Part 40

FONTANE, THEODOR (1819-1898), German poet and novelist, was born at Neu-Ruppin on the 30th of December 1819. At the age of sixteen he was apprenticed to a chemist, and after qualifying as an apothecary, he found employment in Leipzig and Dresden. In 1844 he travelled in England, and settling in Berlin devoted himself from 1849 to literature. He made repeated journeys to England, interesting himself in old English ballads, and as the first fruits of his tours published _Ein Sommer in London_ (1854); _Aus England, Studien und Briefe_ (1860) and _Jenseit des Tweed, Bilder und Briefe aus Schottland_ (1860). Fontane was particularly attached to the Mark of Brandenburg, in which his home lay; he was proud of its past achievements, and delighted in the growth of the capital city, Berlin. The fascination which the country of his birth had for him may be seen in his delightfully picturesque _Wanderungen durch die Mark Brandenburg_ (1862-1882, 4 vols.). He also described the wars of Prussia in _Der schleswig-holsteinische Krieg im Jahre 1864_ (1866) and _Der deutsche Krieg von 1866_ (1869). He proceeded to the theatre of war in 1870, and, being taken prisoner at Vaucouleurs, remained three months in captivity. His experiences he narrates in _Kriegsgefangen. Erlebtes 1870_ (1871), and he published the result of his observations of the campaign in _Der Krieg gegen Frankreich 1870-71_ (1874-1876). Like most of his contemporaries, he at first sought inspiration for his poetry in the heroes of other countries. His _Gedichte_ (1851) and ballads _Manner und Helden_ (1860) tell of England's glories in bygone days. Then the achievements of his own countrymen entered into rivalry, and these, as an ardent patriot, he immortalized in poem and narrative. It is, however, as a novelist that Fontane is best known. His fine historical romance _Vor dem Sturm_ (1878) was followed by a series of novels of modern life: _L'Adultera_ (1882); _Schach von Wuthenow_ (1883); _Irrungen, Wirrungen_ (1888); _Stine_ (1890); _Unwiederbringlich_ (1891); _Effi Briest_ (1895); _Der Stechlin_ (1899), in which with fine literary tact Fontane adapted the realistic methods and social criticism of contemporary French fiction to the conditions of Prussian life. He died on the 20th of September 1898 at Berlin.

Fontane's _Gesammelte Romane und Erzahlungen_ were published in 12 vols. (1890-1891; 2nd ed., 1905). For his life see the autobiographical works _Meine Kinderjahre_ (1894) and _Von zwanzig bis dreissig_ (1898), also _Briefe an seine Familie_ (1905); also F. Servaes, _Theodor Fontane_ (1900).

FONTANES, LOUIS, MARQUIS DE (1757-1821), French poet and politician, was born at Niort (Deux Sevres) on the 6th of March 1757. He belonged to a noble Protestant family of Languedoc which had been reduced to poverty by the revocation of the edict of Nantes. His father and grandfather remained Protestant, but he was himself brought up as a Catholic. His parents died in 1774-1775, and in 1777 Fontanes went to Paris, where he found a friend in the dramatist J.F. Ducis. His first published poems, some of which were inspired by English models, appeared in the _Almanack des Muses_; "Le Cri de mon coeur," describing his own sad childhood, in 1778; and "La Foret de Navarre" in 1780. His translation from Alexander Pope, _L'Essai sur l'homme_, was published with an elaborate preface in 1783, and _La Chartreuse_ and _Le Jour des morts_ in the same year, _Le Verger_ in 1788 and his _Epitre sur l'edit en faveur des non-catholiques_, and the _Essai sur l'astronomie_ in 1789. Fontanes was a moderate reformer, and in 1790 he became joint-editor of the _Moderateur_. He married at Lyons in 1792, and his wife's first child was born during their flight from the siege of that town. Fontanes was in hiding in Paris when the four citizens of Lyons were sent to the Convention to protest against the cruelties of Collot d'Herbois. The petition was drawn up by Fontanes, and the authorship being discovered, he fled from Paris and found shelter at Sevran, near Livry, and afterwards at Andelys. On the fall of Robespierre he was made professor of literature in the Ecole Centrale des Quatre-Nations, and he was one of the original members of the Institute. In the _Memorial_, a journal edited by La Harpe, he discreetly advocated reaction to the monarchical principle. He was exiled by the Directory and made his way to London, where he was closely associated with Chateaubriand. He soon returned to France, and his admiration for Napoleon, who commissioned him to write an _eloge_ on Washington, secured his return to the Institute and his political promotion. In 1802 he was elected to the legislative chamber, of which he was president from 1804 to 1810. Other honours and titles followed. He has been accused of servility to Napoleon, but he had the courage to remonstrate with him on the judicial murder of the due d'Enghien, and as grand master of the university of Paris (1808-1815) he consistently supported religious and monarchical principles. He acquiesced in the Bourbon restoration, and was made a marquis in 1817. He died on the 17th of March 1821 in Paris, leaving eight cantos of an unfinished epic poem entitled _La Grece sauvee_.

The verse of Fontanes is polished and musical in the style of the 18th century. It was not collected until 1839, when Sainte-Beuve edited the _Oeuvres_ (2 vols.) of Fontanes, with a sympathetic critical study of the author and his career. But by that time the Romantic movement was in the ascendant and Fontanes met with small appreciation.

FONTENAY-LE-COMTE, a town of western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Vendee 30 m. N.E. of La Rochelle on the State railway between that town and Saumur. Pop. (1906) town, 7639; commune, 10,326. Fontenay, an ancient and straggling town, is situated a few miles south of the forest of Vouvant and on both banks of the Vendee, at the point where it becomes navigable. The church of Notre-Dame (15th to 18th centuries), which has a fine spire and a richly sculptured western entrance, and the church of St Jean (16th and 17th centuries) are the chief religious buildings. The town has several houses of the 16th and 17th centuries. The most remarkable of these is the Hotel de Terre Neuve (1595-1600), which contains much rich decoration together with collections of furniture and tapestry. Fontenay was the birthplace of many prominent men during the 15th and 16th centuries, and the Fontaine des Quatre-Tias, a fountain in the Renaissance style, given to the town by King Francis I., commemorates the fact. The chief square is named after Francois Viete, the great mathematician, who was born at Fontenay in 1540. The public institutions of the town include a tribunal of first instance and a communal college. Among its industries are the manufacture of felt hats, oil and soap and timber-sawing, flour-milling and tanning. There is trade in horses, mules, timber, grain, fruit, &c.

Fontenay was in existence as early as the time of the Gauls. The affix of "comte" is said to have been applied to it when it was taken by King Louis IX. from the family of Lusignan and given to his brother Alphonse, count of Poitou, under whom it became capital of Bas-Poitou. Ceded to the English by the treaty of Bretigny in 1360 it was retaken in 1372 by Duguesclin. It suffered repeated capture during the Religious Wars of the 16th century, was dismantled in 1621 and was occupied both by the republicans and the Vendeans in the war of 1793. From 1790 to 1806 it was capital of the department of Vendee.

FONTENELLE, BERNARD LE BOVIER DE (1657-1757), French author, was born at Rouen, on the 11th of February 1657. He died in Paris, on the 9th of January 1757, having thus very nearly attained the age of 100 years. His father was an advocate settled in Rouen, his mother a sister of the two Corneille. He was educated at the college of the Jesuits in his native city, and distinguished himself by the extraordinary precocity and versatility of his talents. His teachers, who readily appreciated these, were anxious for him to join their order, but his father had designed him for the bar, and an advocate accordingly he became; but, having lost the first cause which was entrusted to him, he soon abandoned law and gave himself wholly to literary pursuits. His attention was first directed to poetry; and more than once he competed for prizes of the French Academy, but never with success. He visited Paris from time to time and established intimate relations with the abbe de Saint Pierre, the abbe Vertot and the mathematician Pierre Varignon. He witnessed, in 1680, the total failure of his tragedy _Aspar_. Fontenelle afterwards acknowledged the justice of the public verdict by burning his unfortunate drama. His opera of _Thetis et Pelee_, 1689, though highly praised by Voltaire, cannot be said to rise much above the others; and it may be regarded as significant that of all his dramatic works not one has kept the stage. His _Poesies pastorales_ (1688) have no greater claim to permanent repute, being characterized by stiffness and affectation; and the utmost that can be said for his poetry in general is that it displays much of the _limae labor_, great purity of diction and occasional felicity of expression.

His _Lettres galantes du chevalier d'Her_ ..., published anonymously in 1685, was an amusing collection of stories that immediately made its mark. In 1686 his famous allegory of Rome and Geneva, slightly disguised as the rival princesses Mreo and Eenegu, in the _Relation de l'ile de Borneo_, gave proof of his daring in religious matters. But it was by his _Nouveaux Dialogues des morts_ (1683) that Fontenelle established a genuine claim to high literary rank; and that claim was enhanced three years later by the appearance of the _Entretiens sur la pluralite des mondes_ (1686), a work which was among the very first to illustrate the possibility of being scientific without being either uninteresting or unintelligible to the ordinary reader. His object was to popularize among his countrymen the astronomical theories of Descartes; and it may well be doubted if that philosopher ever ranked a more ingenious or successful expositor among his disciples.

Hitherto Fontenelle had made his home in Rouen, but in 1687 he removed to Paris; and in the same year he published his _Histoire des oracles_, a book which made a considerable stir in theological and philosophical circles. It consisted of two essays, the first of which was designed to prove that oracles were not given by the supernatural agency of demons, and the second that they did not cease with the birth of Christ. It excited the suspicion of the Church, and a Jesuit, by name Baltus, published a ponderous refutation of it; but the peace-loving disposition of its author impelled him to leave his opponent unanswered. To the following year (1688) belongs his _Digression sur les anciens et les modernes_, in which he took the modern side in the controversy then raging; his _Doutes sur le systeme physique des causes occasionnelles_ (against Malebranche) appeared shortly afterwards.

In 1691 he was received into the French Academy in spite of the determined efforts of the partisans of the ancients in this quarrel, especially of Racine and Boileau, who on four previous occasions had secured his rejection. He consequently was admitted a member both of the Academy of Inscriptions and of the Academy of Sciences; and in 1697 he became perpetual secretary to the latter body. This office he actually held for the long period of forty-two years; and it was in this official capacity that he wrote the _Histoire du renouvellement de l'Academie des Sciences_ (Paris, 3 vols., 1708, 1717, 1722) containing extracts and analyses of the proceedings, and also the _eloges_ of the members, written with great simplicity and delicacy. Perhaps the best known of his _eloges_, of which there are sixty-nine in all, is that of his uncle Pierre Corneille. This was first printed in the _Nouvelles de la republique des lettres_ (January 1685) and, as _Vie de Corneille_, was included in all the editions of Fontenelle's _Oeuvres_. The other important works of Fontenelle are his _Elements de la geometrie de l'infini_ (1727) and his _Apologie des tourbillons_ (1752). Fontenelle forms a link between two very widely different periods of French literature, that of Corneille, Racine and Boileau on the one hand, and that of Voltaire, D'Alembert and Diderot on the other. It is not in virtue of his great age alone that this can be said of him; he actually had much in common with the _beaux esprits_ of the 17th century, as well as with the _philosophes_ of the 18th. But it is to the latter rather than to the former period that he properly belongs.

He has no claim to be regarded as a genius; but, as Sainte-Beuve has said, he well deserves a place "_dans la classe des esprits infiniment distingues_"--distinguished, however, it ought to be added by intelligence rather than by intellect, and less by the power of saying much than by the power of saying a little well. In personal character he has sometimes been described as having been revoltingly heartless; and it is abundantly plain that he was singularly incapable of feeling strongly the more generous emotions--a misfortune, or a fault, which revealed itself in many ways. "_Il faut avoir de l'ame pour avoir du gout._" But the cynical expressions of such a man are not to be taken too literally; and the mere fact that he lived and died in the esteem of many friends suffices to show that the theoretical selfishness which he sometimes professed cannot have been consistently and at all times carried into practice.

There have been several collective editions of Fontenelle's works, the first being printed in 3 vols. at the Hague in 1728-1729. The best is that of Paris, in 8 vols. 8vo, 1790. Some of his separate works have been very frequently reprinted and also translated. The _Pluralite des mondes_ was translated into modern Greek in 1794. Sainte-Beuve has an interesting essay on Fontenelle, with several useful references, in the _Causeries du lundi_, vol. iii. See also Villemain, _Tableau de la litterature francaise au XVIII^e siecle_; the abbe Trublet, _Memoires pour servir a l'histoire de la vie et des ouvrages de M. de Fontenelle_ (1759); A. Laborde-Milaa, _Fontenelle_ (1905), in the "Grands ecrivains francais" series; and L. Maigron, _Fontenelle, l'homme, l'oeuvre, l'influence_ (Paris, 1906).

FONTENOY, a village of Belgium, in the province of Hennegau, about 4 m. S.E. of Tournai, famous as the scene of the battle of Fontenoy, in which on the 11th of May 1745 the French army under Marshal Saxe defeated the Anglo-Allied army under the duke of Cumberland. The object of the French (see also AUSTRIAN SUCCESSION, WAR OF THE) was to cover the siege of the then important fortress of Tournai, that of the Allies, who slowly advanced from the east, to relieve it. Informed of the impending attack, Louis XV., with the dauphin, came with all speed to witness the operations, and by his presence to give Saxe, who was in bad health and beset with private enemies, the support necessary to enable him to command effectively. Under Cumberland served the Austrian field-marshal Konigsegg, and, at the head of the Dutch contingent, the prince of Waldeck.

The right of the French position (see map) rested on the river at Antoing, which village was fortified and garrisoned, between Antoing and Fontenoy three square redoubts were constructed, and Fontenoy itself was put in a complete state of defence. On the left rear of this line, and separated from Fontenoy by some furlongs of open ground, another redoubt was made at the corner of the wood of Barry and a fifth towards Gavrain. The infantry was arrayed in deployed lines behind the Antoing-Fontenoy redoubts and the low ridge between Fontenoy and the wood; behind them was the cavalry. The approaches to Gavrain were guarded by a mounted volunteer corps called _Grassins_. At Calonne the marshal had constructed three military bridges against the contingency of a forced retreat. The force of the French was about 60,000 of all arms, not including 22,000 left in the lines before Tournai. Marshal Saxe himself, who was suffering from dropsy to such an extent that he was unable to mount his horse, slept in a wicker chariot in the midst of the troops. At early dawn of the 11th of May, the Anglo-Hanoverian army with the Austrian contingent formed up in front of Vezon, facing towards Fontenoy and the wood, while the Dutch on their left extended the general line to Peronne. The total force was 46,000, against about 52,000 whom Saxe could actually put into the line of battle.

The plan of attack arranged by Cumberland, Konigsegg and Waldeck on the 10th grew out of circumstances. A preliminary skirmish had cleared the broken ground immediately about Vezon and revealed a part of the defender's dispositions. It was resolved that the Dutch should attack the front Antoing-Fontenoy, while Cumberland should deliver a flank attack against Fontenoy and all in rear of it, by way of the open ground between Fontenoy and the wood. A great cavalry attack round the wood was projected but had to be given up, as in the late evening of the 10th the Allies' light cavalry drew fire from its southern edge. Cumberland then ordered his cavalry commander to form a screen facing Fontenoy, so as to cover the formation of the infantry. On the morning of the 11th another and most important modification had to be made. The advance was beginning when the redoubt at the corner of the wood became visible. Cumberland hastily told off Brigadier James Ingoldsby (major and brevet-colonel 1st Guards), with four regiments and an artillery detachment, to storm this redoubt which, crossing its fire with that of Fontenoy, seemed absolutely to inhibit the development of the flank attack. At 6 A.M. the brigade moved off, but it was irresolutely handled and halted time after time; and after waiting as long as possible, the British and Hanoverian cavalry under Sir James Campbell rode forward and extended in the plain, becoming at once the target for a furious cannonade which killed their leader and drove them back. Thereupon Sir John (Lord) Ligonier, whose deployment the squadrons were to have covered, let them pass to the rear, and, hearing the guns of the Dutch towards Antoing, pushed the British infantry forward through the lanes, each unit on reaching open ground covering the exit and deployment of the one in rear, all under the French cannonade. This went on for two hours, and save that it showed the magnificent discipline of the British and Hanoverian regiments, was a bad prelude to the real attack. Cumberland's own exertions brought a few small guns to the front of the Guards' Brigade, and one of the first shots from these killed Antoine Louis, duc de Gramont, colonel of the Gardes Francaises, and another Henri du Baraillon du Brocard, Saxe's artillery commander.

It was now 9 A.M., and while the guns from the wood redoubt battered the upright ranks of the Allies, Ingoldsby's brigade was huddled together, motionless, on the right. Cumberland himself galloped thither, and under his reproaches Ingoldsby lost the last remnants of self-possession. To Sir John Ligonier's aide-de-camp, who delivered soon afterwards a bitterly formal order to advance, Ingoldsby sullenly replied that the duke's orders were for him to advance in line with Ligonier's main body. By now, too, the Dutch advance against Antoing-Fontenoy had collapsed.

But on the right the cannonade and the blunders together had roused a stern and almost blind anger in the leaders and the men they led. Ingoldsby was wounded, and his successor, the Hanoverian general Zastrow, gave up the right attack and brought his battalions into the main body. A second halfhearted attack on Fontenoy itself, delivered by some Dutch troops, was almost made successful by the valour of two of these battalions (one of them being the then newly raised Highland regiment, the Black Watch) which came thither of their own accord. Meantime the young duke and the old Austrian field-marshal had agreed to take all risks and to storm through between Fontenoy and the wood redoubt, and had launched the great attack, one of the most celebrated in the history of war. The English infantry was in two lines. The Hanoverians on their left, owing to want of space, were compelled to file into third line behind the redcoats, and on their outer flanks were the battalions that had been with Ingoldsby. A few guns, man-drawn, accompanied the assaulting mass, and the cavalry followed. The column may have numbered 14,000 infantry. All the infantry battalions closed on their centre, the normal three ranks becoming six. If the proper distances between lines were preserved, the mass must have formed an oblong about 500 yds X 600 yds (excluding the cavalry).