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LAU became a most merciless persecutor of the covenanters; made unsparing use of the sword, the halter, and the boot; and was deeply implicated in all the arbitrary and unconstitutional acts of the government at this period. In 1672 he was created Duke of Lauderdale and knight of the garter, and two years later he was elevated to the English peerage by the title of Earl of Guildford, and obtained a seat in the English privy council. He was a member of the infamous Cabal, and was probably the most dishonest man of that notorious conclave. After the overthrow of the cabal government he still remained sole minister for Scotland, and carried out with relentless severity the savage measures of Charles and his counsellors. His habitual debauchery, too, and corruption, exercised a most deteriorating influence on his character; and his second wife, Lady Dysart, a woman of great beauty, spirit, and accomplishments, but venal, rapacious, and extravagant, contributed greatly to degrade his character and government in public estimation. The great offices of state were monopolized by his creatures, and vast sums were extorted from the nonconformists to supply the profusion of his duchess and satisfy her ravenous greed for money. His arbitrary and rapacious conduct, combined with his sale of public offices and tampering with the courts of law, excited a strong opposition against him in the parliament and the country, but the favour of the king maintained him firmly in his post. His grace at length lost the favour of the duke of York, who thought he had not shown sufficient energy in persecuting the covenanters. Increasing disease and infirmity, aggravated by intemperance, incapacitated him for business; and in July, 1682, he was deprived of all his offices and pensions. He closed his flagitious career on the 24th of August following, detested by the nation, and ill-used even by his haughty and rapacious wife. Lauderdale was a man of great natural ability and extensive learning. Bishop Burnet says he was thoroughly versant not only in Latin, but in Greek and Hebrew. He had read a great deal of divinity, and almost all the historians, ancient and modern. He was haughty beyond expression; abject to those he saw he must stoop to, but imperious to all others. He had a violence of passion that carried him often to fits like madness. He frequently spoke with coarse ribaldry of the days when he was a covenanter and a rebel; but his opinions continued unchanged, and he retained to the day of his death his preference for the presbyterian system. His personal appearance was extremely unprepossessing. "He was very big," says Burnet; "his hair red, hanging oddly about him; his tongue was too big for his mouth, and his whole manner was rough and boisterous."—J. T.  LAUDON,, Baron von, a famous Austrian general, was of Scotch extraction, and was born in Trolzen in Livonia in 1716. He entered the Russian army at the age of fifteen, was present at the taking of Dantzic in 1733, and afterwards served three campaigns under Count Munich against the Turks. But having been disappointed in his expectations of preferment he changed into the Austrian service, in which he gradually attained the highest rank and performed many brilliant exploits. His most important services were performed during the Seven Years' war, in which he proved himself a worthy antagonist of the great Frederick. He defeated that monarch in the great battles of Hochkirchen, 14th October, 1758; Kunnersdorff, 12th August, 1759; and Landshut, 23d June, 1760, which was followed by the surrender of the important fortress of Glatz. Schweidnitz was subsequently taken by him, October 1, in a night attack planned and executed with consummate skill and gallantry. He was defeated, however, by Frederick at the battle of Liegnitz, 15th August, 1760. At the peace of 1763 Laudon was rewarded for his services with the dignity of a baron and a pension. Three years after he was appointed a member of the Aulic council; in 1777 he was elected a member of the equestrian order of the empire; and in 1778, when the war with Bavaria broke out, he was made field-marshal and commander-in-chief of the Austrian army. In the war between Turkey and Austria in 1788, Marshal Laudon was again appointed to the chief command, and took the important fortress of Belgrade by storm in 1789. As a reward for this achievement he was appointed generalissimo of the whole Austrian army—an honour which had been conferred on no person since the time of Prince Eugene. Laudon died in 1790. The most striking feature in his character was his remarkable presence of mind, combined with cool and daring intrepidity.—J. T.  LAUNAY,, an eminent protestant commentator, was born at Blois in 1573, and died at Paris in 1661. In early life he was occupied in civil affairs, and was counsellor secretary to the king. About 1613 he renounced his secular duties, and devoted himself with ardour to the study of Hebrew and other branches of learning. His labours upon the scriptures were continued till he reached the age of eighty-nine. He took part in the business of the reformed church, of which he was a member and an elder. He published paraphrases and expositions of several books of the Bible, the most remarkable of which is his "Remarques sur le texte de la Bible," printed first in 1667; he also wrote in opposition to the millennarians.—B. H. C.  LAUNEY,, governor of the Bastile, was born at Paris in 1740; massacred there, 14th July, 1789. He was born in the Bastile, of which his father was also governor. On the 14th July, when the Bastile was attacked, Launey had only eighty-two pensioners and thirty-two Swiss to resist the surging multitude. He refused to capitulate, and even—so says M. Thiers—attempted to blow up the magazine, but was stopped by two of his officers. When the place was taken, he was led off to the Hotel de Ville; five of his men protecting him to the best of their power. At the Place de Grève his defenders were forced away, and Launey died fighting like a lion single-handed against the French revolution. His head was placed on a pike and promenaded before the electors.—P. E. D.  LAUNOI,, a voluminous writer on theological, critical, and other subjects, born in Normandy in 1603; died at Paris in 1678. After studying for some time at Coutances, he went to Paris, where in 1636 he became doctor in theology. The fathers and early writers of the church were his great attraction, and to them he devoted his attention. On a journey to Rome he made the acquaintance of Lucas Holstenius and Leo Allatins, and at Paris he was intimate with Father Sirmond and other distinguished men. In 1636 he published his first book, "Syllabus Rationum," &c., in which he seeks to show that Durand was probably right in teaching that God does not immediately concur in the bad deeds of men. In 1644 he wrote a dissertation on some questions connected with the council of Trent, and in 1653 another of a similar character. The same year he published a work in which he shows how varied was the estimation in which Aristotle had been held at Paris. He also wrote to prove that Victorinus was never bishop of Poitiers, and other treatises of a similar nature, among which probably the most worthy of note is that in which he demolishes the tradition that Dionysius the Areopagite was the founder of a church at Paris. Some of these publications involved him in controversy, and rendered him obnoxious to certain members of the clergy. His exposition of the sixth Nicene canon was attacked by Adrien de Valois; and his essay on the author of the Imitation of Christ, by Father Fronteau. In the former he maintained that the bishop of Rome is simply compared with the bishop of Alexandria; and in the latter he defended the opinion that Gerson and not À Kempis was the author of the book in question. Many other writings proceeded from his pen, most of them on matters exclusively interesting to the Romish church. A very full account of them may be seen in Dupin, who has very candidly analyzed most of them. De Launoi was a man of much industry and learning, frank and honest in his criticisms, and notwithstanding the opposition he encountered, very much respected in his time.—B. H. C.  LAURA, the heroine of the sonnets of Petrarch, was the daughter of Audibert de Noves, syndic of Avignon, where, or at Avignon, she was born in 1307 or 1308. At seventeen she was married to Hugues de Sade, of an old family of Avignon. Fascinating, though calm and prudent, she became one of the chief ornaments of the papal court at Avignon; and there, two years after her marriage, on the 6th of April, 1327, in the church of Santa Clara, Petrarch first saw the young Laura. Her treatment of the poet seems never to have been of a kind to provoke scandal, and his love for her survived her personal beauty. After having originated the most beautiful love-poetry in the Italian or any language, she died, a faithful wife and the mother of eleven children, in 1348, on the anniversary of the day on which Petrarch had first seen her. Her biography was for the first time satisfactorily elucidated by the Abbé de Sade, in his Memoires pour la vie de Petrarque, 1764-67. One of the best sketches of Laura, her person, character, and career, is contained in Ugo Foscolo's Essays on Petrarch, 1823.—F. E.  LAURENCE or LAWRENCE,, the son of a 