Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 9.djvu/739

 p R A F R A 703 there in 161 G. He, too, studied xtnder Moris, and never settled abroad, or lost the hard and gaudy style which he inherited from his master. Several of his pictures are. in the Museum of Antwerp, one dated 1597 in the Dresden j Museum represents Christ on the road to Golgotha, and is | signed by him as D. o (Den ouden) F. Franck. Ambrose, j the third son of Nicholas of Herenthals, has bequeathed to us more specimens of his skill than Jerom or Franz the first. He first started as a partner with Jerom at Fontainebleau, then he returned to Antwerp, where he passed for his guild in 1573, and he lived at Antwerp till 1G18. His best works are the Miracle of the Loaves and Fishes and the Martyrdom of St Crispin, both large and ambitious com positions in the Antwerp Museum. In both these pieces a fair amount of power is displayed, but marred by want of atmosphere and shadow, or by hardness of line and gaudiness of tone. There is not a trace in the three painters named of the influence of the revival which took place under the lead of Rubens. Franz Francken the first trained three sons to his profession, the eldest of whom, though he prac tised as a master of guild at Antwerp from 1GOO to 1610, left no visible trace of his labours behind. Jerom the second took service with his uncle Ambrose. He was born in 1578, passed for his guild in 1607, and in 1620 produced that curious picture of Horatius Codes defending the Sublician bridge which still hangs in the Antwerp Museum. The third son of Franz Francken the first is Franz Francken the second, who signed himself in pictures till 1616 &quot;the younger,&quot; from 1630 till his death &quot; the elder &quot; F. Francken. These pictures are usually of a small size, and are found in considerable numbers in Continental collections. Franz Francken the second was born in 1581. In 1605 he entered the guild, of which he subsequently became the president, and in 1642 he died. His earliest composition is the Crucifixion in the Belvedere at Vienna, dated 1606. His latest compositions as &quot;the younger&quot; F. Francken are the Adoration of the Virgin (1616) in the Gallery of Amsterdam and the Woman taken in Adultery (1628) in Dresden. From 1616 to 1630 many of his pieces are signed F. Francken ; then come the Seven Works of Cha rity (1630) at Munich, signed &quot;the elder F. F., ; the Pro digal Son (1633) at the Louvre, and other almost countless examples. It is in F. Francken the second s style that ve first have evidence of the struggle which necessarily arose when the old customs, hardened by Van Orley and Floris, or Brueghel and De Vos, were swept away by Rubens. But F. Franck the second, as before observed, always clung to small surfaces; and though he gained some of the freedom of the moderns, he lost but little of the dryness or gaudi ness of the earlier Italo-Flemish revivalists. F. Francken the third, the last of his name who deserves to be recorded, passed in the Antwerp guild in 1639, and died at Antwerp in 1667. His practice was chiefly confined to adding figures to the architectural or landscape pieces of other artists. As Franz Pourbus sometimes put in the portrait figures for Franz Francken the second, so Franz Francken the third often introduced the necessary personages into the works of Pieter Neefs the younger (museums of St Peters burg, Dresden, and the Hague), In a Moses striking the Rock, dated 1654, of the Augsburg Gallery, this last of the Franckens signs D. (Den ouden) F. Franck. In the pictures of this artist we most clearly discern the effects of Rubens s example. FRANCOIS DE NEUFCHATEAU, NICOLAS Louis, COUNT (1/50-1828), a French statesman and poet, was born at Saffais, in the district of Meurthe, 17th April 1750. He studied at the college of Neufchateau in the Vosges, and at the age of fourteen published a volume of poetry which obtained the approbation of Rousseau, and secured or its author so much eclat that Neufchateau conferred on him its name, and he was elected member of some of the principal academies of France. In 1783 he was named procureur-general to the council of St Domingo. He had previously been engaged on a translation of Ariosto, which he finished before his return to France five years afterwards, but it perished during the shipwreck which occurred during his voyage home. After the Revolution he was elected deputy to the National Assembly, of which he first became secretary and then president. In 1793 he was imprisoned on account of the political sentiments of his drama Pamela, but a few days afterwards the Revolution of the 9th of August restored to him his freedom. In 1798 he became minister of the interior, in which office he distinguished himself by the thoroughness of his administration in all departments. It is to him that France owes its system of inland navigation. From 1804 to 1806 he was president of the senate, and in that capacity the duty devolved upon him of soliciting Napoleon to assume the title of emperor. In 1808 he received the dignity of count. Retiring from public life in 1814, he occupied himself chiefly in the study of agriculture, until his death, 10th January 1828. Fran- Qois de Neufchateau had very multifarious accomplishments, and interested himself in a great variety of subjects, but his fame rests chiefly on what he did as a statesman for the encouragement and development of the industries of France. His maturer poetical productions did not fulfil the promise of those of his early years, for though some of his verses have a superficial elegance, his poetry generally lacks force and originality. He had considerable qualifications as a grammarian and critic, as is witnessed by his editions of the Provinciales and Pensees of Pascal, Paris, 1822 and 1826, and Gil Bias, Paris, 1820. His principal poetical works are Poesies Diver ses, 1765 ; Ode sur les Parlements, 1771 ; Nouveaux, Conies Moraux, 1781 ; Les Vosges, 1796; Fables et Contes, 1814; and Les Tropes, on les Figures de Mots, 1817. He is also the author of a large number of works on agriculture. See H. Bonnelier, Memoires sur Franco-is de Ncitf chateau, Paris, 1829; and J. Lamouroux, Notice historique et litUraire, sur la, vie ct les ecrits de Francois de Neufchateau, Paris, 1843. FRANCONIA, in German FrANKEN, a name of vory different application in different historical periods. It pro perly signifies the land of the Franks, and is consequently identical in original meaning with the word Francia or France. In the beginning of the 4th century the Frank- ish territory stretched from the Loire eastward to the basin of the Rhine and the Main ; but it was shortly after wards broken up into two divisions Austrasia, Francia Oriental s, or the kingdom of the East Franks, and Neustria, Francia Occidental!?, or the kingdom of the West Franks. As time went on both kingdoms extended their boundaries ; and when the treaty of Verdun in 845 settled the claims of the grandsons of Charles the Great, there was a kingdom of Western France with Latin tendencies, and a kingdom of Eastern France with Teutonic tendencies, each possessing a central district or duchy of its own name. These districts were separated from each other by the district of Lotlia- ringia or Lorraine. The western was soon after lost sight of ; but the eastern continued for a long period to be con sidered the very core and kernel of the German kingdom, and a theory became prevalent that it was the original seat of the Franks in Germany. Under the Saxon and Franconian emperors it was subdivided into Ost-Fran- ken, Francia Orientalis, or Eastern Franconia par ex cellence, and Rhein-Franken, Francia Rhenensis, or Rhen ish Franconia. The former, which was also distinguished as Saal-Franken, stretched from the Fichtelgebirge and the Rhone to the Danube, and from the Upper Pala tinate to the Spessart and the lands of the Neckar; while the latter was the country between the Spessart and