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BALUCHISTAN. dates from IS.'iO. wlien, in reprisal for the Klian's hostile conduct, Khelat was stormed by General Willshire. By a treaty of alliance con- cinded between Nasir Khan II. and Great Brit- ain in 1854, that ruler, in return for an annual subsidy of 50,000 rupees, later increased to 100,000, conceded to the British the right of armed intervention in any part of bis territory — an exercise of power which the British Govern- ment carried to the extent of forcing the resigna- tion of the ruler of Khelat, Mir :Mahmud Khan, in 1803. The present status in Baluchistan was created by treaties in the years 1876 and 1883. Consult: ^Macgregor, Wnnderings in Balochistan (London, 1882) ; Jlocklcr. "Origin of the Bal- och," in Asiatic Journal (Calcutta, 1806) : Xoet- ling, "Ueber priihistoriscbe Xiederlassungen in Baluchistan," in Zeitschrift fiir Anthropologie und Kthnologie (Berlin, ISil'J) ; Bellew, Races of Afghanistan (London, 1880).

BALUCKI, ba-loots'ke. .MicH.EL( 1837-1901). A Polish author, born at Cracow. He was im- plicated in the Polish Revolution of 1803 and was imprisoned for a year. Upon his release he devoted himself to literature. His writings were characterized by a strongly democratic and de- cidedly satirical tendency.' Among his novels, most of which ridicule the faults and prejudices of Polish society, are the following: The Old and the Yotcng' (1866); Brilliant Misery: A Romance Without Lore: Sabina : From Camp to Camp: and The Jewess. He has also written a number of comedies, such as The Chase for a Husband: The Town Council (1880), very popu- lar; Miss Valerie (1891) ; and The Burgomaster of Pipidon-ka (1804).

BALUGA, ba-loo'ga. A mixed Malay and Ne- grito people living in Central Luzon. See Phil- ippines.

BAL'USTER, populariy BAN'ISTER or BAL'LASTER (Fr. baliistre, It. balaustro, through Lat. balausliuin. from Gk. i-ia/ararior, balaustion, flower of wild pomegranate-tree: so named from its shape). The name given to the small shafts or pillars set in a line at short equal distances, and sujiporting a cornice or coping. These miniature pillars have generally either a pear-shaped swelling at the lower end, or consist of two pear-shaped pieces, placed above each other, a ring of moldings being set between them.

BAL'USTRADE (from baluster). A range of balusters, together with the cornice or coping which they support. The balustrade is often used as a parapet for bridges, the roofs of large edifices, etc., or as a mere termination to a struc- ture. It is also used to inclose stairs, altars, bal- conies, etc. Balustrades are of stone, metal, or wood. The richer types have ornamentation of varied designs in perforated slabs, reliefs, or free members between the balusters.

BALUZE. lia'luz', Etienke (1630-1718). A Frcncli historian, burn at Tulle. Almost his entire life was spent in Paris, and there he published his famous histories — Hisloire gd- nialogique de la Maison d'Auvergne (1708, 2 vols.), and Yitce Paparum Arenionensium (1003, 2 vols.). The latter is on the Index because of its Gallicanism, and the former led to his temporary banishment because too favorable to Cardinal de Bouillon. He edited the works of Charlemagne and Servatus Lupus.

BALZAC, bal'zak', (1799-1850). The greatest novelist of France, and, according to some critics, of the world, if we regard at once the quantity of his work, the multitude and variety of his creations of character, his coordination of them into a microcosmic picture of the society of his time, and the scope and depth of his insight into the sordid ambitions and ideal impulses that actuate human life. His own career had given him a varied and acute experience. He was born at Tours, May 16, 1799, the first of four children of well-to-do bourgeois, self-indulgent, a little Rabelaisian, and not at all literary. His infancy was passed with a foster-mother in the country. He showed no cleverness in his studies, and found no appreciation at home, but he was a diligent pupil of the 'truant school.' His wanderings along the vine- ards of the Loire and in the noisy cooper-shops of the suburbs of Tours have left picturesque traces throughout his work, especially in the Contes Drolatiques, and he has borne an eloquent witness to the pathos of his school life in Louis Lambert.

Balzac had very early what his sympathetic sister Laura calls" 'the intuition of reno.' A family misfortune was to him a kind providence, for it brought him at nineteen to Paris and stimulated his literary activity by contact with Guizot, Villemain, and Cousin. His novels, especially Crsar Birotlenu, attest his three years' study of' law : but he refused to practice, and in spite of discouragements, domestic and public, he devoted himself to literature, doubting some- times his power, but never his vocation. It took bim ten years (1810-20) to learn his trade, the management of his novelistic tools. His work in this period ranks with that of Pigault-Lebrun. Onlv in the light of the future can it be said to show even promise of the kind of excellence which he was to realize. Harassed liy poverty, op- pressed by debts due to caprice and bad judg- ment, he worked indefatigably, and at last pro- duced in Les Chouans (1820) a story of Brittany in 1700, one of the first and best of the his- torical novels of France, though its attempted imitation of Scott is more obvious than success- ful. hat follows Les Chouans. good and bad, was admitted by Balzac to a place in his works; what went before, he ignored. The next six years were years of marvelous fertility, sustained excellence, and progressing power, fostered by intercourse with Hugo, Vigny, Lamartine, and George Sand. He made useful aristocratic acquaintances also, the Duchcsse d'Abrant&s and iladame de Castries, his Duchesse de Langeais. Then he fell under the spell of a Polish lady, Madame Hanska, whom ho lia.l met some vears before, and till the death of M. Hanska, iii 1842, his production and development suffer some check, to revive again for the complete flowering of his genius for five years (1842-47). After that he became more and more absorbed in plans for marriage with Madame Hanska, and hindered from work by illness and by visits to the Russian estates of his betrothed, whom he married there a few months before his death. Balzac's correspondence with his sister and his recently published letters to Madame Hanska are a sufficient revelation of his