Page:EB1911 - Volume 24.djvu/43

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SAINT-MARC GIRARDIN—SAINT-MARTIN
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which have been turned to account in the defences of the coast; on the islet of the Grand Bey is the tomb (1848) of François Auguste, vicomte de Chateaubriand, a native of the town. The rocks and beach are continually changing their appearance, owing to the violence of the tides; spring-tides sometimes rise 50 ft. above low-water level, and the sea sometimes washes over the ramparts. The harbour of St Malo lies south of the town in the creek separating it from the neighbouring town of St Servan. Including the contiguous and connected basins belonging more especially to St Servan, it comprises an outer basin, a tidal harbour, two wet-docks and an inner reservoir, affording a total length of quayage of over 2 m. The wet-docks havea minimum depth of 13 to 15 ft. on sill, but the tidal harbour is dry at low water. The vessels entered at St Malo-St Servan in 1906 numbered 1004 of 279,217 tons; cleared 1023 of 298,720 tons. The great bulk of trade is with England, the exports comprising large quantities of fruit, dairy-produce, early potatoes and other vegetables and slate. The chief imports are coal and timber. The London and South-Western railway maintains a regular service of steamers between Southampton and St Malo. The port carries on shipbuilding and equips a fleet for the Newfoundland cod-fisheries. The industries also include ironand copper-founding and the manufacture of portable forges and other iron goods, cement, rope and artificial manures. The town is the seat of a sub-prefect and has tribunals of first instance and of commerce. Communication between the quays of St Malo and St Servan is maintained by a travelling bridge.

St Malo is largely frequented for sea-bathing, but not so much as Dinard, on the opposite side of the Rance. The town presents a tortuous maze of narrow streets and small squares lined with high and sometimes quaint buildings (e.g. the 16th-century house in which René Duguay-Trouin was born). Above all rises the stone spire (1859) of the cathedral, a building begun in the 12th century but added to and rebuilt at several subsequent periods. The castle (15th cent.), which defends the town towards the “ Sillon," is flanked with four towers, one of which, the great keep, is an older and loftier structure, breached in 1378. by the duke of Lancaster. St Malo has statues to Chateaubriand, Duguay-Trouin and the privateer Robert Surcouf (1773–1827), natives of the town. The museum contains remains of the ship “ La Petite Hermine,” in which Jacques Cartier sailed to the St Lawrence (q.v.), and a natural history collection.

In the 6th century the island on which St Malo stands was the retreat of Abbot Aaron, who gave asylum in his monastery to Malo (Maclovius or Malovius), a Cambrian priest, who came hither to escape the episcopal dignity, but afterwards became bishop of Aleth (now St Servan); the see was transferred to St Malo only in the 12th century; Henceforth the bishops of St Malo claimed the temporal sovereignty over the town, a claim which was resolutely disputed by the dukes of Brittany. The policy of the citizens themselves, who thus gained substantial powers of self-government, was directed by consistent hostility to England and consequently to the dukes. They took the side of Bishop Josselin de Rohan and his successor in their quarrel with dukes John IV. and John V., and it was not till 1424 that John V., by the agency of Charles VI. of France and with the sanction of the pope, finally established his authority over the town. In 1488 St Malo unsuccessfully resisted the French troops on behalf of the duke. During the troubles of the League the citizens hoped to establish a republican government, and on the 11th of March 1590 they exterminated the royal garrison and imprisoned their bishop and the canons. But four years later they surrendered to Henry IV. of France. During the following century the maritime power of St Malo attained some importance. In November 1693 and July 1695 the English vainly bombarded it. The people of St Malo had in the course of a single war captured upwards of 1500 vessels (several of them laden with gold and other treasure) and burned a considerable number more. Enriched by these successes and by the wealth they drew from the New World, the shipowners of the town not only supplied the king with the means necessary for the famous Rio de Janeiro expedition conducted by Duguay-Trouin in 1711, but also lent him large sums for carrying on the war of the Spanish Succession. In June 1758 the English sent a third expedition against St Malo under the command of Charles Spencer, third duke of Marlborough, and inflicted great loss on the royal shipping in the harbour of St Servan. But another expedition undertaken in the following September received a complete check. In 1778 and during the wars of the Empire the St Malo privateers, resumed their activity. In 1789 St Servan was separated from St Malo and in 1801 St Malo lost its bishopric. During the Reign of Terror thetown was the scene of sanguinary executions.

See M. J. Poulain, Histoire de Saint-Malo . . d'après les documents inédits (2nd ed., Lille, 1887).


SAINT-MARC GIRARDIN (1801–1873), French politician and man of letters, whose real name was Marc Girardin, was born in Paris on the 22nd of February 1801. After a brilliant university career in Paris he began in 1828 to contribute to the Journal des Débats, on the staff of which he remained for nearly half a century. At the accession of Louis Philippe he was appointed professor of history at the Sorbonne and master of requests in the Conseil d'Etat. Soon afterwards he exchanged his chair of history for one of poetry, continuing to contribute political articles to the Débats, and sitting as deputy in the chamber from 1835 to 1848. He was charged in 1833 with a mission to study German methods of education, and issued a report advocating the necessity of newer methods and of technical instruction. In 1844 he was elected a member of the Academy. During the revolution of February 1848 Girardin was for a moment a minister, but after the establishment of the republic he was not re-elected deputy. After the war of 1870–71 he was returned to the Bordeaux assembly by his old department—the Hautc Vienne. His Orleanist tendencies and his objections to the republic were strong, and though he at first supported Thiers, he afterwards became a leader of the opposition to the president. He died, however, on the 1st of April 1873 at Morsang-sur-Seine, before Thiers was actually driven from power.

His chief work is his Cours de littérature dramatique (1843–1863), a series of lectures better described by its second title De l'usage des passions dans le drame. The author examines the passions, discussing the mode in which they are treated in ancient and modern drama, poetry and romance. The book is really a defence of the ancients against the moderns, and Girardin did not take into account the fact that only the best of ancient literature has come down to us. Against the Romanticists he waged untiring war. Among his other works may be noticed Essais de littérature (2 vols. 1844), made up chiefly of contributions to the Débats, his Notices sur l'Allemagne (1834), and many volumes of collected Souvenirs, Réflexions, &c., on foreign countries and passing events. (His latest works of literary i-importance were La Fontaine et les Fabulistes (1867) and an Étude sur J.-J. Rousseau (1870) which had appeared in the Revue des deux mondes.

See Ch. Labitte, “ Saint-Marc Girardin," in the Revue des deux mondes (Feb. 1845); Tamisier, Saint-Marc Girardin; étude littéraire (1876); Hatzfield and Meunier, Les Critiques littéraires du XIXe siècle (1894).


SAINT-MARTIN, LOUIS CLAUDE DE (1743-1803), French philosopher, known as “ le philosophe inconnu,” the name under which his works were published, was born at Amboise of a poor but noble family, on the 18th of January 1743. By his father's desire he tried first law and then the army as a profession. While in garrison at Bordeaux he came under the influence of Martinez de Pasquales, usually called a Portuguese Jew (although later research has made it probable that he was a Spanish Catholic), who taught a species of mysticism drawn from cabbalistic sources, and endeavoured to found thereon a secret cult with magical or theurgical rites. In 1771 Saint-Martin left the army to become a preacher of mysticism. His conversational powers made him welcome in Parisian salons, but his zeal led him to England, where he made the acquaintance of William Law (q.v.), the English mystic, to Italy and to Switzerland, as well as to the chief towns of France. At Strassburg in 1788 he met Charlotte de Boecklin, who initiated him into the writings of Jacob Boehme, and inspired in his breast a semi-romantic attachment. His later years were devoted almost entirely to the composition of his chief works and to the translation of those of Boehme. Although he was not subjected to any persecution in consequence of his