Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/366

Rh S A X S A X edgings, worthless slabs, and debris of the mill are conveyed, to bo destroyed by fire. Shingle Shingle Mills. A standard shingle is four inches wide, and all Mills, computations of quantity are based upon that width, although the individual shingle may be six or eight inches wide or as much as 18 inches, in the latter case counting 4J shingles. A shingle mill differs from a saw-mill in the adaptations of machinery. Saws of 16-gauge, 40 inches in diameter, are most commonly employed. In cases where shingle manufacture is carried on in connexion with the saw-mill, the process of preparing the blocks has already been described. A majority of the shingles manufactured, however, are made in mills built for the special purpose. Logs suitable, usually of a medium quality, are placed before a "bolting" or "drag saw, which severs them into the required length. The block is then stripped of its bark and sap by splitting off a section of the outer circumference to the heart wood, with axes ; it is next quartered, and the inside section of heart, which is never sound, removed ; and then it goes to the machine for manufacture. The machines are sometimes horizontal, sometimes vertical, but all work upon the same principle, viz., that of a tilting table, allowing a thick butt and a thin point to be alternately taken. The shingles as they drop from the saw are rough-edged, and require to be "jointed," generally upon a rapidly revolving wheel, upon the face of which are secured four well-balanced knives, which, as the shingle is pressed against them, eat away the imperfect edge with great rapidity, leaving a straight smooth edge, which when laid upon a roof makes a good joint with its fellows. The edging or jointing process is often performed with small saws in place of the wheel-jointer. The shingles are usually packed in bunches con- taining the equivalent of one quarter thousand 4-inch pieces, and are more used for roof covering than any other material in the United States or Canada. (G. W. H.) SAXE, MAURICE, COMTB DE (1696-1750), marshal of France, was the natural son of Augustus II. of Saxony and the countess Aurora of KSnigsmark. An entry in the parish registers of Goslar shows that he was born in that town, 28th October 1696. In 1698 the countess sent him to Warsaw to his father, who had been elected king of Poland the previous year, but on account of the unsettled condition of the country the greater part of his youth was spent outside its limits, a yearly income being assigned him. This enforced separation from his father made him more independent of his control than he would otherwise have been, and had an important effect on the character of his future career. At the age of twelve he was present, under the direction of the count of Schulen- burg, in the army of Eugene, at the sieges of Tournay and Mons and the battle of Malplaquet, but the achievements ascribed to him in this campaign are chiefly fabulous. A proposal to send him at the close of it to a Jesuit college at Brussels was relinquished on account of the strong protests of his mother ; and, returning to the camp of the allies in the beginning of 1710, he displayed a courage so impetuous as to call forth from Eugene the friendly admonition not to confound rashness with valour. After receiving in 1711 formal recognition from his father, with the rank of count, he accompanied him to Pomerania, and in 1712 he took part in the siege of Stralsund. As he grew up to manhood he was seen to bear a strong resem- blance to his father, both in person and character. His grasp was so powerful that he could bend a horse-shoe with his hand, and to the last his energy and endurance were unsubdued by the severe bodily illnesses resulting from his many excesses. The impetuosity noted by Eugene manifested itself in his private life in a dissolute- ness only slightly tempered by his generosity and good humour. In his military career during his mature years it was indicated only in his blindness to danger and his unmoved calm amidst the blackest lowerings of misfor- tune, for it was tempered by the " vigilance, forethought, sagacious precaution " which Carlyle notes as " singular in so dissolute a man." In 1714 a marriage was arranged between him and one of the richest of his father's subjects, the Countess von Loeben, but her immense fortune he dissipated so rapidly that he was soon heavily in debt, and, having given her more serious grounds of complaint against him, he consented without defence to an annul- ment of the marriage in 1721. Meantime, after serving in a campaign against the Turks in 1717, he had in 1719 gone to Paris to study mathematics, and in 1720 obtained the office of "mare'chal de camp." In 1725 negotiations were entered into for his election as duke of Courland, at the instance of the duchess Anna Ivanovna, who offered him her hand. He was chosen duke in 1726, but declin- ing marriage with the duchess found it impossible to resist her opposition to his claims, although, with the assistance of 30,000 lent him by the French actress Adrienne Lecouvreur, his relations with whom form the subject of the drama of that name by Scribe and Legouve, published in 1849, he raised a force by which he maintained his authority till 1727, when he withdrew and took up his residence in Paris. On the outbreak of the war in 1734 he served under Marshal Berwick, and for a brilliant exploit at the siege at Philippsburg he was in August named lieutenant-general. It was, how- ever, with the opening of the Austrian Succession War in 1741 that he first rose into prominence. In command of a division forming the advance guard of an army sent to invade Austria, he on the 19th November surprised Prague during the night, and took it by assault before the garrison were aware of the presence of an enemy, a coup de main which at once made him famous throughout Europe. After capturing on the 19th April 1742 the strong fortress of Eger, he received leave of absence, and went to Russia to push his claims on the duchy of Cour- land, but obtaining no success returned to his command. His exploits had been the sole redeeming feature in an unsuccessful campaign^ and on 26th March 1743 his merits were recognized by his promotion to be marshal of France. In 1744 he was chosen to command the expedition to England in behalf of the Pretender, which assembled at Dunkirk but did not proceed farther. After its abortive issue he received an independent command in the Netherlands, and by dexterous manoeuvring succeeded in continually harassing the superior forces of the enemy without risking a decisive battle. In the following year he made a rapid march on Tournay, and, when the allies sent an army of 60,000 under the duke of Cumberland to its relief, gave them battle llth May, without relaxing the siege, from a strongly entrenched position at Fonte- noy. The contest raged from early morning till two o'clock, when, by a charge at a critical moment which annihilated a column of the enemy, fortune was decided in his favour. During the battle he was unable on account of dropsy to sit on horseback except for a few minutes, and was carried about in a wicker basket. In recognition of his brilliant achievement the king conferred on him the castle of Chamford for life, and in April 1746 he was naturalized. The campaign of 1746 was signalized by the capture of Antwerp on the 1st June, the capture of Namur in September, and the total rout of Prince Charles at Raucoux llth October. Having on the 12th January 1747 been made marshal-general, he in the following campaign won the victory of Lawfeldt over the duke of Cumberland, and on 1 6th September he stormed Bergen-op- zoom. In May 17 48 he captured Maestricht after a month's siege. After the peace, he lived in broken health chiefly at Chamford, and he died there 30th November 1750. Maurice de Saxe was the author of a work on military science, Mas Mveries, described by Carlyle as "a strange military farrago, dictated, as I should think, under opium," published posthumously in 1757 (last ed., Paris, 1877). His Ldtrcs ct Memoircs Clwisis appeared in 1794. >fany previous errors in former biographies were corrected and additional information supplied in Carl von Weber's Moritz, Graf von Sachscn, Marschall von Frankreich, iiach archivalischcn Quellen (Leipsic, 1863), and in Taillandier's Maurice de Saxe, etude historiquc (fapres les docttmenls des Archives de Dresde (1865). See also Carlyle's Frederick the Great.