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 PRADIER tions in the 12th and 16th centuries finally ex- tinguished the importance of the place. PRADIER, Jean Jacques, a French sculptor, born in Geneva, May 23, 1792, died near Paris, June 4, 1852. He belonged to a family which had left France after the revocation of the edict of Nantes, was sent to Paris while yet a boy, studied under the sculptor Lemot, and received from Napoleon a small pension. He gained a gold medal when 21 years of age, and the next year obtained by his " Philoctetes at Lemnos " the great prize of sculpture, which entitled him to a residence of four years in Italy at the expense of the government. At the exhibition of 1819 a gold medal was awarded to him, and in 1827 he was elected a member of the academy of fine arts, to fill the seat left vacant by his master Lemot. Among the most admired of his works are " Psyche," the " Three Graces," " Oyparissus," " Venus and Cupid," "The Bacchant? and the Satyr," "Phryne," La poesie legere and the two muses which adorn the fountain of Moliere in Paris, " In- dustry "in the Paris exchange, "Liberty" in the former chamber of deputies, " Phidias " in the Tuileries garden, and statues of saints in several Paris churches. PRADT, Dominique Dnfonr, abbe de, a French author, born at Allanches, Auvergne, April 23, 1759, died March 18, 1837. On the break- ing out of the revolution he was vicar general of the archbishop of Rouen, was elected by the clergy of Normandy deputy to the states gen- eral, sided with the royalists in the constituent assembly, and in 1791 fled to Hamburg, where in 1798 he published anonymously a pamphlet entitled V Antidote au congres de Rastadt, ou Plan d>un nouvel equilibre europeen. In an- other anonymous tract, La Prusse et sa neu- tralite (1800), he urged a coalition of Europe against the French republic. He returned to France in 1801, when his Trois dges des colonies (3 vols. 8vo) appeared. Through the means of his relative Gen. Duroc, he was, in De- cember, 1804, appointed almoner to the em- peror, received the title of baron, and became bishop of Poitiers. In 1808 he accompanied Napoleon to Bayonne, was instrumental in bringing about the abdication of Charles IV. of Spain, and was rewarded by a handsome gratuity and the archbishopric of Mechlin. In 1812 he was appointed minister at Warsaw ; but having failed to fulfil the intentions of the emperor, he was disgraced, deprived of his of- fice of grand almoner, and sent to his diocese. On the invasion of France by the combined armies of Europe, he hastened to Paris to join the Bourbons, and after the battle of Waterloo published his Histoire de V amlassade dans le grand duche de Varsovie en 1812, in which he violently denounced the conduct of the ex-em- peror, and which passed through nine editions. His zeal for the Bourbons however was received with coolness, and having been obliged to resign his archbishopric, in which he had not been confirmed by the pope, he retired to his estate PR^ENESTE 799 in Auvergne, and published a number of po- litical works of no permanent importance. He was elected to the chamber of deputies by the department of Puy-de-D6rne in 1827, but re- signed in 1828, and died in obscurity. PRAED, Winthrop Mackworth, an English poet, born in London in 1802, died July 15, 1839. He was educated at Eton and at Trinity col- lege, Cambridge, obtaining an unprecedented number of prizes for Greek odes and epigrams, and for English poems. He graduated in 1825, was called to the bar in 1829, and in 1830 and 1831 was returned to parliament for St. Ger- main in Cornwall as a conservative. In 1834 he was appointed secretary of the board of control, and in 1835 he was returned for Great Yarmouth. He was afterward member for Aylesbury and recorder of Barnstaple. His sister, Lady Young, prepared a complete edi- tion of his poetical works, with a memoir by the Rev. Derwent Coleridge (2 vols., 1864). PRJUNESTE (now Palestrina), an ancient city of Latium, on a spur of the Apennines, 23 m. E. S. E. of Rome. It is first mentioned in history in the list of cities of the Latin league given by Dionysius. Its great power, arising partly from its almost impregnable position, gave it importance in the early wars of Italy. Originally opposed to Rome, it formed an al- liance with that republic about 499 B. C., but a century later became engaged in a war with it. In 380 its inhabitants marched to the gates of Rome, and were routed with great slaughter on the banks of the Allia by T. Quintius Cin- cinnatus, who took eight towns subject to Prteneste, and compelled the city to submit. In 340 Praeneste was a conspicuous member of the Latin league against Rome ; but the defeat of the combined forces by L. Camillus at Pe- dum in 338 put an end to the war, and by the terms of the peace which followed the city was deprived of a part of its territory. It re- tained a nominal independence until the end of the social war, when the inhabitants re- ceived the Roman franchise. During the civil war between Marius and Sulla it was one of the chief places in the hands of the Marian party. Sulla captured it, massacred the in- habitants, demolished its fortifications, and planted a military colony on its territory. Du- ring the empire it was a place of summer resort for the Romans, and was also much visited on account of its temple of the goddess Fortune, the seat of a favorite oracle. Its answers were made by the sortes Prcenestince, consisting of sticks of oak inscribed with ancient characters, which being shaken up, one was drawn for the person consulting the goddess. During the mid- dle ages Prameste was the stronghold of the Colonna family. It was taken by Pope Bom- face VIII., who dismantled the fortifications and razed the buildings to the ground, rebuilt in 1307, and resisted an attack ot Ri- enzi, but in 1436 was captured by Cardinal Vitelleschi, who in 1437 destroyed it. In 1< it was again rebuilt by the Colonnas. In 1(