Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/476

BEA  October, he was banished fifty leagues from the capital. To show that he was not ignorant of the real author of his persecutions, he wrote papers reflecting upon Voltaire; and again in 1756, on the publication of his "Memoires of Madame de Maintenon," he was thrown into the bastile. No doubt there was some suggested contrast between the honoured position of the wife of Louis XIV., a woman of as humble origin as that of the more pliant Pompadour, and of the latter, which made her a ready ally with Voltaire in the work of vengeance. While in prison, the persecuted author worked on a translation of Tacitus, and when liberated, after a year's confinement, it was on the like condition of banishment from the capital. He settled at Toulouse, where, despite his resentment towards Voltaire, he engaged deeply in the interests of the family of that judicially-murdered Calas, whose wrongs prevented the former from sleeping. He procured the liberation of Madame Calas' daughters. Here he married. Voltaire once more appeared as his persecutor, denouncing him to the governor as the author of some anonymous letters of a seditious character; but he must have failed in his malignant efforts, for shortly after Beaumelle was not only allowed to return to Paris (Madame de Pompadour being dead), but was appointed to a post in the king's library, which he did not long enjoy, for he died in 1770. Had he lived he meant to have published an emendated edition of the poet of Ferney, the spirit of which may be easily conceived.—J. F. C.  BEAUMELLE,, born at Nagarede, 21st September, 1772, entered the army in 1793 as a simple private in a dragoon regiment, rose to be an officer of engineers, but having to quit the service owing to delicate health, became a professor of chemistry. He joined the army again in 1808 under Joseph, king of Spain, and after the peace of 1815, entered the service of Don Pedro. He has written notices of the campaigns and the countries in which he served, and translated from the Spanish of Calderon and other authors. He died at Rio Janeiro in 1831—J. F. C.  BEAUMETZ,, chevalier de, member of the constituent assembly of France, born at Arras, 24th December, 1759; died at Calcutta about 1809. Being elected by the noblesse of Artois deputy to the states-general, he took his place among the constitutional party: and on 27th May, 1790, he was elected president of the national assembly. He was the author and proposer of many salutary enactments, and an able and eloquent advocate of measures at once liberal and moderate. After the session he was nominated member of the directory for the department of Paris. In 1792, having been accused of seeking to re-establish the old government, he left his native country, never more to return. He wandered for some time in Germany, then passed into England, thence to the United States, and finally to the East Indies, where he died. According to another account, he returned to France, and died there about 1800. He was author of a work, entitled "Code pénal des jurés de la haute cour Nationale," Paris, 1792, in 12mo. He besides contributed many articles inserted in the Bibliotheque de l'homme public, and in the Choix des rapports, Paris, 1822, in 8vo.—G. M.  BEAUMONT, a French architect, known chiefly as the designer of the Theatre des Variétés.  BEAUMONT, the name of an ancient French family, originally of Dauphiny. Their genealogy has been traced back as far as Humbert I., who lived in 1080. They were divided into two principal branches, and these again into several minor ramifications. The first branch is that of the lords of Freyte, d'Autichamp, des Adrets, and de Saint Quentin; the second, that of the lords of Beaumont-Montfort in Dauphiny, of Pompignan in Languedoc, and of Payrar in Quercy. Among the more remarkable members of the family of Beaumont are the following:—

, born near Grenoble about the close of the thirteenth century; died in 1375. He was a learned lawyer, considering the age in which he lived, and was, for twenty-two years, the minister and the confidant of Humbert II., dauphin of Viennois.

, called, lord of Clichy and of Courcelles-la-Garenne; died at Saint-Omer in July, 1318. He was appointed mareschal of France in 1315, and rendered important services in the wars of Philip V. in Flanders in 1317 and 1318.

, sire de, a celebrated French captain; died in 1356. He was the younger brother of William I., called the Good, count of Hainaut. He was a devoted supporter of the English interest in France in the time of Edward II. and Edward III., the latter of whom afterwards married the niece of Beaumont. After the death of his brother William, Beaumont entered into the party of Philip of Valois, and was distinguished by his extraordinary intrepidity in the affair of Blanchetaque, and at the battle of Crécy.

, vicomte de, a French naval officer, born at the Chateau de la Roque in Périgord, May 3, 1753; died at Toulouse, September 15, 1805. He officiated as commander of a squadron in 1781, and on the 11th September of the same year captured an English frigate called the Fox. In 1789 he was elected to the states-general as deputy for the Sénéchaussée of Agen. He joined the party of the Côté droit, and was one of the protesters against the decree for the abolition of nobility. At the close of the session he withdrew to England, whence he proceeded to Russia. At the time of the consular government he returned to France, and fixed his residence at Toulouse, where he died.—G. M.  BEAUMONT,, an English admiral, born in 1669; died in 1703. He entered the navy under the patronage of Lord Dartmouth, and in 1688 was appointed lieutenant of the Portsmouth. He distinguished himself between 1689 and 1694 by the capture and destruction of numerous privateers that at that period infested the English channel. He was afterwards employed in blockading the port of Dunkirk, and in various engagements with the Dutch fleet. On the accession of Queen Anne he was raised to the rank of rear-admiral of the blue. Having received orders to quit the squadron, which lay before Dunkirk, he returned to the Downs, where he perished in the dreadful storm of the 26th November, 1703.—G. M.  BEAUMONT,, archbishop of Paris, born at the chateau de la Roque, 26th July, 1703; died at Paris, 12th December, 1781. On account of the disputes originating in the papal bull unigenitus, he was deprived of his archbishopric, and exiled to La Trappe. He was distinguished by the firmness of his character, and was a correspondent of Frederick the Great, the emperor of Russia, and Marie Louise of France.  BEAUMONT,, surnamed , probably from a certain dashing gallantry of manner and dress, was born at Turin in 1694, and died in 1760. He studied at Rome, then the centre of art, which was then the antagonist of nature, and spent half his life in copying Raphael, Guide, and the Caracci. A born imitator, he copied the colour of Trevisani; and after looking about the world for some thirty years with other people's eyes, he returned to receive great eclectic honours in Sardinia, where he was knighted by the benighted (as to art) king.—W. T. <section end="476H" /> <section begin="476Zcontin" />* BEAUMONT,, born at Beaumont la Châtre, department of the Sarthe, 6th February, 1802. The revolution of July, 1830, found him a law officer of the crown, and it speaks sufficiently for the qualities of mind and personal character exhibited in his official career, that he should have been chosen at a moment of peculiar public watchfulness, and when public opinion possessed marked sway, for an important mission to the United States. It was in 1831 that he and M. de Tocqueville went forth upon a mission of inquiry into the operation of prison discipline, with a view to its application in France. The result was not only a report of great value, but two remarkable productions, the one by M. de Tocqueville upon democracy, and the other by M. de Beaumont upon slavery. At that time serious alarm was felt in France at the discovery that there were 40,000 liberated convicts loose upon society. It was found that punishment by imprisonment only served to harden malefactors, and that goals were simple seminaries out of which reclaimable felons came confirmed thieves. The United States had, it was said, solved the difficult problem of making the goal a reformatory, by the adoption of the silent system, with instructed and rewarded labour, and moral and religious training; and it was for the sake of examining into its operation that two gentlemen were chosen, who, as the result showed, proved equal to the confided task. While the report is decisively in favour of the leading principles of the American plan, especially as carried out at Philadelphia, where labour is represented to be actually loved by the convict as a relief from silence and solitude; yet the commissioners came to the depressing conclusion that, owing chiefly to the centralization system in France being destructive of departmental administration, and of that personal interference by zealous philanthropic and religious individuals, to whose agency the American mode owes its efficacy, it would hardly be <section end="476Zcontin" />