to France; and having stationed himself near the door of the prince's apartment on the pretext of requiring a passport, shot him with an arquebuse which he had concealed under his cloak. He was seized in attempting to escape, examined by torture, and condemned to a painful death, which he endured, 15th July, 1584, with the constancy and self-congratulation of a fanatic. A few years afterwards the king of Spain conferred patents of nobility on the nearest relatives of the murderer.—W. B.
GERARD, François, Baron, one of the most distinguished of the modern painters of France, was born at Rome in 1770; his mother was Italian, but his father was French. He commenced his career in Paris by the study of sculpture under Pajou, but subsequently renounced sculpture for painting, and entered the school of David. Gerard commenced his career in the antique classical taste of his master, and some of his earlier works are statuesque and formal, and are too highly elaborated, resembling, as in his "Cupid and Psyche," rather painted statues than legitimate pictures. He acquired the public notice for the first time in 1795 when he painted his "Belisarius," now in the Leuchtenberg gallery at St. Petersburg; and he continued to add to his fame until in 1817 he produced one of the most remarkable pictures of modern times, in his "Entry of Henry IV. into Paris," now at Versailles; there is a smaller copy of it in the Louvre. In this work, alone sufficient to immortalize him, he forsook the morbid classic taste of his master, and produced a genuine historical picture. Its dimensions are immense, and it is one mass of life and character, well composed, well drawn, and well coloured; it is further a perfect school of the costume of the period. This work procured Gerard his title of Baron from Louis XVIII. for whom it was painted; it has been engraved by Toschi. In 1822 he painted his admirable small picture of "Thetis bearing the armour of Achilles," which was purchased by Prince Pozzo di Borgo; there is a print of it by Richomme. Gerard executed many beautiful cabinet pictures, and some other great works, as the "Battle of Austerlitz," the "Coronation of Charles X.," &c., but these are little more than square yards of costume. He was, however, an excellent portrait painter; Pierre Adam has etched a collection of eighty full length portraits by him, in which are comprised most of the illustrious persons of his time. He died January 11, 1837, having earned a European reputation. He was member of seven foreign academies.—R. N. W.
GERARD, James Gilbert, M.D., son of Gilbert Gerard, professor of divinity in King's college, Aberdeen, was born in that city in 1795. Entering the military service of the East India Company in the capacity of surgeon, he took part with his brother, Captain Alexander P. Gerard, in the explorations of Malacca, Thibet, and the Himalaya mountains, and in 1832 accompanied Lieutenant (afterwards Sir Alexander) Burnes in his expedition to the east of the Indus. He was engaged in preparing an account of his travels when he died at Sabbathou, Bengal, March 31, 1835.—J. S., G.
GERARD, Jean Ignace I. See Grandville.
GERARD, Johann. See Gerhard.
GERARD, Maurice Etienne, Comte, a French military officer, who rose to some of the highest honours which his country had to bestow, was born in the department of the Meuse in 1773. He entered the army at the age of eighteen; in two years he had won his captaincy under Jourdan on the Rhine; and by the end of the century he was in command of a regiment of cavalry. He distinguished himself at Austerlitz, and was rewarded with the cross of the legion of honour. Having been raised to the rank of brigadier-general in the following year, he served against the Archduke Charles, till the battle of Wagram and the armistice which followed it suspended hostilities in that quarter. The war in Spain then gave him employment till the close of 1811; and in 1812 he accompanied the expedition into Russia. His services in that ill-fated enterprise added to his military reputation; during the retreat especially, being attached to the division in the rear, as second in command under Marshal Ney, he did his duty ably in checking the pursuit and saving the remains of the fugitive French army. The genius and energy of Napoleon protracted the struggle for nearly two years longer; and Gerard won new laurels at Weissenfels, at Bautzen, and at Leipsic, where he was severely wounded; at Montereau, where he and General Pajol carried off the principal honours of the day; and at Troyes, where he saved Oudinot. After the return from Elba, he commanded on the Moselle, and took part in the operations which closed the struggle at Waterloo. During the next two years he resided in Belgium, and then returned to his native country, where in 1830 Louis Philippe gave him the baton of a marshal and the portfolio of the war-office; but his health did not admit of his retaining the latter more than a few months; and the same reason shortened his tenure of the presidency of the council in 1834. He was also chancellor of the legion of honour, under the provisional government of Lamartine. He died in 1852, and his ashes rest beneath the chapel of the Invalides.—W. B.
GERARD, Philippe Louis, born at Paris in 1737; died in 1813. Educated at the college of Louis le Grand. After he had left it he seems to have passed a disreputable life tor some years. He called himself a philosopher, and sported a system of his own. He then got ordained, and the last we know of him in the church is that he was appointed one of the canons of St. Louis du Louvre. He published several books which were popular in their day, and some of which are still occasionally reprinted. One is a novel, "The Count de Valmont," which is supposed to give the history of his own early life.—J. A., D.
GERARD, surnamed Thom or Tenque, born about 1040, on the coast of Provence—some say at Amalfi—was led by his early commercial pursuits to visit Jerusalem, where he renounced the world and consecrated himself to works of devotion and charity. His zeal in promoting the comfort of pilgrims procured for him the superintendence of an hospital erected for their benefit in the Holy City; and towards the close of the century, when the crusaders landed in Palestine, he was thrown into prison on suspicion of favouring their enterprise. Their successes having restored him to freedom and to his office, he founded in 1100 the order of the knights hospitallers, who assumed as their cognizance the cross of eight points, and bound themselves to holy service under a vow of poverty, chastity, and obedience. The grand-mastership of the order was held by Gerard till his death in 1121.—W. B.
GÉRARD DE NERVAL, or more properly Gerard Labrunie, born at Paris in 1808; died in 1855; son of a French officer. Gerard's mother, from whom he inherited some property, died while he was yet an infant, and the boy was brought up by an uncle. At an early age he published a translation of Faust, which was highly praised by Goethe, and which was adopted by Berlioz in his musical work, Le Damnation de Faust. Gérard fell distractedly in love with an opera singer, then of great eminence, Jenny Colon; and in a piece called "La Reine de Saba," had sufficiently interested Alexandre Dumas to obtain his consent that she should appear in it, and sing Meyerbeer's music. A squabble between the manager and the maestro led to the abandonment of his project, and Gérard sought in travel to forget his disappointment. Gérard had the absurd passion of purchasing whatever in what is called art comes to sale by auction; and while he had nothing that could be properly called a house to reside in, was obliged to find house-room for heaps of pictures, china, old bottles, and other descriptions of lumber. Jenny Colon's apartments were in truth his home. She died, and he fell into low dissipation. Gérard was no doubt in some degree insane. In 1841 he was found naked in the public streets, and excused his conduct by a supposed revelation from the world of spirits. The last access of madness was in 1855, on the eve of the anniversary of Jenny Colon's death, when it was found that he had hanged himself. A phrase of his in a work published in 1830 was now remembered, which was regarded as proving that such termination of his life had been long premeditated—"Est ce que vous tenez absolument à mourir d'une mort horizontale?" Such of Gérard's works as we have seen make us think favourably of him. He lived in an inoffensive dream, of which ordinary ambition formed no part. He had the kindliest feelings, and his irregularities had the melancholy excuse of actual insanity.—J. A., D.
GERARDE, John, an English botanist, was born at Nantwich in Cheshire in 1545, and died in 1607. He was educated as a surgeon, and practised in London. He was patronized by Lord Burleigh, whose garden he superintended for twenty years. He lived in Holborn, where he had a large physic garden of his own, a catalogue of which was published by him. He became master of the Apothecaries' Company. In 1597 he published his celebrated "Herbal, or general history of plants," after the model of the herbal of Dodoens or Dodonæus. He comprises the history of the vegetable kingdom in three books. A genus of Scrophulariaceæ has been named Gerardia after him.—J. H. B.
