Page:EB1911 - Volume 15.djvu/747

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KELLGREN—KELLS
719

successively senator (1800), honorary marshal of France (1803), and duke of Valmy (1808). He was frequently employed in the administration of the army, the control of the line of communications, and the command of reserve troops, and his long and wide experience made him one of Napoleon’s most valuable assistants. In 1814 he voted for the deposition of the emperor and became a peer under the royal government. After the “Hundred Days” he sat in the Chamber of Peers and voted with the Liberals. He died at Paris on the 23rd of September 1820.

See J. G. P. de Salve, Fragments historiques sur M. le maréchal de Kellermann (Paris, 1807), and De Botidoux, Esquisse de la carrière militaire de F. C. Kellermann, duc de Valmy (Paris, 1817).

His son, François Étienne de Kellermann, duke of Valmy (1770–1835), French cavalry general, was born at Metz and served for a short time in his father’s regiment of Hussars previous to entering the diplomatic service in 1791. In 1793 he again joined the army, serving chiefly under his father’s command in the Alps, and rising in 1796 to the rank of chef de brigade. In the latter part of Bonaparte’s celebrated Italian campaign of 1796–97 the younger Kellermann attracted the future emperor’s notice by his brilliant conduct at the forcing of the Tagliamento. He was made general of brigade at once, and continued in Italy after the peace of Campo Formio, being employed successively in the armies of Rome and Naples under Macdonald and Championnet. In the campaign of 1800 he commanded a cavalry brigade under the First Consul, and at Marengo (q.v.) he initiated and carried out one of the most famous cavalry charges of history, which, with Desaix’s infantry attack, regained the lost battle and decided the issue of the war. He was promoted general of division at once, but as early as the evening of the battle he resented what he thought to be an attempt to belittle his exploit. A heated controversy followed as to the influence of Kellermann’s charge on the course of the battle, and in this controversy he displayed neither tact nor forbearance. However, his merits were too great for his career to be ruined either by his conduct in the dispute or by the frequent scandals, and even by the frauds, of his private life. Unlike his father’s, his title to fame did not rest on one fortunate opportunity. Though not the most famous, he was perhaps the ablest of all Napoleon’s cavalry leaders, and distinguished himself at Austerlitz (q.v.), in Portugal under Junot (on this occasion as a skilful diplomatist), at the brilliant cavalry combat of Tormes (Nov. 28, 1809), and on many other occasions in the Peninsular War. His rapacity was more than ever notorious in Spain, yet Napoleon met his unconvincing excuses with the words, “General, whenever your name is brought before me, I think of nothing but Marengo.” He was on sick leave during the Russian expedition of 1812, but in 1813 and 1814 his skill and leading were as conspicuous as ever. He retained his rank under the first Restoration, but joined Napoleon during the Hundred Days, and commanded a cavalry corps in the Waterloo campaign. At Quatre Bras he personally led his squadrons in the famous cavalry charge, and almost lost his life in the mêlée, and at Waterloo he was again wounded. He was disgraced at the second Restoration, and, on succeeding to his father’s title and seat in the Chamber of Peers in 1820, at once took up and maintained till the fall of Charles X. in 1830 an attitude of determined opposition to the Bourbons. He died on the 2nd of June 1835.

His son François Christophe Edmond de Kellermann, duke of Valmy (1802–1868), was a distinguished statesman, political historian, and diplomatist under the July Monarchy.


KELLGREN, JOHAN HENRIK (1751–1795), Swedish poet and critic, was born at Floby in West Gothland, on the 1st of December 1751. He studied at the university of Åbo, and had already some reputation as a poet when in 1774 he there became a “docent” in aesthetics. Three years later he removed to Stockholm, where in conjunction with Assessor Carl Lenngren he began in 1778 the publication of the journal Stockholmsposten, of which he was sole editor from 1788 onwards. Kellgren was librarian to Gustavus III. from 1780, and from 1785 his private secretary. On the institution of the Swedish Academy in 1786 he was appointed one of its first members. He died at Stockholm on the 20th of April 1795. His strong satiric tendency led him into numerous controversies, the chief that with the critic Thomas Thorild, against whom he directed his satire Nyt försök till orimmad vers, where he sneers at the “raving of Shakespeare” and “the convulsions of Goethe.” His lack of humour detracts from the interest of his polemical writings. His poetical works are partly lyrical, partly dramatic; of the plays the versification belongs to him, the plots being due to Gustavus III. The songs interspersed in the four operas which they produced in common, viz., Gustaf Vasa, Gustaf Adolf och Ebba Brahe, Aeneas i Kartago, and Drottning Kristina, are wholly the work of Kellgren. From about the year 1788 a higher and graver feeling pervades Kellgren’s verses, partly owing to the influence of the works of Lessing and Goethe, but probably more directly due to his controversy with Thorild. Of his minor poems written before that date the most important are the charming spring-song Vinterns välde lyktar, and the satirical Mina löjen and Man eger ej snille för det man är galen. The best productions of what is called his later period are the satire Ljusets fiender, the comic poem Dumboms lefverne, the warmly patriotic Kantat d. 1. jan. 1789, the ode Till Kristina, the fragment Sigwart och Hilma, and the beautiful song Nya skapelsen, both in thought and form the finest of his works. Among his lyrics are the choicest fruits of the Gustavian age of Swedish letters. His earlier efforts, indeed, express the superficial doubt and pert frivolousness characteristic of his time; but in the works of his riper years he is no mere “poet of pleasure,” as Thorild contemptuously styled him, but a worthy exponent of earnest moral feeling and wise human sympathies in felicitous and melodius verse.

His Samlade skrifter (3 vols., 1796; a later edition, 1884–1885) were revised by himself. His correspondence with Rosenstein and with Clewberg was edited by H. Schück (1886–1887 and 1894). See Wieselgren, Sveriges sköna litteratur (1833–1849); Atterbom, Svenska siare och skalder (1841–1855); C. W. Böttiger in Transactions of the Swedish Academy, xlv. 107 seq. (1870); and Gustaf Ljunggren’s Kellgren, Leopold, och Thorild, and his Svenska vitterhetens häfder (1873–1877).


KELLOGG, CLARA LOUISE (1842–), American singer, was born at Sumterville, South Carolina, in July 1842, and was educated in New York for the musical profession, singing first in opera there in 1861. Her fine soprano voice and artistic gifts soon made her famous. She appeared as prima donna in Italian opera in London, and at concerts, in 1867 and 1868; and from that time till 1887 was one of the leading public singers. She appeared at intervals in London, but was principally engaged in America. In 1874 she organized an opera company which was widely known in the United States, and her enterprise and energy in directing it were remarkable. In 1887 she married Carl Strakosch, and retired from the profession.


KELLS, a market town of county Meath, Ireland, on the Blackwater, 93/4 m. N.W. of Navan on a branch of the Great Northern railway. Pop. of urban district (1901), 2428. The prosperity of the town depends chiefly upon its antiquarian remains. The most notable is St Columbkille’s house, originally an oratory, but afterwards converted into a church, the chancel of which was in existence in 1752. The present church is modern, with the exception of the bell-tower, rebuilt in 1578. Near the church there is a fine though imperfect specimen of the ancient round tower, 99 ft. in height; and there are several ancient crosses, the finest being that now erected in the market-place. Kells was originally a royal residence, whence its ancient name Ceanannus, meaning the dun or circular northern fort, in which the king resided, and the intermediate name Kenlis, meaning head fort. Here Conn of the Hundred Fights resided in the 2nd century; and here was a palace of Dermot, king of Ireland, in 544–565. The other places in Ireland named Kells are probably derived from Cealla, signifying church. In the 6th century Kells, it is said, was granted to St Columbkille. Of the monastery which he is reported to have founded there are no remains, and the town owes its chief ecclesiastical importance to the bishopric founded about 807, and united to Meath in the 13th century. The ecclesiastical establishment was noted as a seat of learning, and a monument of this remains in the Book of Kells an illuminated