underlings, however, unaccustomed to work on their own responsibility, proved utterly unfit for the task of reorganizing the Austrian government. They failed to allay the fears of the aristocracy, to command the respect of the middle classes, and to grapple with the increasing financial difficulties. When in May they published the new constitution—in fact a bungling transcript of the Belgian fundamental law—a street demonstration, headed by the students of the university, but favoured by the national guard, turned them out of office, and extorted the recognition of the principle of manhood-suffrage and the promise of a speedy convocation of a constituent assembly. They were replaced by some members of the above-mentioned club. Dr. Bach, who in the meantime had become common-councilman and member of the provincial deputation, was appointed minister of justice. He at once began to develope his political creed, opposed on one side to the idea of German unity, by which most of his more ambitious friends had been dazzled; on the other, to the historical rights of Hungary, and to the aspirations of Italy, Bohemia, and Austrian Poland. His aim was a centralized, constitutional, democratic Austrian empire, disregarding the history, rights, and claims of the different provinces, and the widely-spread schemes of German unity. His colleagues, however, were too weak either to carry or to repudiate a scheme which was inevitably leading to war with Hungary, and even in case of success, to the predominance of the army, and to the rule of the sword. The administration of Baron Pillersdorf was therefore signalized by continuous vacillation, by street emeutes at Vienna, and by bloodshed at Fragile and Lemberg. The cabinet yielded to the mob in the capital, but refused to close the Italian war by negotiation, and to come to good understanding with Hungary. They supported the Servian insurrection, and Ban Jellachich in his private war against Hungary, against the wishes of the Austrian constituent assembly; but they controlled it often successfully by the silent votes of Galician peasants, though none of the ministers was an eloquent man, and with the exception of Dr. Bach, not even a debater. Thus they lost the support of the people, and especially of the inhabitants of Vienna, who yearned for peace with Italy, and did not wish to jeopardize the very existence of the empire by a Hungarian war. Therefore, when the ministry ordered imperial regiments to the support of Ban Jellachich, defeated by the Hungarians on the 29th of September, a portion of the garrison of Vienna mutinied on the 6th of October, and, together with the population of the capital, expelled the troops, stormed the arsenal, killed the minister Count Latour, and sought the life of Dr. Bach, who had to flee. The court retired to Olmütz, where a new cabinet was formed under the premiership of Prince Schwarzenberg. Dr. Bach remaining minister of justice. Under this administration, Vienna was beleaguered and stormed, Italy subdued, and Hungary, refusing to merge into an ideal Austria, and clinging to its institutions, was invaded by all the available forces of the empire. After the complete defeat and expulsion of the imperial army, Prince Schwarzenberg sought the intervention of Russia, supported in his views by Dr. Bach, whilst Count Stadion opposed them, and became a lunatic when they were carried against his wishes. Dr. Bach succeeded him at the home office in March, 1849, and remained after the death of Prince Schwarzenberg, the leading member of the cabinet. He drew up the constitution of the empire at the end of the Hungarian war, but had now to learn that a country won by the sword, cannot be ruled but by the sword: his schemes remained on paper, and his constitution was still-born. During the Russian war he supported Count Buol against the military party in his leanings towards the Allies, and his "astounding ingratitude" (in the words of Prince Schwarzenberg) towards Russia. By this course he earned the enmity of the Austrian aristocracy, always unfriendly towards the man who had risen from the middle classes to one of the highest posts of the realm. This hatred, however, was soon allayed by Dr. Bach's successful endeavours to have the Austrian concordat signed, which surrendered the rights of the crown about the church exclusively to the papal see. His services were lately rewarded by the title of baron. He is a bachelor.—F. P., L.
BACH, Victor, a physician, born about the year 1770 at Villefranche (Aveyron); died at Paris in the year 1799. He practised his profession in Paris during the period of the Revolution, the principles of which he strongly espoused. He took an active part in the struggles of the convention, and was nominated elector of the department of the Seine. His opinions were strongly democratic. He was tried for an expression of these opinions in a pamphlet in the seventh year of the Revolution. After the fall of Larevellièr-Lépaux and his colleagues, he addressed the club of Manége on the dangers of the country, and proposed, in order to secure its safety, a constitution similar to the system of Babeuf. Bach had often predicted that the Republic would be destroyed by a soldier, and subsequent events justified his predictions. Faithful to his principles, and not willing to live under a military despotism, he shot himself at the foot of the statue of Liberty on the "Place de la Concorde," the same spot where Louis XVI. was guillotined.—E. L.
BACHARTIER-BEAUPUY, Michel Armand, a French general of division, born at St. Medard, Dordogne, 14th July, 1755, killed at the battle of Reutlingen, 19th October, 1796. In 1773 he was sub-lieutenant in the regiment of Bassigny, and was raised to the rank of general of division in 1795, having, in the interval, passed through all the intermediate grades.
BACHAUMONT, François le Coigneux de, a French litterateur, born in 1624, was "conseiller-clerc" to the parliament of Paris. He was one of the most successful epigrammatists of an age in which epigrams were at their highest value, and served equally the purposes of statesmen and of wits. Bachaumont found ample scope for his pleasantry in the character and measures of Cardinal Mazarin, and in the burlesque war of the "Fronde" to which one of his bon mots gave rise, showed himself a persevering, as well as a formidable enemy of the minister. He wrote in conjunction with Chapelle, "Voyage en Provence." Died in 1702.—J. S., G.
BACHAUMONT, Louis, a French litterateur, born towards the end of the seventeenth century, is the author of a curious literary and historical miscellany, published after his death, with the title "Mémoires Secrets." The work is in great part a record of the gossip and scandal current among the libertine churchmen, marquises, players, men of letters, and intriguing courtiers, whose society he frequented. Died in 1771.
* BACHE, Alexander Dallas, LL.D., the able and most efficient superintendent of the gigantic survey of the American coasts, so creditably undertaken, and so admirably carried out by the government of the United States. Dr. Bache was selected for the highly responsible office, which he has now occupied for many years, on account of the reputation he had acquired through other important services. Nominated in early life professor in the Girard college, he visited Europe in search of the freshest thoughts and the newest arrangements connected with practical education; and the result of his tour was one of the best and most thoughtful surveys of the actual condition of things, in regard to this great subject, that has yet appeared. Fortunately he was soon transferred from the Girard college to the service of the State. The former—through whatever cause—has not turned out a success. We suspect that, like many such institutions in our own country, its riches outran its objects. Charitable institutions are not needed on a great scale in the United States, and therefore do not thrive there. The Girard college is apt to remind the visitor of those enormously overgrown and comparatively useless "hospitals" in Edinburgh. Dr. Bache escaped from the sinecure, and entered on a sphere of activity that could not be occupied unless by a man of large acquirement, and who, at the same time, was eminently a man of work and sagacity. The department of the Coast Survey is, in reality, his own creation. It is not slightly to the credit of the Houses of Congress, and of the government at Washington, that they so heartily inaugurated, and have so liberally sustained so great and so necessary an enterprise; but we feel assured that they apportion to the intelligence and conscientious industry of Dr. Bache a due share of its success. The survey department of Washington is now a large national institution. It has already given forth most accurate maps, not only of the contours of the coasts, but of the soundings of every harbour and channel as yet utilized; and we have little hesitation in saying, that when it is completed, it will take its place as a model survey, that should be imitated—according to its means—by every maritime nation now existing, or which circumstances may henceforward endow with power. It might repay the trouble, if our own legislators would compare what has been done for some of our own comparatively limited coasts, with the results established by this American survey. But Dr. Bache did not confine himself to his primal and simple duty—that of fixing contours and recording sound-
