Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume V.djvu/687

 DAPHNEPHORIA DARBOY 683 fragrant flowers closely attached to the shoots, is the earliest blooming shrub of our gardens, the blossoms appearing in the beginning of April, before the leaves expand. This species has a bad reputation, the berries being used in Sweden to poison wild animals, and a very few of them being fatal to man. The juice is acrid, and produces inflammation and even blisters upon the skin. The inner bark of D. lagetta, the lace tree of Jamaica, if macerated in water, is easily separated into thin layers, and has the appearance of lace. DAPHNEPHORIA (Gr. rfd^, laurel, and qipeiv, to bear), a Grecian festival celebrated every ninth year at Thebes, in honor of Apollo. A youth was chosen from one of the noble fami- lies of the city to be the daphnephorus or bear- er of the laurel bough, and the priest of Apollo for that year. Behind him came a troop of maidens bearing boughs and singing hymns. The Delphians also had a custom of sending a boy every ninth year to pluck laurel boughs in the vale of Tempe, in commemoration of the purification of Apollo in that place after he had slain the Python. DA PONTE. I. Lorenzo, an Italian poet, born at Oeneda, near Venice, March 10, 1749, died in New York, Aug. 17, 1838. After being for two years professor of rhetoric in the seminary of Porto Guaro, he removed to Venice, whence he was exiled for writing a satirical sonnet against Count Pisani, his competitor for an elec- tive office. His next abode was in Vienna, where he became Latin secretary to the empe- ror Joseph II. He now commenced writing for the Italian theatres of Vienna and Prague, and produced the librettos of a number of operas for Salieri, Martini, and Mozart, among which were Don Giovanni and Le nozze di Fi- garo. After the death of Joseph he went to London, and became poet and secretary of the Italian opera. In 1805 he removed to New York, and there taught Italian privately till 1828, when he was appointed professor of Italian in Columbia college. Besides various dramas, he is the author of memoirs of his own life, of a number of sonnets, and of translations into Italian of Byron's " Prophecy of Dante " and Dodsley's " Economy of Human Life," published in New York. II. Lorenzo L,, son of the preceding, professor of belles-lettres in the university of New York, born in London in 1805, died in New York in 1841. He is the author of a " History of the Florentine Repub- lic " (2 vols. 8vo, New York, 1833). DAPPES ( Vallee des Dappes), a valley about 4 m. long and 2 m. broad in the Swiss canton of Vaud, on the "W. slope of the Jura moun- tains, 4,000 ft. above the level of the sea. A small stream from which the valley takes its name meanders through it. It is inhabited by 100 or 150 herdsmen. Without value as a territorial possession, this valley has obtained some importance as the most available mili- tary route from France to Savoy. In 1802 France annexed it, but Switzerland recovered possession in 1814 and maintained it, although the treaty of Vienna did not stipulate for its relinquishment by France. On several occa- sions France endeavored to regain the valley, but was stoutly resisted by the Swiss confede- ration. In 1861 the arrest of a Frenchman by order of the Swiss authorities threatened to bring on a conflict between France and Switz- erland ; but in December, 1862, an agreement was concluded by which Switzerland ceded to France that part of the valley which contains the road to the Col de la Faucille, and received from France a district of equal size. DARABGERD, or Darab, a city of Persia, capi- tal of a district of the same name in the prov- ince of Farsistan, lat. 29 N., Ion. 54 20' E., 110 m. S. E. of Shiraz ; pop. about 15,000. It has manufactories of cloth, pottery, and car- pets, and refineries of rock salt from the neigh- boring mountains. It was formerly a town of some extent, and there are many remains of antiquity, including the ruins of an aqueduct, some sculptured rocks, and a caravansary hol- lowed in the heart of a mountain. The town is surrounded with date, orange, and lemon groves, and is situated at the foot of Mount Darakub, celebrated for producing mumia na- tiva, a liquid petroleum, believed by the Per- sians to possess miraculous healing power. D'ARBLAY, Madame. See ABBLAY, MADAME D'. DARBOY, Georges, a French prelate, born at Fayl-Billot, Haute-Marne, in 1813, shot in Paris, May 24, 1871. After completing his college course in the seminary of Langres, he was or- dained priest in 1836, and placed as assistant in the parish of St. Dizier. In 1839 he was appointed professor of mental philosophy in the diocesan seminary, and in 1841 of dog- matic theology. In 1845 he went to Paris, where his reputation caused him to be wel- comed by Archbishop Affre. He was appointed a chaplain of the college Henri IV., and sub- sequently named honorary canon of the me- tropolitan chapter. Archbishop Sibour gave him the direction of the Moniteur Caiholique^ made him first chaplain of the college Henri IV., and soon after honorary vicar general and superintendent of religious instruction in all the government schools of the archdiocese. In 1854 he accompanied the archbishop to Rome, where the pope bestowed upon him the rank of prothonotary apostolic. On his return to Paris he became titular vicar general, and in 1859 bishop of Nancy. In June, 1848, he had stood by the deathbed of his first protector in Paris, Archbishop Affre, shot down on the bar- ricades ; on Jan. 3, 1857, he had seen Arch- bishop Sibour assassinated in the midst of a solemn religious ceremony; and on Jan. 10, 1863, the emperor appointed him archbish- op of Paris. Among the changes which he wished to introduce, one was to do away with the jurisdictional privileges of the Jesuits, Carmelites, and other religious societies in his diocese, whose status he deemed not strictly canonical. This brought him into collision