Page:Imperialdictiona03eadi Brandeis Vol3b.pdf/526

VIL afterwards in the war with the Huguenots. In 1629-30 he distinguished himself in the Italian wars, and again in 1640. He was appointed governor of Pignerol and Casal in 1633; in 1646 he was nominated governor of Louis XIV., and in the same year obtained the baton of a marshal of France. In 1661 he was appointed chief of the council of finance, and in 1663 was elevated to the rank of duke. He preserved to the last the warm affection of the king, and transmitted it to his son , Duke and Marshal, who was born in 1643, and was educated along with Louis XIV. He was pre-eminent among the courtiers for his lofty stature, handsome countenance, and stately and somewhat haughty manners, and prided himself on the splendour of his dress, furniture, and equipages, and his reputation for gallantry. He was personally brave, but totally ignorant of military science; yet the favour of his sovereign advanced him to the highest position in the French army. The first engagement in which he took part was the battle of Neerwinden, fought in 1693; but inexperienced and incompetent as he was, the baton of a marshal was conferred upon him two years later, together with the command of the guards, left vacant by the death of Luxemburg. He was also appointed to succeed that great general in the conduct of the war in Flanders. An opportunity of exhibiting his incapacity and presumption soon presented itself. Early in the summer the allies laid siege to Namur, then esteemed the strongest fortress in Europe, into which the celebrated General Boufflers had thrown himself with a powerful force. Villeroy boasted that he would annihilate the army of Vaudemont, and then drive William from Namur, and great expectations of victory were entertained by Louis and his courtiers. But the marshal failed ignominiously in both operations. Vaudemont effected a skilful retreat, with scarcely any loss; and though Villeroy was at the head of eighty thousand men, he was forced to retreat, leaving Namur to its fate, revenging himself, however, for this check by barbarously bombarding the city of Brussels. In the following campaign he marched and countermarched, but avoided a battle, and the peace of Ryswick soon after released him from his responsible position. When the war of the Succession broke out, Villeroy was once more appointed to an important command, but his defeat by Prince Eugene at Chiari, 1701; at Cremona, 1702; at Vignamont, near Huy, 1705; and, above all, at Ramillies, 1706, where his presumption and incapacity cost the French twenty thousand men—showed the high price which France paid for the employment of a royal favourite instead of a skilful general. Villeroy retained, however, to the last the affection and confidence of Louis, and was appointed by him governor to his grandson and heir. The marshal insinuated himself into the good graces of the Regent Orleans, and was nominated a member of the council of the regency, and president of the council of finance, but was banished the court for a considerable time, on account of his intrigues. He spent the remaining years of his life principally at Lyons, the seat of his government, but died at Paris in 1730.—J. T.  VILLERS,, a French litterateur, was born at Boulay in Lorraine on the 4th November, 1767. He was educated with the Benedictines at Metz, and subsequently entered the, school of artillery. While lying in garrison at Strasburg, he became a convert to animal magnetism and the other mesmeric doctrines; but severer studies also occupied his leisure hours. He applied himself diligently to the study of the ancient tongues, particularly of Hebrew; wrote tragedies and pamphlets, the latter of which brought him into collision with the revolutionary fury of the time. He was consequently obliged to seek safety in flight, and after a good deal of wandering, settled at Lubeck in 1797. Here he seemed to have found a new country, so easily did he take up with the manners and institutions of the place. He became intimately acquainted with a set of Germans, who inoculated him with a passion for the transcendental philosophy, which he now resolved to introduce to the knowledge of his fellow-countrymen. But the invasion of Germany by the French soon made him think of other matters; and when the Hanseatic towns were united to the empire, he was arrested and cast into prison on a charge of treason. He was, however, soon set at liberty; and after another period of anxious wanderings, at length found a resting-place at Göttingen, where he became professor of French literature. In 1814 the government of Hanover ordered his return to France, but the hasty injunction was immediately revoked, and Villers allowed to retire wherever he chose, on a pension of four thousand francs. He returned to Göttingen, where he died of nervous fever on the 26th of February, 1815. Villers was once a very popular author, and well known in this country, but he is now in a great measure, and we might almost add, deservedly, forgotten. His principal works are—"Coup d'œil sur les universités et le mode d'instruction publique de l'Allemagne protestante—sur l'état actuel de la litterature anciènne et de l'histoire en Allemagne," &c., 1809; "Introduction pour l'Allemagne de Madame de Stael;" "Essai sur l'esprit et l'influence de la Réformation de Luther" (this work which obtained the prize of the French Institute in 1803, obtained also an immense popularity in protestant Europe); "Philosophie de Kant, ou principes fondamentaux de la philosophie transcendentale," Metz, 1801. The last-mentioned book was reviewed in an early number of the Edinburgh Review, by Dr. Thomas Brown, who seems to have taken it for an accurate exposition of the transcendental philosophy. De Quincey, however, remarks, perhaps with a certain characteristic degree of exaggeration, that it is "a book so entirely childish, that perhaps no mortification more profound could have fallen upon the reviewer, than the discovery of the extent to which he had been duped by his author." "Of this book," he adds, "no more needs to be said than that the very terms do not occur in it which express the hinges of the system."—(Letters to a Young Man, &c.)—R. M., A.  VILLIC,, a German scholar and medical writer, was a native of Resel in the Prussian province of Ermeland. He became a teacher of the humanities at the early age of fifteen at Frankfort-on-the-Oder, and was some years afterwards appointed professor of Greek and rector of the academy. Villic also lectured on medicine. He died of apoplexy in 1552, in the fifty-second year of his age. De Thou says his death took place at Frankfort, but in this he is mistaken; Villic having retired to the castle of Libussa to escape the plague, which was at that time ravaging the city. He was author of the following, among other works—"Compendium Artium;" "De formando studio in quolibet artium genere;" "Commentaria Anatomica;" "Consilia Medica;" "Observationes in Lactantium De Opiticio Dei;" "Expositio in Evangelia;" "Commentaria in Epistolas Pauli ad Timotheum," &c. Villic left a son who acquired a considerable reputation in medicine and philosophy, and died at Frankfort-on-the-Oder on 5th July, 1590.—R. M., A.  * VILLIERS,, president of the poor-law board, was born in London in 1802, and is the younger brother of the earl of Clarendon. He was educated at St. John's college, Cambridge, where he graduated B.A. in 1824. Mr. Villiers was called to the bar at Lincoln's inn in 1827, and was appointed in 1832 one of the examiners of witnesses in the court of chancery, an office which he retained for many years. He entered the house of commons in 1835 as member for Wolverhampton, and as an advanced liberal. He became the parliamentary champion of corn-law repeal, and made an annual motion on the subject, before the league had risen into prominence. In 1852 he was appointed judge-advocate general, and in 1859 president of the poor-law board. He had been, many years before, one of the commissioners of inquiry into the poor laws. In 1847, after the triumph of corn-law repeal, he was elected one of the members for South Lancashire, but he preferred to adhere to his old constituents, and still represents Wolverhampton.—F. E.  VILLIERS DE L'ISLE-ADAM,, forty-third grandmaster of the order of St. John of Jerusalem, was born in 1464. He belonged to the same family that produced Jean de Villiers de L'Isle-Adam, a marshal of France who played a conspicuous part in the first half of the fifteenth century, as a partisan of the Burgundians. He was admitted of the order of St. John in early youth; and after serving in various capacities, was chosen grandmaster on the death of Fabricius Carette in 1521. During his rule occurred the celebrated siege of Rhodes (1522) by Solyman II., called the Magnificent. The Turks had four hundred ships and two hundred thousand men. After an obstinate resistance, L'Isle-Adam was forced to capitulate and yield up the island to the infidel, to whom it has ever since belonged. The knights hospitallers sailed away from Rhodes on the 1st January, 1523. They fixed their headquarters for some time at Viterbo, where they enjoyed the favour of Clement VII.; but on the cession of Malta to them by Charles V. (12th March, 1530), they transferred themselves to that island, which has long been indelibly associated with their chivalric fame. 