prevailing diseases are cholera, fever, small-pox, ophthalmia, dysentery and those of the skin among the lower classes. Bellary is subject to disastrous storms and hurricanes, and to famines arising from a series of bad seasons. There were memorable famines in 1751, 1793, 1803, 1833, 1854, 1866, 1877 and 1896.
In 1901 the population was 947,214, showing an increase of 8% in the decade. The principal crops are millet, other food-grains, pulse, oil-seeds and cotton. There are considerable manufactures of cotton and woollen goods, and cotton is largely exported. The district is traversed by the Madras and Southern Mahratta railways, meeting on the eastern border at Guntakal junction, where another line branches off to Bezwada.
Little is known of the early history of the district. It contains the ruined capital of the ancient Hindu kingdom of Vijayanagar, and on the overthrow of that state by the Mahommedans, in 1564, the tract now forming the district of Bellary was split up into a number of military holdings, held by chiefs called poligars. In 1635 the Carnatic was annexed to the Bijapur dominions, from which again it was wrested in 1680 by Sivaji, the founder of the Mahratta power. It was then included in the dominions of Nizam-ul-mulk, the nominal viceroy of the great Mogul in the Deccan, from whom again it was subsequently conquered by Hyder Ali of Mysore. At the close of the war with Tippoo Sultan in 1792, these territories fell to the share of the nizam of Hyderabad, by whom they were ceded to the British in 1800, in return for protection by a force of British troops to be stationed at his capital. In 1808 the “Ceded Districts,” as they were called, were split into two districts, Cuddapah and Bellary. In 1882 the district of Anantapur, which had hitherto formed part of Bellary, was formed into a separate collectorate.
See Bellary Gazetteer, 1904.
BELL-COT, Bell-gable, or Bell-turret, the place where one or more bells are hung in chapels or small churches which have no towers. Bell-cots are sometimes double, as at Northborough and Coxwell; a very common form in France and Switzerland admits of three bells. In these countries also they are frequently of wood and attached to the ridge. In later times bell-turrets were much ornamented; on the continent of Europe they run up into a sort of small, slender spire, called flèche in France, and guglio in Italy. A bell-cot, gable or turret often holds the “Sanctus-bell,” rung at the saying of the “Sanctus” at the beginning of the canon of the Mass, and at the consecration and elevation of the Elements in the Roman Church. This differs but little from the common bell-cot, except that it is generally on the top of the arch dividing the nave from the chancel. At Cleeve, however, the bell seems to have been placed in a cot outside the wall. Sanctus-bells have also been placed over the gables of porches.
BELLEAU, REMY (c. 1527–1577), French poet, and member of the Pléiade (see Daurat), was born at Nogent-le-Rotrou about 1527. He studied with Ronsard and others under Jean Daurat at the Collège de Coqueret. He was attached to Renè de Lorraine, marquis d’Elbœuf, in the expedition against Naples in 1557, where he did good military service. On his return he was made tutor to the young Charles, marquis d’Elbœuf, who, under Belleau’s training became a great patron of the muses. Belleau was an enthusiast for the new learning and joined the group of young poets with ardour. In 1556 he published the first translation of Anacreon which had appeared in French. In the next year he published his first collection of poems, the Petites inventions, in which he describes stones, insects and flowers. The Amours et nouveaux échanges des pierres précieuses . . . . (1576) contains perhaps his most characteristic work. Its title is quoted in the lines of Ronsard’s epitaph on his tomb:—
| “Luy mesme a basti son tombeau Dedans ses Pierres Précieuses.” |
He wrote commentaries to Ronsard’s Amours in 1560, notes which evinced delicate taste and prodigious learning. Like Ronsard and Joachim Du Bellay, he was extremely deaf. His days passed peacefully in the midst of his books and friends, and he died on the 6th of March 1577. He was buried in the nave of the Grands Augustins at Paris, and was borne to the tomb on the pious shoulders of four poets, Ronsard, J. A. de Baïf, Philippe Desportes and Amadis Jamyn. His most considerable work is La Bergerie (1565–1572), a pastoral in prose and verse, written in imitation of Sannazaro. The lines on April in the Bergerie are well known to all readers of French poetry. Belleau was the French Herrick, full of picturesqueness, warmth and colour. His skies drop flowers and all his air is perfumed, and this voluptuous sweetness degenerates sometimes into licence. Extremely popular in his own age, he shared the fate of his friends, and was undeservedly forgotten in the next. Regnier said: “Belleau ne parle pas comme on parle à la ville”; and his lyrical beauty was lost on the trim 17th century. His complete works were collected in 1578, and contain, besides the works already mentioned, a comedy entitled La Reconnue, in short rhymed lines, which is not without humour and life, and a comic masterpiece, a macaronic poem on the religious wars, Dictamen metrificum de bello huguenotico et reistrorum [1] piglamine ad sodales (Paris, no date).
The Œuvres complètes (3 vols., 1867) of Remy Belleau were edited by A. Gouverneur; and his Œuvres poétiques (2 vols., 1879) by M. Ch. Marty-Laveaux in his Pléiade française; see also C. A. Sainte-Beuve, Tableau historique et critique de la poésie française au XVIᵉ siècle (ed. 1876), i. pp. 155-160, and ii. pp. 296 seq.
BELLECOUR (1725–1778), French actor, whose real name was Jean Claude Gilles Colson, was born on the 16th of January 1725, the son of a portrait-painter. He showed decided artistic talent, but soon deserted the brush for the stage under the name of Bellecour. After playing in the provinces he was called to the Comédie Française, but his début, on the 21st of December 1750, as Achilles in Iphigénie was not a great success. He soon turned to more congenial comedy rôles, which for thirty years he filled with great credit. He was a very natural player, and his willingness to give others on the stage an opportunity to show their talents made him extremely popular. He wrote a successful play, Fausses apparences (1761), and was very useful to the Comédie Française in editing and adapting the plays of others. He died on the 19th of November 1778.
His wife, Rose Perrine le Roy de la Corbinaye, was born at Lamballe on the 20th of December 1730, the daughter of an artillery officer. Under the stage name of Beaumenard she made her first Paris appearance in 1743 as Gogo in Favart’s Le Coq du village. After a year at the Opéra Comique she played in several companies, including that of Marshal Saxe, who is said to have been not insensible to her charms. In 1749 she made her début at the Comédie Française as Dorine in Tartuffe, and her success was immediate. She retired in 1756, but after an absence of five years, during which she married, she reappeared as Madame Bellecour, and continued her successes in soubrette parts in the plays of Molière and de Regnard. She retired finally at the age of sixty, but troublous times had put an end to the pension which she received from Louis XVI. and from the theatre, and she died in abject poverty on the 5th of August 1799. There is a charming portrait of her owned by the Théâtre Français.
BELLEFONTAINE, a city and the county-seat of Logan county, Ohio, U.S.A., about 45 m. N.W. of Columbus. Pop. (1890) 4245; (1900) 6649 (267 foreign-born); (1910) 8238. It is served by the Cleveland, Cincinnati, Chicago & St Louis (which has large shops here) and the Ohio Central railways; also by the Dayton, Springfield & Urbana electric railway. It is built on the south-west slope of a hill having an elevation of about 1500 ft. above sea-level and at the foot of which are several springs of clear water which suggested the city’s name. Among the city’s manufactures are iron bridges, carriage-bodies, flour and cement. The municipality owns and operates its water-works system and its gas and electric-lighting plants. Bellefontaine was first settled about 1818, was laid out as a town and made the county-seat in 1820 and was incorporated in 1835.
BELLEGARDE, the name of an important French family. Roger de Saint-Lary, baron of Bellegarde, served with distinction in the wars against the French Protestants. He showed much devotion to Henry III., who loaded him with favours and made him marshal of France. He eventually fell into disgrace,
- ↑ Reîtres, German soldiers of fortune.
