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 670 CLERC CLERGY its height in the vase marked the hour. Clep- sydras were in use in Egypt under the Ptole- mies, and a great improvement in them was made by Ctesibius, a mathematician of Alex- andria, about 235 B. C. In his instrument the water was made to drop upon wheels which were thereby turned, and the motion was com- municated to a small statue, which gradually rose and pointed with a rod toward the hours marked on a diagram. Clepsydras measured the time allowed for speakers in courts of jus- tice, and they are frequently referred to in the writings of Aristophanes, Aristotle, Plato, De- mosthenes, Cicero, and Pliny, like the sands of the hour glass in modern literature. Soon after the decline of Rome they were spread throughout Europe, but their use was aban- doned after the invention of pendulum clocks. At the beginning of the 9th century Charle- magne received a magnificent clepsydra as a present from the caliph Haroun al-Rashid. The fact that the quantity of water escaping from the orifice varies according to the height of the column and the shape of the vase fur- nishes a difficult mathematical problem, which occupied the most skilful geometers of the 18th century. For its solution Bernoulli received a prize from the French academy of sciences. CLERC, Laurent, a deaf mute, one of the founders and teachers of the asylum for the deaf and dumb at Hartford, Conn., born at La Balme, department of Isere, France, Dec. 26, 1785, died in Hartford, July 18, 1869. In his infancy he fell into the fire, when his head and face were badly burned, and his parents attribu- ted the loss of hearing and smell to this mis- fortune. At the age of 12 his uncle took him to Paris, and placed him in the institution for the deaf and dumb. The abbe Sicard, though nominally its director, was then in prison for his alleged hostility to the republic ; but Jean Massieu, himself a deaf mute, became his teacher till the release of Sicard, when he be- came a favorite pupil of the abb6, and made such rapid progress that in 1805, after eight years' instruction, he was appointed tutor, and in 1806 a salaried teacher. His apti- tude for teaching was such that in a few years the abbe confided to his charge the high- est class in the institution, which he taught with great success. In 1815, while on a visit to England, he formed the acquaintance of the Rev. Dr. Gallaudet, whom he accompanied in 1816 to the United States. In 1817 they opened the American asylum for the deaf and dumb at Hartford, and Clerc contributed much to the success of this institution, from which he retired on a pension in 1858, after having been a teacher of deaf mutes for more than 50 years. The greater part of the teachers sent to other institutions for the deaf and dumb from this asylum received their training at his hands. He married in 1819 Miss Boardman, a pupil of the asylum, and like himself a deaf mute. Their children all speak and hear. The eldest son became an Episcopal clergyman. CLERC, Jean Le. See LE CLERC. CLERFAYT, or Clalrfatt, Francois Sebastlen Charles Joseph de Crolx, count de, an Austrian general, born at Bruille, in the Low Countries, Oct. 14, 1733, died in Vienna, July 18, 1798. He en- tered the Austrian army at the age of 20, dis- tinguished himself in the seven years' war and in that of the Bavarian succession, and in 1773 became a major general. He was afterward made chamberlain, but rarely showed himself at court, being opposed to the innovations of Joseph II. and to the measures which led to the troubles in the Netherlands in 1787. In l788-'9, as lieutenant field marshal, he com- manded an army corps on the lower Danube, successfully operating against the Turks, who threatened the banat of Temesvar and Transyl- vania, and subsequently aiding Marshal Lau- don in the taking of Belgrade. In 1792 he com- manded the Austrian contingent in the war with France, made himself master of Stenai, and compelled the retreat of Dumouriez. After the battle of Jemmapes he conducted the suc- cessful retreat to Mons. In 1793 he distin- guished himself at Aldenhoven, Maestricht, and Neerwinden, but was defeated at Wattignies. In the campaign of 1794, at the head of a corps of observation in West Flanders, he acted on the defensive against Pichegru, and was repeat- edly beaten. Succeeding the prince of Coburg in the chief command in the Austrian Nether- lands, he met with new defeats, and was com- pelled to recross the Rhine. In 1795 he was made field marshal, with command of the troops on the Rhine, defeated Jourdan, and stormed the intrenchments of the French before Mentz, compelling them to raise the siege of that city ; and on Dec. 21 he concluded an advantageous armistice with the French republic. He was recalled to Vienna in January, 1796, and hon- ored with the collar of the golden fleece and made councillor of state ; but his command was given to the archduke Charles. CLERGY (Gr. /c/t^pof, lot, portion, heritage), a collective term commonly applied to all per- sons consecrated to the service of the church, because they are metaphorically said to be the portion or heritage of the Lord, as was the tribe of Levi under the Mosaic dispensation. Some, however, suppose that the term relates to the lot by which Matthias was selected to be an apostle ; and others suppose it to be used as a technical term, simply denoting rank or degree. Among the Hebrews, Egyptians, and other an- cient nations, a certain class of persons were set aside for the celebration of religious wor- ship, and the Christian church from its very birth had its appointed pastors, or even, as the Roman Catholics and other episcopal denomi- nations hold, its three clerical orders of bish- ops, priests, and deacons. Although the dis- tinction between clergy and laity was perhaps not so strongly marked at first as it afterward became, the separation of ecclesiastics from ordinary secular affairs, and the appropriation of means for their support, dates from a very