6. 45 Assyrian " 526 "

After these, according to Eusebius, came the reign of Pul. By means of an ingenious chronological combination, the several items of which, however, are very questionable, J.A. Brandis assigned 258 years to the 3rd dynasty; other summations have been proposed with equally little assurance of certainty. If Eusebius can be trusted, the 6th dynasty ended in 729 B.C., the year in which Pul or Tiglath-pileser III. was crowned king of Babylonia. But all attempts to harmonize the scheme of dynasties thus ascribed to Berossus with the list given us in the so-called dynastic Tablets discovered by Dr Pinches have been failures. The numbers, whether of kings or of years, cannot have been handed down to us correctly by the Greek writers. All that seems certain is that Berossus arranged his history so that it should fill the astronomical period of 36,000 years, beginning with the first man and ending with the conquest of Babylon by Alexander the Great. See J.P. Cory, _Ancient Fragments_ (1826, ed. by E.R. Hodges, 1876); Fr. Lenormant, _Essai de commentaire des fragments cosmogoniques de Berose_ (1872); A. von Gutschmid in the _Rheinisches Museum_ (1853); George Smith in _T.S.B.A._ iii., 1874, pp. 361-379; Th.G. Pinches in _P.S.B.A._, 1880-1881. (A. H. S.) BERRY, CHARLES ALBERT (1852-1899), English non-conformist divine, was born on the 14th of December 1852 at Bradshawgate, Leigh, Lancashire. At the age of seventeen he entered Airedale College, Bradford, to train for the Congregational ministry, and in 1875 became pastor of St George's Road Congregational church, Bolton. He became widely known as a man of administrative ability, a vigorous platform speaker and an eloquent preacher. In July 1883 he undertook the pastorate of the church at Queen Street, Wolverhampton, with the supervision of nine dependent churches in the neighbourhood. Here again he exercised a wide influence, due in part to his evangelical conviction, eloquence, broad views and powers of organization, but also to the magnetic force of his personality. In 1887 he went to America in fulfilment of a promise to Henry Ward Beecher of Brooklyn, and received a unanimous invitation to succeed Beecher in what was then the best-known pulpit in the United States. Berry, however, felt that his work lay in England and declined the invitation. In 1892 he took part in a conference at Grindelwald on the question of Christian Reunion, and subsequently, with Hugh Price Hughes and Alexander Mackennal of Bowdon, conducted a campaign throughout England, introducing the ideas and principles of Free Church federation. He was the first president of the Free Church congress. He played an effective part in expressing the popular desire for peace between England and America in reply to President Cleveland's message on the Venezuelan boundary dispute, and was invited to Washington to preach in connexion with the endeavour to establish an international arbitration treaty. In 1896 he was elected chairman of the Congregational Union of England and Wales. In 1898 his health began to fail, and he died suddenly on the 31st of January 1899. His published works consist chiefly of addresses, and two volumes of sermons, _Vision and Duty_, and _Mischievous Goodness_. (D. Mn.) BERRY, CHARLES FERDINAND, DUKE OF (1778-1820), younger son of Charles X. of France, was born at Versailles. At the Revolution he left France with his father, then comte d'Artois, and served in the army of Conde; from 1792 to 1797. He afterwards joined the Russian army, and in 1801 took up his residence in England, where he remained for thirteen years. During that time he married an Englishwoman, Anna Brown, by whom he had two daughters, afterwards the baronne de Charette and the comtesse de Lucinge-Faucigny. The marriage was cancelled for political reasons in 1814, when the duke set out for France. His frank, open manners gained him some favour with his countrymen, and Louis XVIII. named him commander-in-chief of the army at Paris on the return of Napoleon from Elba. He was, however, unable to retain the loyalty of his troops, and retired to Ghent during the Hundred Days. In 1816 he married the princess Caroline Ferdinande Louise (1798-1870), eldest daughter of King Francis I. of Naples. On the 13th of February 1820 he was mortally wounded, when leaving the opera-house at Paris with his wife, by a saddler named Louis Pierre Louvel. Seven months after his death the duchess gave birth to a son, who received the title of duke of Bordeaux, but who is known in history as the comte de Chambord. A daughter, afterwards duchess of Parma, was born in 1819. The duchess of Berry was compelled to follow Charles X. to Holyrood after July 1830, but it was with the resolution of returning speedily and making an attempt to secure the throne for her son. From England she went to Italy, and in April 1832 she landed near Marseilles, but, receiving no support, was compelled to make her way towards the loyal districts of Vendee and Brittany. Her followers, however, were defeated, and, after remaining concealed for five months in a house in Nantes, she was betrayed to the government and imprisoned in the castle of Blaye. Here she gave birth to a daughter, the fruit of a secret marriage contracted with an Italian nobleman, Count Ettore Lucchesi-Palli (1805-1864). The announcement of this marriage at once deprived the duchess of the sympathies of her supporters. She was no longer an object of fear to the French government, who released her in June 1833. She set sail for Sicily, and, joining her husband, lived in retirement from that time till her death, at Brunnensee in Switzerland, in April 1870. BERRY, JOHN, DUKE OF (1340-1416), third son of John II., king of France and Bonne of Luxemburg, was born on the 30th of November 1340 at Vincennes. He was created count of Poitiers in 1356, and was made the king's lieutenant in southern France, though the real power rested chiefly with John of Armagnac, whose daughter Jeanne he married in 1360. The loss of his southern possessions by the treaty of Bretigny was compensated by the fiefs of Auvergne and Berry, with the rank of peer of France. The duke went to England in 1360 as a hostage for the fulfilment of the treaty of Bretigny, returning to France in 1367 on the pretext of collecting his ransom. He took no leading part in the war against the English, his energies being largely occupied with the satisfaction of his artistic and luxurious tastes. For this reason perhaps his brother Charles V. assigned him no share in the government during the minority of Charles VI. He received, however, the province of Languedoc. The peasant revolt of the _Tuchins_ and _Coquins_, as the insurgents were called, was suppressed with great harshness, and the duke exacted from the states of Languedoc assembled at Lyons a fine of L15,000. He fought at Rosebeke in 1382 against the Flemings and helped to suppress the Parisian revolts. By a series of delays he caused the failure of the naval expedition prepared at Sluys against England in 1386, and a second accusation of military negligence led to disgrace of the royal princes and the temporary triumph of the _marmousels_, as the advisers of the late king were nicknamed. Charles VI. visited Languedoc in 1389-1390, and enquired into his uncle's government. The duke was deprived of the government of Languedoc, and his agent, Betizac, was burnt. When in 1401 he was restored, he delegated his authority in the province, where he was still hated, to Bernard d'Armagnac. In 1396 he negotiated a truce with Richard II. of England, and his marriage with the princess Isabella of France. He tried to mediate between his brother Philip the Bold of Burgundy and his nephew Louis, duke of Orleans, and later between John "sans Peur" of Burgundy and Orleans. He broke with John after the murder of Orleans, though he tried to prevent civil war, and only finally joined the Armagnac party in 1410. In 1413 he resumed his role of mediator, and was for a short time tutor to the dauphin. He died in Paris on the 15th of June 1416, leaving vast treasures of jewelry, objects of art, and especially of illuminated MSS., many of which have been preserved. He decorated the Sainte Chapelle at Bourges; he built the Hotel de Nesle in Paris, and palaces at Poitiers, Bourges, Mehun-sur-Yevre and elsewhere. See also L. Raynal, _Histoire du Berry_ (Bourges, 1845); "Jean, duc de Berry," in S Luce, _La France pendant la guerre de Cent Ans_ (1890), vol. i.; Toulgoet-Treanna, in _Mem. de la Soc. des antiquaires du centre_, vol. xvii. (1890). His beautiful illuminated _Livre d'heures_ was reproduced (Paris, fol. 1904) by P. Durrieu. BERRY, or BERRI, a former province of France, absorbed in 1790 in the departments of Cher, corresponding roughly with Haut-Berry, and Indre, representing Bas-Berry. George Sand, the most famous of "berrichon" writers, has described the quiet scenery and rural life of the province in the rustic novels of her later life. Berry is the _civitas_ or _pagus_ Bituricensis of Gregory of Tours. The Bituriges were said by Livy (v. 34) to have been the dominating tribe in Gaul in the 7th century, one of their kings, Ambigat, having ruled over all Gaul. In Caesar's time they were dependent on the Aedui. The tribes inhabiting the districts of Berry and Bourbonnais were distinguished as Bituriges Cubi. The numerous menhirs and dolmens to be found in the district, to which local superstitions still cling, are probably monuments of still earlier inhabitants. In 52 B.C. the Bituriges, at the order of Vercingetorix, set fire to their towns, but spared Bourges (Avaricum) their capital, which was taken and sacked by the Romans. The province was amalgamated under Augustus with Aquitaine, and Bourges became the capital of Aquitania Prima. In 475 Berry came into the possession of the west Goths, from whom it was taken (c. 507) by Clovis. The first count of Berry, Chunibert (d. 763), was created by Waifer, duke of Aquitaine, from whom the county was wrested by Pippin the Short, who made it his residence and left it to his son Carloman, on whose death it fell to his brother Charlemagne. The countship of Berry was suppressed (926) by Rudolph, king of the Franks (fl. 923-936). Berry was for some time a group of lordships dependent directly on the crown, but the chief authority eventually passed to the viscounts of Bourges, who, while owning the royal suzerainty, preserved a certain independence until 1101, when the viscount Odo Arpin de Dun sold his fief to the crown. Berry was part of the dowry of Eleanor, wife of Louis VII., and on her divorce and remarriage with Henry II. of England it passed to the English king. Its possession remained, however, a matter of dispute until 1200, when Berry reverted by treaty with John of England to Philip Augustus, and the various fiefs of Berry were given as a dowry to John's niece, Blanche of Castile, on her marriage with Philip's son Louis (afterwards Louis VIII.). Philip Augustus established an effective control over the administration of the province by the appointment of a royal _bailli_. Berry suffered during the Hundred Years' War, and more severely during the wars of religion in the 16th century. It had been made a duchy in 1360, and its first duke, John [Jean] (1340-1416), son of the French king John II., encouraged the arts and beautified the province with money wrung from his government of Languedoc. Thenceforward it was held as an apanage of the French crown, usually by a member of the royal family closely related to the king. Charles of France (1447-1472), brother of Louis XI, was duke of Berry, but was deprived of this province, as subsequently of the duchies of Normandy and Guienne, for intrigues against his brother. The duchy was also governed by Jeanne de Valois (d. 1505), the repudiated wife of Louis XII.[1]; by Marguerite d'Angouleme, afterwards queen of Navarre; by Marguerite de Valois, afterwards duchess of Savoy; and by Louise of Lorraine, widow of Henry III., after whose death (1601) the province was finally reabsorbed in the royal domain. The title of duke of Berry, divested of territorial significance, was held by princes of the royal house. Charles (1686-1714), duke of Berry, grandson of Louis XIV., and third son of the dauphin Louis (d. 1711), married Marie Louise Elisabeth (1686-1714), eldest daughter of the duke of Orleans, whose intrigues made her notorious. The last to bear the title of duke of Berry was the ill-fated Charles Ferdinand, grandson and heir of Charles X. FOOTNOTE: [1] See R. le Maulde, _Jeanne de France, duchesse d'Orleans et de Berry_ (Paris, 1883). BERRYER, ANTOINE PIERRE (1790-1868), French advocate and parliamentary orator, was the son of an eminent advocate and counsellor to the _parlement_. He was educated at the College de Juilly, on leaving which he adopted the profession of the law; he was admitted advocate in 1811, and in the same year he married. In the great conflict of the period between Napoleon I. and the Bourbons, Berryer, like his father, was an ardent Legitimist; and in the spring of 1815, at the opening of the campaign of the Hundred Days, he followed Louis XVIII. to Ghent as a volunteer. After the second restoration he distinguished himself as a courageous advocate of moderation in the treatment of the military adherents of the emperor. He assisted his father and Dupin in the unsuccessful defence of Marshal Ney before the chamber of peers; and he undertook alone the defence of General Cambronne and General Debelle, procuring the acquittal of the former and the pardon of the latter. By this time he had a very large business as advocate, and was engaged on behalf of journalists in many press prosecutions. He stood forward with a noble resolution to maintain the freedom of the press, and severely censured the rigorous measures of the police department. In 1830, not long before the fall of Charles X., Berryer was elected a member of the chamber of deputies. He appeared there as the champion of the king and encouraged him in his reactionary policy. After the revolution of July, when the Legitimists withdrew in a body, Berryer alone retained his seat as deputy. He resisted, but unsuccessfully, the abolition of the hereditary peerage. He advocated trial by jury in press prosecutions, the extension of municipal franchises and other liberal measures. In May 1832 he hastened from Paris to see the duchess of Berry on her landing in the south of France for the purpose of organizing an insurrection in favour of her son, the duke of Bordeaux, since known as the Comte de Chambord. Berryer attempted to turn her from her purpose; and failing in this he set out for Switzerland. He was, however, arrested, imprisoned and brought to trial as one of the insurgents. He was immediately acquitted. In the following year he pleaded for the liberation of the duchess, made a memorable speech in defence of Chateaubriand, who was prosecuted for his violent attacks on the government of Louis Philippe, and undertook the defence of several Legitimist journalists. Among the more noteworthy events of his subsequent career were his defence of Louis Napoleon after the ridiculous affair of Boulogne, in 1840, and a visit to England in December 1843, for the purpose of formally acknowledging the pretender, the duke of Bordeaux, then living in London, as Henry V. and lawful king of France. Berryer was an active member of the National Assembly convoked after the revolution of February 1848, again visited the pretender, then at Wiesbaden, and still fought in the old cause. This long parliamentary career was closed by a courageous protest against the _coup d'etat_ of December 2, 1851. After a lapse of twelve years, however, he appeared once more in his forsaken field as a deputy to the Corps Legislatif. Berryer was elected member of the French Academy in 1854. A visit paid by this famous orator to Lord Brougham in 1865 was made the occasion of a banquet given in his honour by the benchers of the Temple and of Lincoln's Inn. In November 1868 he was removed by his own desire from Paris to his country seat at Augerville, and there he died on the 29th of the same month. BERSERKER (from the "sark" or shirt of the "bear," or other animal-skins worn by them), in Scandinavian mythology, the name of the twelve sons of the hero Berserk, grandson of the eight-handed Starkadder and Alfhilde. Berserk was famed for the reckless fury with which he fought, always going into battle without armour. By the daughter of King Swafurlam, whom he had killed, he had the twelve sons who were his equals in bravery. In Old Norse the term _berserker_ thus became synonymous with reckless courage, and was later applied to the bodyguards of several of the Scandinavian heroes. BERT, PAUL (1833-1886), French physiologist and politician, was born at Auxerre (Yonne) on the 17th of October 1833. He entered the Ecole Polytechnique at Paris with the intention of becoming an engineer; then changing his mind, he studied law; and finally, under the influence of the zoologist, L.P. Gratiolet (1815-1865), he took up physiology, becoming one of Claude Bernard's most brilliant pupils. After graduating at Paris as doctor of medicine in 1863, and doctor of science in 1866, he was appointed professor of physiology successively at Bordeaux (1866) and the Sorbonne (1869). After the revolution of 1870 he began to take part in politics as a supporter of Gambetta. In 1874 he was elected to the Assembly, where he sat on the extreme left, and in 1876 to the chamber of deputies. He was one of the most determined enemies of clericalism, and an ardent advocate of "liberating national education from religious sects, while rendering it accessible to every citizen." In 1881 he was minister of education and worship in Gambetta's short-lived cabinet, and in the same year he created a great sensation by a lecture on modern Catholicism, delivered in a Paris theatre, in which he poured ridicule on the fables and follies of the chief religious tracts and handbooks that circulated especially in the south of France. Early in 1886 he was appointed resident-general in Annam and Tonkin, and died of dysentery at Hanoi on the 11th of November of that year. But he was more distinguished as a man of science than as a politician or administrator. His classical work, _La Pression barometrique_ (1878), embodies researches that gained him the biennial prize of 20,000 francs from the Academy of Sciences in 1875, and is a comprehensive investigation on the physiological effects of air-pressure, both above and below the normal. His earliest researches, which provided him with material for his two doctoral theses, were devoted to animal grafting and the vitality of animal tissues, and they were followed by studies on the physiological action of various poisons, on anaesthetics, on respiration and asphyxia, on the causes of the change of colour in the chameleon, &c. He was also interested in vegetable physiology, and in particular investigated the movements of the sensitive plant, and the influence of light of different colours on the life of vegetation. After about 1880 he produced several elementary text-books of scientific instruction, and also various publications on educational and allied subjects. BERTANI, AGOSTINO (1812-1886), Italian revolutionist, was born at Milan on the 19th of October 1812. He took part in the insurrection of 1848, though opposed to the fusion of Lombardy with Piedmont. During the Roman republic of 1849, he, as medical officer, organized the ambulance service, and, after the fall of Rome, withdrew to Genoa, where he worked with Sir James Hudson for the liberation of the political prisoners of Naples, but held aloof from the Mazzinian conspiracies. In 1859 he founded a revolutionary journal at Genoa, but, shortly afterwards, joined as surgeon the Garibaldian corps in the war of 1859. After Villafranca he became the organizer-in-chief of the expeditions to Sicily, remaining at Genoa after Garibaldi's departure for Marsala, and organizing four separate volunteer corps, two of which were intended for Sicily and two for the papal states. Cavour, however, obliged all to sail for Sicily. Upon the arrival of Garibaldi at Naples, Bertani was appointed secretary-general of the dictator, in which capacity he reorganized the police, abolished the secret service fund, founded twelve infant asylums, suppressed the duties upon Sicilian products, prepared for the suppression of the religious orders, and planned the sanitary reconstruction of the city. Entering parliament in 1861, he opposed the Garibaldian expedition, which ended at Aspromonte, but nevertheless tended Garibaldi's wound with affectionate devotion. In 1866 he organized the medical service for the 40,000 Garibaldians, and in 1867 fought at Mentana. His parliamentary career, though marked by zeal, was less brilliant than his revolutionary activity. Up to 1870 he remained an agitator, but, after the liberation of Rome, seceded from the historic left, and became leader of the extreme left, a position held until his death on the 30th of April 1886. His chief work as deputy was an inquiry into the sanitary conditions of the peasantry, and the preparation of the sanitary code adopted by the Crispi administration. (H. W. S.) BERTAT (Arab. _Jebalain_), negroes of the Shangalla group of tribes, mainly agriculturists. They occupy the valleys of the Yabus and Tumat, tributaries of the Blue Nile. They are shortish and very black, with projecting jaws, broad noses and thick lips. By both sexes the hair is worn short or the head shaved; on cheeks and temple are tribal marks in the form of scars. The huts of the Bertat are circular, the floor raised on short poles. Their weapons are the spear, throwing-club, sword and dagger, and also the _kulbeda_ or throwing-knife. Blocks of salt are the favourite form of currency. Gold washing is practised. Nature worship still struggles against the spread of Mahommedanism. The Bertat, estimated to number some 80,000, c. 1880, were nearly exterminated during the period of Dervish ascendancy (1884-1898) in the eastern Sudan. Settled among them are Arab communities governed by their own sheiks, while the _meks_ or rulers of the Bertat speak Arabic, and show traces of foreign blood. (See FAZOGLI.) See Koeltlitz, "The Bertat," _Journal of the Anthropological Institute_, xxxiii. 51; _Anglo-Egyptian Sudan_, edited by Count Gleichen (London, 1905). BERTAUT, JEAN (1552-1611), French poet, was born at Caen in 1552. He figures with Desportes in the disdainful couplet of Boileau on Ronsard:-- "Ce poete orgueilleux, trebuche de si haut, Rendit plus retenus Desportes et Bertaut." He wrote light verse to celebrate the incidents of court life in the manner of Desportes, but his verse is more fantastic and fuller of conceits than his master's. He early entered the church, and had a share in the conversion of Henry IV., a circumstance which assured his career. He was successively councillor of the parlement of Grenoble, secretary to the king, almoner to Marie de' Medici, abbot of Aulnay and finally, in 1606, bishop of Sees. After his elevation to the bishopric he ceased to produce the light verse in which he excelled, though his scruples did not prevent him from preparing a new edition of his _Recueil de quelques vers amoureux_ (1602) in 1606. The serious poems in which he celebrated the public events of his later years are dull and lifeless. Bertaut died at Sees on the 8th of June 1611. His works were edited by M.Ad. Chenevieres in 1891. BERTH, originally a nautical term, probably connected with the verb "to bear," first found in literature at the end of the 16th century, with the alternative spelling "birth." Its primary meaning is "sea-room," whether on the high seas or at anchor. Hence the phrase "to give a wide berth to," meaning "to keep at a safe distance from," both in its literal and its metaphorical use. From meaning sea-room for a ship at anchor, "berth" comes to mean also the position of a ship at her moorings ("to berth a ship"). The word further means any place on a ship allotted for a special purpose, where the men mess or sleep, or an office or appointment on board, whence the word has passed into colloquial use with the meaning of a situation or employment. From the Icelandic _byrdi_, a board, is also derived the ship-building term "berth," meaning to board, put up bulk-heads, &c. BERTHELOT, MARCELLIN PIERRE EUGENE (1827-1907), French chemist and politician, was born at Paris on the 29th of October 1827, being the son of a doctor. After distinguishing himself at school in history and philosophy, he turned to the study of science. In 1851 he became a member of the staff of the College de France as assistant to A.J. Balard, his former master, and about the same time he began his life-long friendship with Ernest Renan. In 1854 he made his reputation by his doctoral thesis, _Sur les combinaisons de la glycerine avec les acides_, which described a series of beautiful researches in continuation and amplification of M.E. Chevreul's classical work. In 1859 he was appointed professor of organic chemistry at the Ecole Superieure de Pharmacie, and in 1865 he accepted the new chair of organic chemistry, which was specially created for his benefit at the College de France. He became a member of the Academy of Medicine in 1863, and ten years afterwards entered the Academy of Sciences, of which he became perpetual secretary in 1889 in succession to Louis Pasteur. He was appointed inspector general of higher education in 1876, and after his election as life senator in 1881 he continued to take an active interest in educational questions, especially as affected by compulsory military service. In the Goblet ministry of 1886-1887 he was minister of public instruction, and in the Bourgeois cabinet of 1895-1896 he held the portfolio for foreign affairs. His scientific jubilee was celebrated in Paris in 1901. He died suddenly, immediately after the death of his wife, on the 18th of March 1907, at Paris, and with her was buried in the Pantheon. The fundamental conception that underlay all Berthelot's chemical work was that all chemical phenomena depend on the action of physical forces which can be determined and measured. When he began his active career it was generally believed that, although some instances of the synthetical production of organic substances had been observed, on the whole organic chemistry must remain an analytical science and could not become a constructive one, because the formation of the substances with which it deals required the intervention of vital activity in some shape. To this attitude he offered uncompromising opposition, and by the synthetical production of numerous hydrocarbons, natural fats, sugars and other bodies he proved that organic compounds can be formed by ordinary methods of chemical manipulation and obey the same laws as inorganic substances, thus exhibiting the "creative character in virtue of which chemistry actually realizes the abstract conceptions of its theories and classifications--a prerogative so far possessed neither by the natural nor by the historical sciences." His investigations on the synthesis of organic compounds were published in numerous papers and books, including _Chimie organique fondee sur la synthese_ (1860) and _Les Carbures d'hydrogene_ (1901). Again he held that chemical phenomena are not governed by any peculiar laws special to themselves, but are explicable in terms of the general laws of mechanics that are in operation throughout the universe; and this view he developed, with the aid of thousands of experiments, in his _Mecanique chimique_ (1878) and his _Thermochimie_ (1897). This branch of study naturally conducted him to the investigation of explosives, and on the theoretical side led to the results published in his work _Sur la force de la poudre et des matieres explosives_ (1872), while on the practical side it enabled him to render important services to his country as president of the scientific defence committee during the siege of Paris in 1870-71 and subsequently as chief of the French explosives committee. In the later years of his life he turned to the study of the earlier phases of the science which he did so much to advance, and students of chemical history are greatly indebted to him for his book on _Les Origines de l'alchimie_ (1885) and his _Introduction a l'etude de la chimie des anciens et du moyen age_ (1889), as well as for publishing translations of various old Greek, Syriac and Arabic treatises on alchemy and chemistry (_Collection des anciens alchimistes grecs_, 1887-1888, and _La Chimie au moyen age_, 1893). He was also the author of _Science et philosophie_ (1886), which contains a well-known letter to Renan on "La Science ideale et la science positive," of _La Revolution chimique, Lavoisier_ (1890), of _Science et morale_ (1897), and of numerous articles in _La Grande Encyclopedie_, which he helped to establish. BERTHIER, LOUIS ALEXANDRE, prince of Neuchatel (1753-1815), marshal of France and chief of the staff under Napoleon I., was born at Versailles on the 20th of February 1753. As a boy he was instructed in the military art by his father, an officer of the _Corps de genie_, and at the age of seventeen he entered the army, serving successively in the staff, the engineers and the prince de Lambesq's dragoons. In 1780 he went to North America with Rochambeau, and on his return, having attained the rank of colonel, he was employed in various staff posts and in a military mission to Prussia. During the Revolution, as chief of staff of the Versailles national guard, he protected the aunts of Louis XVI. from popular violence, and aided their escape (1791). In the war of 1792 he was at once made chief of staff to Marshal Luckner, and he bore a distinguished part in the Argonne campaign of Dumouriez and Kellermann. He served with great credit in the Vendean War of 1793-95, and was in the next year made a general of division and chief of staff (_Major-General_) to the army of Italy, which Bonaparte had recently been appointed to command. His power of work, accuracy and quick comprehension, combined with his long and varied experience and his complete mastery of detail, made him the ideal chief of staff to a great soldier; and in this capacity he was Napoleon's most valued assistant for the rest of his career. He accompanied Napoleon throughout the brilliant campaign of 1796, and was left in charge of the army after the peace of Campo Formio. In this post he organized the Roman republic (1798), after which he joined his chief in Egypt, serving there until Napoleon's return. He assisted in the _coup d'etat_ of 18th Brumaire, afterwards becoming minister of war for a time. In the campaign of Marengo he was the nominal head of the Army of Reserve, but the first consul accompanied the army and Berthier acted in reality, as always, as chief of staff to Napoleon. At the close of the campaign he was employed in civil and diplomatic business. When Napoleon became emperor, Berthier was at once made a marshal of the empire. He took part in the campaigns of Austerlitz, Jena and Friedland, and was created duke of Valengin in 1806, sovereign prince of Neuchatel in the same year and vice-constable of the empire in 1807. In 1808 he served in the Peninsula, and in 1809 in the Austrian War, after which he was given the title of prince of Wagram. Berthier married a niece of the king of Bavaria. He was with Napoleon in Russia in 1812, Germany in 1813, and France in 1814, fulfilling, till the fall of the empire, the functions of "major-general" of the _Grande Armee_. He abandoned Napoleon to make his peace with Louis XVIII. in 1814, and accompanied the king in his solemn entry into Paris. During Napoleon's captivity in Elba, Berthier, whom he informed of his projects, was much perplexed as to his future course, and, being unwilling to commit himself, fell under the suspicion both of his old leader and of Louis XVIII. On Napoleon's return he withdrew to Bamberg, where he died on the 1st of June 1815. The manner of his death is uncertain; according to some accounts he was assassinated by members of a secret society, others say that, maddened by the sight of Russian troops marching to invade France, he threw himself from his window and was killed. Berthier was not a great commander. When he was in temporary command in 1809 the French army in Bavaria underwent a series of reverses. Whatever merit as a general he may have possessed was completely overshadowed by the genius of his master. But his title to fame is that he understood and carried out that master's directions to the minutest detail. BERTHOLLET, CLAUDE LOUIS (1748-1822), French chemist, was born at Talloire, near Annecy in Savoy, on the 9th of December 1748. He studied first at Chambery and afterwards at Turin, where he graduated in medicine. Settling in Paris in 1772, he became the private physician of Philip, duke of Orleans, and by his chemical work soon gained so high a reputation that in 1780 he was admitted into the Academy of Sciences. In 1785 he declared himself an adherent of the Lavoisierian school, though he did not accept Lavoisier's view of oxygen as the only and universal acidifying principle, and he took part in the reform in chemical nomenclature carried out by Lavoisier and his associates in 1787. Among the substances of which he investigated the composition were ammonia, sulphuretted hydrogen and prussic acid, and his experiments on chlorine, which he regarded, not as an element, but as oxygenated muriatic (oxymuriatic) acid, led him to propose it as a bleaching agent in 1785. He also prepared potassium chlorate and attempted to use it in the manufacture of gunpowder as a substitute for saltpetre. When, at the beginning of the French Revolution, the deficiency in the supply of saltpetre became a serious matter, he was placed at the head of the commission entrusted with the development of its production in French territory, and another commission on which he served had for its object the improvement of the methods of iron manufacture. He was also a member in 1794 of the committee on agriculture and the arts, and technical science was further indebted to him for a systematic exposition of the principles of dyeing--_Elemens de l'art de la teinture_, 1791, of which he published a second edition in 1809, in association with his son, A.B. Berthollet (1783-1811). After 1794 he was teacher of chemistry in the polytechnic and normal schools of Paris, and in 1795 he took an active part in remodelling the Academy as the Institut National. In the following year he and Gaspard Monge were chosen chiefs of a commission charged with the task of selecting in Italy the choicest specimens of ancient and modern art for the national galleries of Paris; and in 1798 he was one of the band of scientific men who accompanied Napoleon to Egypt, there forming themselves into the Institute of Egypt on the plan of the Institut National. On the fall of the Directory he was made a senator and grand officer of the Legion of Honour; under the empire he became a count; and after the restoration of the Bourbons he took his seat as a peer. In the later years of his life he had at Arcueil, where he died on the 6th of November 1822, a well-equipped laboratory, which became a centre frequented by some of the most distinguished scientific men of the time, their proceedings being published in three volumes, between 1807 and 1817, as the _Memoires de la societe d'Arcueil_. Berthollet's most remarkable contribution to chemistry was his _Essai de statique chimique_ (1803), the first systematic attempt to grapple with the problems of chemical physics. His doctrines did not meet with general approval among his contemporaries, partly perhaps because he pushed them too far, as for instance in holding that two elements might combine in constantly varying proportions, a view which gave rise to a long dispute with L.J. Proust; but his speculations, in particular his insistence on the influence of the relative masses of the acting substances in chemical reactions, have exercised a dominating influence on the modern developments of the theory of chemical affinity, of which, far more than T.O. Bergman, whom he controverted, he must be regarded as the founder. BERTHON, EDWARD LYON (1813-1899), English inventor, was born in London, on the 20th of February 1813, the son of an army contractor and descendant of an old Huguenot family. He studied for the medical profession in Liverpool and at Dublin, but after his marriage in 1834 he gave up his intention of becoming a doctor, and travelled for about six years on the continent. Keenly interested from boyhood in mechanical science, he made experiments in the application of the screw propeller for boats. But his model, with a two-bladed propeller, was only ridiculed when it was placed before the British admiralty. Berthon therefore did not complete the patent and the idea was left for Francis Smith to bring out more successfully in 1838. In 1841 he entered Magdalene College, Cambridge, in order to study for the Church. There he produced what is usually known as "Berthon's log," in which the suction produced by the water streaming past the end of a pipe projected below a ship is registered on a mercury column above. In 1845 he was ordained, and after holding a curacy at Lymington was given a living at Fareham. Here he was able to carry on experiments with his log, which was tested on the Southampton to Jersey steamboats; but the British admiralty gave him no encouragement, and it remained uncompleted. He next designed some instruments to indicate the trim and rolling of boats at sea; but the idea for which he is chiefly remembered was that of the "Berthon Folding Boat" in 1849. This invention was again adversely reported on by the admiralty. Berthon resigned his living at Fareham, and subsequently accepted the living of Romsey. In 1873, encouraged by Samuel Plimsoll, he again applied himself to perfecting his collapsible boat. Success was at last achieved, and in less than a year he had received orders from the admiralty for boats to the amount of L15,000. Some were taken by Sir George Nares to the Arctic, others were sent to General Gordon at Khartum, and others again were taken to the Zambezi by F.C. Selous. Berthon died on the 27th of October 1899. BERTHOUD, FERDINAND (1727-1807), Swiss chronometer-maker, was born at Plancemont, Neuchatel, in 1727, and settling in Paris in 1745 gained a great reputation for the excellence and accuracy of his chronometers. He was a member of the Institute and a fellow of the Royal Society of London, and among other works wrote _Essais sur l'horlogerie_ (1763). He died in 1807 at Montmorency, Seine et Oise. He was succeeded in business by his nephew, Louis Berthoud (1759-1813). BERTILLON, LOUIS ADOLPHE (1821-1883), French statistician, was born in Paris on the 1st of April 1821. Entering the medical profession, he practised as a doctor for a number of years. After the revolution of 1870, he was appointed inspector-general of benevolent institutions. He was one of the founders of the school of anthropology of Paris, and was appointed a professor there in 1876. His _Demographie figuree de la France_ (1874) is an able statistical study of the population of France. He died at Neuilly on the 28th of February 1883. His son ALPHONSE BERTILLON, the anthropometrist, was born in Paris in