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 BLOMFIELD BLONDEL 727 terest, including a Gothic cathedral, the epis- copal palace, the town house, and the ancient castle of the counts of Blois. It was early a place of importance, and during the middle ages was governed by counts descended from Hugh Capet, who also possessed the city of Ohartres. The last of them, Guy II., sold his feudal estate to Louis of Orleans, hrother of Charles VI., whose grandson, Louis XII., united it to the crown. The castle became a favorite resort of the princes of the house of Valois, and was enlarged and improved at various times until it was one of the handsomest palaces of the country. Francis I., Henry II., Charles IX., and Henry III. held their courts in it, and the states general of France were twice convened there during the reign of Henry III. : in 1576, when they repealed the edict of pacification, and the king, unable to oppose the league, declared himself its chief; and in 1588, when the same prince, fearing he might be deprived of his crown and perhaps his life through the intrigues of the Lorraine princes, had the duke of Guise murdered by his body guards in the antechamber of his own apartments, and the cardinal of Lorraine secretly despatched, a few few hours later, in a more secluded room. When Maria de' Medici was in 1617 exiled from the court, she resided, virtually as a prisoner, in this castle, whence 18 months later she es- caped through a high window. In 1814, on the approach of the allied armies to Paris, the empress Maria Louisa and the council of regency repaired for a while to this place. Afterward the castle was entirely neglected, and used as barracks for cavalry. During the later years of Louis Philippe's reign it was care- fully restored. Blois has several literary and scientific societies, a botanical garden founded by Henry IV., a public library, a departmental college, and a diocesan seminary, besides hos- pitals and other public institutions. It trades in wines, spirits, vinegar, staves, and licorice, and produces serges, hosiery, gloves, cutlery, and hardware. A handsome bridge of 11 arches, built in 1717, connects the town with the suburb of St. Gervais. The city is fur- nished with spring water through an old aque- duct believed to be of Roman origin. BLOMFIELD, Charles James, an English clergy- man and scholar, born at Bury St. Edmunds, | May 29, 1786, died in London, Aug. 5, 1857. ; He was educated at Trinity college, Cambridge, and in 1810-'12 edited the "Prometheus" and other plays of ^Eschylus. His edition of Cal- lirnacl.us appeared in 1824. He contributed largely to the Museum Criticum, and to the quarterly reviews, generally furnishing critical papers on classical subjects. He edited the Mmm Cantabriffiemes in conjunction with Ren- nel, and the "Posthumous Tracts" of Person in conjunction with Monk, afterward bishop of Gloucester. He also edited the Adversaria Portoni, and in 1828 compiled a Greek gram- mar for schools. In 1810 lie was appointed to the rectories of Warrington and Dunton ; in 1 1819 he was made a chaplain to the bishop of London; in 1824 he became bishop of Chester, and in 1828 bishop of London. He occupied that see for 28 years, and retired in September, 1856, on account of ill health, with a pension of 5,000 a year, and the use of the palace at Fulham for life. In parliament he maintained high church principles. He took great inter- est in measures for the relief of the poor and ! the improvement of the laboring classes, and advocated the general diffusion of education. Besides his classical publications, he was the author of a " Manual of Family Prayers " and " Lectures on the Acts of the Apostles." BLOMMAERT, Pliilip, a Flemish writer, born ia Ghent about 1809, died there, Aug. 14, 1871. , Possessed of a considerable fortune, he devoted himself to an attempt to revive Flemish liter- ature and the use of his native language. In pursuance of that object he published an edi- tion of the old Flemish poets of the llth, 12th, 13th, and 14th centuries, with glossaries, notes, and emendations, and afterward published a translation of the Nibelungenlied, in iambics. His best work, however, is a history of the Belgians. BLOND, Jacqnes Cbristophe le, a printer of en- gravings in colors, born in Frankfort-on-the- Main in 1670, died in a hospital in Paris in 1741. He was bred a painter, and in 1711 went to Amsterdam, where he met with great success in painting miniature portraits. He conceived the idea of an establishment to print engravings in colors, and spent the greater part of his life and all the means he could obtain upon experiments which were comparatively unsuccessful. He worked mainly in London and Paris, and, finding at last that he was not to obtain the brilliant results anticipated, turn- ed his attention to producing Raphael's cartoons in tapestry, in which he also failed for lack of means to finish his work. He is regarded as the inventor of printing in colors. BLONDEL, a French trouvere of the 12th century, born at Nesle, near Peronne, Picardy. He is generally regarded as the minstrel who was the friend, teacher, and companion of Richard Coaur de Lion in his expeditions. Ac- cording to a tradition, when Richard on his re- turn from the Holy Land was imprisoned by Leopold of Austria in the fortress of Diirren- stein, Blondel discovered the place of his cap- tivity by singing under the castle window a part of one of his familiar songs, the other part being taken up from within by the king. Blondel then went to England and caused the monarch to be ransomed. This story is con- firmed by the chronicles of Rheims of the 13th century, edited. by Alexis Paulin Paris (1836) ; but it does not seem to be corroborated by other authorities. The national and arsenal libraries of Paris contain 29 MS. songs, part of which are ascribed to the trouvere, and others to the French poet Robert Blondel, who died about 1461. Let auvres de Blond.el de Neele, I by Prosper Tarbfi (Rheims, 1862), contain a