Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 6.djvu/870

834 chequered one, owing to the roughness of his manner and the keenness of his criticisms, which made him many enemies, and severely tried the king s patience. In his tragedy Circe, which was played before the court, he did not hesitate to indulge in the most outspoken sarcasm against the king and other members of the royal family. Though he more than once found it expedient to retire into private life, he never entirely lost the favour of Henry, who made him governor of Maillezais. After the conversion of the king to Roman Catholicism, D Aubign6 remained true to the Huguenot cause, and a fearless advocate of the Huguenot interests. The first two volumes of the work by which he is best known, his Histoire Universelle depuis 1550 jusqu & Ian 1601, appeared in 1616 and 1618 respectively. The third volume was published in 1619, and, being still more free and personal in its satire than those which had preceded it, was immediately ordered to be burned by the common hangman. The work is a lively chronicle of the incidents of camp and court life, and forms a very valuable source for the history of France during the period it embraces. In September 1620 its author was compelled to take refuge in Geneva, where he found a secure retreat for the last ten years of his life, though the hatred of the French court showed itself in procuring a sentence of death to be recorded against him more than once. He devoted the period of his exile to study, and the superintendence of works for the fortifications of Bern and Basel, which were designed as a material defence of the cause of Protestantism. He died at Geneva on the 29th April 1630. He had two sans, one of whom, Constant D Aubigne&quot;, was the father of Madame de Maintenon.

1em  D’AUBUSSON, (1423-1503), a grand master of the order of St John of Jerusalem, celebrated for the zeal and ability with which he opposed the Turks, was born in 1423. He belonged to a noble French family, and early devoted himself to the career of a soldier ; but his his tory is involved in obscurity till he entered the order of which he was to become the head. Having distinguished himself greatly against the pirates of the Levant, in 1458 he was chosen to conduct an embassy to Charles VIL, a duty which he performed with much success. He was after this appointed to the most important offices in the order, ajid, finally, in 1476, was by an almost unanimous vote elected grand-master. It was the period of the conquests of Mahomet II., who, supreme in the East, now began to threaten Europe. In December 1479 a. large Turkish fleet, under Misach Palaeologus, appeared in sight of Rhodes ; a landing was effected, and a vigorous attack made upon the city. But in July of the next year, beini^ reinforced from Spain, the knights forced the Mussulmans to retire, D Aubusson had been dangerously wounded in one of the numerous and severe fights which had taken place ; but in a few weeks he had so far recovered as to be able to address to the emperor of the East an account of the siege, which raised his renown to the highest point throughout Europe. Soon after, Mahomet II. died, leaving his kingdom to be disputed between his sons Bajazet and Zizim. The latter, finding himself unable to achieve success, sought the aid of D Aubusson, who, in 1482, received him with great display, but took advantage of his confidence to detain him a prisoner. He was afterwards sent to France, and finally handed over to the Pope, who rewarded D Aubusson with a cardinal s hat, and with the power of conferring all benefices connected with the order without the sanction of the papacy, and also suppressed the orders of St Sepulchre and St Lazarus, and bestowed their wealth on the order of St John. For some years D Aubusson devoted himself to regulating the affairs of his order, so that it might retain the spirit of lofty enthusiasm which originally animated it, and by which he was himself inspired, and defending its interests from the bad faith of the Popes; but in 1501, being appointed generalissimo of the Christian armies against the Turk, he sailed to attack Mitylene. The forces he commanded, however, he found it impossible to bring into agreement ; and the expedition proved a failure. The measure to which the rest of his life was mainly devoted was an attempt to expel Judaism from Rhodes, by banish ing the adult Jews and forcibly baptizing the children. He died in the summer of 1503.

1em  DAUN,, (1705-1766), field-marshal and commander-in-chief of the Austrian army during the Seven Years War, was born at Vienna on the 25th September 1705. He *was intended for the church, and studied in his youth at Rome ; but his natural inclination for the army, in which his father and grandfather had been distinguished generals, proved irresistible. In 1718 he served in the war in Sicily, in his father s regiment ; in 1734-5, having risen to the rank of major-general, he was engaged in the wars in Italy and on the Rhine. He continued to add to his distinctions in the war against the Turks (1737-9), and in the war of the Austrian succession. In 1745 he was placed in the supreme command of the artillery, and in the same year he confirmed himself in the favour of his sovereign, Maria Theresa, by marrying her protege&quot;, the Countess Fuchs. In 1746-8 the held a command in the Netherlands. In 1754 he was elevated to the rank of field-marshal. During the interval of peace that preceded the Seven Years War he was engaged in carrying out an elaborate scheme for the reorganization of the Austrian army ; and it was chiefly through his instrumentality that the military academy was established at Wiener-Neustadt in 1751. During the Seven Years War he was the most formidable opponent that Frederick the Great encountered. On the 18th June 1757 he inflicted a decisive defeat on the greatest general of the age at the battle of Kollin. In commemoration of this brilliant exploit the queen immediately instituted a military order bearing her name, of which Daun was nominated first grand cross. In December 1757 he succeeded Prince Charles of Lorraine as commander-in-chief, and he gained fresh fame by the victories of Hochkirchen (14th October 1758) and Maxen (20th November 1759). On the latter occasion he took General Fink and his whole army prisoners. These successes were counterbalanced by the defeat of Laudon at Liegnitz, which was attributed to the dilatoriness of Daun, and the defeat near Torgau (3d November 1760) by Ziethen s cavalry in a night surprize. In this engagement Daun was so severely wounded that he had to return to Vienna to recruit. He resumed his command in 1761, but did not again achieve any marked success. He retired finally in 1763, at the close of the war. In the previous year he had been appointed president of the Aulic Council. He died on the 5th February 1766. By the order of Maria Theresa a monument to his memory was erected in the church of the Augustinians, with an inscription styling him the Saviour of the State. As a general Daun has been reproached for the dilatoriness of his operations, but this was only the wariness required in opposing a general like Frederick, who was quick and unexpected in his movements beyond all precedent. A more indisputable fault was his inability to secure the full results of a victory.