(Leipzig, 1885–1890); and Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie, Band iv. (Leipzig, 1898).
DAMIEN, FATHER, the name in religion of Joseph de Veuster (1840–1889), Belgian missionary, was born at Tremeloo, near Louvain, on the 3rd of January 1840. He was educated for a business career, but in his eighteenth year entered the Church,
joining the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary (also known as the Picpus Congregation), and taking Damien as his name in religion. In October 1863, while he was still in minor
orders, he went out as a missionary to the Pacific Islands, taking
the place of his brother, who had been prevented by an illness.
He reached Honolulu in March 1864, and was ordained priest in
Whitsuntide of that year. Struck with the sad condition of the
lepers, whom it was the practice of the Hawaian government to
deport to the island of Molokai, he conceived an earnest desire
to mitigate their lot, and in 1873 volunteered to take spiritual
charge of the settlement at Molokai. Here he remained for the
rest of his life, with occasional visits to Honolulu, until he became
stricken with leprosy in 1885. Besides attending to the spiritual
needs of the lepers, he managed, by the labour of his own hands
and by appeals to the Hawaian government, to improve materially
the water-supply, the dwellings, and the victualling of the
settlement. For five years he worked alone; subsequently
other resident priests from time to time assisted him. He succumbed
to leprosy on the 15th of April 1889. Some ill-considered
imputations upon Father Damien by a Presbyterian minister
produced a memorable tract by Robert Louis Stevenson (An
Open Letter to the Rev. Dr Hyde, 1890).
See also lives by E. Clifford (1889) and Fr. Pamphile (1889). (J. M‘F.)
DAMIENS, ROBERT FRANÇOIS (1715–1757), a Frenchman who attained notoriety by his attack on Louis XV. of France in 1757, was born in a village near Arras in 1715, and early enlisted in the army. After his discharge, he became a menial in the college of the Jesuits in Paris, and was dismissed from this as well as from other employments for misconduct, his conduct earning for him the name of Robert le Diable. During the
disputes of Clement XI. with the parlement of Paris the mind of Damiens seems to have been excited by the ecclesiastical disorganization which followed the refusal of the clergy to grant the sacraments to the Jansenists and Convulsionnaires; and he appears to have thought that peace would be restored by the death of the king. He, however, asserted, perhaps with truth,
that he only intended to frighten the king without wounding him severely. On the 5th of January 1757, as the king was entering his carriage, he rushed forward and stabbed him with a knife, inflicting only a slight wound. He made no attempt to escape, and was at once seized. He was condemned as a regicide, and sentenced to be torn in pieces by horses in the Place de Grève. Before being put to death he was barbarously tortured
with red-hot pincers, and molten wax, lead, and boiling oil were poured into his wounds. After his death his house was razed to the ground, his brothers and sisters were ordered to change their names, and his father, wife, and daughter were banished from France.
See Pièces originales et procédures du procès fait à Robert François Damiens (Paris, 1757).
DAMIETTA, a town of Lower Egypt, on the eastern (Damietta or Phatnitic) branch of the Nile, about 12 m. above its mouth, and 125 m. N.N.E. of Cairo by rail. Pop. (1907) 29,354. The town is built on the east bank of the river between it and Lake Menzala. Though in general ill-built and partly ruinous, the town possesses some fine mosques, with lofty minarets, public baths and busy bazaars. Along the river-front are many
substantial houses furnished with terraces, and with steps leading to the water. Their wooden lattices of saw-work are very graceful. After Cairo and Alexandria, Damietta was for centuries the largest town in Egypt, but the silting up of the entrance to the harbour, the rise of Port Said, and the remarkable development
of Alexandria have robbed Damietta of its value as a port. It has still, however, a coasting trade with Syria and the Levant.
Ships over 6 ft. draught cannot enter the river, but must anchor
in the offing. Lake Menzala yields large supplies of fish, which
are dried and salted, and these, with rice, furnish the chief articles
of trade.
Damietta is a Levantine corruption of the Coptic name Tamiati, Arabic Dimyāt. The original town was 4 m. nearer the sea than the modern city, and first rose into importance on the decay of Pelusium. When it passed into the hands of the Saracens it became a place of great wealth and commerce, and, as the eastern bulwark of Egypt, was frequently attacked by the crusaders. The most remarkable of these sieges lasted eighteen months, from June 1218 to November 1219, and ended in the capture of the town, which was, however, held but for a brief period. In June 1249 Louis IX. of France occupied Damietta without opposition, but being defeated near Mansura in the February following, and compelled (6th April) to surrender himself prisoner, Damietta was restored to the Moslems as part of the ransom exacted. To prevent further attacks from the sea the Mameluke sultan Bibars blocked up the Phatnitic mouth of the Nile (about 1260), razed old Damietta to the ground, and transferred the inhabitants to the site of the modern town. It continued to be a place of commercial importance for a considerable period, until in fact Port Said gave the eastern part of the Delta a better port. Damietta gives its name to dimity, a kind of striped cloth, for which the place was at one time famous. Cotton and silk goods are still manufactured here.
DAMIRI, the common name of Kamāl ud-Dīn Muhammad ibn Mūsā ud-Damīrī (1344–1405), Arabian writer on canon law and
natural history, belonged to one of the two towns called Damīra
near Damietta and spent his life in Egypt. Of the Shafi’ite school
of law, he became professor of tradition in the Ruknīyya at Cairo,
and also at the mosque el-Azhar; in connexion with this work
he wrote a commentary on the Minhāj ut-Tālibin of Nawāwi
(q.v.). He is, however, better known in the history of literature
for his Life of Animals (Hayāt ul-Hayawān), which treats in
alphabetic order of 931 animals mentioned in the Koran, the
traditions and the poetical and proverbial literature of the Arabs.
The work is a compilation from over 500 prose writers and nearly
200 poets. The correct spelling of the names of the animals is
given with an explanation of their meanings. The use of the
animals in medicine, their lawfulness or unlawfulness as food,
their position in folk-lore are the main subjects treated, while
occasionally long irrelevant sections on political history are
introduced.
The work exists in three forms. The fullest has been published several times in Egypt; a mediate and a short recension exist in manuscript. Several editions have been made at various times of extracts, among them the poetical one by Suyūti (q.v.), which was translated into Latin by A. Ecchelensis (Paris, 1667). Bochartus in his Hierozoicon (1663) used Damīrī’s work. There is a translation of the whole into English by Lieutenant-Colonel Jayakar (Bombay, 1906–1908). (G. W. T.)
DAMIRON, JEAN PHILIBERT (1794–1862), French philosopher,
was born at Belleville. At nineteen he entered the
normal school, where he studied under Burnouf, Villemain, and
Cousin. After teaching for several years in provincial towns, he
came to Paris, where he lectured on philosophy in various institutions,
and finally became professor in the normal school,
and titular professor at the Sorbonne. In 1824 he took part
with P. F. Dubois and Th. S. Jouffroy in the establishment of
the Globe; and he was also a member of the committee of the
society which took for its motto Aide-toi, le ciel t’aidera. In
1833 he was appointed chevalier of the Legion of Honour, and in
1836 member of the Academy of Moral Sciences. Damiron died
at Paris on the 11th of January 1862.
The chief works of Damiron, of which the best are his accounts of French philosophers, are the following:—An edition of the Nouveaux mélanges philosophiques de Jouffroy (1842), with a notice of the author, in which Damiron softened and omitted several expressions used by Jouffroy, which were opposed to the system of education adopted by the Sorbonne, an article which gave rise to a bitter controversy, and to a book by Pierre Leroux, De la mutilation des manuscrits de M. Jouffroy (1843); Essai sur l’histoire de la philosophie en France au XIX e siècle (1828, 3rd ed.
