saint-Just was despatched to Strasburg, in com- pany with Lebas, to superintend operations. It was sus- pected that the enemy without was being aided by treason within. Saint-Just's remedy was direct and terrible : he followed his experience in Paris, " organized the Terror," and soon the heads of all suspects were falling under the guillotine. The conspiracy was defeated, and the armies of the Rhine and the Moselle having been inspirited by suc- cess Saint- Just himself taking a fearless part in the actual fighting and having effected a junction, the frontier was delivered. Later, with the army of the North, he wrought similar magical changes in the aspect of affairs. Before the generals he placed the terrible dilemma of victory over the enemies of France or trial by the dreaded revolution- ary tribunal ; and before the eyes of the army itself he organized a force which was specially charged with the slaughter of those who should seek refuge from the enemy by flight. Success again crowned his terrible efforts, and Belgium was gained for France. Meanwhile affairs in Paris looked gloomier than ever, and Robespierre recalled Saint-Just to the capital. As the storm was gathering Saint-Just gave it direction by mooting the dictatorship of his master as the only remedy for the convulsions of society. At last, at the famous sitting of the 9th Ther- midor, he ventured to present as the report of the com- mittees of general security and public safety a document expressing his own views, a sight of which, however, had been refused to the other members of committee on the previous evening. Then the storm broke. He was vehe- mently interrupted, and the sitting ended with an order for Robespierre's arrest (see ROBESPIERRE). On the follow- ing day, 28th July 1794, twenty-two men, nearly all young, were guillotined. Robespierre was one, aged thirty-six ; Saint-Just another, aged twenty-six. In 1800 there was published at Strasburg a work from the pen of Saint-Just entitled Fragments on Republican Institutions. It is a crude mixture of bis opinions on social and political topics.

 ST KILDA, the largest islet of a small group of the Outer Hebrides, Scotland, 40 miles west of North Uist, in 57 48' 35" N. lat. and 8 35' 30" W. long. It measures 3 miles from east to west and 2 from north to south, and has an area of 3000 to 4000 acres. Except at the landing- place on the south-east, the cliffs rise sheer out of deep water, and on the north-east side the highest eminence in the island, Conagher or Conna-Ghair, forms a gigantic precipice, 1220 feet high from sea to summit. According to Professor Judd, St Kilda is probably the core of a Tertiary volcano ; but, besides volcanic rocks, it is said to contain hills of sandstone in which the stratification is very distinct. 1 While the general relief is peculiarly bold and picturesque, a certain softness of scenery is produced by the richness of the verdure. The inhabitants are an industrious Gaelic-speaking community (110 in 1851, and 77 in 1881). They cultivate about 40 acres of land (potatoes, oats, barley), keep about 1000 sheep and 50 West Highland cows, and catch puffins and other sea-fowl. Coarse tweeds and blanketing are manufactured for home use. The houses are collected in a little village at the head of the East Bay, which contains a Free church, a manse, and the factor's house. The island is practically inaccessible for eight months of the year. 1 No trained geologist seems to have visited the island subsequent to Macculloch. St Kilda, or, as it vas originally called, Hirt (Hirth, Hyrtha), seems to have been in the possession of the Macleods for 400 or even 500 years. In 1779 it changed hands along with Harris, and again in 1804 and in 1871 (to Macleod of Macleod). The feudal superior is Lord Dunmore, who receives one shilling of feu-duty. From 1734 to 1742 Lady Grange was confined on St Kilda by com- mand of her high-handed husband (see Proceed. Soc. Scot. Antiq., x. and xi.). David Mallet makes the island the scene of his Amyntor and Theodore, or the Hermit. See works on St Kilda by Rev. K. Macaulay (1764), L. MacLean (1838), J. Sands (1876 and 1877), and George Seton (1878).

 ST KILDA, a watering-place in Victoria, Australia, on the east shore of Hobson's Bay, 3 miles south of Mel- bourne, .with which it is connected by a railway. The borough had an area of 1886 acres and a population of 11,662 in 1881. The sea-beach is bordered by an esplan- ade ; there is a large public park ; and portions of the sea have been fenced-in to protect bathers from sharks. A town-hall, an assembly hall, a library, and the large Episco- pal church of All Saints are among the public buildings.

 ST KITTS. See.

 SAINT-LAMBERT, (1716-1803), French poet, was born at Nancy in 1716, and died at Paris in 1803. During great part of his long life he held various employments at the court of Stanislaus of Poland, when that prince was established in Lorraine. He also served in the French army, and then betook himself to literature, producing among other things a volume of de- scriptive verse, Les Saisons (wildly overpraised at the time, and now never read), many articles for the Encyclopedic, and some miscellaneous works in verse and prose. Saint- Lambert's chief fame, however, comes from the strange fate which made him the successful rival in love of the two most famous men of letters in France, not to say in Europe, during the 18th century. The infatuation of the marquise du Chatelet for him and its fatal termination are known to all readers of the life of Voltaire. His subse- quent courtship of Madame d'Houdetot, Rousseau's Sophie, though hardly less disastrous to his rival, was less dis- astrous to the lady, and continued for the whole lives of himself and his mistress. They survived till the present century as a kind of irregular Baucis and Philemon, illus- trating the manners of the vanished regime, which had been not unjustly celebrated, and vindicating its constancy from a very general opinion.

 ST LAWRENCE. The river St Lawrence 2 in North Plate America, taken in connexion with the great lakes, offers to IV - trading vessels the most magnificent system of inland navigation in the world. Its total length from the source Length, of the St Louis river, which discharges into Fond du Lac at the head of Lake Superior, to Cape Gasp6 is 2100 miles. The river St Louis springs from the same spacious plateau in Minnesota that gives birth to the Mississippi and the Red River of the North. The intermediate distances.be- tween the source of the St Lawrence and its mouths are shown in Table I. According to the most recent surveys the approximate area of the basin of the St Lawrence is 510,000 square miles, of which 322,560 belong to Canada and 187,440 to the United States. Lake Superior, the most westerly of the lakes, is the Lake largest body of fresh water in the world. In addition to Superior, the river Nipigon, which may be regarded as the chief source of the upper St Lawrence, and the St Louis and Pigeon rivers, which constitute the international boundary, it receives its waters from 200 rivers, draining an aggregate of 85,000 square miles, 3 including its own area of 32,000. 2 The name given by Jacques Cartier, who ascended the river in 1535 as far as Montreal. 3 The magnitudes and altitudes of the great lakes are derived from the Report of the Canadian Canal Commission, February 1871 ; the engineering data relating to canals have been mainly obtained from other annual reports published by the Canadian Government and from the annual reports of the chief of engineers, United States army. XXI. 23 