l’ange de l’assassinat, and Vergniaud said, “Elle nous perd, mais elle nous apprend à mourir.”
See Œuvres politiques de Charlotte Corday (Caen, 1863; some letters and an Adresse aux Français amis des lois el de la paix), with a supplement printed in the same year; Louvet de Couvrai, Mémoires (ed. Aulard, Paris, 1889); Alphonse Esquiros, Charlotte Corday (2nd ed., 2 vols., Paris, 1841); Cheron de Villiers, Marie Anne Charlotte Corday (Paris, 1865); Casimir Périer, “La Jeunesse de Charlotte Corday” (Revue des deux mondes, 1862); C. Vatel, Dossiers du procès criminel de Charlotte de Corday ... extraits des archives impériales (Paris, 1861), and Dossier historique de Charlotte Corday (Paris, 1872); Austin Dobson, Four Frenchwomen (London, 1890); A. Ducos, Les Trois Girondines, Mme Roland, Charlotte Corday ... (Paris, 1896); Dr Cabanès, “La vraie Charlotte Corday,” in Le Cabinet secret de l’histoire (4 vols., 1897–1900). Her tragic history was the subject of two anonymous tragedies, Charlotte Corday (1795), said to be by the Conventional F. J. Gamon, and Charlotte Corday (Caen, 1797), neither of which have any merit; another by J. B. Salles is published by C. Vatel in Charlotte de Corday et les Girondins (1864–1872). See further bibliographical articles in M. Tourneux, Bibl. de l’hist. de Paris ... (vol. iv., 1906), and in the Bibliographie des femmes célèbres (3 vols., Turin and Rome, 1892–1905); and also E. Defrance, Charlotte Corday et la mort de Marat (1909).
CORDELIERS, CLUB OF THE, or Society of the Friends of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, a popular society of the French Revolution. It was formed by the members of the district of the Cordeliers, when the Constituent Assembly suppressed the 60 districts of Paris to replace them with 48 sections (21st of May
1790). It held its meetings at first in the church of the monastery of the Cordeliers,—the name given in France to the Franciscan Observantists,—now the Dupuytren museum of anatomy in connexion with the school of medicine. From 1791, however, the
Cordeliers met in a hall in the rue Dauphine. The aim of the
society was to keep an eye on the government; its emblem on its
papers was simply an open eye. It sought as well to encourage
revolutionary measures against the monarchy and the old régime,
and it was it especially which popularized the motto “Liberty,
Equality, Fraternity.” It took an active part in the movement
against the monarchy of the 20th of June and the 10th of August
1792; but after that date the more moderate leaders of the club,
Danton, Fabre d’Eglantine, Camille Desmoulins, seem to have
ceased attending, and the “enragés” obtained control, such as J. R. Hébert, F. N. Vincent, C. P. H. Ronsin and A. F. Momoro. Its influence was especially seen in the creation of the revolutionary
army destined to assure provisions for Paris, and in the
establishment of the worship of Reason. The Cordeliers were
combated by those revolutionists who wished to end the Terror,
especially by Danton, and by Camille Desmoulins in his journal
Le Vieux Cordelier. The club disowned Danton and Desmoulins
and attacked Robespierre for his “moderation,” but the new
insurrection which it attempted failed, and its leaders were
guillotined on the 24th of March 1794, from which date nothing is
known of the club. We know little of its composition.
The papers emanating from the Cordeliers are enumerated in M. Tourneux, Bibliographie de l’histoire de Paris pendant la Révolution (1894), i. (on the trial of the Hebertists) Nos. 4204–4210, ii. Nos. 9795–9834 and 11,813. See also A. Bougeart, Les Cordeliers, documents pour servir à l’histoire de la Révolution (Caen, 1891); G. Lenotre, Paris révolutionnaire (Paris, 1895); G. Tridon, Les Hébertists, plainte contre une calomnie de l’histoire (Paris, 1864). The last-named author was condemned to four months’ prison; his work was reprinted in 1871. The inventory of the pictures found in 1790 in the monastery of the Cordeliers was published by J. Guiffrey in Nouvelles archives de l’art français, viii., 2nd series, iii. (1880). (R. A.*)
CORDERIUS, the Latinized form of name used by Mathurin Cordier (c. 1480–1564), French schoolmaster, a native of Normandy or Perche. He possessed special tact and liking for teaching children, and taught first at Paris, where Calvin was among his pupils, and, after a number of changes, finally at Geneva, where he died on the 8th of September 1564. He wrote several books for children; the most famous is his Colloquia (Colloquiorum scholasticorum libri quatuor), which has passed through innumerable editions, and was used in schools for three centuries after his time. He also wrote: Principia Latine loquendi scribendique, sive selecta quaedam ex Epistolis Ciceronis; De corrupti sermonis apud Gallos emendatione et Latine loquendi Ratione; De syllabarum quantitate; Conciones sacrae viginti sex Galliae; Catonis disticha de moribus (with Latin and French translation); Remontrances et exhortations au roi et aux grands de son royaume.
See monograph by E. A. Berthault, De M. Corderio et creatis apud Protestantes litterarum studiis (1875).
CORDES, a town of southern France, in the department of
Tarn, 15 m. N.W. of Albi by road. Pop. (1906) 1619. Cordes,
which covers the summit and slopes of an isolated hill, was a
bastide founded by Raymond VII., count of Toulouse, in the first
half of the 13th century. It preserves its medieval aspect to a
remarkable degree, a large number of houses of the 13th and 14th
centuries, with decorated fronts, forming its chief attraction. A
church of the same periods and remains of the original ramparts
are also to be seen.
CORDILLERA, a Spanish term for a range or chain of
mountains, derived from the Old Spanish cordilla, the diminutive
of cuerda, a cord or rope. The name was first given to the Andes
ranges of South America, Las Cordilleras de los Andes, and
applied to the extension of the system into Mexico. In North
America the parallel ranges of mountains running between and
including the Rocky Mountains and the Sierra Nevada are known
as the “Cordilleras,” and that part of the western continent
crossed by them has been termed the “Cordilleran region.”
Although the name has been applied to the eastern mountain
system of Australia, the word is not, outside America, used as a
generic term for parallel ranges of mountains.
CORDITE, the name given to the smokeless propellant in use
in the British army and navy. The material is produced in the
form of cylindrical rods or strings of varying thicknesses by
pressing the material, whilst in a soft and pasty state, through
dies or perforations in a steel plate by hydraulic or screw pressure,
hence the name cordite. The thickness or size of the rods varies
from about 1 mm. diameter to 5 or more mm. according to the
nature of the charge for which it is intended. The smallest
diameter is used for revolver cartridge and the largest for heavy
guns. When first devised by the Ordnance Committee, presided
over by Sir Frederick Abel, in 1891, this explosive consisted of
58% of nitro-glycerin, 37% of gun-cotton, and 5% of mineral jelly. This variety is now known as Cordite Mark 1. At the present time a modification is made which contains gun-cotton
65%, nitro-glycerin 30%, and mineral jelly 5%. This is known as Cordite M.D. The advantages of Cordite M.D. over Mark 1 are slightly reduced rate of burning, higher velocities and
more regular pressure in the gun, and lower temperature.
Cordite of either mark is a perfectly waterproof substance, containing only traces of water remaining from the manufacturing processes. It has a density of about 1.56 at the ordinary temperature (15° C.), and, as its coefficient of expansion is small, this density does not change to any serious extent under climatic temperature variations. A rod may be bent to a moderate extent without breaking, and Cordite M.D. especially shows considerable elasticity. It can be impressed by the nail and cut with a knife, but is not in the least sticky, nor does the nitro-glycerin exude to any appreciable extent. It can be obtained in a finely-divided state by scraping with a sharp knife, or on a new file, or by grinding in a mill, such as a coffee-mill, but can scarcely be pounded in a mortar. Cordite is of a brownish colour in mass, but is much paler when finely ground or scraped. The rods easily become electrified by gentle friction with a dry substance. Like all colloidal substances it is an exceedingly bad conductor of heat. A piece ignited in air burns with a yellowish flame. With the smaller sizes, about 2 mm. diameter or less, this flame may be blown out, and the rod will continue to burn in a suppressed manner without actual flame, fumes containing oxides of nitrogen being emitted. Temperature appears to have an effect on the rate of burning. When much cooled it certainly burns more slowly than when at the ordinary air temperature, and is also more difficult to ignite. Rods of moderate thickness, say from 5 mm. diameter, will continue to burn under water if first ignited in air and the burning portion slowly immersed. The end of a rod of cordite may be struck a moderately heavy blow on an anvil without exploding or igniting. The rod will first flatten out. A sharp blow will then detonate
