Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IV.djvu/343

 CHATEAU-THIERRY CHlTELET 335 the principal mistress of Louis XV., who con- ferred upon her (Oct. 20, 1743) the title of duchess de Chateauroux, with a large domain and a pension of 80,000 francs. With her sister Mme. de Lauraguais she joined the king during the war of 1744, and notwithstanding the in- sults which were heaped upon her by the soldiers, she followed him to Lille, Ypres, Dun- kirk, and Metz, when the king during his ill- ness was prevailed upon to expel her igno- miniously from his presence. After his re- turn to Paris, she consented to be reconciled to him only on condition that her principal persecutors, including the bishop of Soissons and La Rochefoucauld, should be banished from Paris, and that the minister Maurepas, who had addressed her as the incestuous La Tournelle, should make a humble apology. Soon afterward she died suddenly, amid terri- ble convulsions, charging Maurepas with hav- ing poisoned her. She squandered immense amounts of public money, spent 1,200,000 francs upon her palace at Choisy, and dis- played great frivolity and recklessness in other respects. A collection of her letters was pub- lished in Paris in 1806, and Sophie Gay wrote a novel entitled Madame le duchease de Chd- teauroux (2 vols., 1834-'9). CHATEAU-THIERRY, a town of France, in the department of Aisne, on the right bank of the Marne, and on the Paris and Strasburg railway, 45 m. N. E. of Paris; pop. in 1866, 6,519. It is a pretty town, laid out in the form of an am- phitheatre, with handsome promenades, and united by a fine stone bridge with a suburb on the other side of the Marne. The church of St. Crispin resembles a fortress, and possesses great archaeological interest. La Fontaine was born here, and a marble statue has been erected to his memory. There are two medi- cinal springs in this town, which attract many visitors in summer. The manufactures are un- important, but the trade in agricultural pro- ducts, cattle, and wool is exceedingly active, the surrounding region being the most fertile of the ancient province of Champagne. The settlement and name of the town originated from a feudal castle built in 720 by Charles Martel as a residence for the youthful Thierry IV., of which vestiges are still visible. It was captured by the English in 1421, and by Charles V. in 1544; and Henri de Guise re- ceived a wound here in 1575 whence he was called le lalafre. A duchy since the 16th cen- tury, the town continued to be the capital of Brie-Champenoise till the revolution of 1789. A memorable battle was fought here Feb. 12, 1814, in which Napoleon defeated the Rus- sians and Prussians under Sacken. CHlTEL, Ferdinand Tonssaint Francois, abbe a French religious reformer, born at Gannat, Jan. 9, 1795, died in Paris, Feb. 13, 1857. His pa- rents were poor, and he was apprenticed to a tailor ; but his parish priest, pleased with the boy's religious zeal, defrayed the expenses of his education. He was ordained as a priest in 176 VOL. iv. 22 1818, and became vicar at Moulins and else- where, and afterward was chaplain in the army till about 1830. Having acquired celeb- rity as a preacher, and written in favor of theological reforms, he attempted in 1831 to found a new sect, based upon natural religion, venerating Christ only as a model man, doing away with the confessional, fasting, and vows of chastity, and substituting French for Latin in the liturgy. He was consecrated as the pri- mate of the so-called French Catholic church, which gained many adherents. He was not molested by the authorities till 1842, when his places of worship were closed. After the revo- lution of Feb. 24, 1848, he reopened them and came forward as a champion of women's rights. In 1850 the authorities again put an end to his public performances, but he remained faithful to his convictions to the last. He was em- ployed as a metropolitan postmaster in the latter part of his life. His principal publica- tions are, Profession de foi de Vegli&e catho- lique francaise (Paris, 1831), and Le code de Vhumanite, ou ISHurnanite ramenee d la con- naissance du vrai Dieu et au veritable socia- lisme (1838). CIllTEL, Jean, a French fanatic, born in Paris about 1575, executed Dec. 29, 1594. He was the son of a rich shopkeeper, and studied divinity under the Jesuits, and philosophy in the university of Paris. He regarded Henry IV. as a heretic who reigned without the sanction of the pope, and was impelled by religious fanaticism to stab him on Dec. 27, 1594, in the apartment of the royal palace occupied by Gabrielle d'Estrees, the king's mistress, inflicting a slight wound with a knife upon the upper lip of the king and knocking out one of his teeth. Though it was believed that he had been instigated by the Jesuits, who were consequently for a short time expelled from Paris, he declared to the last, and while he was undergoing torture, that he had acted entirely of his own accord. His remains were mutilated and dragged through the streets alter his execution. A colossal pyramid was erected on the site of the house which he had inhabited, as an expiatory memorial of his crime; but it was subsequently demolished upon the demand of Pere Cottin, who regarded the inscription upon it as disparaging to the society of Jesus. CHATELET (Lat. Castellucium), the name of two fortresses which existed in Paris in former times, said to have been built by Julius C- sar. The Grand Chatelet was restored and enlarged by Louis IX., Charles VIII., and Louis XII., remodelled by Louis XIV., and demol- ished in 1802. It stood on the right bank of the Seine, in the locality now occupied by the western part of the place du Chatelet. It was the residence of the counts and afterward of the provosts of Paris, and became celebrated as a prison and as an important seat of the judi- ciary. At the time of the suppression of the latter in 1790, the court contained, from the