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 306 L E F L E compass lie gives many curious and interesting details of the time, writing only of what he had seen, and in a very simple but vivid style. The book was first published in 1735, by Abb6 Lambert, who added historical and critical notes ; and it has been reprinted in several collections. The last occasion on which Fleuranges was engaged in active service was at the defence of Peronne, besieged by the count of Nassau in 1536. In the following year he heard of his father s death, and set out from Amboise for his estate of La Marck ; but he was seized with illness at Longjumeau, and died there in December 1537. FLEUR-DE-LIS, an heraldic device. Concerning its origin the most diverse theories have been broached. According to an old tradition, it was first employed as an armorial bearing by Clovis I., and represents the lily pre sented by an angel to that monarch at his baptism, the three fleurs-de-lis of his shield being the sign of the Trinity. Newton (Display, p. 145) considers it to be the figure of a reed or flag in blossom, used instead of a sceptre at the proclamation of the Frankish kings. In the opinion of Chifflct, the device was first adopted by Louis VII. of France, surnamed le Jeune, in allusion to his name Louis Floras. Some, again, have held that it is the extremity of the francisque, a kind of javelin anciently used in France. An objection fatal to the above and other theories assigning ta the fleur-de-lis a purely French origin is that it was early an ornament of the sceptres, seals, and robes, not only of the Merovingian, but of Greek, Eoman, German, Spanish, and English kings, and was a symbol employed by many noble families in various parts of Europe in the 12th and 13th centuries. It is stated to occur, very per fectly sculptured, in the head-dresses of Egyptian sphinxes (Notes and Queries, 2d ser., i. p. 226). Gioja of Amalphi is said by Moreri to have marked the north end of the needle of the mariner s compass with a fleur-de-lis in honour of the king of Naples ; but see COMPASS, vol. vi. pp. 225 and 227. Since the 12th century the fleur-de-lis, or &quot; flower-de-luce&quot; (Shakespeare), has been employed as the symbol of royalty in France. See HERALDRY ; Berry, Encydopccdia Hcraldica, vol. i., 1828 ; Boutell, Hcraldn/, 1865: and Larousse, Didionnaire Univcrscl du XIX Sitclc, t. viii. FLEURY, ANDRE HEECULE DE (1653-1743), cardinal, the celebrated minister of Louis XV. of France, was born in 1653 at Lodeve, in Languedoc. He was educated by the Jesuits at Paris, and became successively almoner to Marie The rese, queen of Louis XIV., in 1698 bishop of Frejus, and in 1715 preceptor to the young prince, who after wards succeeded, to the throne as Louis XV. On the death of the regent Orleans in 1723, Fleury advised his royal pupil to choose the duke of Bourbon as minister, and was himself made a member of the council. In 1726, being then in his seventy-third year, he received a cardinal s hat, and was called to the office of prime minister, which he held till his death in 1743. At the time when Fleury was entrusted with the direction of affairs, the condition of France was truly deplorable. The nation was im poverished and worn out, and the exchequer emptied by the long wars of the Grand Monarque and the extravagances of the regent. Commerce was annihilated, public credit ruined, the Government held in contempt, and the church distracted by internal dissensions. Fleury immediately set himself to the task, and effected important reforms. Though he was a confirmed friend to peaceful measures, he was twice driven by court intrigues to take part in foreign wars, first in the case of Stanislaus Leczinsky, the dethroned king of Poland, whose daughter Louis XV. had married ; and afterwards in that of the Austrian Succession, of which he did not live to see the end. In these wars, his economy, which bordered on avarice, was fatal to the cause espoused by France. The navy, neglected for fear of the expense, was no longer equal to any emergency. The Polish war he had energy neither to avert nor to carry on effectively. The meanly equipped expedition which he sent to the coasts of Pomerania could not but fail, notwith standing the heroism displayed at Dantzic by the count of Plelo and his 1500 soldiers. One of the most useful acts of Fleury s administration was the completion of the Royal (now the National) Library, which he enriched with many valuable manuscripts, chiefly in the Oriental languages. He was a scholar of considerable attainments. The French Academy elected him as a member in 1717, the Academy of Sciences followed this example in 1721, and the Academy of the Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in 1725. He was also provisor of Sorbonne, and superior of the college of Navarre. Bibliography. F. J. Bataille, filogchistoriquc do AL le Cardinal A. H. de Fleury, Strasburg, 1737, 8vo ; Cli. Frey de Js euville, Oraisonfunibrc de S. E. Mgr. le Cardinal A. II. Fleury, Paris, ] 743, 4to ; Ph. Vicaire, Oraison funebre du Cardinal A. II. de Fleury, Caen, 1743, 4to ; M. van Hoey, Lcttrcs ct negotiations 2 i cur scrvir dl histoire de la vie du Cardinal de Fleury, Londres, 1743, 8vo ; Lcbcndcs Cardinals A. II. Fleury, Freiburg, 1743, 8vo; Fr. Morenos, ParalUle du ministtrc du Cardinal IliclieUcu ct du Cardinal dc Fleury, Avignon, 1743, 12mo ; Nachriclitcn von dcm Lcbcn und dcr Ycrwaltung dcs Cardinals Flcury, Hamburg, 1744, Svo. FLEURY, CLAUDE (1640-1723), the famous ecclesias tical historian, was born at Paris, December 6, 1640. Destined for the bar by his father, he was placed at the college of Clermont (now that of Louis-le-Grand), where the sons of the first families of France were educated. After passing brilliantly through the regular collegiate studies, he was nominated an advocate to the parliament of Paris in 1658, and continued during nine years to pursue the legal profession. Feeling a strong desire to enter the church, being fond of solitude, but especially influenced by the religious sentiments which he had imbibed during his early education, he renounced the law which, with history and literature, up to this time had formed the principal objects of his study in order to devote himself to theology exclusive]} 7. He had already been some time in holy orders, when Louis XIV., in 1672, selected him as tutor of the princes of Conti ; and so well did he acquit himself in this office, that the king intrusted to him afterwards the education of the count of Vermandois, one of his natural sons ; and at the death of the young prince, Fleury received as recompense for his services the abbey of Loc-Dieu, in the diocese of Rhodez. Five years after this (1689) he was appointed sub-preceptor of the dukes of Burgundy, of Anjou, and of Berri. He thus became intimately associated with Fenelon, the chief preceptor of his royal pupils. In 1696 he was selected to fill the place of La Bruyere in the French Academy ; and on the completion of the education of the young princes, the king bestowed upon him the rich priory of Argenteuil, in the diocese of Paris (1706). On assuming this benefice he resigned that of the abbey of Loc-Dieu, thus setting an example of rare disinterestedness. It was about this time that he decided, according to the suggestions of his friends, on commencing his great work, for which he had been collecting materials for thirty years the Histoire Ecdesiastique. Hitherto France did not possess any work of equal merit in this department of literature. There existed many works more or less volu minous on matters of doctrine and discipline ;; but no one had written a history of the church, a complete and scientific exposition of the progress of Christian society, of its organization and its primitive doctrine, of its varied changes in connexion with the state, of the successive development of its institutions, of all the modifications in troduced into its symbols and its rites. Fleury had evidently the intention of writing a history of the church