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CON his successor, but his father's quarrel with the see of Rome had raised a formidable opposition. He eventually took refuge with his brother Manfred of Tarentum, by whose assistance he compelled the pope to come to terms; but on the eve of his return into Germany he died in 1254.—W. B.  CONRAD V., or CONRADIN, son of the preceding, was a child of two years at the death of his father. His mother placed him under the protection of his brother, Louis of Bavaria; and afterwards attempted to establish his rights in Italy against Charles of Anjou. Her army, however, was defeated at Scurcola; and Conradin, falling into the hands of his rival, perished on the scaffold in 1268.—W. B.  CONRAD, son of William III., Marquis of Montserrat, gained his first distinction in the service of the pope against Frederick II. In 1186 he sailed for Syria to take part in the third crusade; and on his way rendered such important aid in the suppression of a revolt at Constantinople, that he was rewarded with the hand of the emperor's sister Theodora. Having narrowly escaped falling into the power of the Saracens at Acre, he landed at Tyre, undertook the defence of that city, and held it successfully against the arms and arts of Saladin, till the arrival of the French and English forces, under Philip Augustus and Richard Cœur de Lion, restored in some measure the ebbing fortunes of the crusaders. But the fame of this and other services was obscured by his intrigues to obtain the throne of Jerusalem, in which he was countenanced by the French king, but opposed by Richard. The wish of the army at length procured the concurrence of the English monarch, and Conrad was on the eve of succeeding the unfortunate Guy de Lusignan when he was slain by assassins in 1190.—W. B.  CONRADIN. See V.  CONRART,, born at Paris in 1603; died in 1675. His father's family was originally from Hainault, and of the noblesse. The family were Calvinists, and Conrart's father destined his son for mercantile life. This prevented his having the ordinary advantages of a classical education, but he learned Spanish and Italian, and was a great reader of modern books. Conrart, though he wrote but little, is one who cannot at any time be forgotten in the history of French literature. He has been called the father of the French Academy, of which he was the first secretary. The origin of the academy was accidental. In 1629 a number of friends fond of literature, living at considerable distances from each other in Paris and the vicinity, arranged to meet occasionally at the house of Conrart, who lived in the Rue St. Martin. Richelieu, who had his eyes and ears everywhere, learned the fact of these meetings; suggested the idea of an academy; and offered Conrart and his friends letters patent from the king. This project was disliked by the original members of the little society, but could not be decorously refused. This is Pellison's account of the origin of the academy. At its institution it had three principal officers, a director, a chancellor, and a secretary. The first two changed from time to time; the secretary was for life, and chosen by the suffrages of the academy. Conrart was unanimously elected "perpetual secretary." He became afterwards chancellor, the offices not being inconsistent. In 1634 his duties as secretary commenced, and till his death, forty-one years afterwards, he kept the official record of all the proceedings of the academy. The closing years of Conrart's life were occupied with exercises in devotional poetry. He versified fifty-one of the psalms, or rather retouched and modernized Clement Marot's version. He also left memoirs on the history of his own times, which were published for the first time in 1825, in Petitot's well-known collection—J. A., D.  CONRING,, one of the greatest scholars of his time, was born at Norden in Frisia on the 9th November, 1606; and devoted himself at the same time to the study of theology and medicine at Helmstedt, and afterwards at Leyden. As early as 1632 he obtained the chair of philosophy at Helmstedt, and in 1634 took his degree as M.D. Queen Cristina of Sweden proposed to make him her physician. He declined the offer, but in 1658 accepted the same appointment from Gustavus Adolphus. At the same time he was named privy councillor to the duke of Brunswick, and since 1664 had a pension granted him by Louis XIV. His counsel in political and state affairs was sought for almost throughout Europe. By his works, although the man was greater than his writings, he has rendered important services both to the history of the German empire, and to medical science. He vigorously opposed the alchemists, and zealously advocated and promoted Harvey's doctrine of the circulation of the blood. He died at Helmstedt on the 12th December, 1681. His collected writings were edited, with a life, by Göbel, Brunswick, 1730, 6 vols.—K. E.  CONROY,, a learned Irish Franciscan, was born in Galway in 1560. Being designed at an early age for the priesthood, he was sent first to the Netherlands, and afterwards to Spain, for the completion of his studies. He obtained a high reputation for scholarship, and was held to be the most deeply versed in the works of St. Augustine of any man in Europe. Upon the death of O'Higgin, the Roman catholic archbishop of Tuam, at Antwerp in 1609, Conroy was appointed to succeed him. He did not, however, go to Ireland to take possession of his see, but remained at the Spanish court. Through his influence with Philip II., that monarch was induced to found an Irish college at Louvain, dedicated to St. Anthony, in 1616—an institution which afterwards became celebrated for the distinguished Irishmen connected with it, and the Irish works that issued from its press. At this place he afterwards occupied himself in preparing for the press his "Commentaries on St. Augustine" and "Compendium of the Doctrines of St. Augustine." Shortly before his death he returned to Madrid, and retired to a Franciscan convent there, where he died on the 18th November, 1629.—J. F. W.  CONSALVI,, Cardinal, born at Rome in 1757; died there in 1824. Pope Pius VI. appointed him uditor di ruota, or member of the highest Roman civil court. In 1800 Chiaramonti, who had been raised to the pontificate, made him a cardinal-deacon, and secretary of state. It was Consalvi who concluded the concordat with Napoleon in 1801; but when the first consul began to quarrel with the pope he insisted on his dismissal, which Pius had at last, however unwillingly, to concede. During the period of the pope's abdication Consalvi was permitted to join his master at Fontainebleau, and, on the pontiffs return to Rome in 1814, was reinstated in his office of secretary of state. A monument, executed by the sculptor Rinaldi, was raised to his memory in the church of S. Marcello, where he was buried.—R. M., A. <section end="1178H" /> <section begin="1178I" />* CONSCIENCE,, the most eminent novelist of the Netherlands, was born at Antwerp in 1812. Having lost his mother, and his father being a poor dealer, he entered the army in 1830 and rose to be a serjeant-major. His powers of observation had been sharpened by a love of reading, which, despite of no ordinary difficulties, he contrived to indulge. His first attempt at composition was a romance descriptive of the heroic rising of his countrymen against their Spanish masters, and which succeeded on its appearance in winning what would have been universal approbation, only for one exception. There was one person who saw with an angry eye the work, which he was certainly incapable of judging; and he was the author's own father. The successful author had committed the crime of spoiling the promising dealer in old iron. Expelled from the shop he was deemed not worthy to inherit, the author found a protector in no less a personage than King Leopold, who gave him assistance. In 1837 he published his "Phantasia," in imitation of Hoffman, followed by stories illustrative of Flemish life, written with that truthful simplicity and directness of purpose set off with graphic descriptions, which go home to the hearts of readers. His independence has been secured by a situation connected with the Academy of Fine Arts. In the meantime his works are increasing in popularity and making their way through translations into France, England, and other countries.—J. F. C. <section end="1178I" /> <section begin="1178Zcontin" />CONSTABLE,, a Scotch bookseller, who acquired considerable celebrity as the publisher of the Edinburgh Review and the Encyclopædia Britannica, and of the works of Sir Walter Scott, Dugald Stewart, and other eminent writers. To Mr. Constable belongs the merit of having led the way in the great revolution which has taken place in the diffusion of cheap literature, by the publication of the series of instructive works entitled Constable's Miscellany. Mr. Constable, having embarked in various extensive bookselling speculations, was involved in the ruin which the commercial crisis of 1825 brought upon vast numbers of the trading section of the community. His spirit was completely broken by his reverse of fortune, and he died in Edinburgh in 1827, in his fifty-fourth year. "He was," says Scott, "a prince of booksellers; his views sharp, powerful, and liberal, too <section end="1178Zcontin" />