Page:Imperial Dictionary of Universal Biography Volume 1.pdf/525

BEL was wounded in the French attack upon Tamatave (Madagascar) in June, 1845, and received in reward for his gallantry the cross of the legion of honour—bestowed while he was yet under twenty years of age. Shortly after his return from South America, Bellot's attention was directed towards the arctic regions, to his connection with which, during the brief remainder of his career, his place in the records of enterprise is chiefly owing. The fate of Sir John Franklin was then engaging the attention of the civilized world, and the heroic efforts made by Lady Franklin in behalf of her long-absent husband, awakened the deepest sympathy on the part of the young French officer. Bellot visited London in the spring of 1851, and, with the permission of his own government, accompanied Captain Kennedy, as a volunteer, in the Prince Albert, which had been fitted out by Lady Franklin for the purpose of a renewed search. While engaged in the labours of this expedition (during which he traversed, in company with Captain Kennedy, upwards of 1100 miles upon the ice-covered lands and seas lying on the western side of Prince Regent Inlet, being absent from the ship for a continuous period of ninety-six days), Bellot was promoted to the rank of lieutenant. The Prince Albert returned to England in the summer of 1852. In the spring of the following year, Bellot revisited the arctic regions in company with Captain Inglefield, who sailed from Woolwich in the Phœnix on the 10th May, 1853. From this voyage Bellot never returned. It was to his own noble energy and daring that his untimely fate was owing. The Phœnix entered the ice in safety, Bellot sharing in all the labours of the expedition, and gaining (as on his previous voyage) the esteem and goodwill of all. A main object with which the Phœnix had been sent out was the conveyance of the admiralty despatches to Sir Edward Belcher, then in command of a squadron engaged in the Franklin search. Bellot volunteered to carry forward these despatches, and on August 12 left the ship for the purpose. A few nights after, while advancing to the northward along Wellington Channel, a portion of the ice became detached from the land, and Bellot himself, with two of the seamen who were his companions in the enterprise, were drifted upon it in mid-channel. On the night of the 18th, during a violent storm of wind, Bellot fell into a crack in the ice, and was seen no more. This melancholy close, at the early age of twenty-seven, of a promising career, excited the deepest regret on the part of the English and French nations alike. Bellot's qualities, both intellectual and moral, were of a high order, and were united to a resolute courage which shrank from no difficulty. An obelisk, erected by public subscription on the bank of the Thames, in front of Greenwich Hospital, preserves the memory of the gallant French sailor, and commemorates the gratitude which his self-sacrificing conduct inspired in the mind of the English people.—W. H.  BELLOTTI,, born at Venice in 1724. He is compared to his uncle Canaletti, and, like him, was a traveller and a painter of mingled architecture and landscape. He visited Germany and Poland in search of money and beauty. He is known to have engraved five of his own landscapes.—W. T.  BELLOTTI,, born at Venice in 1610, was a pupil of Michael Ferabosco. He adorned the sea Cybele with portraits of the degenerated descendants of the old Mocenigo, Dandolo, and Foscari, and with historical subjects, which were often but enlarged portrait subjects. His flesh is fiery-coloured, his hair varied, and his attitudes graceful. He was well received at Munich in 1666 (six years after our Restoration), but pined for the warm sea-breeze of Venice, returned there, and died in 1700.—W. T.  BELLOVÈSUS, a Gallic chief, nephew of King Ambigat, lived about 550. He was the first Gallic leader that passed the Alps and formed a settlement in Italy, all the northern part of which afterwards took the name of Cisalpine Gaul.  BELLOY, house of, an ancient French family, one member of which is known to have lived in the end of the twelfth and beginning of the thirteenth century. He was one of the lords, who in 1214 signed the truce between Philippe Augustus and the king of England, after the battle of Bouvines. Another was distinguished in the wars against the English in the reign of Charles VI. Two other members of the same family held important commands under Charles VII. and Louis XI. They both fell in battle, one at Verneuil in 1424, the other at Guinegate in 1479.—G. M.  BELLOY,, a French jurisconsult, born at Montauban about 1540. He was descended from an ancient family of Bretagne, but was still more distinguished by his own learning and talent. At the early age of twenty-one he was appointed a public professor at Toulouse, where he acquired so high a reputation as a jurisconsult, that he was soon after nominated counsellor in the seneschal's court. In 1584 he got into trouble, in consequence of the ardour with which he advocated the rights of Henry IV., in a publication entitled "Apologie Catholique." Having been attacked by Bellarmine, who represented him as a heretic and an atheist, he was imprisoned, first in the conciergerie, and afterwards in the bastile, whence he made his escape, after having been confined for two years. His devotion to Henry IV. was rewarded by that sovereign with the office of advocate-general to the parliament of Toulouse. Belloy was author of a number of polemical works of great ability.—G. M.  BELLOY,, born at St. Fleur, in Auvergne, November 17, 1727. Entertaining an irrepressible passion for the stage, he fled from France, to avoid the compulsion of his uncle, who sought to force him to become a barrister, and went on the stage at St. Petersburg, where he commenced writing dramatic pieces. In 1758 he returned to Paris, desiring to bring out there his tragedy of "Titus." The piece met its deserts, and was damned; the author fared scarcely better, for his uncle procured an order for his arrest, which forced him again to flee to Russia. The death of this implacable relation left him free to return to Paris, to produce his "Zelmire," the success of which was decided, and in no small degree due to the acting of Mademoiselle Clairon. But his crowning celebrity was "The Siege of Calais," which won for him the freedom of that town, conveyed in a gold box, with the inscription, "Lauream tulit; Civicam recepit," and his picture was placed in the Hotel de Ville there, and the play received high commendation from Voltaire. His next piece was also very successful; a third followed, which was short-lived, and his last, "Peter the Cruel," entirely failed upon its first appearance. Belloy took this event so much to heart, that he fell ill, and after languishing some years in sickness and poverty, relieved just before death by a gift of fifty louis from Louis XVI., and the proceeds of a representation of "The Siege of Calais" for his benefit, he died on the 5th March, 1775.—J. F. W.  BELLUCCI, ___, born at Rome, 1506, was slain in battle in 1540. He was an engineer, and a painter of historical panoramic subjects.—W. T. <section end="525H" /> <section begin="525I" />BELLUCCI,, born at Venice in 1654, was a portrait and historical painter. His colour is pure, his invention fluent and spirited, but to the "first three" he did not attain. His cabinet pictures and altar-pieces were so much esteemed, that he was appointed court painter to the emperor Joseph I., whom he afterwards left to enter the service of the elector Palatine. Bellucci lived respected, and died at Treviso, 1726.—W. T. <section end="525I" /> <section begin="525J" />BELLUCCI,, an Italian botanist, lived about the middle of the seventeenth century. He was professor of botany and director of the botanic garden in the university of Pisa. He published at Florence in 1662 an enumeration of the plants cultivated in the Pisa garden.—J. H. B. <section end="525J" /> <section begin="525K" />BELLUS or BEAU,, a French jesuit, author of some antiquarian and hagiological works, was born at Saly in 1600, and died at Montpellier in 1670. His "Otia regia Ludovici XIV." was published in 1658. <section end="525K" /> <section begin="525L" />BELMAS,, bishop of Cambrai, was born at Montreal, in the department of Aude, in 1757, and died in 1840. He took the oath to the "constitution civile" of the clergy, and shortly after was promoted to the bishopric of Aude. In 1802 he was translated to the bishopric of Cambrai, which it was proposed to elevate into an archiepiscopal see; but the pope, whom the bishop had offended by his adherence to the "constitution civile," having opposed the project, it was dropped. Belmas, like his predecessor Fenelon, held the doctrine of the divine right of kings in a way which enabled him to retain his bishopric under all changes of government.—J. S., G. <section end="525L" /> <section begin="525Mnop" />BELMEIS,, commonly called , one of the most eminent divines of the twelfth century. Arrived at Rome, he became the friend of Adrian IV., an Englishman; and of his successor, Alexander III. For twenty years he was bishop of Poitou in France, and for ten more, archbishop of Lyons, and primate. It is said that he returned to England in 1194, being very old. He wrote vehemently against Becket in the controversies of that prelate with Henry II. When and where he died is uncertain.—T. J. <section end="525Mnop" />