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THE ENCYCLOPÆDIA BRITANNICA
A DICTIONARY OF ARTS, SCIENCES, LITERATURE AND GENERAL INFORMATION
ELEVENTH EDITION
VOLUME XVI SLICE IV
Lefebvre, Tanneguy to Letronne, Jean Antoine
Articles in This Slice
LEFEBVRE, TANNEGUY LENS (town of France) LEFEBVRE-DESNOËTTES, CHARLES LENS (in optics) LE FÈVRE, JEAN LENT LEG LENTHALL, WILLIAM LEGACY LENTIL LE GALLIENNE, RICHARD LENTULUS LEGARÉ, HUGH SWINTON LENZ, JAKOB MICHAEL REINHOLD LEGAS LEO (popes) LEGATE, BARTHOLOMEW LEO (emperors of the East) LEGATE LEO (disciple of St Francis) LEGATION LEO, HEINRICH LEGEND LEO, JOHANNES LEGENDRE, ADRIEN MARIE LEO, LEONARDO LEGENDRE, LOUIS LEO (sign of the zodiac) LEGERDEMAIN LEOBEN LEGGE, HENRY LEOBSCHÜTZ LEGGE, JAMES LEOCHARES LEGHORN LEOFRICLEFEBVRE, TANNEGUY (Tanaquillus Faber) (1615-1672), French classical scholar, was born at Caen. After completing his studies in Paris, he was appointed by Cardinal Richelieu inspector of the printing-press at the Louvre. After Richelieu’s death he left Paris, joined the Reformed Church, and in 1651 obtained a professorship at the academy of Saumur, which he filled with great success for nearly twenty years. His increasing ill-health and a certain moral laxity (as shown in his judgment on Sappho) led to a quarrel with the consistory, as a result of which he resigned his professorship. Several universities were eager to obtain his services, and he had accepted a post offered him by the elector palatine at Heidelberg, when he died suddenly on the 12th of September, 1672. One of his children was the famous Madame Dacier. Lefebvre, who was by no means a typical student in dress or manners, was a highly cultivated man and a thorough classical scholar. He brought out editions of various Greek and Latin authors—Longinus, Anacreon and Sappho, Virgil, Horace, Lucretius and many others. His most important original works are: Les Vies des poètes Grecs (1665); Méthode pour commencer les humanités Grecques et Latines (2nd ed., 1731), of which several English adaptations have appeared; Epistolae Criticae (1659).
In addition to the Mémoires pour ... la vie de Tanneguy Lefebvre, by F. Graverol (1686), see the article in the Nouvelle biographie générale, based partly on the MS. registers of the Saumur Académie.
LEFEBVRE-DESNOËTTES, CHARLES, Comte (1773-1822), French cavalry general, joined the army in 1792 and served with the armies of the North, of the Sambre-and-Meuse and Rhine-and-Moselle in the various campaigns of the Revolution. Six years later he had become captain and aide-de-camp to General Bonaparte. At Marengo he won further promotion, and at Austerlitz became colonel, serving also in the Prussian campaigns of 1806-1807. In 1808 he was made general of brigade and created a count of the Empire. Sent with the army into Spain, he conducted the first and unsuccessful siege of Saragossa. The battlefield of Tudela showed his talents to better advantage, but towards the end of 1808 he was taken prisoner in the action of Benavente by the British cavalry under Paget (later Lord Uxbridge, and subsequently Marquis of Anglesey). For over two years he remained a prisoner in England, living on parole at Cheltenham. In 1811 he escaped, and in the invasion of Russia in 1812 was again at the head of his cavalry. In 1813 and 1814 his men distinguished themselves in most of the great battles, especially La Rothière and Montmirail. He joined Napoleon in the Hundred Days and was wounded at Waterloo. For his part in these events he was condemned to death, but he escaped to the United States, and spent the next few years farming in Louisiana. His frequent appeals to Louis XVIII. eventually obtained his permission to return, but the “Albion,” the vessel on which he was returning to France, went down off the coast of Ireland with all on board on the 22nd of May 1822.
LE FÈVRE, JEAN (c. 1395-1468), Burgundian chronicler and seigneur of Saint Remy, is also known as Toison d’or from his long connexion with the order of the Golden Fleece. Of noble birth, he adopted the profession of arms and with other Burgundians fought in the English ranks at Agincourt. In 1430, on the foundation of the order of the Golden Fleece by Philip III. the Good, duke of Burgundy, Le Fèvre was appointed its king of arms and he soon became a very influential person at the Burgundian court. He frequently assisted Philip in conducting negotiations with foreign powers, and he was an arbiter in tournaments and on all questions of chivalry, where his wide knowledge of heraldry was highly useful. He died at Bruges on the 16th of June 1468.
Le Fèvre wrote a Chronique, or Histoire de Charles VI., roy de France. The greater part of this chronicle is merely a copy of the work of Enguerrand de Monstrelet, but Le Fèvre is an original authority for the years between 1428 and 1436 and makes some valuable additions to our knowledge, especially about the chivalry of the Burgundian court. He is more concise than Monstrelet, but is equally partial to the dukes of Burgundy. The Chronique has been edited by F. Morand for the Société de l’histoire de France (Paris, 1876). Le Fèvre is usually regarded as the author of the Livre des faites de Jacques de Lalaing.
LEG (a word of Scandinavian origin, from the Old Norwegian leggr, cf. Swed. lägg, Dan. laég; the O. Eng. word was sceanca, shank), the general name for those limbs in animals which support and move the body, and in man for the lower limbs of the body (see Anatomy, Superficial and Artistic; Skeleton, Appendicular; Muscular System). The word is in common use for many objects which resemble the leg in shape or function. As a slang term, “leg,” a shortened form of “blackleg,” has been in use since the end of the 18th century for a swindler, especially in connexion with racing or gambling. The term “blackleg” is now also applied by trade-unionists to a workman who, during a strike or