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BEL not able to retain. He died in 1583, at the age of 53. Belleforest seems never to have been in any position which freed him from indigence. His books were numberless and on every subject, sacred and profane, history, romance, poetry, theology. Johnson's epitaph on Goldsmith tells us that he wrote on all subjects, and that he adorned all he touched—"Nullum quod tetigit non ornavit." This phrase would seem to have suggested or been derived from that in which a French critic, writing about the same time with Johnson, describes Belleforest: "Il gata presque tout ce qu'il toucha." Necessity made him an author; he wrote because he could do nothing else. Belleforest's poems are of no value. His "Histoire des neuf rois de France," or his "Annales de France" are now not often looked at. The dust is more often brushed away in old libraries from his "Cent histoires tragiques," a selection of stories from his "Gesta Romanorum." This work was translated into English towards the close of the sixteenth century, and in it we find the story on which Spenser's Phaon and Philemon, in the fourth canto of the second book of the Fairy Queen is founded. Shakspeare's plot of Much Ado about Nothing is more likely to have been taken by him from Belleforest than from Bandello, in whose works the story is also found.—J. A., D.  BELLEGARDE,, a member of the old French national convention, born in Angoumois about 1740; died at Brussels in 1825. Having ardently embraced the cause of the Revolution, he was first appointed to the command of the national guards of Angouleme, next was nominated deputy for the Charente to the legislative assembly, and afterwards deputy for the same department to the national convention. Here he joined the party of the Montagnards, and voted with them for the death of the king. In February, 1794, he was nominated secretary to the convention, and sent on a mission to the army of the north. He afterwards became a member of the council of Five Hundred; and in 1798 entered the council of The Ancients, of which he became secretary. In 1817 the law passed against the regicides having forced him to quit his native country, he returned to Brussels, where he remained until his death.—G. M.  BELLEGARDE,, count de, an Austrian general, born at Chambery in 1755; died at Verona in 1831. Having entered the service of Austria, he took part in the campaigns of 1793-1795, in which he so distinguished himself, that he was nominated a member of the council of war of the Archduke Charles, and soon after lieutenant field-marshal. In July, 1805, he was invested with the chief command in the Venetian states, and in the following year was raised to the rank of field marshal, and appointed civil and military governor of Gallicia. In this capacity he gained in a high degree the love and confidence of the people. He resigned his office in 1825 in consequence of a disease of the eyes.—G. M.  BELLEGARDE,, marshal of France, born about the beginning of the sixteenth century; died in 1579. He was at first educated for the church, but being led by inclination to the profession of arms, he followed his uncle the marechal de Termes into Piedmont, where he distinguished himself at the head of a party of light horse. After the death of his uncle, he was introduced by the count de Retz to the court of Catherine de Medicis, who was so captivated by his engaging manners and the beauty of his person, that she procured for him from the court of Spain, the command of the order of Calatrava in France. He afterwards became the favourite of the duc de Anjou, brother of Charles IX., who made him colonel of his infantry. Having passed through a variety of employments, his good fortune at last deserted him. He became the victim of court intrigues, and died, as is supposed, by poison.—G. M.  BELLEGARDE, , duc de, peer of France, born about 1563; died 10th July, 1646. He served Henry III., Henry IV., and Louis XIII. The first conferred on him the office of grand equerry; the second gave him the government of Burgundy; and in 1620 the last made him duke and peer of France. He fought bravely at Arques, and at Fontaine Française, and merited the favour of Henry IV. He also distinguished himself at the siege of Rochelle under Louis XIII.; but falling into disgrace with Cardinal Richelieu, he was exiled to Saint Fargeau, where he remained until the death of that minister, a period of eight or nine years.—G. M.  BELLE-ISLE,, marshall and afterwards duc de, marshal of France, born at Villefranche, 22nd September, 1684; died 26th January, 1761. He was ambitious and enterprising, and without accomplishing anything great, acquired a brilliant reputation as a military commander. He was engaged in the war consequent on the European league for the dismemberment of the Austrian dominions, and at the head of forty thousand French troops, passed the Rhine about the end of August, 1741. The combined armies of France and Bavaria penetrated unopposed into Upper Austria; but the elector, instead of taking Vienna, thrust himself into Bohemia, and entering Prague on the 19th December, caused himself to be proclaimed king of Bohemia. About a month afterwards he proceeded to Frankfort, accompanied by Belle-Isle, where he was elected emperor under the name of Charles VII. This was the beginning of a series of dreadful disasters to the French army. Prussia and Saxony detached themselves from the league, while Belle-Isle threw himself into Prague, which was now surrounded by sixty thousand Austrians; and seeing no hope of succour, he formed the resolution of attempting to evacuate the city, and to commence a precipitate retreat. This desperate expedient succeeded. Stealing in silence from Prague on the night of the 16th or 17th of December, 1742, he commenced his perilous and laborious march, traversing defiles covered with ice and snow for ten days within sight of the enemy, by whom he was incessantly harassed. He at length reached Egra, but after a journey of thirty-eight leagues, all but twelve hundred of his men had perished with cold by the way, and five hundred afterwards died in the hospital. Passing from Cassel to Berlin with the count, his brother, on a mission from Louis XV. and Charles VII., he was arrested and sent to England, where he and his brother were detained for a year. In 1746 the Austrians and Piedmontese having invaded Dauphiné and Provence, Belle-Isle was sent to take the command of the troops in that quarter; but on his arrival, he found only the shattered remains of regiments without supplies and without discipline. With great difficulty he succeeded in borrowing money, and having organized and r e-equipped his troops, he forced the enemy to fall back upon Italy. He now advanced upon Piedmont, but paid for that rash enterprise with the loss of four thousand killed, including his brother and nearly all the officers of his army. In 1748 Belle-Isle was created duke and peer of France, and in 1749 was made a member of the French Academy.—G. M.  BELLE-ISLE,, sometimes called the, brother of the preceding, born in 1693; died in 1746. He embraced a military career, in which he distinguished himself by his ability and valour. He fell in endeavouring to force the passage of Col de L'Assiette.  BELLENDEN,. See. <section end="520H" /> <section begin="520Zcontin" />BELLENDEN,, a literary Scotchman, in the beginning of the sixteenth century. He filled the office of professor of humanity in the university of Paris, and was likewise an advocate in its parliament. His most important writings were published during his residence in the French capital. He also held the office of master of requests (magister libellorum supplicum) to James VI., a honorary office in his case, if he lived principally abroad, but one by which he uniformly designated himself in his publications. In 1608 he published his "Ciceronis Princeps," consisting of excerpts from Cicero, reduced to order, on the duties of a monarch, and dedicated to Prince Henry. In 1612 appeared "Ciceronis Consul," a digest of the same kind; in 1615 a third work, "De statu Prisci Orbis," an account of the religion, polity, and literature of the ancient world, and dedicated to Prince Charles. This treatise is skilful and elaborate, and has received the merited eulogy of Dr. Parr. All these three tracts Bellenden next collected into one volume, "Bellendenus de statu," but the greater part of the work was lost, through the wreck of the vessel conveying it to Britain. The last work which Bellenden published himself, was an "Epithalamium on the marriage of Charles I.," Paris, 1625. In 1633 was issued a posthumous work, "De tribus luminibus Romanorum libri sexdecim." Cicero is, as might have been expected the first of his lights, and Seneca and Pliny are said to be the other two contemplated in the unfinished treatise. Cicero's history is contained in the work, and taken very much from his own letters. The three treatises in one volume, called "Bellendenus de statu," were republished in England in 1787, with an extraordinary Latin preface by Dr. Parr, in which, in sonorous classic style, he eulogizes Fox, Burke, and Lord North, and pours the fiercest invective on the character and policy of Pitt. In this preface, Parr accuses Middleton of <section end="520Zcontin" />