by which he sells the stock for the Settlement and buys it again for the next, the price at which the bargain is entered being called the making-up price. The rate that he pays for this accommodation, which amounts to borrowing the money involved until the next Settlement, is called the contango.
CONTARINI, the name of a distinguished Venetian family,
who gave to the republic eight doges and many other eminent
citizens. The story of their descent from the Roman family
of Cotta, appointed prefects of the Reno valley (whence Cotta
Reni or Conti del Reno), is probably a legend. One Mario Contarini
was among the twelve electors of the doge Paulo Lucio
Anafesto in 697. Domenico Contarini, elected doge in 1043,
subjugated rebellious Dalmatia and recaptured Grado from the
patriarch of Aquileia. He died in 1070. Jacopo was doge
from 1275 to 1280. Andrea was elected doge in 1367, and during
his reign the war of Chioggia took place (1380); he was the
first to melt down his plate and mortgage his property for the
benefit of the state. Other Contarini doges were: Francesco
(1623–1624), Niccolò (1630–1631), who built the church of the
Salute, Carlo (1655–1656), during whose reign the Venetians
gained the naval victory of the Dardanelles, Domenico (1659–1675)
and Alvise (1676–1684). There were at one time no less
than eighteen branches of the family; one of the most important
was that of Contarini dallo Zaffo or di Giaffa, who had been
invested with the countship of Jaffa in Syria for their services to
Caterina Cornaro, queen of Cyprus; another was that of Contarini
degli Scrigni (of the coffers), so called on account of their
great wealth. Many members of the family distinguished
themselves in the service of the republic, in the wars against the
Turks, and no less than seven Contarini fought at Lepanto.
One Andrea Contarini was beheaded in 1430 for having wounded
the doge Francesco Foscari (q.v.) on the nose. Other members
of the house were famous as merchants, prelates and men of
letters; among these we may mention Cardinal Gasparo Contarini
(1483–1542), and Marco Contarini (1631–1689), who was
celebrated as a patron of music and collected at his villa of
Piazzola a large number of valuable musical MSS., now in the
Marciana library at Venice. The family owned many palaces in
various parts of Venice, and several streets still bear its name.
See J. Fontana, “Sulla patrizia famiglia Contarini,” in Il Gondoliere (1843). (L. V.*)
CONTAT, LOUISE FRANÇOISE (1760–1813), French actress,
made her début at the Comédie Française in 1766 as Atalide in
Bajazet. It was in comedy, however, that she made her first
success, as Suzanne in Beaumarchais’s Mariage de Figaro; and
in several minor character parts, which she raised to the first
importance, and as the soubrette in the plays of Molière and
Marivaux, she found opportunities exactly fitted to her talents.
She retired in 1809 and married de Parny, nephew of the poet.
Her sister Marie Émilie Contat (1769–1846), an admirable
soubrette, especially as the pert servant drawn by Molière and
de Regnard, made her début in 1784, and retired in 1815.
CONTE, literally a “story,” derived from the Fr. conter, to
narrate, through low Lat. and Provençal forms contare and
comtar. This word, although not recognized by the New English
Dictionary as an English term, is yet so frequently used in
English literary criticisms that some definition of it seems to be
demanded. A conte, in French, differs from a récit or a rapport
in the element of style; it may be described as an anecdote told
with deliberate art, and in this introduction of art lies its peculiar
literary value. According to Littré, there is no fundamental
difference between a conte and a roman, and all that can be said
is that the conte is the generic term, covering long stories and
short alike, whereas the roman (or novel) must extend to a
certain length. But if this is the primitive and correct signification
of the word, it is certain that modern criticism thinks of a
conte essentially as a short story, and as a short story exclusively
occupied in illustrating one set of ideas or one disposition of
character. As early as the 13th century, the word is used in
French literature to describe an anecdote thus briefly and
artistically told, in prose or verse. The fairy-tales of Perrault
and the apologues of La Fontaine were alike spoken of as contes,
and stories of peculiar extravagance were known as contes bleus,
because they were issued to the common public in coarse blue
paper covers. The most famous contes in the 18th century were
those of Voltaire, who has been described as having invented
the conte philosophique. But those brilliant stories, Candide,
Zadig, L’Ingénu, La Princess de Babylone and Le Taureau blanc,
are not, in the modern sense, contes at all. The longer of these
are romans, the shorter nouvelles, not one has the anecdotical
unity required by a conte. The same may be said of those of
Marmontel, and of the insipid imitations of Oriental fancy which
were so popular at the close of the 18th century. The most perfect
recent writer of contes is certainly Guy de Maupassant, and
his celebrated anecdote called “Boule de suif” may be taken
as an absolutely perfect example of this class of literature, the
precise limitations of which it is difficult to define.
(E. G.)
CONTÉ, NICOLAS JACQUES (1755–1805), French mechanical genius, chemist and painter, was born at Aunou-sur-Orne, near Sées, on the 4th of August 1755, of a family of poor farm labourers.
At the age of fourteen he displayed precocious artistic talent in a series of religious panels, remarkably fine in colour and composition, for the principal hospital of Sées, where he was employed to help the gardener. With the advice of Greuze he took up portrait painting, quickly became the fashion, and laid by in a few years a fair competency. From that time he gave free rein to his passion for the mechanical arts and scientific studies. He attended the lectures of J. A. C. Charles, L. N. Vaquelin and J. B. Leroy, and exhibited before the Academy of Science an hydraulic machine of his own invention of which the model was the subject of a flattering report, and was placed in Charles’s collection. The events of the Revolution soon gave him an opportunity for a further display of his inventive faculty. The war with England deprived France of plumbago; he substituted for it an artificial substance obtained from a mixture of graphite and clay, and took out a patent in 1795 for the form of pencil which still bears his name. At this time he was associated with Monge and Berthollet in experiments in connexion with the inflation of military balloons, was conducting the school for that department of the engineer corps at Meudon, was perfecting the methods of producing hydrogen in quantity, and was appointed (1796) by the Directory to the command of all the aerostatic establishments. He was at the head of the newly created Conservatoire des arts et métiers, and occupied himself with experiments in new compositions of permanent colours, and in 1798 constructed a metal-covered barometer for measuring comparative heights, by observing the weight of mercury issuing from the tube. Summoned by Bonaparte to take part as chief of the aerostatic corps in the expedition to Egypt, he considerably extended his field of activity, and for three years and a half was, to quote Berthollet, “the soul of the colony.” The disaster of Aboukir and the revolt of Cairo had caused the loss of the greater part of the instruments and munitions taken out by the French. Conté, who, as Monge says, “had every science in his head and every art in his hands,” and whom the First Consul described as “good at everything,” seemed to be everywhere at once and triumphed over apparently insurmountable difficulties. He made, in an almost uncivilized country, utensils, tools and machinery of every sort from simple windmills to stamps for minting coin. Thanks to his activity and genius, the expedition was provided with bread, cloth, arms and munitions of war; the engineers with the exact tools of their trade; the surgeons with operating instruments. He made the designs, built the models, organized and supervised the manufacture, and seemed to be able to invent immediately anything required. On his return to France in 1802 he was commissioned by the minister of the interior, Chaptal, to superintend the publication of the great work of the commission on Egypt, and an engraving machine of his construction materially shortened this task, which, however, he did not live to see finished. He died at Paris on the 6th of December 1805. Napoleon had included him in his first promotions to the Legion of Honour. A bronze statue was erected to his memory in 1852 at Sées, by public subscription.
