October 1821. At court he was, when young, noted for his facile power of writing society verse, but his literary reputation depends rather on his later works on political economy, especially his admirable translation, with notes and introduction, of Smith’s Wealth of Nations (1805) and his Histoire de la monnaie (2 vols., 1819), which contains much sound and well-arranged material. His Abrégé des principes de l’écon. polit. (1796) is a very clear and instructive manual. The valuable Description géographique, physique, et politique du département de Seine-et-Oise (1802) was drawn up from his instructions. Other works are De la propriété (1792) and Histoire des banques d’escompte (1806).
GARNIER, JEAN LOUIS CHARLES (1825–1898), French
architect, was born in Paris on the 6th of November 1825. He
was educated in a primary school, and it was intended that he
should pursue his father’s craft, that of a wheelwright. His
mother, however, having heard that with a little previous study
he might enter an architect’s office and eventually become a
measuring surveyor (vérificateur), and earn as much as six francs
a day, and foreseeing that in consequence of his delicate health
he would be unfit to work at the forge, sent him to learn drawing
and mathematics at the Petite École de Dessin, in the rue de
Médecine, the cradle of so many of the great artists of France.
His progress was such as to justify his being sent first into an
architect’s office and then to the well-known atelier of Lebas,
where he began his studies in preparation for the examination of
the École des Beaux Arts, which he passed in 1842, at the age of
seventeen. Shortly after his admission it became necessary that
he should support himself, and accordingly he worked during the
day in various architects’ offices, among them in that of M.
Viollet-le-Duc, and confined his studies for the École to the
evening. In 1848 he carried off, at the early age of twenty-three,
the Grand Prix de Rome, and with his comrades in sculpture,
engraving and music, set off for the Villa de Medicis. His
principal works were the measured drawings of the Forum of
Trajan and the temple of Vesta in Rome, and the temple of
Serapis at Pozzuoli. In the fifth year of his travelling studentship
he went to Athens and measured the temple at Aegina,
subsequently working out a complete restoration of it, with its
polychromatic decoration, which was published as a monograph
in 1877. The elaborate set of drawings which he was commissioned
by the duc de Luynes to make of the tombs of the
house of Anjou were not published, owing to the death of his
patron; and since Garnier’s death they have been given to the
library of the École des Beaux Arts, along with other drawings he
made in Italy. On his return to Paris in 1853 he was appointed
surveyor to one or two government buildings, with a very
moderate salary, so that the commission given him by M. Victor
Baltard to make two water-colour drawings of the Hôtel de
Ville, to be placed in the album presented to Queen Victoria in
1855, on the occasion of her visit to Paris, proved very acceptable.
These two drawings are now in the library at Windsor.
In 1860 came, at last, Garnier’s chance: a competition was announced for a design for a new imperial academy of music, and out of 163 competitors Garnier was one of five selected for a second competition, in which, by unanimous vote, he carried off the first prize, and the execution of the design was placed in his hands. Begun in 1861, but delayed in its completion by the Franco-German War, it was not till 1875 that the structure of the present Grand Opera House of Paris was finished, at a cost of about 35,000,000 francs (£1,420,000). During the war the building was utilized as the municipal storehouse of provisions. The staircase and the magnificent hall are the finest portion of the interior, and alike in conception and realization have never been approached. Of Garnier’s other works, the most remarkable are the Casino at Monte Carlo, the Bischoffsheim villa at Bordighera, the Hôtel du Cercle de la Librairie in Paris; and, among tombs, those of the musicians Bizet, Offenbach, Massé and Duprato. In 1874 he was elected a member of the Institute of France, and after passing through the grades of chevalier, officer and commander of the Legion of Honour, received in 1895 the rank of grand officer, a high distinction that had never before been granted to an architect. Charles Garnier’s reputation was not confined to France; it was recognized by all the countries of Europe, and in England he received, in 1886, the royal gold medal of the Royal Institute of Architects, given by Queen Victoria. Besides his monograph on the temple of Aegina, he wrote several works, of which Le Nouvel Opéra de Paris is the most valuable. For the International Exhibition of 1889 he designed the buildings illustrating the “History of the House” in all periods, and a work on this subject was afterwards published by him in conjunction with M. Ammann. Not the least of his claims to the gratitude of his country were the services which he rendered on the various art juries appointed by the state, the Institute of France, and the École des Beaux-Arts, services which in France are rendered in an honorary capacity. Garnier died on the 3rd of August 1898. (R. P. S.)
GARNIER, MARIE JOSEPH FRANÇOIS [Francis] (1839–1873), French officer and explorer, was born at St Étienne on the 25th of July 1839. He entered the navy, and after voyaging in Brazilian waters and the Pacific he obtained a post on the staff of Admiral Charner, who from 1860 to 1862 was campaigning in Cochin-China. After some time spent in France he returned to the East, and in 1862 he was appointed inspector of the natives in Cochin-China, and entrusted with the administration of Cho-lon, a suburb of Saigon. It was at his suggestion that the marquis de Chasseloup-Laubat determined to send a mission to explore the valley of the Mekong, but as Garnier was not considered old enough to be put in command, the chief authority was entrusted to Captain Doudart de Lagrée. In the course of the expedition—to quote the words of Sir Roderick Murchison addressed to the youthful traveller when, in 1870, he was presented with the Victoria Medal of the Royal Geographical
Society of London—from Kratie in Cambodia to Shanghai
5392 m. were traversed, and of these 3625 m., chiefly of country unknown to European geography, were surveyed with care, and the positions fixed by astronomical observations, nearly the whole of the observations being taken by Garnier himself. Volunteering to lead a detachment to Talifu, the capital of Sultan Suleiman,
the sovereign of the Mahommedan rebels in Yunnan, he successfully carried out the more than adventurous enterprise. When shortly afterwards Lagrée died, Garnier naturally assumed the command of the expedition, and he conducted it in safety to the Yang-tsze-Kiang, and thus to the Chinese coast. On his return to France he was received with enthusiasm. The preparation of his narrative was interrupted by the Franco-German War, and
during the siege of Paris he served as principal staff officer to the admiral in command of the eighth “sector.” His experiences during the siege were published anonymously in the feuilleton of Le Temps, and appeared separately as Le Siège de Paris, journal d’un officier de marine (1871). Returning to Cochin-China he found the political circumstances of the country unfavourable
to further exploration, and accordingly he went to China, and in 1873 followed the upper course of the Yang-tsze-Kiang to the waterfalls. He was next commissioned by Admiral Dupré, governor of Cochin-China, to found a French protectorate or a new colony in Tongking. On the 20th of November 1873 he took
Hanoi, the capital of Tongking, and on the 21st of December he was slain in fight with the Black Flags. His chief fame rests on the fact that he originated the idea of exploring the Mekong, and carried out the larger portion of the work.
The narrative of the principal expedition appeared in 1873, as Voyage d’exploration en Indo-Chine effectué pendant les années 1866, 1867 et 1868, publié sous la direction de M. Francis Garnier, avec le concours de M. Delaporte et de MM. Joubert et Thorel (2 vols.). An account of the Yang-tsze-Kiang from Garnier’s pen is given in the Bulletin de la Soc. de Géog. (1874). His Chronique royale du Cambodje, was reprinted from the Journal Asiatique in 1872. See Ocean Highways (1874) for a memoir by Colonel Yule; and Hugh Clifford, Further India, in the Story of Exploration series (1904).
GARNIER, ROBERT (c. 1545–c. 1600), French tragic poet, was born at Ferté Bernard (Le Maine) in 1545. He published his first work while still a law-student at Toulouse, where he won a prize (1565) in the jeux floraux. It was a collection of lyrical pieces, now lost, entitled Plaintes amoureuses de Robert Garnier (1565). After some practice at the Parisian bar, he became
