Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume IV.djvu/382

 374 CHESTER CHEOPS the first to applaud the act, thus making himself still more obnoxious to the terrorists. While on a visit to Mme. de Pastoret at Passy, a commissary from the committee of public safety came to arrest that lady. Chenier inter- fered in her behalf, and was himself arrested and taken to the prison of St. Lazare. There he wrote some of his most bitter poems against the tyrants of the day ; at the same time that he composed for the countess de Coigny, one of his fellow prisoners, La jeune captive, a poem which alone would have been sufficient to commend his name to posterity. On July 25 he was arraigned before the revolutionary tri- bunal, and sent forthwith to the guillotine. He preserved his self-possession to the last, Buffering death with unfaltering courage. An edition of his poems was published in 1820, and various editions have since appeared. The idyls L 1 aveugle, La liberte, and Le jeune malade are considered his masterpieces. III. Marie Jo- seph, a French poet, brother of the preceding, born in Constantinople, Aug. 28, 1764, died in Paris, Jan. 10, 1811. After leaving college he was for two years an officer; but as early as 1783 he left the military service and de- voted himself to literature. His first attempts at tragedy were not successful ; but in 1789 he produced Charles IX., a play with marked re- publican tendencies, which hit the popular vein, and was received with great applause. Henri VIII. was performed in 1791, and was succeed- ed by La mort de Galas, both remarkable for pu- rity of style, but above all for democratic aspira- tions. He also produced the tragedies of Cains Gracchus, Timoleon, and Fenelon, which were proscribed on account of tlieir republican sen- timents. He was the author of the Chant du depart, which next to the Marseillaise is the most celebrated lyric of the revolution. He was chosen to the national convention in 1792, but, although siding with the montagne party, he was the first to oppose revolutionary ex- cesses. Ho was chosen president of the con- vention in 1795, and afterward became a mem- ber of the council of 500. The tragic end of his brother affected him deeply, notwithstand- ing their political differences. Discontinuing almost his contributions to the stage and his speeches on political subjects, he now confined his activity mainly to the subject of public education. In 1801 he published Discours sur les progres des connaissances en Europe, et de Venseignement public en France. From 1803 to 1806 he was inspector of public instruction, being at the same time a member of the tribu- nate. In 1806 and 1807 he delivered a series of historical lectures upon French literature. In 1808, Napoleon having requested the French institute to report upon the recent progress of French literature, the report was written by Ch6nier under the title of Tableau historique de Vetat et des progres de la litterature francaise depuis 1789, a work remarkable for extensive knowledge, soundness of criticism, and great im- partiality. His last performance was another report upon the decennial prizes. During all this time poetry had not been neglected ; he had written several satirical or philosophical epistles, the style of which is at once fervid and classic; the two most remarkable among the number being one addressed to Voltaire, and another Sur la calomnie, in which he repelled the calumnies hurled against him in conse- quence of his brother's death. He has left also several tragedies; one of them, Tibere, is pronounced his masterpiece. His complete works were published in 8 vols. 8voin 1823-'6, with notices by Daunou and Arnant. CHENONCEAIX, Castle of. See 1 J i.f.ufc. CHENOT, Claude Bernard Adrlen, a French en- gineer, born at Bar-sur-Aube in 1803, died in 1855. He entered the mining school in Paris in 1820, after which he was attached to the secretaryship of the department of bridges and roads, and superintended the working of the mines in Auvergne. In 1832 he invented an apparatus for the manufacture of metallic sponges, and afterward obtained sponges from the earthy minerals, as aluminum and calcium, which he made to enter into other combina- tions, especially with steel, to which he thus gave remarkable properties. Matter in the sponge state, he thought, is the greatest power to which the chemist can have recourse, and he sought to found upon it a new system of metallurgy. He made many experiments for the purification of combustibles and metals. CHEOPS, an ancient king of Egypt, who reigned several thousand years B. C. and built the first and largest pyramid. Diodorus calls him Chcmbes or Chemmis, but the name Cheops given to him by Herodotus has superseded all others, and is now universally applied to him and his pyramid. According to Herodotus, he was the first bad king of Egypt. He closed the temples and forbade the people to offer sacrifices, compelling them to labor in his ser- vice. He reigned 50 years, and was succeed- ed by his brother Cephren, who built the sec- ond pyramid. The Egyptians hated these kings as tyrants so much that even in the time of Herodotus they did not like to mention their names, but, as he says, " called the pyramids after Philition, a shepherd who at that time fed his flocks about the place." What this passage means modern scholars have not been able to determine. The most plausible conjec- ture is that the Egyptians had forgotten who built the pyramids, and ignorantly ascribed them to the foreign conquerors and tyrants called shepherd kings, though it is certain that they were built long before the shep- herd kings entered Egypt. Cheops has been identified by modern researches with the Snphis of Manetho (who ascribes to him a reign of 63 years) and the Shufu of the inscriptions; and his brother Suphis II. seems to have reign- ed conjointly with him and to have contributed to the building of the pyramid, in which they were both buried. The chamber in the great pyramid called the queen's chamber was in