Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/165

 FESSENDEN FESSLER 157 Napoleon received the command. He resumed his ecclesiastical functions when the first consul determined to reestablish in France the Cath- olic worship, and was active in the negotiations between Napoleon and Pius VII. which pre- pared for the concordat of July 15, 1801. The influence of his nephew made him archbishop of Lyons in 1802, and obtained a cardinal's hat for him in 1803. As ambassador of France at Rome in 1804, after conducting the negotia- tions, he accompanied Pius VII. on his way to Paris to crown the emperor. Many civil digni- ties and emoluments were subsequently con- ferred upon him, but in 1809 he declined the archbishopric of Paris, to which Napoleon, wishing to make some one of his family the head of the French clergy, nominated him. He was president of the council which sat in Paris in 1810, and also of the national council of 1811, called to consider the disagreement between Napoleon and the holy see concern- ing the nomination of bishops. In this capa- city he did not satisfy the e'mperor, and for a time he disappeared from court ; and he after- ward adhered to the pope, greatly to the dis- pleasure of his nephew. Upon the fall of Napoleon he retired to Rome, but was recalled to Paris during the hundred days. After the battle of Waterloo he lived in retirement in Rome. His collection of paintings, one of the largest ever brought together by a single per- son, was dispersed after his death. FESSENDEN, Thomas Green, an American au- thor and journalist, born in "Walpole, N. H., April 22, 1771, died in Boston, Nov. 11, 1837. He graduated at Dartmouth college in 1796, and studied law in Vermont, employing his leisure hours in writing humorous poems and other papers for the "Farmer's Weekly Mu- seum " of Walpole, then edited by Joseph Dennie. In 1801 he went to England as the agent for a newly invented machine, the failure of which to answer its purpose involved him in pecuniary difficulties. He produced in 1803 a poem entitled " Terrible Tractoration," in which the metallic tractors of Perkins are advertised, and the medical profession is sati- rized. It was successful in London, where it was published anonymously. It was repub- lished in New York in 1804, and again in 1806 in an enlarged form, under the title of "The Minute Philosopher." A third edition ap- peared toward the close of the author's life. He returned to America in 1804, and was en- gaged in various avocations till 1822, when he commenced the publication of the "New Eng- land Farmer," with which he remained con- nected during the remainder of his life. He also edited the "Horticultural Register" and the "Silk Manual," and contributed articles to a variety of journals. His remaining works cm* : " Original Poems," published in England and America ; " Democracy Unveiled " (1806) ; " American Clerk's Companion " (1815) ; " The Ladies' Monitor" (1818); and "Laws of Pat- ents for new Inventions " (1822). FESSENDEN, William Pitt, an American states- man, born in Boscawen, N. H., Oct. 16, 1806, died in Portland, Me., Sept. 8, 1869. He grad- uated at Bowdoin college in 1823, was admit- ted to the bar in 1827, and commenced practice in Bridgton, Me., but in 1829 removed to Port- land, where he soon attained eminence as a counsellor and advocate. He belonged to the whig party, was a member of the legislature of Maine in 1832 and again in 1840, and from 1841 to 1843 was a representative in congress. He was again in the legislature in 1845-' 6 and 1853-'4. In the latter year, although the legis- t lature was democratic in both branches, he was chosen, by a union of the whigs and freesoil democrats, United States senator, an office which he held almost uninterruptedly until his death. This election, brought about by the disturbing elements introduced by the Kansas- Nebraska question, was the preliminary step toward the establishment in Maine of the re- publican party, of which he was one of the chief organizers. In 1861 he was a member of the " peace congress." In July, 1864, he was appointed by President Lincoln secretary of the treasury, to succeed Salmon P. Chase ; but he resigned the position in 1865 to resume his seat in the senate. During his connection with this body he served as chairman of the finance committee and of the committee on public buildings and grounds, as a member of the committees on foreign relations and the library, as regent of the Smithsonian institu- tion, and as chairman of the special joint com- mission on reconstruction. He was the author of the report of the last named committee, rec- ommending an amendment to the constitution. On the impeachment trial of President Johnson, he was one of the few republican senators who voted for acquittal. He was an invalid during the later years of his life. FESSLER, Ignaz Anrelins, a Hungarian author, born in 1756, died in St. Petersburg, Dec. 15, 1839. He was a Capuchin friar, but was dis- missed from that order and became professor of oriental languages and hermeneutics in Lem- berg, where his tragedy of Sidney TV as performed in 1787. This being denounced as impious and revolutionary, he was obliged to flee, and re- paired to Silesia. He embraced Protestantism, and in 1796 went to Berlin, where he joined Fichte in reforming a lodge of freemasons. In 1809 he became professor of oriental languages and philosophy at St. Petersburg, but soon lost this office on account of his alleged atheistic doctrines. Subsequently he was Protestant bishop of Saratov, and from 1833 till his death was general superintendent and ecclesiastical councillor of the Lutheran community of St. Petersburg. He was often involved in difficul- ties, especially as member of a Russian official committee at Sarepta, where he was charged with wishing to convert the Moravian com- munity of that city into a Protestant organiza- tion similar to that of the Jesuits. His prin- cipal work is GescMchte der Ungarn und deren