DREVES
158
DREVET
this number. Scarcely had the place recovered when
the Napoleonic Wars with their enormous burdens, to
which hunger and disease were added, again brought
the greatest suffering on the city. After the Wars of
Liberation the development of the city steadily pro-
gressed until it was interrupted again by the Revolu-
tion of 1S49 which led to the erection of barricades and
to bloody strife. Since then there has been a constant
and rapid growth of the city, which rivals the other
great centres of the German Empire in elegance and
beauty and in the activity of its industries and com-
merce.
After the introduction of the Reformation into Dresden Catholicism could not exist openly. Catholics were forbidden to settle in it even as late as 1680 ; the few Catholics who lived there could only hear Mass in the chapel of the imperial embassy. This oppressed condition of the Catholics was not much improved when Augustus the Strong in 1697 became a convert; he gave the chapel of the hunting castle Moritzburg for Catholic worship, and in 1708 the coiu-t church of the Holy Trinity was consecrated; but public chm-ch services were still forbidden to Catholics. It was not until the Peace of Posen, 11 December, 1806, that the Catholics of Saxony were granted the same freedom of worship as the Lutherans and that the Catholic and Protestant subjects of the king received the same civil and political rights. Since this date the Catholic Church in Dresden has increased, though slowly, as Saxony, notwithstanding the Catholicism of the reign- ing family, is strongly Protestant and has little tolera- tion for the Chm-ch ; thus, for example, the founding of monasteries is forbidden by the Constitution of 1831. The losses of the Church in Dresden annually exceed the conversions more than tenfold.
J. E. RiCHTER, LitteratuT der Landes- und Volkskunde des Konigreichs Sachsen, which contains a full bibliography (1889): V Supplements (1892-1905); Reformationsgesch. der Residenz- stadt Dresden (Meissen, 1827); Urkundeiibuch der Sladle Dresden und Pima in Codex diplamalicus S<uconi<e regiie, Pt. II, Vol. V (Leipzig, 1875); Dibelius, Die EinfUhrung der Reformntion in Dresden (Dresden, 1889); O. Richter, Verfassungs- und Verwaltungsgesch. der Stadt Dresden (Dresden, 1885-91;; Idem, Atlas zur Gesch. Dresdens (Dresden, 1898); Idem, Gesch. der Stadt Dresden (Dresden, 1900), I; Idem, Gesch. der Stadt Dres- den, 1S71-J90'.^ (Dresden, 1903); GvRlATT,BeschreibendeDarstel- hirw der Bail- und Kunstdenkmaler Sachsens (Dresden, 1900- 03)T Pts. XXI-XXIII; Idem, Dresden (Dresden, 1907); Handbuch der Wohltatigkeit und Wohlfahrtspflege in Dresden (Dresden, 1906). Periodicals. — Mitteilungen des Vereins fiir Gesch. Dresdens (Dresden), XX Pts. to 1908; Dresdener Ge- schicMsblatter (Dresden), XVI vols, to 1908; St. Benno-Kal- ender (Dresden), LVII vols, to 1908. Joseph Lins.
Dreves, Lebrecht Blijcher, poet, b. at Hamburg, Germany, 12 September, 1816; d. at Feldkirch, 19 Dec, 1870. The famous Prussian General Blucher was his baptismal sponsor, whence his name. At fifteen he wrote German and Latin poems faultless in rhyme and metre. Four years later he submitted a good-sized volume of poems to the critical judgment of A. von Charaisso and Gustav Schwab, and both ex- pressed favourable opinions. This was followed shortly by another volume entitled "Lyrische An- klange" (Lyrical Melodies), and although these "melodies" were grafted on the music of his favour- ites, Chamisso, Uhland, Heine, Ruckert, Schwab, and others, they were not devoid of a sweetness all their own. His studies in jurisprudence, prosecuted dur- ing the three succeeding years and rewarded by the degree of doctor of laws summA cum laude, failed to extinguish the love of his favourite study of poetry. Another volume, entitled " Vigihen" (Vigils), fulfilled the earlier jiromises of this child-phenomenon. About this time, however, the seamy side of life presented itself to him, trouble growing apace with financial dif- ficulties in the young lawyer's family. Hitherto, although a strict Protestant, his entire religion had been summed up in the word poetry. Impending poverty destroyed this rather roseate view. His mental and bodily troubles, however, were more or
less dissipated by his reception into the Catholic
church on Candlemas Day, 1846. A subsequent ap-
pointment as notary raised him above immediate
want. It was during these darker periods that he
was most prolific as an author. In 1843 he had
already published anonymously a third volume of
poems "Schhchte Lieder" (L^npretentious Songs) em-
bodying his battle-songs, "Lieder eines Hanseaten".
Previous to this, when unliampered by the dread of
poverty, he had WTitten (1868) the two-act comedy
"Der Lebensretter " (The Life-Saver) inscribing it:
"A manuscript printed for (improvised) private
theatricals".
The change of view involved in his conversion brought him two advantages, a loftier conception of his literary work and an enlarged circle of friends. His "Lieder der Kirche" (Church Hymns) paved his way to becoming a model translator of hymns (2d ed., 1868). He also dedicated his virile pen to the cause of religion in his native town by writing a " History of the Catholic Congregations in Hamburg and Altona". He likewise translated tlie " Nachtigallenlied " by the Pseudo-Bonaventura and St. Rembert's life of St. Ansgar, Apostle of the North. He undertook the thankless task of editing (1867) the important sources of the history of his native city in the " Annua; Missionis Hambitfgensis 15S9-17S1 ". About this time he re- vised and republished Ins own poetical works. This work was made easy for him by the advice and aid of the poet von Eichendorff who had become his warm friend. Meantime he had become the father of a happy family, and to secure for his promising son a good education he determined to remove to Feldkirch in the Vorarlberg. To compensate for the loss of his friend von Eichendorff he gained a new one, the poet Father Gall Morel. The most distinguished of his children is his son. Dr. G. Dreves, editor of the "Analecta hymnica medii tevi", a vast collection of medieval hymnology, which has already reached its fiftieth volume.
Rosenthal, Convertitenbilder (autobiography). I, 626-636; Kreiten, Lebrecht Dreves, ein Lebensbild (Freiburg im Br., 1897); ScHEiD, Dichterslimmen der Gegenwart (1903).
N. SCHEID.
Drevet Family ,The, were the leading portrait en- gravers of France for over a hundred years. Their fame began with Pierre, and was sustained by his son, Pierre-Imbert, and by his nephew, Claude. Pierre Drevet, the Elder, b. at Loire in the Lyonnais in 1663; d. in Paris, 1738, was the son of Estienne Drevet, a man of excellent family, and began his studies with Germain Audran at Lyons, continuing them with Gerard Audran in Paris. So rapid was his progress, so quickly did he imbibe and assimilate knowledge, and with such precision and delicacy did he manage the graver, that in 1696 he was made court engraver. In 1707 he was admitted to membership in the Aca- demic des Beaux- Arts, his reception picture being an engraving of Robert de Cotte.
Rigaud's portraits were in high favour at the end of the seventeenth century and Drevet was the first to encounter and surmount the difficulties of translating into black and white the natural appearance of texture and materials which the brilliant oils readilj^ pre- sented. He was an excellent draughtsman, and he treated flesh and fabrics, the flash of jewels and the shimmer of steel, with painter-like realism, surpassing all his predecessors in these effects. With all his ele- gance of detail he produced an harmonious ensemble, combining artistic feeling with skilful tcchnic. Al- though his work with the burin was like that of the great Nanteuil, he attained a style of his own. Pre- vious engravers sacrificed much to make the head prominent, but Drevet made everything salient, though never violently so. Always engraving after oil-paintings, Drevet was at times uneven, but this was because the originals were uneven. Orders
