Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/510

 F O U F O U Government, lie succeeded in producing the impression that his skilful diplomacy had saved Paris from extreme humiliation. Having played such an important part in this political crisis, his name could not be omitted from the list of the new Government, and he received his old office from the king, of whose brother s death he had been one of the principal instigators. His dexterity, however, had now set itself a task for which it was incompetent; and gradually finding his position untenable, he resigned office 19th September 1815. As a kind of solatium he was appointed ambassador to Dresden ; but on the passing of the law of banishment against those who had voted for the death of Louis XVI., he retired to Prague. He became a naturalized Austrian subject in 1818, and died at Trieste, 25th December 1820. in possession of enormous wealth. Fouche, notwithstanding his equivocal expression of countenance and his known untrustworthiness, had a pecu liar faculty of captivating the eminent politicians with whom he came into contact. This was due at once to his instinctive divination of their weak point, and to his wonderful knowledge of the varying conditions of the political barometer. Though somewhat boastful, his con versation was remarkably agreeable and interesting, and was frequently lighted up by terse and sarcastic witticisms which would have done credit to Talleyrand. His tem perament was too cold to enable him to achieve success as an orator, but his writings, though sometimes bombastic, must be allowed the merit of cleverness, and are often characterized by a graphic felicity. His unparalleled political career is to be accounted for not perhaps so much by his peculiar intellectual abilities as by the apparent fact that he was, as M. Thiers has expressed it, completely &quot; indifferent to good and evil &quot; that he was influenced neither by the impulses of passion nor by the dictates of conscience. His private life was virtuous compared with that of many of his contemporaries, and his political life apart from his connexion with the death of Louis XVI., and the atrocities of Nantes and Lyons was not only unstained by heinous crime, but to an unenlightened spectator seemed wholly devoted to the public interest. Inhabiting a region beyond the influence of party bias, he appeared when a political crisis was at hand almost in the character of the guardian angel of France, cherishing no remembrance of past ingratitude, but benevolently proffering for her acceptance the only aid that could save her from disaster. He was, if not the leading actor, at least the principal wire-puller and prompter in many of the great events of his time; but his only important legacy to pos terity is the grand spy-system which he brought almost to perfection, and which has since exercised such a baneful in fluence on European politics. Next to his love of intrigue, his main motive in all his purposes was something re sembling avarice ; but in all probability he did not love even money, and sought to lay hold of it chiefly as the one stable rock amid the billows and quicksands of political life. Though his purposes were not held in check by any moral principle, yet so strong was his self-control, and so calm his estimate of possibilities, that he never committed himself irrevocably to a conspiracy that was not successful. The atrocities, however, which inaugurated his political career, and at the close of it his acceptance of office under Louis XVIII., were, though widely separated in time, so incompatible with each other that he at last completely lost the confidence of all parties in the state, and his past career was placed in a light so strongly sinister as to render its character unmistakable. Many politicians of his own time had been guilty of equally heinous crimes ; but few of any age have so consistently and uninterruptedly sacrificed every political and moral consideration, including that of self-respect, to a temporary success. ^Fouche is the author of Riflcxions sur Ujuycmcnt de Louis Capet, 1793 ; Reflexions sur V education publique, 1793 ; llappmt ct projct de loi relatifs aux colleges, 1793 ; Rapport sur la situation de Com- mune-Affranchie, 1794; Lcttre auxprifots, conccrnantlcsj/retres, &amp;lt;C-c., 1801 ; two Rapports auRoi and Notes aux minisircs strangers, 1815, where he ably discusses the condition of France at the time; and Lcttre au due dc Wellington, 1817. He is said to have been the author of the Precis dc la vie publique du due d Otrantr, published at London and Leipsic in 1816. The Memoircs de Fuiich-e, Paris, 1824, were declared by his family to be a forgery, but although their naivete is often too pronounced to be compatible with their authenticity, they are evidently founded on original sources of information. See also Vie de Fouche, 1821; Bourrienno, Life of Napoleon ; Desmarest, Temoiynaycs historiques, on quinze Am de Juiute police sous Napoleon, 1833 ; Martel, Etude sur Fouche ct sur le communisme dans le pratique en 1793, 1873, which contains a number of documents never before published ; and an interesting account of an interview with Fouche by Earl Stanhope, in Lord Brougham s collected works, vol. v. (T. F. H.) FOUCHEPv, SIMON (1644-1696), a sceptical writer during the latter part of the 17th century, was born at Dijon on the 1st March 1644. Extremely little is known of his life. He was the son of a merchant at Dijon, and appears to have taken orders at a very early age. For some years he held the position of honorary canon at Dijun, but this he resigned in order to take up residence in Paris. He graduated at the Sorbonne, and spent the remainder of his life in literary work in Paris. Toucher s name is now almost completely forgotten, but in his day he enjoyed considerable repute as a keen opponent of Malebranche. His point of view in philosophy may be called the sceptical, but the scepticism extends to only one doctrine, external perception. On this point he revived the old arguments of the Academy, and advanced them with much ingenuity against Malebranche s doctrine. Otherwise his scepticism is subordinate to orthodox belief, the fundamental dogmas of the church seeming to him intuitively evident. His writings against Malebranche were collected under the title Dissertations sur la Recherche de la V trite, 1693. See Rabbe, L Alle Simon Foucher, Dijon, 1867. FOUGEPtES, a town of France, at the head of an arron- dissement in the department of Ille-et-Vilaine, situated for the most part on an eminence near the left bank of the Nangon, a tributary of the Couesnon, by which the lower town is not unfrequently laid under water. It was for merly one of the strongest places on the frontier towards Normandy, and it still preserves some portions of its lath- century walls. The castle is now a picturesque ruin, with abundant evidence in its noble towers and outworks at once of its strength and its magnificence. The finest of all the towers was erected in 1242 by Hugues of Lusignan, and named after Melusine the mythical foundress of the family. The churches of St Ldonard and St Sulpice both date, at least in part, from the 15th century; and the town-hall has a gate of the 16th and a belfry tower of the 15th. Among the other public buildings are a hospital founded in 1688, a civil and military prison, an institution for deaf- mutes, an orphanage, and a normal school. The trade and manufactures of the town are considerable the former consisting mainly of agricultural and dairy produce, and the latter of shoes and boots, sail-cloth and other hempen fabrics, flannel, hats, and leather. Fougeres frequently figures in history from the llth to the 15th century. It was taken by the English in 1202, and again in 1448; and the name of Suricnne, the captor on the second occasion, is still borne by one of the towers of the castle. Popula tion in 1851, 8771 ; in 1876, 10,396. FOULD, ACHILLE (1800-1867), French financier and politician, was born at Paris, November 17, 1800. The son of a rich Jewish banker, he was associated with and afterwards succeeded his father in the management of the business, As early as 1842 he entered political life, having been elected in that year as a deputy for the