Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/442

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CHA—CHA

aud distilleries. It is much frequented in summer by visitors from Berlin. The castle, built in 1 696 for the queen of Frederick L, the electress Sophia Charlotte, after whom the town was named, contains a collection of antiquities and paintings. In the castle grounds there is an extensive orangery, as also a granite mausoleum, the work of Schen- kel, with monuments of Frederick William III. and Queen

Louise by Rauch. The population in 1871 was 19,518.

CHARLOTTESVILLE, a town of the United States, the capital of Albemarle county, Virginia, situated about 65 miles north-west of Richmond on Moore s Creek, a tributary of Rivanna river. It is a railway junction of some import ance ; but its celebrity is due to the university of Virginia and the residence of Thomas Jefferson, which are both in the neighbourhood. The university was founded by Jefferson in 1819, and over $200,000 was spent on the buildings ; it is endowed aud controlled by the state, and was attended in 1875 by 330 students. Monticello, the founder s residence, is still standing, though in a somewhat dilapidated state, and his tomb is to be seen in the family bury ing-ground. The population of the town in 1870 was 2838, of whom 1473 were coloured.

CHARLOTTE TOWN, a town of British America, in the Dominion of Canada, the capital of Prince Edward Island, is situated on gently rising ground on the north bank of Hillsborough River, at its junction with York River, not far from the south coast, in 14 15 N. lat. and 63 T W. long. It has a good harbour in Hillsborough Bay, and the river is navigable by the largest vessels for several miles. Besides the Government buildings and the court-house, the town possesses an Episcopal, a Roman Catholic, and a Scotch church, a fort and barracks, a con vent, a lunatic asylum, an exchange, a jail, three banks, and an almshouse ; its educational institutions include the Prince of Wales College, supported by the province, the Roman Catholic College of St Dunstan s, the Wesleyan Methodist Academy, founded in 1871, and a normal school ; and among its industrial establishments are an iron foundry, a woollen factory, and shipbuilding yards. Large quantities of grain are exported, as well as potatoes, fish, and pork. A steamer plies between the town and Southport every hour, and there is regular communication with several of the other continental ports. A railway, with a total length of 200 miles, runs east to Georgetown and Souris, and west to Somerside, Alberton, and Tignish. Population in 1871, 8807.

CHAROLLES, a town of France, the capital of an arrondissement in the department of Saone-et-Loire, 3 miles by rail W.N.W. of Macon. It has tribunals of primary instance and commerce, an agricultural society, a communal college, a public library, manufactories of potteryware, iron forges, and a considerable trade in corn, wine, cattle, and timber. It was the capital of Charolais, an old division of France, which from the 13th century gave the title of count to its possessors. In 1327 the countship passed by marriage to the house of Armagnac ; aud in 1390 it was sold to Philip of Burgundy. After the death of Charles the Boli, who in his youth had borne the title of count of Charolais, it was seized by Louis XI. of France; but in 1493 it was ceded by Charles VIII. to Maximilian of Austria, the representative of the Burgundian family. Ultimately passing to the Spanish kings, it became for a considerable period an object of dispute between France and Spain, until at length it was assigned to Conde" the Great, in reward for the services he had rendered to the Spanish monarch. The ruins of the count s castle occupy the summit of a hill in the immediate vicinity of the town. Population in 1872, 3064.

CHARON, in Grecian mythology, the son of Erebus and Nox, whose office it was to ferry the souls of the deceased who had received the rite of sepulture over the waters of Acheron. For this service each soul was required to pay an obolus or danace, one of which coins was accordingly placed in the mouth of every corpse previous to burial.

CHARONDAS, a celebrated lawgiver, who legislated not only for his native Catana, but likewise for various cities of Magna Gracia. By some he is said to have been a disciple of Pythagoras, who flourished 540-510 B.C. ; and according to the common account (as given by Diodorus, xn.), he also drew up a code for the use of the Thurians ; but this statement is scarcely admissible, since Thurii was not founded till the year 443, and it is known that the laws of Charondas were in use among the Rhegians till they were abolished by Anaxilaus, who reigned from 494-476 B.C. It is traditionally related that Charondas fell a sacrifice to one of his own laws, by which it was made a capital offence to appear armed in a public assembly. Hastening to quell a tumult on his return from a military expedition, his sword still hanging by his side, he was reminded by a citizen of his violation of the law, upon which Charondas exclaimed " Then will I seal it with my blood ! " and immediately plunged the weapon into his breast. Fragments of his laws are given in Heyne s Opiiscula, vol. ii.

CHARPENTIER, François (1620-1702), archaeologist and man of letters, was born at Paris. Intended for the bar, he quitted law for literature at an early age, and was employed by the great minister Colbert, who had deter mined on the foundation of a French East India Company, to draw up an explanatory account of the project for the perusal of Louis XIV. ; to the memoir he thus prepared he afterwards added a second part. Charpentier, who was an ardent admirer of his own tongue, was one of the first to demonstrate the absurdity of the use of Latin in monu mental inscriptions, and to him was entrusted the task of supplying the paintings of Lebrun in the Versailles Gallery with appropriate legends. He acquitted himself so indifferently of the commission that his verses had to be replaced by others, the work of Racine and Boileau. With these poets Charpentier had already quarrelled, having espoused the cause of Perrault in the famous academical dispute (1687) concerning the relative merit of the ancients and moderns, and their notices of him are by no means calculated to place his abilities in the most favourable light. He is credited with an important share in the production of the magnificent series of medals that com memorate the principal events of the age of Louis Quatorze. Charpentier, who was long in receipt of a pension of 1200 livres from Colbert, was erudite and often ingenious, but he was always heavy and commonplace. His principal works are a Vie de Socrate (1650), a translation of the Cyropcedia of Xenophon (1659), the Traite de la Peintiire Parlante (1684), and the Defense de V Excellence de la Lanf/ue Francaise (1695).

CHARRON, Pierre (1541-1603), a French philosopher,

born in Paris in 1541, was one of the twenty-five children of a bookseller of that city. After studying law at Orleans and Bourges, and obtaining the degree of doctor from the latter university, he settled at Paris to practise as an advocate. But, having met with no great success during five or six years, he entered the church, and soon gained the highest popularity as a preacher, rising to the dignity of canon, and being appointed preacher in ordinary to Queen Margaret. At length, when about forty-seven years of age, he determined to fulfil a vow which he had once made to enter the cloister; but, being rejected by the Carthusians and by the Celestines, and having taken the advice of some professed casuists, he held himself absolved, and continued to follow his old profession. He delivered

a course of sermons at Angers, and in the next year passed