the 7th of February 1834, after suffering from a mental malady for two years.
The fame of Bourrienne rests, not upon his achievements or his original works, which are insignificant, but upon his Mémoires, edited by C. M. de Villemarest (10 vols., Paris, 1829–1831), which have been frequently republished and translated. The best English edition is that edited by Colonel R. W. Phipps (4 vols., London, 1893); a new French edition has been edited by D. Lacroix (5 vols., Paris, 1899–1900). See Bourrienne et ses erreurs, volontaires et involontaires (Paris, 1830), by Generals Belliard, Gourgaud, &c., for a discussion of the genuineness of his Memoirs; also Napoléon et ses détracteurs, by Prince Napoleon (Paris, 1887; Eng. trans., London, 1888). (J. Hl. R.)
BOURRIT, MARC THÉODORE (1739–1819), Swiss traveller
and writer, came of a family which was of French origin but had
taken refuge at Geneva for reasons connected with religion.
His father was a watchmaker there, and he himself was educated
in his native city. He was a good artist and etcher, and also a
pastor, so that by reason of his fine voice and love of music he was
made (1768) precentor of the church of St Peter (the former
cathedral) at Geneva. This post enabled him to devote himself
to the exploration of the Alps, for which he had conceived a
great passion ever since an ascent (1761) of the Voirons, near
Geneva. In 1775 he made the first ascent of the Buet (10,201 ft.)
by the now usual route from the Pierre à Bérard, on which the
great flat rock known as the Table au Chantre still preserves his
memory. In 1784–1785 he was the first traveller to attempt the
ascent of Mont Blanc (not conquered till 1786), but neither then
nor later (1788) did he succeed in reaching its summit. On the
other hand he reopened (1787) the route over the Col du Géant
(11,060 ft.), which had fallen into oblivion, and travelled also
among the mountains of the Valais, of the Bernese Oberland, &c.
He received a pension from Louis XVI., and was named the
historiographe des Alpes by the emperor Joseph II., who visited
him at Geneva. His last visit to Chamonix was in 1812. His
writings are composed in a naïve, sentimental and rather
pompous style, but breathe throughout a most passionate love
for the Alps, as wonders of nature, and not as objects of scientific
study. His chief works are the Description des glacières de Savoye, 1773 (English translation, Norwich, 1775–1776), the
Description des Alpes pennines et rhétiennes (2 vols., 1781)
(reprinted in 1783 under the title of Nouvelle Description des vallées de glace, and in 1785, with additions, in 3 vols., under the
name of Nouvelle Description des glacières), and the Descriptions des cols ou passages des Alpes, (2 vols., 1803), while his Itinéraire de Genève, Lausanne et Chamouni, first published in 1791, went
through several editions in his lifetime. (W. A. B. C.)
BOURSAULT, EDME (1638–1701), French dramatist and
miscellaneous writer, was born at Mussy l’Évêque, now Mussy-sur-Seine
(Aube), in October 1638. On his first arrival in Paris
in 1651 his language was limited to a Burgundian patois, but
within a year he produced his first comedy, Le Mort vivant.
This and some other pieces of small merit secured for him
distinguished patronage in the society ridiculed by Molière
in the École des femmes. Boursault was persuaded that the
“Lysidas” of that play was a caricature of himself, and attacked
Molière in Le Portrait du peintre ou la contre-critique de l’École des femmes (1663). Molière retaliated in L’Impromptu de Versailles, and Boileau attacked Boursault in Satires 7 and 9.
Boursault replied to Boileau in his Satire des satires (1669),
but was afterwards reconciled with him, when Boileau on his
side erased his name from his satires. Boursault obtained
a considerable pension as editor of a rhyming gazette, which
was, however, suppressed for ridiculing a Capuchin friar, and
the editor was only saved from the Bastille by the interposition
of Condé. In 1671 he produced a work of edification in Ad usum Delphini: la véritable étude des souverains, which so pleased
the court that its author was about to be made assistant tutor
to the dauphin when it was found that he was ignorant of
Greek and Latin, and the post was given to Pierre Huet. Perhaps
in compensation Boursault was made collector of taxes at Mont-luçon
about 1672, an appointment that he retained until 1688.
Among his best-known plays are Le Mercure galant, the title
of which was changed to La Comédie sans titre (1683); La Princesse de Clèves (1676), an unsuccessful play which, when refurbished
with fresh names by its author, succeeded as Germanicus; Ésope à la ville (1690); and Ésope à la cour (1701). His lack of
dramatic instinct could hardly be better indicated than by the
scheme of his Ésope, which allows the fabulist to come on the
stage in each scene and recite a fable. Boursault died in Paris
on the 15th of September 1701.
The Œuvres choisies of Boursault were published in 1811, and a sketch of him is to be found in M. Saint-René Taillandier’s Études littéraires (1881).
BOURSE (from the Med. Lat. bursa, a purse), the French
equivalent of the Stock Exchange, and so used of the Paris
Exchange, or of any foreign money-market. The English form
“burse,” as in Sir Thomas Gresham’s building, which was known
as “Britain’s Burse,” went out of use in the 18th century.
The origin of the name is doubtful; it is not derived from any
connexion between purse and money, but rather from the use of
a purse as a sign. At Bruges a house belonging to the family
de Bursa is said to have been first used as an Exchange, and to
have had three purses as a sign on the front.
BOURSSE, ESAIAS (1630–1673), Dutch painter, was born
in Amsterdam. He was a follower of Pieter de Hooch, in whose
manner he worked for many years in his native town; then he
took service with the Dutch East India Company, and died
on a sea voyage. His paintings are exceedingly rare, perhaps
because, in spite of their greater freedom and breadth, many of
them pass under the names of Vermeer of Delft and Pieter de
Hooch. Two of the paintings ascribed to the latter (one bears
the false signature) at the Ryks museum in Amsterdam, are now
recognized as being the work of Boursse. His subjects are
interiors with figures, painted with great precision and with
exquisite quality of colour. The Wallace collection has his
masterpiece, an interior with a woman and a child in a cradle,
almost as brilliant as on the day it was painted, and reflecting
something of the feeling of Rembrandt, by whom he was influenced.
Other important examples are at the Ryks museum
and at Aix-la-Chapelle. Boursse’s “Boy blowing Soap Bubbles,”
in the Berlin museum, was until lately attributed to Vermeer
of Delft. More than one picture bearing the false signature
of Boursse have been publicly shown of late years.
BOUSSINGAULT, JEAN BAPTISTE JOSEPH DIEUDONNÉ (1802–1887), French chemist, was born in Paris on the 2nd of February 1802. After studying at the school of mines at Saint-Étienne he went, when little more than twenty years old, to South America as a mining engineer on behalf of an English company. During the insurrection of the Spanish colonies he was attached to the staff of General Bolivar, and travelled widely in the northern parts of the continent. Returning to France he became professor of chemistry at Lyons, and in 1839 was appointed to the chair of agricultural and analytical chemistry at the Conservatoire des Arts et Métiers in Paris. In 1848 he was elected to the National Assembly, where he sat as a Moderate republican. Three years later he was dismissed from his professorship on account of his political opinions, but so much resentment at this action was shown by scientific men in general, and especially by his colleagues, who threatened to resign in a body, that he was reinstated. He died in Paris on the 11th of May 1887. His first papers were concerned with mining topics, and his sojourn in South America yielded a number of miscellaneous memoirs, on the cause of goitre in the Cordilleras, the gases of volcanoes, earthquakes, tropical rain, &c., which won the commendation of A. von Humboldt. From 1836 he devoted himself mainly to agricultural chemistry and animal and vegetable physiology, with occasional excursions into mineral chemistry. His work included papers on the quantity of nitrogen in different foods, the amount of gluten in different wheats, investigations on the question whether plants can assimilate free nitrogen from the atmosphere (which he answered in the negative), the respiration of plants, the function of their leaves, the action and value of manures, and other similar subjects. Through his wife he had a share in an estate at Bechebronn in Alsace, where he carried out many agricultural experiments. He
