Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/589

Rh DUVERGIER DE HAURANNE, (–), abbe of St Cyran, a celebrated French theologian, was born at Bayoime in. He studied theology at the university of Louvain, where he formed an intimate friendship with Jansen, who was his fellow student. After quitting Louvain he went to Paris, where his intimacy with Jansen continued, and with him he pursued with great ardour the study of the fathers. Leaving Paris in, they con tinued the same studies at Bayonne, where Duvergier received the canonry of the cathedral. When Jansen left Bayonne, Duvergier returned again to Paris, and shortly after his arrival there his inflexible and ascetic character secured for him the esteem of the bishop of Poitiers, who gave him a canonry, and in made him abbe of St Cyran. He established in the monastery the order of St Bencit in all its rigour ; but his zeal for reform was so great that it awakened opposition, and he found it expedient to quit his diocese and return to Paris. Here he formed a connection with the influential Arnauld family, and along with Angelique Arnauld, directress of the convent of Port Royal, he completely reformed that institution. His rigor ous asceticism acquiring for him great ascendency over feminine minds, his fame and influence increased with great rapidity, and he soon began to number among his disciples members of the highest classes of society, and to have as his personal friends some of the chief dignitaries of church and state. Soon, however, his enemies came to be as numerous as his friends. His rigid and domineering dis position began to alienate from him many of his disciples ; and, taking a leading part in the Jansenist controversy, he excited against himself the peculiar animosity of the Jesuits. At last his views came to be suspected by Richelieu, and he was arrested and thrown into prison at Vincennes, 14th March. No evidence could be obtained from his papers sufficient to criminate him, but to limit his influence he was retained in durance at &quot;Vincennes where, however, he was able to keep up intercourse with his penitents and disciples. On the death of Richelieu he regained his liberty, and resumed his religious duties and his war with the Jesuits with the same energy as before ; but he enjoyed only six s of freedom, dying from a stroke of apoplexy, 10th October.  DWÁRAKÁ,, or, a town of British India, in Guzerat, near the extremity of the peninsula of Kattywar, in 22 15 X. lat. and 69 1 E. long. It is surrounded by a wall, has about 2000 permanent inhabitants, and trades in chalk. As the birthplace and residence of Krishna, it is the most sacred spot in this part of India, and its principal temple is visited annually by many thousand pilgrims. The approach from the sea is by a fine flight of stone steps, and the great pyramid rises to a height of 140 feet. Dwaraka is of course frequently mentioned in the Mahdbhdrata. It was occupied by the British in.  DWARF (Saxon dwerg, dweorg; German, Zwerg), a term applied to men, animals, and plants that fail to reach even the mediocrity of growth natural to their respective classes. It is also otherwise applied. In France, for instance, a yolkless egg is termed &quot; un ceuf nain,&quot; or dwarf egg ; and an imitation of fine English cloth is called &quot; nain Londrin,&quot; technically &quot; London dwarf.&quot; The nanus or pumilo of the Romans might be a dwarf by nature or a person dwarfed by cruel art. In the former case, his lack of height found compensation in increased strength, as exemplified in the line by Propertius, &quot; Nanus et ipse suos breviter concretus in artus,&quot; &c. ; in the latter, where growth had been early suppressed by the dealers who manufactured monstrosities for fashionable people in Rome, weakness bred contempt. The nanus, or, if he were more than usually diminutive, the nanium, was exposed to application of the proverb, &quot; nanus cum sis, cede,&quot; equivalent to &quot; little people must not be in our way ! &quot; Various have been the recipes for dwarfing children from birth. The most effective, according to report, was anoint ing the back bone with the grease of moles, bats, and dormice. It is also said that pups were dwarfed by frequently washing their feet and backbone ; the consequent drying and hardening of those parts hindered, it was alleged, their extension. In England, the growth of boys intended for riders in horse-races is kept down to some extent by the weakening process of &quot; sweating.&quot; There is a familiar story of a partnership entered into between a dwarf and a giant. The dwarf had the intellect, the giant had the strength; the result of this limited liability was that the giant received all the blows, and the dwarf all the profits. The partnership was consequently broken up. A fact, of which we are reminded by this fiction, occurred in Austria in the. To please the caprice of an empress, all the giants and dwarfs in the empire were brought together to Vienna, and were lodged in one building. The dwarfs were told they had nothing to fear from the giants ; but the latter were soon put in bodily fear of the dwarfs, who made the life of their stupendous companions unbearable by teazing them, molesting them, tripping them up, and unscrupulously robbing them. The giants, with tears as big as pearls in their eyes, prayed the authorities to relieve them from the persecution of their tiny enemies, and the prayer &quot;was granted. At a later period, another German princess promoted marriages among dwarfs, but without succeeding in the object she had in view. When Lady Mary Wortley Montague was in Germany, in the last century, she found that a dwarf Avas a necessary appendage to every noble family. At that time English ladies kept monkeys. The imperial dwarfs at the Viennese court were described by Lady Mary as &quot; as ugly as devils &quot; and &quot; bedaubed with diamonds.&quot; They had succeeded the court fools, and exer cised some part of the more ancient office. Absolute princes could not stoop to familiar discourse with mankind of less degree. Therefore did they hold dwarfs to be outside humanity, made intimate associates of them, and allowed them an iinrestrained freedom of speech, by the exercise of which the dwarfs imparted to their masters wholesome truths which on the lips of ordinary men would have been treason. One of the kings of Denmark is said to have made a prime-minister of his dwarf, in order to get at rough truths which a minister of ordinary stature would havo been afraid to utter. It could not have been for this reason that Stanislas, ex- king of Poland and duke of Lorraine, was so attached to his dwarf, Nicholas Ferry, otherwise known as &quot; Bebe&quot;,&quot; for this dwarf was weak in mind and body. Bebe was one of three dwarf children of peasant parents in the Vosges. He was 3 feet in height, and his fame has not died out at Nancy and the department of the Meurthe. At his death in he was in his twenty-third year; and, among the fine phrases of which his epitaph is composed, the world is still assured that Beb6 was &quot; cheri du nouvel Antonin.&quot; But Bebe was not so remarkable a dwarf as Richebourg, who died in Paris in, at the age of ninety. He was only 23 inches in height. In his childhood he was a servant (without especial duty) in the Orleans family. In later years, Richebourg was their pensioner. He is said to have been put to strange use in the Revolutionary period, passing in and out of Paris as an infant in a nurse s arms, but with despatches, dangerous to carry, in the little man s baby wrappings ! At present, on the Continent, Russia and Turkey alone have a common sympathy for dwarfs. At the court of the sultan, should the dwarf, besides being of elfish height ; be deaf, dumb, and qualified to hold a place 