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 SARDIS and Nice, the Sardinian states extended over an area of nearly 30,000 sq. m., with a popu- lation of about 6,000,000. The origin of the kingdom datea from the negotiations which followed the treaties of Utrecht and Eastadtj and resulted in the quadruple alliance of Aug. 2, 1718. Victor Amadeus II. of Savoy, who assumed the title of king of Sardinia in 1720, resigned in 1730 in favor of his son Charles Einanuel III., but soon made an ineffectual at- tempt to recover the crown, and died a pris- oner in 1732. Sardinia received numerous ad- ditions under Charles Emanuel III. His son Victor Amadeus III., who succeeded him in 1773, was finally overpowered by Napoleon in 1796, shortly before his death, and obliged to surrender Savoy and Nice to France. His son Charles Emanuel IV. was forced in 1798 to retire to the island of Sardinia; Piedmont was annexed to France, Sept. 11, 1802, and until 1814 continental Sardinia remained part of that empire. On his abdication in June, 1802, he was succeeded by his brother Victor Eman- uel I., who was restored in 1814, and reestab- lished absolutism. Savoy was reannexed to Sardinia, and Genoa was added to it by the congress of Vienna. Victor Emanuel I., du- ring a military insurrection headed by Santa Rosa and others, abdicated in 1821 in favor of his brother Charles Felix, in whose absence Charles Albert, of the younger line of Savoy- Carignan, assumed the regency, proclaimed the Spanish constitution of 1820, and established a provisional junta. Charles Felix, aided by Russia and Austria, was restored and undid his relative's work ; but as the elder branch of the house of Savoy became extinct in his person, April 27, 1831, Charles Albert ascend- ed the throne. In 1848 he promulgated the statute fondamentale, which is the basis of the present constitution of Italy. He was involv- ed in the same year in a war with Austria, was vanquished by Radetzky, renewed the war in 1849, and was utterly defeated at Novara, March 23. (See CHARLES ALBERT, vol. v., p. 300.) He abdicated, and was succeeded by his son Victor Emanuel II., who, after a war with Austria in 1859, in which he was aided by Napoleon III., annexed Lombardy and oth- er states, and finally became master of all Italy. (See ITALY, SAVOY, and VICTOR EMANUEL.) SARDIS. See SARDES. SARDOU, Ylctorlen, a French dramatist, born in Paris, Sept. 7, 1831. His early life was passed in penury, as a teacher and writer, and his first play (1854) was a failure. After his marriage in 1858 with Mile, de Brecourt, an actress, he formed the acquaintance of Mile. Dejazet, who brought out at her theatre sev- eral of his plays ; but his reputation was not fully established until after the performances in 1861 of Nos intimes. Among his best known later plays are : Candide and Les premieres armes de Figaro (1862); Don Quichotte (1864); Les meux garpons (1865); Lafamille Benoiton (1865) ; Patrie (1869) ; Fernande (1870) ; and SARMATIA 633 VOnde Sam, a satire on American society (1872). His La Haine (1874) failed. He has made an immense fortune from his plays, in which striking plagiarisms have been detected. SARI, or Saree, a city of Persia, capital of the province of Mazanderan, in lat. 36 35' N.. Ion. 53 6' E., about 15 m. from the S. shore of the Caspian sea ; pop. about 20,000. It is surrounded by a dilapidated wall and ditch, has dirty unpaved streets, and contains many houses of burnt brick neatly tiled, several mosques and the remains of Parsee temples, a remarkable brick tower 100 ft. high with a conical roof, public baths, and five colleges. SARGASSO SEA. See ATLANTIC OCEAN, vol. ii., p. 79. SARGENT, Epes, an American author, born in Gloucester, Mass., Sept. 27, 1812. He studied in Harvard college, became connected succes- sively with the Boston "Daily Advertiser" and "Atlas," and about 1839 removed to New York to take charge of the "Mirror." He next edited the Boston "Evening Transcript," but in a few years retired from journalism, and prepared popular " Speakers," " Readers," and other school books, and works for the young. He has written several very success- ful plays, including "The Bride of Genoa" (produced in 1836) ; " Velasco," a tragedy (1837); "Change makes Change," a comedy; and "The Priestess," a tragedy founded on the story of Norma. Among his other works are: "Life of Henry Clay" (1840); "Fleet- wood, or Stain of Birth " (1845) ; " Songs of the Sea, and other Poems" (1847); "Arctic Adventures by Sea and Land" (1857); "Pecu- liar," a slave story (1863); " Planchette," a work on spiritualism (1869); and "The "Wo- man who Dared," a poem (1869). He is now (1875) preparing a new work on spiritualism. SARGON. See ASSYRIA, vol. ii., p. 35. SARMATIA, in classical geography, the name of a vast region of eastern Europe and western Asia (according to ancient divisions). Ptole- my the geographer distinguishes between Eu- ropean and Asiatic Sarmatia. He describes the former as bounded W. by the Vistula and the Sarmatian mountains (N. W. Carpathians) ; S. by a line running from the Sarmatian mountains to the mouth of the Borysthenes (Dnieper), and thence along the coast of the Euxine to the isthmus of the Tauric Cher- sonesus (Crimea); E. by the Moeotis (sea of Azov), the Tanais (Don), and further N. by the meridian drawn from the source of the Tanais; and N. apparently from the gulf of Finland to the mouth of the Vistula, the re- gions beyond being unknown at the time. The boundaries of Asiatic Sarmatia he draws from the Cimmerian Bosporus (strait of Yeni- kale) along the N. E. shore of the Euxine to the mouth of the Corax, a little above Dios- curias in Colchis; thence along Iberia and Albania to the Caspian sea, which forms the E. boundary as far as the river Rha (Volga), which completes the E. limit -unto the un-