Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/830

794 changed for that of Rouen. On the appointment of the duke of Orleans as governor of Normandy, D Amboise became his lieutenant-general ; and he has the credit of having freed the province from the bandits which infested it, and of having diminished the oppression of the nobles, who consequently (during his absence in Italy) petitioned the king against him. In 1494 the duke of Orleans mounted the throne as Louis XII. ; and D Amboise was suddenly raised to the high position of cardinal and prime minister. His administration was, in many respects, well- intentioned and useful. Having the good fortune to serve a king who was both economic and just, he was able to diminish the imposts, to introduce order among the soldiery, to establish the Great Council for the trial of cases in which one of the parties possessed authority that overawed the ordinary courts, and otherwise to improve the execution of justice. He was also zealous for the reform of the church ; and it is greatly to his credit that he did not avail himself of the extremely favourable opportunities he possessed of becoming a pluralist. He regularly spent a large income in charity, and he laboured strenuously to stay the progress of the plague and famine which broke out in 1504. His foreign policy was animated by two aims to increase the French power in Italy, and to seat himself on the Papal throne ; and these aims he sought to achieve by diplomacy, not by force. He, however, sympathized with, and took part in, the campaign which was commenced in 1499 for the conquest of Milan. Soon after he was made legate a latere ; and on the death of Alexander VI. he aspired to the Papacy. He had French troops at the gates of Rome, by means of which he could easily have frightened the conclave, and induced them to elect him ; but he was persuaded to trust to his influence ; the troops were dismissed, and an Italian was appointed as Pius III. ; and again, on the death of Pius within the month, another Italian, Julius II., was chosen. In 1508 France, still under the ministry of D Amboise, joined the League of Cambray against Venice ; and it was on his journey into Italy that he was seized at the city of Lyons with a fatal attack of gout in the stomach. He died there at the age of fifty on the 25th May 1510.  DAMIENS, (1715-1757),who attained notoriety by his attack on Louis XV. of France in 1757, was born ina village near Arras in 1715, and early enlisted in the army. After his discharge, he became a menial in tie College of the Jesuits in Paris, and was dismissed from this as well as from other employments for misconduct. Indeed his conduct was such as to earn for him the name of Robert le Diable. During the disputes of Clement XI. with the Parliament of Paris, the mind of Damiens seems to have been excited by the ecclesiastical disorganisation which followed the refusal of the clergy to grant the sacra ments to the Jansenists and Convulsionnaires ; and he appears to have thought that peace would be restored by the death of the king. He, however, asserted, perhaps with truth, that he only intended to frighten the king with out wounding him severely. In January 1757, as the king was entering his carriage, he rushed forward and stabbed him with a knife, inflicting only a slight wound. He made no attempt to escape, and was at once seized. He was condemned as a regicide, and sentenced to be torn in pieces by horses in the Place de Greve. Before being put to death he was barbarously tortured with red-hot pincers, and molten wax, lead, and boiling oil were poured into his wounds. After his death his house was razed to the ground, his brothers and sisters were ordered to change their names, and his father, wife, and daughter were banished from France.  DAMIETTA, or, as it is called by the Natives,, a town of Lower Egypt, on the great eastern branoJi of the Nile, about six miles from its mouth (the ancient Ostium Phatniticum), and nearly 100 miles from Cairo, with which it is connected by rail. After the metropolis and Alexandria, Damietta is the largest town in Egypt, and contains a population of about 29,000, consisting for the most part of Egyptians, with a few Greeks and Syrians. The town, as a whole, is ill-built and straggling, and is only redeemed from meanness by the presence of some handsome mosques, bazaars, and public baths. The houses of the better classes are brick edifices situated on the water-edge, and furnished with terraces, on which the inmates enjoy the cool river- breezes of the evening. The general trade of Damietta was at one time considerable, but has in great part been absorbed by Alexandria. It has still, however, a consider able coasting trade with Syria and the Levant, and forms the outlet for the rice and flax grown in the surrounding country. The lake Menzaleh yields large supplies of fish, which are dried and salted, and furnish an important article of export trade. Coffee and dates are the other articles most largely exported. Mehemet AH established a military school in the town with accommodation for 400 pupils, as also a cotton factory and an extensive rice-mill. Damietta is a corruption of the word Thamiatis. The original town was four miles nearer the sea than the modern city, and first rose into importance on the decay of Pelusium. When it passed into the hands of the Saracens it became a place of great wealth and commerce, and was therefore frequently attacked by the crusaders. The most remarkable of these sieges lastod eighteen s, from to ; another in  was conducted in person by Louis IX. of France, who, however, was soon after taken prisoner and compelled to purchase his freedom by restoring the city to its Saracen owners. To obviate these attacks the Egyptian Sultan Bibars blocked up the Phatnitic mouth of the Nile (about ), razed old Damietta to the ground, and transferred the inhabitants to the site of the modern town. From this circumstance large ships can not now sail up the Nile, and are obliged to discharge their cargoes outside the bar. The French took possession of the town in 1798, and in the following year beat the Turks in the neighbourhood ; but they were expelled by the English under Sir Sydney Smith.  DAMÎRÎ (–), sometimes spelt, or, with the Arabic article,, is really an adjective of relation applied to a person or thing belonging to one of the two contiguous towns of North and South Damirah, near, in Egypt. Under this name is usually understood a well-known Arabian writer on canon law, who is at the same time the author of a treatise on natural history, which in the East has attained considerable celebrity. His full name and title is Kemâl ud-den Abu’l Bagâ Muhammed Ben Musa Ben Isa ad-Damîrî Ash-Skafeî. He was born in Cairo in 742 , and died there in  808. Damiri's reputation, so far as the Western nations are concerned, is not based upon his work as a jurist, but wholly upon his natural history, which is entitled The Life of Animals (Hayat ul Haiwan). In this treatise the author gives the names of 931 beasts, birds, fishes, and insects with which he was (probably rarely by personal knowledge) acquainted, arranging these alphabetically, and giving a longer or shorter account of their nature and peculiarities, according as the data, actual or fabulous, in his possession would allow him. As might have been anticipated, he is more especially copious and minute when he comes to treat of animals like the lion and the camel ; but in all cases lit defines the orthography and vocalization of the name, gives the forms of the plurals and feminines, and supplies the local or vernacular titles by which the animals were known. It is unnecessary to say that Damiri does not treat natural 