he may dispose by will of movable property, make contracts, carry on trade, and, as a necessary consequence, is liable to be declared a bankrupt. In France the year of majority is twenty-one, and the nubile age eighteen for males and fifteen for females, with a restriction as to the consent of guardians. Age qualification for the chamber of deputies is twenty-five and for the senate forty years. In Germany, majority is reached at twenty-one, the nubile age is twenty for males and sixteen for females, subject to the consent of parents. Without the consent of parents, the age is twenty-five for males and twenty-four for females. The age qualification for the Reichstag is twenty-five. In Austria the age of majority is twenty-four, and the nubile age fourteen for either sex, subject to the consent of the parents. In Denmark, qualified majority is reached at eighteen and full majority at twenty-five. The nubile age is twenty for males and sixteen for females. In Spain, majority is reached at twenty-three; the nubile age is eighteen for males and sixteen for females. In Greece the age of majority is twenty-one, and the nubile age sixteen for males and fourteen for females. In Holland the age of majority is twenty-one, and the nubile age eighteen for males and sixteen for females. In Italy, majority is reached at twenty-one; the nubile age is eighteen for males and fifteen for females. In Switzerland the age of majority is twenty, and the nubile age is eighteen for males and sixteen for females. In the United States the age qualification for a president is thirty-five, for a senator thirty and for a representative twenty-five.
AGELADAS, or (as the name is spelt in an inscription) Hagelaidas, a great Argive sculptor, who flourished in the latter part of the 6th and the early part of the 5th century B.C. He was specially noted for his statues of Olympic victors (of 520, 516, 508 B.C.); also for a statue at Messene of Zeus, copied on the coins of that city. Ageladas was said to have been the teacher of Myron, Phidias and Polyclitus; this tradition is a testimony to his wide fame, though historically doubtful. We have no work of Ageladas surviving; but we have an inscription which contains the name of his son Argeiadas.
AGEN, a city of south-western France, capital of the department of Lot-et-Garonne, 84 m. S.E. of Bordeaux by the Southern railway between Bordeaux and Toulouse. Pop. (1906) 18,640. It is skirted on the west by the Garonne itself, and on the north by its lateral canal. The river is crossed by a stone bridge, by a suspension bridge for foot-passengers, and by a fine canal-bridge, carrying the lateral canal. Pleasant promenades stretch for some distance along the right bank. The town is a medley of old narrow streets contrasting with the wide modern boulevards which cross it at intervals. The chief building in Agen is the cathedral of St Caprais, the most interesting portion of which is the apse of the 12th century with its three apse-chapels; the transept dates from the 12th and 13th centuries, the nave from the 14th to the 16th centuries; the tower flanking the south façade is modern. The interior is decorated with modern paintings and frescoes. There are several other churches, among them the church of the Jacobins, a brick building of the 13th century, and the church of St Hilaire of the 16th century, which has a modern tower. In the prefecture, a building of the 18th century, once the bishop’s palace, is a collection of historical portraits. The hôtel de ville occupies the former Hôtel du Présidial, an obsolete tribunal, and contains the municipal library. Two houses of the 16th century, the Hôtel d’Estrades and the Hôtel de Vaurs, are used as the museum, which has a rich collection of fossils, prehistoric and Roman remains, and other antiquities and curiosities. The poet Jacques Jasmin was a native of the town, which has erected a statue to him. Through its excellent water communication it affords an outlet for the agricultural produce of the district, and forms an entrepôt of trade between Bordeaux and Toulouse. Agen is the seat of a bishop. It is the seat of a court of appeal and a court of assizes, and has tribunals of first instance and of commerce and a chamber of commerce. There are also ecclesiastical seminaries, lycées for boys and girls, training-colleges, a school of commerce and industry, and a branch of the Bank of France. Agen is the market for a rich agricultural region. The chief articles of commerce are fattened poultry, prunes (pruneaux d’Agen) and other fruit, cork, wine, vegetables and cattle. Manufactures include flour, dried plums, pâté de foie gras and other delicacies, hardware, manures, brooms, drugs, woven goods tiles.
Agen (Aginnum) was the capital of the Celtic tribe of the Nitiobroges, and the discovery of extensive ruins attests its importance under the Romans. In later times it was the capital of the Agenais. Its bishopric was founded in the 4th century. Agen changed hands more than once in the course of the Albigensian wars, and at their close a tribunal of inquisition was established in the town and inflicted cruel persecution on the heretics. During the religious wars of the 16th century Agen took the part of the Catholics and openly joined the League in 1589.
See Labenazie, Histoire de la ville d’Agen et pays d’Agenois, ed. by A.-G. de Dampierre (1888); A. Ducom, La Commune d’Agen: essai sur son histoire et son organisation depuis son origine jusqu’au traité de Brétigny (1892).
AGENAIS, or Agenois, a former province of France. In ancient Gaul it was the country of the Nitiobroges with Aginnum for its capital, and in the 4th century it was the Civitas Agennensium which was a part of Aquitania Secunda and which formed the diocese of Agen. Having in general shared the fortunes of Aquitaine during the Merovingian and Carolingian periods, Agenais next became an hereditary countship in the part of the country now called Gascony (Vasconia). In 1038 this countship was purchased by the dukes of Aquitaine and counts of Poitiers. The marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine with Henry Plantagenet in 1152 brought it under the sway of England; but when Richard Cœur-de-Lion married his sister Joan to Raymund VI., count of Toulouse, in 1196, Agenais formed part of the princess’s dowry; and with the other estates of the last independent count of Toulouse it lapsed to the crown of France in 1271. This, however, was not for long; the king of France had to recognize the prior rights of the king of England to the possession of the countship, and restored it to him in 1279. During the wars between the English and the French in the 14th and 15th centuries, Agenais was frequently taken and retaken, the final retreat of the English in 1453 at last leaving the king of France in peaceable possession. Thenceforth Agenais was no more than an administrative term. At the end of the ancien régime it formed part of the “Gouvernement” of Guienne, and at the Revolution it was incorporated in the départment of Lot-et-Garonne, of which it constitutes nearly the whole. The title of count of Agenais, which the kings of England had allowed to fall into desuetude, was revived by the kings of France, and in 1789 was held by the family of the dukes of Richelieu.
There is no good history of Agenais; that published by Jules Andrieu in 1893 (Histoire de l’Agenais, 2 vols.). being quite inadequate. The Bibliographie générale de l’Agenais, by the same author (1886–1891, 3 vols.), may be found useful. (C.B.*)
AGENT (from Lat. agere, to act), a name applied generally to any person who acts for another. It has probably been adopted from France, as its function in modern civil law was otherwise expressed in Roman jurisprudence. Ducange (s.v. Agentes) tells us that in the later Roman empire the officers who collected the grain in the provinces for the troops and the household, and afterwards extended their functions so as to include those of government postmasters or spies, came to be called agentes in rebus, their earlier name having been frumentarii. In law an agent is a person authorized, expressedly or impliedly, to act for another, who is thence called the principal, and who is, in consequence of, and to the extent of, the authority delegated by him, bound by the acts of his agent. (See Principal and Agent; Factor, &c.)
In Scotland the procurators or solicitors who act in the preparation of cases in the various law-courts are called agents. (See Solicitor.)
In France the agents de change were formerly the class generally licensed for conducting all negotiations, as they were termed, whether in commerce or the money market. The term has, however, become practically limited to those who conduct transactions in public stock. The laws and regulations as to
