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Page 1663 : SAINT-SIMON — SALADIN


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little part in the French Revolution, except to undergo a short imprisonment. His first work was Letters of a Citizen of Geneva to His Contemporaries. His last and most important was New Christianity. He suffered hardships from lack of means, often being without decent clothes and food. This poverty caused him to try to shoot himself, in which attempt he lost an eye, two years before his death, May 19, 1825.

Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, Duke of, was born at Paris, Jan. 16, 1675.  He served as a soldier in the wars of Louis XIV and took a leading part as courtier and politician at court.  He is remembered for his Memoirs, which were not published in full till 1830.  They are a masterpiece of art and are said not to be equaled by any work of the kind yet written.  He died at Laferté, March 2, 1755. See Henry Reeve’s Royal and Republican France.

St. Thom′as, Can., county-seat of Elgin County, Ont., is a growing railway-center with 11,485 inhabitants, in the midst of a rich agricultural country and possessed of thriving manufactures.

St. Thomas (Portuguese Sao Thomé) constitutes with the island of Principé a [[../Portugal|Portuguese]] colony.  It lies in the [[../Guinea, Gulf of|Gulf of Guinea]], off the western coast of Africa.  Its area is 360 square miles, its fertile valleys unhealthy, its windswept peaks salubrious.  In 1900 it had a population of 37,776.  The exports are largely [[../Cacao|cacao]], [[../Coffee|coffee]] and cinchona.  The population is almost wholly composed of [[../Negroes|negroes]].  It was discovered by the Portuguese on St. Thomas’s day in 1471, and colonized by them in 1493.  From 1641 to 1844 the [[../Holland|Dutch]] occupied it.

St. Vin′cent, Cape, forms the southwestern corner of Portugal, off which two important battles have taken place.  On June 16, 1693, the [[../France|French]] fleet defeated the English Admiral Rooke, who lost 12 men-of-war and 80 merchantmen that were sailing under his convoy.  On Feb. 14, 1797, the well-known battle was fought in which Earl St. Vincent, ably seconded by [[../Nelson, Horation|Lord Nelson]], with 15 sail of the line and 7 frigates defeated the Spanish with 27 sail.  This victory prevented the invasion of England by France.

Sainte-Beuve (sănt′-bẽv′), Charles Augustin, the greatest literary critic of modern times, was born at Boulogne-sur-Mer, France, in 1804.  His father died before his birth, and his mother had a hard struggle to find means to give her son a schooling.  At 14 Charles went to Charlemagne College at Paris, and afterward studied medicine.  In 1824 he began his literary career by becoming a regular contributor of Le Globe, a paper started in that year by one of his college professors.  A review of [[../Hugo, Victor Marie|Victor Hugo]]’s Odes and Ballads made him a lifelong friend of that poet.  His best work as a critic began in 1840, when he was made keeper of Mazarin Library.  In 1849 he began to write, for Le Constitutionel, an article on some literary subject every Monday, and this was his work for 20 years.  These Monday Talks fill 28 volumes, and on them his fame chiefly rests.  Sainte-Beuve died at Paris, Oct. 13, 1869.

Ste. Cunegonde, a substantial suburb of Montreal and also in Hochelaga County, has 10,912 inhabitants.  It lies southwest of the city.

Saki (sā′ kĭ), a kind of [[../Beer|beer]] which the Japanese make from [[../Rice|rice]].  It is the common drink of Japan.  It is clear, and tastes unpleasant to Europeans.  It is usually drunk hot, out of flat cups or lacquered-wood saucers.

Sal′aber′ry, Charles de, the hero of Chateauguay, a member of the old, French, landed nobility, had seen distinguished service under the British flag abroad when the War of 1812 broke out.  He assisted in raising and took command of a regiment of French-Canadian voltigeurs, who saw a great deal of service in Lower Canada through the war.  At Odelltown he resisted Gen. Dearborn with 2,000 men so successfully that the Americans were compelled to retire on Champlain.  Salaberry was in command of the advance-guard, numbering not more than 350 men, at Chateauguay on Oct. 23, 1813, when Gen. Wade Hampton with 3,500 Americans appeared.  Stationing his main force behind breastworks and assigning small parties of men with bugles to posts well-separated through the surrounding woods, by repelling the frontal attack and pressing a counter-attack at the ford of the river he drove the enemy into precipitate retreat and inflicted heavy loss.  For this he was knighted, and his men each received a medal.  A monument to his memory was dedicated at Chateauguay in 1895.

Saladin (săl′ ȧ-dĭn), the name given by western writers to Salah-ed-din Yusuf ibn Ayub, the sultan of Egypt and Syria. He was born in 1137 at the castle of Tekrit on the Tigris, of which his father, a Kurd, was governor under the Seljuk Turks. He rose to be grand vizier and in 1171 master of Egypt, overthrowing the reigning caliph.  Three years later the emir died, and Saladin proclaimed himself Sultan of Egypt and Syria, a title which was confirmed to him by the caliph of Bagdad.  He next conquered Mesopotamia and received the homage of the Turkish princes of Asia Minor.  He then turned his attention to the Christians, utterly defeating them near Tiberias in 1187; next Jerusalem was stormed (Oct. 3); and almost every other fortified place on the Syrian coast was taken.  The news of this great success aroused the Christians of western Europe, and a powerful body of crusaders, headed by the kings of France and England, soon appeared on the scene