Lèvres closes (1867); Paroles d’un vaincu (1871); La Rencontre, a dramatic scene (1875) and Les Amants (1879). His Poésies complètes (1872) were crowned by the French Academy. A complete edition of his works was published in 2 vols., 1894–1896.
DIES, CHRISTOPH ALBERT (1755–1822), German painter,
was born at Hanover, and learned the rudiments of art in his
native place. For one year he studied in the academy of Dusseldorf,
and then he started at the age of twenty with thirty ducats
in his pocket for Rome. There he lived a frugal life till 1796.
Copying pictures, chiefly by Salvator Rosa, for a livelihood, his
taste led him to draw and paint from nature in Tivoli, Albano
and other picturesque places in the vicinity of Rome. Naples,
the birthplace of his favourite master, he visited more than once
for the same reasons. In this way he became a bold executant in
water-colours and in oil, though he failed to acquire any originality
of his own. Lord Bristol, who encouraged him as a copyist,
predicted that he would be a second Salvator Rosa. But Dies
was not of the wood which makes original artists. Besides other
disqualifications, he had necessities which forced him to give
up the great career of an independent painter. David, then
composing his Horatii at Rome, wished to take him to Paris.
But Dies had reasons for not accepting the offer. He was courting
a young Roman whom he subsequently married. Meanwhile he
had made the acquaintance of Volpato, for whom he executed
numerous drawings, and this no doubt suggested the plan, which
he afterwards carried out, of publishing, in partnership with
Méchan, Reinhardt and Frauenholz, the series of plates known
as the Collection de vues pittoresques de l’Italie, published in
seventy-two sheets at Nuremberg in 1799. With so many
irons in the fire Dies naturally lost the power of concentration.
Other causes combined to affect his talent. In 1787 he swallowed
by mistake three-quarters of an ounce of sugar of lead. His recovery
from this poison was slow and incomplete. He settled at
Vienna, and lived there on the produce of his brush as a landscape
painter, and on that of his pencil or graver as a draughtsman and
etcher. But instead of getting better, his condition became
worse, and he even lost the use of one of his hands. In this
condition he turned from painting to music, and spent his leisure
hours in the pleasures of authorship. He did not long survive,
dying at Vienna in 1822, after long years of chronic suffering.
From two pictures now in the Belvedere gallery, and from
numerous engraved drawings from the neighbourhood of Tivoli,
we gather that Dies was never destined to rise above a respectable
mediocrity. He followed Salvator Rosa’s example in imitating
the manner of Claude Lorraine. But Salvator adapted the style
of Claude, whilst Dies did no more than copy it.
DIEST, a small town in the province of Brabant, Belgium,
situated on the Demer at its junction with the Bever. Pop.
(1904) 8383. It lies about half-way between Hasselt and
Louvain, and is still one of the five fortified places in Belgium.
It contains many breweries, and is famous for the excellence of
its beer.
DIESTERWEG, FRIEDRICH ADOLF WILHELM (1790–1866),
German educationist, was born at Siegen on the 29th of October
1790. Educated at Herborn and Tübingen universities, he took
to the profession of teaching in 1811. In 1820 he was appointed
director of the new school at Mörs, where he put in practice the
methods of Pestalozzi. In 1832 he was summoned to Berlin to
direct the new state-schools seminary in that city. Here he
proved himself a strong supporter of unsectarian religious teaching.
In 1846 he established the Pestalozzi institution at Pankow,
and the Pestalozzi societies for the support of teachers’ widows
and orphans. In 1850 he retired on a pension, but continued
vigorously to advocate his educational views. In 1858 he was
elected to the chamber of deputies as member for the city of
Berlin, and voted with the Liberal opposition. He died in Berlin
on the 7th of July 1866. Diesterweg was a voluminous writer
on educational subjects, and was the author of various school
text-books.
DIET, a term used in two senses, (1) food or the regulation
of feeding (see Dietary and Dietetics), (2) an assembly
or council (Fr. diète; It. dieta; Low Lat. diaeta; Ger. Tag).
We are here concerned only with this second sense. In
modern usage, though in Scotland the term is still sometimes
applied to any assembly or session, it is practically confined to
the sense of an assembly of estates or of national or federal
representatives. The origin of the word in this connotation is
somewhat complicated. It is undoubtedly ultimately derived
from the Greek δίαιτα (Lat. diaeta), which meant “mode of
life” and thence “prescribed mode of life,” the English “diet”
or “regimen.” This was connected with the verb διαιτᾶν, in
the sense of “to rule,” “to regulate”; compare the office of
διαιτητής at Athens, and dieteta, “umpire,” in Late Latin.
In both Greek and Latin, too, the word meant “a room,” from
which the transition to “a place of assembly” and so to “an
assembly” would be easy. In the latter sense the word, however,
actually occurs only in Low Latin, Du Cange (Glossarium, s.v.)
deriving it from the late sense of “meal” or “feast,” the Germans
being accustomed to combine their political assemblies with
feasting. It is clear, too, that the word diaeta early became
confused with Lat. dies, “day” (Ger. Tag), “especially a set
day, a day appointed for public business; whence, by extension,
meeting for business, an assembly” (Skeat). Instances of this
confusion are given by Du Cange, e.g. diaeta for dieta, “a day’s
journey” (also an obsolete sense of “diet” in English), and
dieta for “the ordinary course of the church,” i.e. “the daily
office,” which suggests the original sense of diaeta as “a prescribed
mode of life.”
The word “diet” is now used in English for the Reichstag, “imperial diet” of the old Holy Roman Empire; for the Bundestag, “federal diet,” of the former Germanic confederation; sometimes for the Reichstag of the modern German empire; for the Landtage, “territorial diets” of the constituent states of the German and Austrian empires; as well as for the former or existing federal or national assemblies of Switzerland, Hungary, Poland, &c. Although, however, the word is still sometimes used of all the above, the tendency is to confine it, so far as contemporary assemblies are concerned, to those of subordinate importance. Thus “parliament” is often used of the German Reichstag or of the Russian Landtag, while the Landtag, e.g. of Styria, would always be rendered “diet.” In what follows we confine ourselves to the diet of the Holy Roman Empire and its relation to its successors in modern Germany.
The origin of the diet, or deliberative assembly, of the Holy Roman Empire must be sought in the placitum of the Frankish empire. This represented the tribal assembly of the Franks, meeting (originally in March, but after 755 in May, whence it is called the Campus Maii) partly for a military review on the eve of the summer campaign, partly for deliberation on important matters of politics and justice. By the side of this larger assembly, however, which contained in theory, if not in practice, the whole body of Franks available for war, there had developed, even before Carolingian times, a smaller body composed of the magnates of the Empire, both lay and ecclesiastical. The germ of this smaller body is to be found in the episcopal synods, which, afforced by the attendance of lay magnates, came to be used by the king for the settlement of national affairs. Under the Carolingians it was usual to combine the assembly of magnates with the generalis conventus of the “field of May,” and it was in this inner assembly, rather than in the general body (whose approval was merely formal, and confined to matters momentous enough to be referred to a general vote), that the centre of power really lay. It is from the assembly of magnates that the diet of medieval Germany springs. The general assembly became meaningless and unnecessary, as the feudal array gradually superseded the old levy en masse, in which each freeman had been liable to service; and after the close of the 10th century it no longer existed.
The imperial diet (Reichstag) of the middle ages might sometimes contain representatives of Italy, the regnum Italicum; but it was practically always confined to the magnates of Germany, the regnum Teutonicum. Upon occasion a summons to the diet might be sent even to the knights, but the regular members were the princes (Fürsten), both lay and ecclesiastical. In the 13th
