Page:1902 Encyclopædia Britannica - Volume 26 - AUS-CHI.pdf/364

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324

B 0 U L O G N E-S U R-S E INE —BOURGET

took the command at Lyons, and subsequently became military governor. In 1881, owing to his political opinions, he was placed on the retired list, together with Generals de Barail, Bataille, and Ducrot. In 1885 he was an unsuccessful candidate for the Senate. He died 27th September 1897. A patriot and a brilliant soldier and leader, Bourbaki was yet not equal to the tasks that fell to his lot; and in this he resembled some other French generals of the Second Empire whose training had been obtained in Africa. (h. Ch.) Bourgeois, Leon Victor Auguste (1851), French statesman, was born at Paris, 21st May 1851, and educated for the law. After holding a subordinate office (1876) in the department of public wnrks, he became successively prefect of the Tarn (1882) and the Haute-Garonne (1885), and then returned toParis to enter the Ministry of the Interior. He became prefect of police in November 1887, at the rather critical moment of President Grevy’s resignation. In the following year he entered the Chamber, being elected deputy for the Marne, in opposition to General Boulanger, and joined the Radical Left. He was Under-Secretary for Home Affairs in the Floquet Ministry of 1888, and Bourbaki, Charles Denis Sauter resigned with it in 1889, being then returned to the (1816-1897), French general, was born at Pau, 22nd Chamber for Reims. In the Tirard Ministry, which April 1816, being the son of a Greek colonel who died in succeeded, he was Minister of the Interior, and subsethe War of Independence in 1827. He entered St Cyr, quently Minister of Public Instruction in the Cabinet of and in 1836 joined the Zouaves, becoming lieutenant M. Freycinet, a post for which he had qualified himself by of the Foreign Legion in 1838, and aide-de-camp to King the attention he had given to educational matters. In Louis Philippe. It was in the African expedition that this capacity he was responsible in 1890 for some imhe first came to the front. In 1842 he was captain portant reforms in secondary education. He retained his in the Zouaves; 1847, colonel of the Turkos; 1850, office in M. Loubet’s Cabinet in 1892, and was Minister of lieutenant-colonel of the 1st Zouaves; 1851, colonel; Justice under M. Ribot at the end of that year, when the 1854, brigadier-general. In the Crimean war he com- Panama scandals were making the office one of peculiar manded a portion of the Algerian troops; and at the difficulty. He energetically pressed the Panama prosecuAlma, Inkerman, and Sebastopol Bourbaki’s name became tion, so much so that he was accused of having put famous. In 1857 he was made general of division, wrongful pressure on the wife of one of the defendants commanding in 1859 at Lyons. His success in the war in order to procure evidence. To meet the charge he with Italy was only second to that of MacMahon, and in resigned in March 1893, but again took office, and only 1862 he was proposed as a candidate for the vacant Greek retired with the rest of the Freycinet Ministry. In throne, but declined the proffered honour. In 1870 the November 1895 he himself formed a Cabinet of a emperor entrusted him with the command of the Imperial pronouncedly Radical type, the main interest of which Guard, and he played an important part in the fighting was attached to its fall, as the result of a constitutional round Metz. On 25th September Bourbaki escaped from crisis arising from the persistent refusal of the Senate to Metz in disguise, though whether his departure was the vote Supply. The Bourgeois Ministry appeared to. result of an intrigue on the part of Bazaine or of con- consider that popular opinion would enable them to overnivance on the part of the German authorities (who, it is ride what they claimed to be an unconstitutional action said, were anxious that communications should be opened on the part of the Upper House; but the public was up with the Empress Eugenie), has not been sufficiently indifferent and the Senate triumphed. The blow was cleared up. At all events it was given out that he had a undoubtedly damaging to M. Bourgeois’s career as an mission to Chiselhurst, and he went to England with a honime de gouvernement. After officiating as Minister of safe-conduct, but soon returned to France having effected Public Instruction in the short-lived Brisson Cabinet of nothing. He offered his services to Gambetta and 1898, he represented his country with dignity and effect received the command of the Northern army, but was at the Hague Peace Congress. recalled on 19th November and transferred to the army Bourges, chief town of department Cher, France,. of the Loire. Towards the end of the siege of Paris he 137 miles S. of Paris, on the railway from Paris to Nevers,, unsuccessfully attempted to create a diversion by cutting is the headquarters of the 8th army corps, and its military the Prussian line at Belfort, but was outmanoeuvred by establishments have become of the very highest importManteuffel, and driven across the Swiss _ frontier. His ance; they include, amongst other departments, schools troops were in the most desperate condition, owing to of artillery and pyrotechnics, engineering works, and a lack of food; and out of 150,000 men under him when national cannon foundry. At Mazieres also, about 11 he started, only 84,000 escaped from the Germans into miles S. of Bourges, are very important metallurgical works.. Swiss territory. Bourbaki himself, rather than submit to Population (1881), 29,001; (1901), 39,822. the humiliation of a probable surrender, on 26th January Bourget, Paul (1852 ), French novelist and 1871 delegated his functions to General Clinchant, and in the night fired a pistol at his own head, but the bullet, critic, was born at Amiens, 2nd Sepember 1852. His owing to a deviation of the weapon, was flattened against father, a professor of mathematics, was afterwards his skull and his life was saved. General Clinchant appointed to a post in the college at Clermont-Ferrand. carried Bourbaki into Switzerland, and he recovered Here Bourget received his early education. He then prosufficiently to return to France. In July 1871 he again ceeded to the college of Sainte-Barbe at Paris, and

learned societies meet here. Fish-curing occupies several large establishments. The commercial activity of the town is of great and growing importance, and extends to all parts of the world. The numbers of vessels entered and cleared in 1899 (including French coasting vessels) were, respectively, 2946 of 1,295,360 tons, and 2961 of 1,293,270 tons. Of these there entered British vessels 1976 of 548,083 tons, and cleared 1983 of 549,203 tons. Of exports in 1899 wines formed the bulk; next came cement, then potatoes, fresh fruit, and vegetables. The principal imports during the same year were coal and wood coke. The total value of the imports inl899wast£6,584,000, and of the exports, £12,360,000. The total number of passengers arriving at Boulogne in 1899 was 115,967, and of departures 130,029. In 1899 the fisheries of Boulogne, including the sub-ports of Staples, Andresselles, Le Bartel, and Equihen, employed 400 boats and 5350 men, the value of the fish taken being estimated at £505,680. Steamboats are gradually replacing the smaller sailing boats. Population (1881), 43,954; (1891), 44,340; (1901), 49,083. Boulogne-sur-Seine. See Paris.