Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume VII.djvu/171

 FEUILLANTS other hand, that being in which nature becomes conscious of itself, is man. . . . True, it fol- lows from my theory that there is no God, that is to say, no abstract being, distinct from na- ture and man, which disposes of the destinies of the universe and mankind at its discretion ; but this negation is only a consequence of the cognition of God's identity with the essence of nature and man." FEUILLANTS, a branch of the order of Cister- cians, founded in France in 1577 by Jean de la Barriere, abbot of the monastery of Feuillant, in the diocese of Rieux, Languedoc, for the stricter observance of the rules of St. Benedict, and declared independent by Sixtus V. in 1586. It received originally a very severe discipline, its members being obliged to go with naked head and feet, to sleep upon planks, and to eat on their knees. The rules were subsequently greatly relaxed, and the order spread over France and Italy. It was distinguished by the part which its members, especially the preach- er Bernard de Montgaillard, called Le petit Feuillant, took in the civil wars of France in the time of the league. After having been the centre of numerous agitations, the Feuillants of France were in 1630 separated from those of Italy. Their costume was a white robe with- >ut a scapular, and a white cowl. De la Bar- riere founded at the same time a female order of Feuillantes, whose convent was first near Toulouse, and afterward, by invitation of Anne of Austria, in Paris. The severe discipline to which the members of this order at first sub- jected themselves caused the death of many of them, and was reprimanded by the pope. The order lasted till 1790. In the French revolu- tion a club founded by Lafayette, Sieye"s, and others, at first called the company of 1789, and opposed to the Jacobins, was known as the Feuillants, from their meeting in a convent of the abolished order. In March, 1791, it was broken up by a mob. FEUILLET, Octave, a French novelist and dramatist, born in St. L6, La Manche, Aug. 11, 1812. He was educated in Paris in the col- lege of Louis-le-Grand, and in 1845 he wrote, under the pseudonyme of Desire" Hazard, in conjunction with Paul Bocage and Albert Aubert, a romance entitled Le grand meil- lard, published in the National. Since then he has written a large number of romances, comedies, dramas, and farces, nearly all of which have been received favorably. In 1862 he succeeded Scribe as a member of the French academy. He was afterward appointed libra- rian of the imperial residences, which position he held until the revolution of Sept. 4, 1870. Among his novels are: PolicUnelle (1846); Onesta (1848); Redemption (1849); BellaJi (1850); Le cheveu Uanc (1853); La petite comtesse (1856); Le roman d'un jeune homme pauvre (1858), which has been translated into many languages; Histoire de Sibylle (1862), scarcely less popular than the preceding ; and Monsieur de Camors (1867), a story remark- FEVER 163 able for invention and vigor, but regarded as exceedingly demoralizing in its tendencies. His plays include La nuit terrible (1845), Le bourgeois de Rome (1846), La crise (1848), Le pour et le centre (1849), Dalila (1857), Montjoye (1863), La belle au bois dormant (1865), Le caa de conscience (1867), Julie (1869), and Le Sphinx (1874), the last the most sensational of them all. He has written also, jointly with Paul Bocage, a number of other dramas, and has published several poems. FEVAL, Paul Henri Corentin, a French novelist, born at Rennes, Nov. 28, 1817. He belongs to an old legitimist family, studied law, but became a banker's clerk, and then a writer. His Mysteres de Londres (11 vols., 1844), some- what in the vein of Sue and Soulie", passed through many editions, and has been trans- lated into foreign languages. He has since published some 200 volumes, including Les amours de Paris (6 vols., 1845) ; Le Jils du diable (12 vols., 1846) ; Les belles de nuit (8 vols., 1850); Le bossu (12 vols., 1858); and Les tribunaux secrets (8 vols., 1864). English translations of some of his novels appeared in 1870. FEVER (Lat. febris, probably a transposition for ferbis, from fervere, to be hot), or Pyrexia (Gr. Trip%ic,, from Trvpicauv, to be feverish, de- rived from TrDp, fire), a morbid state character- ized especially, as the names denote, by an in- crease of the temperature of the body, generally together with acceleration of the circulation, loss of appetite, thirst, muscular debility, men- tal weakness, lassitude, and derangement of the functions of most of the important organs of the body. The significance of the term fever has been enhanced of late by the use of the thermometer placed either in the armpit or within some one of the outlets of the body. The thermometer shows morbid increase of the heat of the body in some cases when this is not apparent to the hand placed on the skin, and when the patient may have a sensation of coldness. During the so-called cold stage of an intermittent fever, the thermometer shows the heat of the body to be moderately raised. Fever may be said to exist whenever the heat of the body is raised above the maximum of health, namely, about 99 F. Fever is distin- guished as symptomatic when it is dependent upon a local inflammation; and it is said to be idiopathic, or essential, whenever it cannot be attributed to any local cause. A symptom- atic fever, as implied in the name, is only a symp- tom of disease ; it does not constitute per se the disease ; but an idiopathic or essential fever is reckoned as a disease. In the classification of diseases there are numerous fevers, which will be separately considered under the title FE- VERS, excepting measles, smallpox, plague, and a few others, which are treated under their own names. In both symptomatic and idiopathic fever the increase of temperature affords not only evidence of the existence of the febrile state, but a criterion of its intensity. The fever