Page:EB1911 - Volume 09.djvu/365

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342
EMMAUS—EMMET

suzerainty. Emmanuel reformed the currency, reorganized justice, prepared the way for the emancipation of the serfs, raised the standing army to 25,000 men, and fortified the frontiers, ostensibly against Huguenot raids, but in reality from fear of France. On the death of Charles IX. of France in 1574 the new king, Henry III., passed through Piedmont on his way from Poland; Emmanuel gave him a magnificent reception, and obtained from him a promise that Pinerolo and Savigliano should be evacuated, which was carried out at the end of the year. Philip of Spain was likewise induced to evacuate Asti and Santhià in 1575. Thus, after being more or less under foreign occupation for 39 years, the duchy was at last free. The duke rounded off his dominions by the purchase of Tenda and Oneglia, which increased his seaboard, and the last years of his life were spent in fruitless negotiations to obtain Monferrato, held by the Gonzagas under Spanish protection, and Saluzzo, which was a French fief. He died on the 30th of August 1580, and was succeeded by his son Charles Emmanuel I. As a statesman Emmanuel Philibert was able, business-like and energetic; but he has been criticized for his duplicity, although in this respect he was no worse than most other European princes, whose ends were far more questionable. He was autocratic, but just and very patriotic. During his reign the duchy, which had been more than half French, became predominantly Italian. By diplomacy, which, although he was a capable and brave soldier, he preferred to war, he succeeded in freeing his country, and converting it from a ruined and divided land into a respectable independent power of the second rank, and, after Venice, the best-governed state in Italy.

The most accurate biography of Emmanuel Philibert is contained in E. Ricotti’s Storia della monarchia Piemontese, vol. ii. (Florence, 1861), which is well done and based on documents; cf. Claretta’s La Successione di Emanuele Filiberto (Turin, 1884).


EMMAUS, the name of two places in Palestine.

1. A village mentioned by Luke (xxiv. 13), without any indication of direction, as being 60 stadia (almost 7 m.), or according to some MSS.[1] 160 stadia, from Jerusalem. Its identification is a matter of mere guesswork: it has been sought at (a) Emmaus-Nicopolis (see 2 below), distant 176 stadia from Jerusalem; (b) Kuryet el- ‛Enab, distant 66 stadia, on the carriage road to Jaffa; (c) Kulonieh, distant 36 stadia, on the same road; (d) el-Kubeibeh, distant 63 stadia, on the Roman road to Lydda; (e) ‛Urtas, distant 60 stadia; and (f) Khurbet el-Khamasa, distant 86 stadia, on the Roman road to Eleutheropolis. Of these, el-Kubeibeh or ‛Urtas seems the most probable, though many favour Kulonieh because of its nearness to Bet Mizza, in which name there is similarity with Emmaus, and because of a reading (30 stadia) in Josephus.

2. Emmaus-Nicopolis, now ‛Amwās, a town on the maritime plain, and a place of importance during the Maccabaean and Jewish wars. Near it Judas Maccabaeus defeated Gorgias in 164 B.C., and Vespasian established a fortified camp in A.D. 69. It was afterwards rebuilt and named Nicopolis, and became an episcopal see. It was also noted for a healing spring.


EMMENDINGEN, a town of Germany, in the grand-duchy of Baden, close to the Black Forest, on the Elz and the main line of railway Mannheim-Constance. Pop. 6200. It has a Protestant church with a fine spire, a Roman Catholic church, a handsome town-hall, an old castle (now a hospital), once the residence of the counts of Hochberg, spinning mills, tanneries and manufactures of photographic instruments, paper, machinery and cigars. There is also a considerable trade in timber and cattle. Here the author Johann Georg Schlosser (1739–1799), the husband of Goethe’s sister Cornelia (who died in 1777 and is interred in the old graveyard), was Oberamtmann (bailiff) for a few years.

Emmendingen was formerly the seat of the counts of Hochberg, a cadet branch of the margraves of Baden. In 1418 it received market rights from the emperor, and in 1590 was raised to the status of a town, and walled, by Margrave Jacob III.


EMMERICH (the ancient Embrica), a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine province, on the right bank of the Rhine and the railway from Cologne to Amsterdam, 5 m. N.E. of Cleves. Pop. (1905) 12,578. It has a considerable shipping trade, and manufactories of tobacco and cigars, chocolate, margarine, oil, chemicals, brushes, vinegar, soap, guano and perfumery. There are also iron foundries and machine factories. The old minster church, built in the middle of the 11th century, contains some fine choir stalls.

Emmerich, formerly called Embrika and Emrik, originally a Roman colony, is mentioned in records so early as the 7th century. St Willibrord founded a monastery and church here. In 1233 the place came into the possession of the dukes of Gelderland and received the status of a town in 1247. In 1371 it fell to the duchy of Cleves, and passed with it in 1609 to Brandenburg. The town joined the Hanseatic League in 1407. In 1794 it was bombarded by the French under General Vandamme, and in 1806 it was assigned to the grand-duchy of Berg. It passed into the possession of Prussia in 1815.

See A. Dederich, Annalen der Stadt Emmerich (Emmerich, 1867).


EMMET, ROBERT (1778–1803), Irish rebel, youngest son of Robert Emmet, physician to the lord-lieutenant of Ireland, was born in Dublin in 1778, and entered Trinity College in October 1793, where he had a distinguished academic career, showing special aptitude for mathematics and chemistry, and acquiring a reputation as an orator. Without taking a degree he removed his name from the college books in April 1798, as a protest against the inquisitorial examination of the political views of the students conducted by Lord Clare as chancellor of the university. Thus cut off from entering a learned profession, he turned towards political intrigue, being already to some extent in the secrets of the United Irishmen, of whom his elder brother Thomas Addis Emmet (see below) was one of the most prominent. In April 1799 a warrant was issued for his arrest, but was not executed; and in 1800 and the following year he travelled on the continent of Europe, where he entered into relations with the leaders of the United Irishmen, exiled since the rebellion of 1798, who were planning a fresh outbreak in Ireland in expectation of support from France. Emmet went to Paris in October 1802, where he had an interview with Bonaparte which convinced him that the peace of Amiens would be of short duration and that a French invasion of England might be looked for in August 1803. The councils of the conspirators were weakened by divided opinions as to the ultimate aim of their policy; and no clearly thought-out scheme of operations appears to have been arrived at when Emmet left Paris for Ireland in October 1802. Those in his confidence afterwards denied that Emmet was himself the originator of the plan on which he acted; and several of the ablest of the United Irishmen held aloof, believing the project to be impracticable. Among the latter was Lord Cloncurry, at one time on the executive of the United Irishmen, with whom Emmet dined the night before he left Paris, and to whom he spoke of his plans with intense enthusiasm and excitement. Emmet’s lack of discretion was shown by his revealing his intentions in detail to an Englishman named Lawrence, resident near Honfleur, with whom he sought shelter when travelling on foot on his way to Ireland. Arriving in Dublin at the end of October he received information to the effect that seventeen counties were ready to take up arms if a successful effort were made in Dublin. For some time he remained concealed in his father’s house near Miltown, making his preparations. A large number of pikes were collected and stored in Dublin during the spring of 1803, but fire-arms and ammunition were not plentiful.

The probability of a French invasion in August was increased by the renewal of the war in May, Emmet’s brother Thomas being then in Paris in communication with Talleyrand and Bonaparte. But a discovery by the government of concealed

  1. Including Codex א. But this distance is too great for the conditions of Luke’s narrative and the reading (160) is evidently an attempt to harmonize with the traditional identification of Emmaus-Nicopolis held by Eusebius and Jerome. For a curious reading in three old Latin MSS, which makes Emmaus the name of the second traveller on the journey, see Expos. Times, xiii. 429, 477, 561.