Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume II.djvu/537

 BENDER BENEDETTI 517 royal palace there ; and the paintings he exe- cuted are among the best of his works. In 1859 he was made director of the academy at Diisseldorf, which position he still holds (1873). He has produced a very great numher of re- markable and celebrated works, besides the frescoes with which he lias decorated public buildings in Germany. BENDER (Kuss. Bendary), a fortified town of Russia, capital of a district in the province of Bessarabia, on the right bank and about 48 m. from the mouth of the Dniester, 35 m. S. E. of Kishenev ; pop. in 1869, 24,443, including Jews, Russians, Tartars, Armenians, and Moldavians. The town is partly built in the shape of a cres- cent, and is separated from the strong citadel, which stands on an eminence, by a large space with a mound, called after Suvaroft'. There are seven gates and several suburbs, and the small houses and numerous hovels extend far into the surrounding steppe. The streets are dirty and gloomy, and the town generally has an oriental aspect, enhanced by many mosques, which with one exception are now appropriated to secular purposes. The natives are mostly occupied in agriculture and grazing. Salt- petre, leather, and paper are manufactured to some extent. The Russians are the most industrious. The chief language is Rouma- nian. The transit business with Odessa, Jas- sy, and other places is very active, the prin- cipal trade being in grain, wine, wool, cat- tle, tallow, and timber. The Genoese had a settlement here as early as the 12th century, but the town does not seem to have been thoroughly established till the 14th century. In the 16th it passed with Moldavia into the hands of the Turks, who built the fortifications. After the battle of Poltava (July 8, 1709) Charles XII. escaped to Bender, and was per- mitted by the Turkish authorities to reside for several years in the neighboring village of Varnitza. The Russians under Panin stormed and burned the town Sept. 26, 1770, and mas- sacred the garrison and the inhabitants, killing about 30,000. The treaty of peace of 1774 restored the town to Turkey. It was again taken by the Russians under Potemkin, Nov. 15, 1789 ; but the Turks were once more re- instated till 1806, when Meyendorff retook the place, and in 1812 it was by the treaty of Bucharest united to Russia together with the rest of Bessarabia. BENDISH, Bridget, the granddaughter of Oli- ver Cromwell of England, and the daughter of Gen. Ireton, born about 1650, died in 1727. In her early years she lived at Cromwell's court, and was present at the audiences he gave to foreign ambassadors. She bore a wonderful resemblance to the protector, physically and morally ; her energy was immense ; she would work for days together without sleeping; had uncommon conversational powers ; was liable to periodic attacks of religious ecstasy ; and managed her salt works at Southtown, in Nor- folk, with great exactness. She could never bear to hear her grandfather evil spoken of, and one day when travelling in the stage coach a tory squire so committed himself, not know- ing in whose presence he was; she jumped out at the next stage, snatched a sword from another fellow passenger, and challenged the royalist gentleman to a duel. She would some- times drive her carriage into Yarmouth, and spend an evening at the assembly rooms in that city, where her princely manners, venerable aspect, and imposing energy of voice and man- ner recalled the protector. A memoir of her by a local physician has been preserved, and translated into French by Guizot. BENEDEK, Lndwig von, an Austrian soldier, born at Oedenburg, W. Hungary, in 1804. He is the son of a physician, studied at the milita- ry academy of Neustadt, near Vienna, entered the army as a cornet in 1822, and rose to the rank of lieutenant colonel in 1843. He fought against the insurgents in Galicia in 1846, against the Italians in 1848, and in 1859 commanded at Solferino the left wing of the Austrian army, which was the last to leave the field. In 1860 he became field marshal and governor general of Hungary, in November of the same year com- mander-in-chief in Italy, and in 1 866 in the war with the Prussians, by whom he was crush- ingly defeated at Sadowa, July 3. He was superseded by the archduke Albert, under whom he served till October, when he was put on the retired list, his disastrous generalship against the Prussians destroying his reputation. BENEDETTI, Vincent, count, a French diplo- matist, born in Corsica about 1815. He is of Greek origin, and the husband of a wealthy Greek lady, was French consul in Cairo and Palermo, secretary of legation in Constanti- nople, director of the political department in the ministry of foreign affairs, and secretary during the negotiation of the treaty of Paris (1856). His acquaintance with Count Cavour led to his being sent in 1860 to Turin to ne- gotiate the final cession of Savoy and Nice to France ; and he was ambassador there in 1861-'2. In 1864 he was appointed ambassador to Ber- lin, and was made a count in 1869. In 1870 he was ordered to protest against the candi- dature of Prince Leopold of Ilohenzollern for the throne of Spain. The Prussian cabinet rejected this protest July 4, upon which Ben- edetti appealed in person to the king of Prussia at Ems on July 9, and again on July 11, but the king declined to interfere. The prince of Hohenzollern voluntarily withdrew from the candidature July 12. Benedetti was neverthe- less instructed to insist upon King William's apologizing to Napoleon III. for having sanc- tioned it, and upon his pledging himself against its renewal ; and although Count Bismarck de- clined to entertain this demand, the French envoy importuned the king personally in the public walks at Ems July 13, in a manner so displeasing that he was informed that no further interviews would be granted to him. He there- upon left Ems (July 14) for Paris, and war