Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 24.djvu/253

Rh V I L V I L 231 landish MS., appeared at Lyons in 1601. But both these were completely antiquated by the great edition of Du Gauge in 1657, wherein that learned writer employed all his knowledge, never since equalled, of the subject, but added a translation, or rather paraphrase, into modern French which is scarcely worthy either of himself or his author. Dom Brial gave a new edition from different MS. sources in 1823, and the book figures with different degrees of dependence on Du Gauge and Brial in the collections of Petitot, Buchon, and Michaud and Ponjoulat. All these, however, have been superseded for the modern student by the editions of M. Natalia de Wailly (1872 and 1874), in which the text is critically edited from all the available MSS. and a new translation added. The charm of Ville- hardouin can escape no reader ; but few readers will fail to derive some additional pleasure from the two essays which Sainte-Beuve devoted to him thirty years ago, and which may be found reprinted in the ninth volume of the Causer ics du Lundi. (G. SA.) VILLEINAGE. See COPYHOLD and SLAVERY. VILLEMAIN, ABEL FRANCOIS (1790-1867), historian of French literature, was born at Paris on llth June 1790. He was educated at the lycee Louis-le-Grand, and was only twenty when he was appointed to an assistant- mastership at the lycee Charlemagne. This appointment was shortly exchanged for a post at the Ecole Normale. He early devoted himself to the composition of the Academic prize essays which have founded the fortune of so many French men of letters, and in 1812 he gained the prize with an eloge on Montaigne, which was followed by other successful attempts. His second successful essay, On Criti cism, had the honour of being read by the author before the Academy and the allied sovereigns who were then (April 1814) in Paris. Under the restoration he was appointed, first, assistant professor of modern history and then professor of French eloquence at the Sorbonne. Here he began and continued for about ten years a series of literary lectures which had an extraordinary effect on his younger contemporaries. The secret indeed of Villemain s great popularity and immense influence is only to be under stood by exact observation of the time at which he came. He had no very extraordinary gift of style, nor was he a very original thinker. But he had the great advantage of coming just before the Romantic movement, of having a wide and catholic love of literature, and, at the same time, of not being an extremist. All, or almost all, the clever young men of the brilliant generation of 1830 passed under his influence ; and, while he enchanted those of Romantic tendency by his constant reference to, and his frank apprecia tion of, the beauties of English, German, Italian, and Spanish poetry, he had not the least inclination to decry the classics either the classics proper of Greece and Rome or the so- called classics of France. In 1819 he published a book on Cromwell, remarkable for a Frenchman of his day, and two years later he was elected to the Academy. The time was more favourable than any previous time had been to literary men with political inclinations, and Villemain was appointed by the restoration Government &quot; chef de I im- primerie et de la librairie,&quot; a post involving a kind of irregular censorship of the press, and afterwards to the office of master of requests. Like others, however, Villemain became more and more Liberal, and before the revolution of July he had been deprived of his office and had been elected deputy for Evreux. This secured his fortune under Louis Philippe s reign, and, though he did not long sit in the lower chamber, he received a peerage in 1832. He was a very important member of the council of public instruction, and was twice minister of that department, while at the same time with his elevation to the upper chamber he was made secretary of the Academy. This combination made him during the whole of the July monarchy one of the chief dispensers of literary patronage in France ; and, though he never drew on himself the personal ill-will which his friend and colleague Cousin attracted, it was almost inevitable that he should displease many for every one that he gratified. Villemain s literary position had moreover been somewhat left behind by the course of events, and in politics he was something of a doctrinaire. For more than the last twenty years of his life he took no open part in public affairs, though his liter ary activity continued to be considerable, the books which he published being in part workings-up of his brilliant Sorbonne courses. Although he still retained a great name and an important Academic position, his later years are supposed to have been somewhat saddened by the differ ence of his employments and consideration, as compared with those of his middle age. Villemain, in fact, was a man who had at one time, chiefly by accident and coinci dence, acquired a position to which he was not quite equal. Some reflexions on him in the &quot; Notes et Pensees &quot; to be found in Sainte-Beuve s Causeries du Lundi, vol. xi., are, as is too often the case in that collection when it refers to contemporaries, harsh. But it is certain that he had little originality of thought or definiteness of literary theory, that he was rather a clever exponent of ideas which happened to be popular than a convinced reasoner, and that he had an undue admiration of success. His death took place at Paris on 8th May 1867. Yillemain s chief work is his Cours de la Litterature Frait^aise, in 6 volumes, printed soon after he ceased lecturing, and reprinted long afterwards in 1864. It is a very discursive book, containing literary judgments on all sorts of subjects, and illustrating very well the fashion in which Villemain satisfied and stimulated a generation which had just become aware that literature was not limited to the productions of the men of the grand siede. Almost all his later works, which are numerous, consist of collections of Academic elogcs, lectures, and literary and historical essays. As, however, he began with a substantive historical work so did he end with one, the posthumous History of Gregory VII., on which he had been known to be engaged for many years, and the long delay of which had been the cause of not a few sarcasms. Although a book of merit, it will hardly supplant Villemain s early Academic lectures as his title to remembrance and fame such fame as is due to a teacher who succeeds in stirring up the literary faculties of men more highly gifted than himself. VILLENA, a town of Spain, in the province of Alicante, is situated 37 miles by rail to the north-west of that town, on the right bank of the little river Vinalapo. It has narrow winding streets, and is crowned by a picturesque- looking old castle. The slopes of the surrounding hills are clothed with vines, and there are also some extensive salt lagoons. The annual fair of Villena (29th Sept.-5th Oct.), dealing in the produce of the neighbourhood, is still of considerable importance. The industries (soap -making, weaving, distilling) are not extensive. The population within the municipal boundaries in 1877 was 11,424. VILLENEUVE-SUR-LOT, a town of France, chef-lieu of an arrondissement in the department of Lot-et-Garonne, is built oil both sides of the river Lot, 22 miles north of Agen by a line which branches at Penne from the Agen and Perigueux Railway. Large portions of the 13th- century ramparts, altered and surmounted by machicola tions in the 15th century, still remain, and high square towers rise above the gates to the north-east and south west. The principal. arch of the bridge (13th century) has a span of 118 feet and is 59 feet in height, and was built in the reign of Louis XIII. Arcades of the 13th century surround a square. Important markets of cattle, horses, wines, and Agen plums (120,000 worth exported annually) are held. Boots and shoes, sausages, tinned foods, and buttons are made, and there are marble works and large mills. The population in 1881 was 9520 (com mune 14,560) and in 1886 9780 (commune 14,693). Of these 1102 were prisoners at Eysses. Villeneuve originated in a fortress built in 1264 as a refuge for the inhabitants of Pujols, whose town had been destroyed in the Albigensian War. The English held it from 1279 to&quot; 1337, and again in the 15th century. Less than a mile from Villeneuve the former abbey of Eysses, founded about the 7th century, stands on the site of the Roman town of Excisum. It is now used as a