Page:The New International Encyclopædia 1st ed. v. 18.djvu/785

* SULLY. 683 SULPHOCYANIC ACID. Henry IV. of France. He was born .it Eosny, near Mantes, the second son of Frangois, Baron de Rosnj'. He belonged to a Protestant family and was educated with the young Henry at the Court of Navarre. This was tlie beginning of a friendship and a loyal service that continued until Henry's death. He escaped the Massacre of Saint Bartholomew, accompanied Henry in his flight from the French Court (1576), shared in the campaigns against the Catholic League, distinguishing himself especially at Coutras ( 1587 ), and became Henry's wisest and most trusted adviser. He urged Henry's acceptance of Catholicism to save the crown. The misgov- ernment of the preceding j'ears and the an- archy of the wars of religion had almost ruined France, and Sully, made Jlinister of Finance in 1.3il7. and chief intendant in 1599, set himself thoroughly to reform the administration. He made a tour through the chief provin- cial districts, armed with absolute authority, personally examined the accounts, dismissed or suspended delinquents, and largely replenished the treasury with the ill-gotten wealth which he compelled them to disgorge. Little by little he brought the atl'airs of the country into an orderly state. From 1597 to 1609 he" trebled the in- come of the State. His indefatig.able activity was not confined to the dep^^rtment of finance; he practically was in supreme charge of the vari- ous otlier branches of the administration, pro- moted agriculture, encouraged export trade, and constructed roads, bridges, and causeways. He was made grand master of artillery in 1601, and in 1606 was created Duke de Sully. Sully was not popular. His single-minded service of the King made him disliked by the people for his supposed severity. The Catholics hated him for his religion; the Protestants for his invariable refusals to sacrifice the smallest jot of his mas- ter's or the country's interest for their sake. At Henry's death he was forced to resign his offices and lived in comparative retirement. Sully wrote Memoircs des sages et royales economies d'etat, domestiques, politiques et militaires, de Henri le Grand, a wearisome and disorderly collection of writings in the form of a narrative addressed to himself by his secretaries. It is through these volumes that we are made ac- quainted with the 'great design' of Henry for the federation of Europe, a design the genuine- ness of which has been the subject of much con- troversy. The edition in Michaud and Poujoulat, 'Noiivelle collection des memoires pour servir a I'histoire de France, is from the original. Consult Lavisse, Sully (Paris, 1880). STTL'LY, Thomas (1783-1872). A portrait painter of the early American school. Born at Horncastle, Lincolnshire, England ; he was brought by his parents, who were actors, to Charleston", S. C, in 1792. In 1806 he removed to New York, and in 1809 he went to London, where he completed his studies begun in Amer- ica under Benjamin West. Two years later he returned to America and settled in Philadelphia. Among his best known portraits are those of Commodore Decatur in the City Hall, New York; General Lafayette at Independence Hall, and George Frederick Cooke at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts, Philadelphia; Thomas Jefferson (1821) at the Military Academy. West Point ; and portraits of Charles Kemble, Frances Vol. XVIII.— 44. Anne Kemble, and Rembrandt Peale, James Madison, Andrew Jackson, and John Marshall, in the Corcfiran Gallery, Washington. Consult his "Kccollections of an Old Painter," in Hours at Home (1869). SULLY - PRUDHOMME,. sVW pri.i'dom', Re.£ Fr.vn(,I.s Aum. u (1839—). A French poet, born in Paris, lie was educated for the law, and was a student of science and philosophy. In 1865 he published Stances et po&mes, which won the praise of .Sainte-Beuve for their delicate elegiac sentiment. Encouraged bj' this success, he devoted himself wholly to ])oetry. In 18G0 ap- peared Les iprcuves, a, ork in which the sad- ness of unbelief is poignantly expressed. Les solitudes (1869) and a rhymed translation of the first book of Lucretius (1869) foreshadow by their depth his great philosophical poems La, justice (1878) and Le bonheur (1888). These two last-mentioned poems are among the greatest cfl'orts of French poetry since Victor Hugo and Lamartine. Impressions de yuerre ( 1870 ) deal with some of the phases of the Franco-German War. Les destins (1872), Vaincs tendresses (1875), and Le prisme (1886) are less philo- sophic and more personal. Sully-Prudhomme entered the Academy in 1881, and in 1901 re- ceived one of the Nobel prizes in recognition of the lofty qualities of his poetry. He devoted a portion of this to establishing an annual award for excellence among the 3'ounger French poets. His verses are thoughtful and often melancholy. Sensitively open to all impressions, he is singii- larly temperate in expression. This quality of reserve is particularly noticeable in his expres- sion of the sadness which is his usual mood. Consult: Bnuieti&re, I'ocsie hjrique,o. ii. (ib., 1894) ; id., Litterature contemporaine (2d ed., ib., 1895) ; Lemaitre, Les contemporains, vols, i., iv. (ib.. 1896) ; Gaston Paris, Penseurs et poHes (ib., 1897). SULPHOCYANIC ACID, or Thiocyanic Acid, HCNS. A powerful organic acid analogous in its composition to the well-known cyanic acid (q.v.), HCNO, from which it differs in contain- ing sulphur instead of o.vygen. Sulphocyanates, i.e. salts of sulpliocyanic acid, m.ay be obtained by the direct action of sulphur on cj'anidcs (i.e. salts of hydrocyanic acid). Thus, potassium sulphocyanate may be obtained by boiling a solution of potassium c.yanide with sulphur. Free sulpliocyanic acid may be prepared by decom- posing barium sulphocyanate with sulphuric acid, and distilling the aqueous acid thus ob- tained over warm anh_vdrous chloride of calcium. The acid is thus obtained in the form of a vola- tile liquid with a characteristic pungent odor. Pure sulphocyanic acid may be preserved for some time if kept in the cold. At ordinary tem- peratures it rapidly polymerizes, forming an amorphous yellow substance. Several of the sulphocyanates are extensively used as mordants in certain dyeing processes. The principal com- mercial source of the salts is found in the manu- facture of coal gas. The products formed during the destructive distillation of coal include am- monia, cyanogen, a certain amount of ammonium cyanide, and certain compounds of sulphur. In course of the purification of the gas, these by- products are brought into contact with moist ferric oxide for the purpose of freeing the gas from deleterious sulphur compounds. The sul-