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 LARKSPUR LA ROCHEFOUCAULD 173 to the south in the early part of September. The song of the males on the wing is very sweet, though comparatively short. The food consists of seeds, insects, and larvae, and minute crustaceans on the seashore. Birds of the fam- ily sylvicolidce, of the genus anthus (Licht.), generally called larks, will be described under TITLARK; the red-breasted and meadow larks are starlings, of the family icteridcB, and will be noticed under STARLING and MEADOW LARK. LARKSPUR. See DELPHINIUM. LARNAKA, or Larnica (anc. Citium), the prin- cipal seaport town of the island of Cyprus, 23 m. S. E. of Nicosia ; pop. about 10,000. In the lower town are the bazaars and the houses of the commercial classes, and in the upper town are a cathedral and a convent. Between these two parts are gardens and some relics of antiquity. Larnaka is filthy, like most Le- vantine towns, and the climate is unhealthy. The exports in 1872 were valued at 26,189, about one half madder, and the rest rags, cot- ton, sheep and goat skins, barley, and sumach. LARNED, Sylvester, an American clergyman, born in Pittsfield, Mass., Aug. 31, 1796, died in New Orleans, Aug. 31, 1820. He received his collegiate education at Middlebury, Yt., studied theology at Princeton, N. J., and was ordained in July, 1817. His earliest efforts showed rare gifts of eloquence. In the autumn and winter following his ordination he pro- ceeded to New Orleans by the way of Detroit, Louisville, and the Mississippi river, preaching whenever opportunity offered during the three months occupied in the journey. At New Orleans his eloquence made a profound im- pression. A church was soon organized, and a congregation collected, over which he was settled as pastor, and a large church edifice erected. In the summer of 1820 the yellow fever broke out with unusual violence, and he was urgently entreated to seek safety in flight ; but he refused to desert the post of duty, and fell a sacrifice to his fidelity. A memoir of his ife, with a collection of his sermons, was pub- " 'ied in 1844 by the Rev. R. R. Gurley. LA ROCHEFOUCAULD, Francois, duke de, prince of Marsillac, a French author, born in Paris, Dec. 15, 1613, died March 17, 1680. He was boyhood withdrawn from school to enter le military service, and at the age of 16 was igaged as an officer at the siege of Casale. )f a naturally timid, irresolute, and melancholy laracter, as he himself has recorded, and un- itted to be a political partisan, he was imme- diately involved in the intrigues which distract- ed the court. His father was banished to Blois in 1632 for some connection with the revolt )f Gaston of Orleans, and he himself shared his die, being suspected of hostility to Cardinal Richelieu on account of his intimacy with the friends of Queen Anne of Austria. At Tours he met in 1637 the duchess de Chevreuse, then in correspondence with the queen and the Spanish court. He entered with zeal into the intrigues against the cardinal; obtained per- mission to return to Paris at the moment when the queen, accused of communications with Spain, was subjected to a sort of judicial ex- amination ; and, in his devotion to her, accept- ed her proposal to guide her and Mile. d'Haute- f ort in flight to Brussels. He had made prepa- rations for this purpose, when he was discov- ered to have favored the flight of the duchess de Chevreuse into Spain, and was thrown into the Bastile. Released after eight days, he went into retirement at Yerteuil, where he lived as a country gentleman, at the same time corre- sponding with the enemies of Richelieu and participating in the projects of Cinq-Mars and De Thou. He returned to the court after the death of the cardinal (1642), and was received with kindness, but, being unrewarded by the queen and Mazarin, showed his resentment by attaching himself to the duke d'Enghien and forming a liaison with his sister, the duchess de Longueville, his devotion to whom for sev- eral years was merely a matter of interest and calculation. In the wars and intrigues of the Fronde he served the party of the parliament, in the defence of Bordeaux (1650), and in the faubourg St. Antoine of Paris, and on the con- clusion of peace abandoned the pursuits of am- bition for a life of repose and reflection. He described his occupations thus far as a " busi- ness for fools and wretches, with which honor- able and well-to-do persons should not mingle." To his relations with Mme. de Longueville suc- ceeded the friendship of Mme. de Sable", Mme. de S6vigne, and Mme. de Lafayette; and his house became a resort of those most distin- guished for wit and culture, including Boileau, Racine, and Moli6re. The first fruit of his leisure was his Memoires (Cologne, 1662; 3<J ed., 1664), which are among the most interest- ing records of the intrigues against Richelieu and of the period of the Fronde. Three years later he published his Reflexions, ou Sentences et maximes morales, a volume of 150 pages containing 360 detached thoughts; the first book, according to Voltaire, written in Europe after the revival of letters in a lively, precise, and delicate style, and which contributed more than any other to form the taste of the French nation. The fundamental and pervading thought, that self-love is the motive of all human actions, is presented under such various aspects and with so much acuteness of obser- vation, that every maxim is piquant and sug- gestive, though few of them may be true. Though his philosophy is not metaphysical, but founded on the ways of the world, and though his statements are rarely absolute, but applied only to the usual conduct of the greater number of persons, yet his persistent reduction of vir- tues into disguised vices justifies Rousseau in pronouncing it a " sad book." The only thing, La Rochefoucauld says, that is really injurious and justly condemned by men, is not vice, but crime. The Maximes passed through five edi- tions in the lifetime of the author, and have been frequently republished. An excellent