form some of the writings of Washington Irving, Fenimore Cooper, Bulwer Lytton and Benjamin Disraeli. He also brought out a number of shilling books in “ Routledge's Universal Library.” Routledge died in London on the 13th of December 1888. After being styled Routledge, Warne & Routledge, his firm changed its name to that of George Routledge & Sons. A branch of the business was established in New York in 1854.
ROUVIER, MAURICE (1842-), French statesman, was
born at Aix on the 17th of April 1842, and spent the early
years of his manhood in business at Marseilles. He supported
Gambetta's candidature there in 1867, and in 1870 he founded
an anti-imperial journal, L'EgaZité. Becoming secretary
general of the prefecture of Bouches-du-Rhone in 1870-71,
he refused the office of prefect. In July 1871 he was returned
to the National Assembly for Marseilles at a by-election, and
voted steadily with the Republican party. He became a
recognized authority on finance, and repeatedly served on
the Budget Commission as reporter or president. At the
general elections of 1881 after the fall of the Ferry cabinet
he was returned to the chamber on a programme which included
the separation of Church and State, a policy of decentralization,
and the imposition of an income-tax. He then joined
Gambetta's cabinet as minister of commerce and the colonies,
and in the 1883-85 cabinet of Jules Ferry he held the same
office. He became premier and minister of finance on the
31st of May 1887, with the support of the moderate republican
groups, the Radicals holding aloof in support of General
Boulanger, who began a violent agitation against the government.
Then came the scandal of the decorations in which
President Grévy's son-in-law Daniel Wilson figured, and the
Rouvier cabinet fell in the attempt to screen the president.
R0uvier's opposition in his capacity of president of the Budget
Commission was one of the causes of the defeat of the Floquet
cabinet in February 1889. In the new Tirard ministry formed
to combat the Boulangist agitation he was minister of finance.
This portfolio he retained consecutively in the Freycinet, the
Loubet and the Ribot cabinets, 1890-93. His relations with
Cornélius Herz and the baron de Reinach compelled his retirement,
however, from the Ribot cabinet at the time of the
Panama scandals in December 1892. Again, in 1902, he became
minister of finance, after nearly ten years in exclusion from
office, in the Radical cabinet of M. Combes; and on the fall
of the Combes ministry in January 1905 he was 'invited by
the president to form a new ministry. In this cabinet he at
first held the ministry of finance. In his initial declaration
to the chamber the new premier had declared his intention of
continuing the policy of the late cabinet, pledging the new
ministry to a policy of conciliation, to the consideration of
old age pensions, an income-tax, separation of Church and
State. Public attention, however, was chiefly concentrated
on foreign policy. During the Combes ministry M. Delcassé
had come to a secret understanding with Spain on the Moroccan
question, and had established an understanding with England.
His policy had aroused German jealousy, which became evident
in the asperity with which the question of Morocco was handled
in Berlin. At a cabinet meeting on June 5th it is said that
M. Rouvier reproached the Foreign Minister with imprudence
in the matter of Morocco, and after a heated discussion
M. Delcassé gave in his resignation. M. Rouvier himself took
the portfolio of foreign affairs at this anxious juncture. He,
after critical negotiations, secured on July 8th an agreement with
Germany accepting the international conference proposed by
the sultan of Morocco on the assurance that Germany would
recognize the special nature of the interest of France in maintaining
order on the frontier of her Algerian empire. Lengthy
discussions resulted in a new convention in September, which
contained the programme of the proposed conference, and in
December M. Rouvier was able to make a statement of the
whole proceedings in the chamber, which received the assent
of all parties. M. Rouvier's government did not long survive
the presidential election of 1906. The disturbances arising
in Connexion with the Separation Law were skilfully handled
by M. Clemenceau to discredit the ministry, which gave place
to a cabinet under the direction of M. Sarrien.
ROVERETO, the most important industrial town in the
southern or Italian-speaking portion of the Austrian province
of Tirol, though its population (which in 1900 was 10,180,
Italian-speaking and Romanist) is less than that of Trent. It
is also the principal town of the administrative district of
Rovereto. Built on the left bank of the Adige, in the widest
portion of the Val Lagarina (the name given to the Adige valley
from Acquaviva, above Rovereto, to the Italian frontier), it is
divided into two parts by the Leno torrent. It is on the
Brenner railway, by which it is 15m. S.W. of Trent and 41½ m.
N. of Verona. Save in the newer quarter of the town, the streets
are narrow and crooked, several being named after the most
distinguished native of the place, Antonio Rosmini-Serbati
(q.v.). The finest church is that of Santa Maria del Carmine,
the old 14th-century church now serving as a sacristy to that
built from 1678 to 1750. The church of San Marco dates from
the 15th century. The town is dominated by the castle (now
used as barracks), which was reconstructed in 1492 by the
Venetians, after it had been burnt in 1487 by the count of
Tirol. The staple silk industry (which dates from the 16th
century) has declined, the number both of filande (establishments
wherein the cocoons are unwound) and of filatoje (those
wherein the silk is spun) having diminished.
In 1132 the emperor Lothair found the passage of the gorge above the site of the town barred by a castle, which he took and gave to one of his Teutonic followers, the ancestor of the Castelbarco family. Towards the middle of the 13th century that family obtained by marriage the lands of the Lizzana family (whose castle rises S. of the town), and in 1300 practically founded the town and surrounded it with walls. In 1416 it was taken by the Venetians, who in 1487 successfully resisted, at Calliano, an attempt to take it made by the count of Tirol and the bishop of Trent. In 1509, at the outset of the war of the League of Cambray, the town gave itself voluntarily to the emperor Maximilian, to whom it was ceded formally by Venice in 1517, and next year incorporated with Tirol. South of Rovereto is the village of Marco, near which are certain natural remains (either those of a landslip that occurred in 883, or of a glacier moraine) believed to have been described by Dante (Inf. xii. 4–9), who is said to have spent part of the year 1304, during his exile from Florence, in the castle of Lizzana, between Marco and Rovereto. (W. A. B. C.)
ROVIGNO, a seaport of Austria, in Istria, 75 m. S. of Trieste
by rail. Pop. (1900) 10,205, mostly Italian. It is situated on
the west coast of Istria, and possesses an interesting cathedral,
built on the summit of the promontory Monte di Sant' Eufemia.
Its campanile, built after the model of the famous campanile in
Venice, is crowned with a bronze statue of St Eufemia, the
patron saint of the town, whose remains are preserved in the
church. It contains a station of the Berlin Aquarium, with a
fine collection of the fauna of the Adriatic Sea. In the neighbourhood
are vineyards, which produce the best wine in Istria,
and olive gardens, while its hazel-nuts are reputed the finest
in the world. Rovigno is the principal centre of the Austrian
tunny and sardine fishery. The industries, in addition to ship-building
and the preservation of fish, include the manufacture
of tobacco, cement, macaroni and similar preparations, and
flour. There is an active export trade. Its inhabitants are
renowned seamen. Rovigno is the ancient Arupenum or
Rubinum, and according to tradition it was originally built on an
island, Cissa by name, which disappeared during the earthquakes
about 737. Rovigno passed definitively into the hands
of the Venetians in 1330, and it remained true to the republic
till the treaty of Campo Formio (1797).
ROVIGO, a town of Venetia, Italy, capital of the province of
Rovigo. It stands on the low ground between the lower Adige
and the lower Po, 50 m. by rail S.W. of Venice and 27 m. S.S.W.
of Padua, and on the Adigetto Canal, 17 ft. above sea-level.
Pop. (1901) 6038 (town); 10,735 (commune). It is a station
