FREY (Old Norse, Freyr) son of Njord, one of the chief deities
in the northern pantheon and the national god of the Swedes.
He is the god of fruitfulness, the giver of sunshine and rain, and
thus the source of all prosperity. (See Teutonic Peoples,
ad fin.)
FREYBURG [Freyburg an der Unstrut], a town of
Germany, in Prussian Saxony, in an undulating vine-clad
country on the Unstrut, 6 m. N. from Naumberg-on-the-Saale,
on the railway to Artern. Pop. 3200. It has a parish church,
a mixture of Gothic and Romanesque architecture, with a
handsome tower. It is, however, as being the “Mecca” of the
German gymnastic societies that Freyburg is best known. Here
Friedrich Ludwig Jahn (1778–1852), the father of German
gymnastic exercises, lies buried. Over his grave is built the
Turnhalle, with a statue of the “master,” while hard by it the
Jahn Museum in Romanesque style, erected in 1903. Freyburg
produces sparkling wine of good quality and has some other
small manufactures. On a hill commanding the town is the
castle of Neuenburg, built originally in 1062 by Louis the Leaper,
count in Thuringia, but in its present form mainly the work of
the dukes of Saxe-Weissenfels.
FREYCINET, CHARLES LOUIS DE SAULCES DE (1828–),
French statesman, was born at Foix on the 14th of November
1828. He was educated at the École Polytechnique, and entered
the government service as a mining engineer. In 1858 he was
appointed traffic manager to the Compagnie de chemins de fer
du Midi, a post in which he gave proof of his remarkable talent
for organization, and in 1862 returned to the engineering service
(in which he attained in 1886 the rank of inspector-general).
He was sent on a number of special scientific missions, among
which may be mentioned one to England, on which he wrote
a notable Mémoire sur le travail des femmes et des enfants dans les
manufactures de l’Angleterre (1867). On the establishment of
the Third Republic in September 1870, he offered his services
to Gambetta, was appointed prefect of the department of Tarn-et-Garronne,
and in October became chief of the military cabinet.
It was mainly his powers of organization that enabled Gambetta
to raise army after army to oppose the invading Germans. He
showed himself a strategist of no mean order; but the policy
of dictating operations to the generals in the field was not
attended with happy results. The friction between him and
General d’Aurelle de Paladines resulted in the loss of the advantage
temporarily gained at Orleans, and he was responsible
for the campaign in the east, which ended in the destruction of
Bourbaki’s army. In 1871 he published a defence of his administration
under the title of La Guerre en province pendant le siège de
Paris. He entered the Senate in 1876 as a follower of Gambetta,
and in December 1877 became minister of public works in the
Dufaure cabinet. He carried a great scheme for the gradual
acquisition of the railways by the state and the construction of
new lines at a cost of three milliards, and for the development
of the canal system at a further cost of one milliard. He retained
his post in the ministry of Waddington, whom he succeeded in
December 1879 as president of the council and minister for
foreign affairs. He passed an amnesty for the Communists,
but in attempting to steer a middle course on the question of the
religious associations, lost the support of Gambetta, and resigned
in September 1880. In January 1882 he again became president
of the council and minister for foreign affairs. His refusal to
join England in the bombardment of Alexandria was the death-knell
of French influence in Egypt. He attempted to compromise
by occupying the Isthmus of Suez, but the vote of credit
was rejected in the Chamber by 417 votes to 75, and the ministry
resigned. He returned to office in April 1885 as foreign minister
in the Brisson cabinet, and retained that post when, in January
1886, he succeeded to the premiership. He came into power
with an ambitious programme of internal reform; but except
that he settled the question of the exiled pretenders, his successes
were won chiefly in the sphere of colonial extension. In spite of
his unrivalled skill as a parliamentary tactician, he failed to
keep his party together, and was defeated on 3rd December
1886. In the following year, after two unsuccessful attempts
to construct new ministries he stood for the presidency of the
republic; but the radicals, to whom his opportunism was
distasteful, turned the scale against him by transferring the
votes to M. Sadi Carnot.
In April 1888 he became minister of war in the Floquet cabinet—the first civilian since 1848 to hold that office. His services to France in this capacity were the crowning achievement of his life, and he enjoyed the conspicuous honour of holding his office without a break for five years through as many successive administrations—those of Floquet and Tirard, his own fourth ministry (March 1890–February 1892), and the Loubet and Ribot ministries. To him were due the introduction of the three-years’ service and the establishment of a general staff, a supreme council of war, and the army commands. His premiership was marked by heated debates on the clerical question, and it was a hostile vote on his Bill against the religious associations that caused the fall of his cabinet. He failed to clear himself entirely of complicity in the Panama scandals, and in January 1893 resigned the ministry of war. In November 1898 he once more became minister of war in the Dupuy cabinet, but resigned office on 6th May 1899. He has published, besides the works already mentioned, Traité de mécanique rationnelle (1858); De l’analyse infinitésimale (1860, revised ed., 1881); Des pentes économiques en chemin de fer (1861); Emploi des eaux d’égout en agriculture (1869); Principes de l’assainissement des villes and Traité d’assainissement industriel (1870); Essai sur la philosophie des sciences (1896); La Question d’Égypte (1905); besides some remarkable “Pensées” contributed to the Contemporain under the pseudonym of “Alceste.” In 1882 he was elected a member of the Academy of Sciences, and in 1890 to the French Academy in succession to Émile Augier.
FREYCINET, LOUIS CLAUDE DESAULSES DE (1779–1842),
French navigator, was born at Montélimart, Drôme, on the 7th of August 1779. In 1793 he entered the French navy. After taking part in several engagements against the British, he joined in 1800, along with his brother Louis Henri de Freycinet (1777–1840), who afterwards rose to the rank of admiral, the expedition sent out under Captain Baudin in the “Naturaliste” and “Géographe” to explore the south and south-west coasts of Australia. Much of the ground already gone over by Flinders was revisited, and new names imposed by this expedition, which claimed credit for discoveries really made by the English navigator. An inlet on the coast of West Australia, in 26° S., is called Freycinet Estuary; and a cape near the extreme south-west of the same coast also bears the explorer’s name. In 1805 he returned to Paris, and was entrusted by the government with the work of preparing the maps and plans of the expedition; he also completed the narrative, and the whole work appeared under the title of Voyage de découvertes aux terres australes (Paris, 1807–1816). In 1817 he commanded the “Uranie,” in which Arago and others went to Rio de Janeiro, to take a series of pendulum measurements. This was only part of a larger scheme for obtaining observations, not only in geography and ethnology, but in astronomy, terrestrial magnetism, and meteorology, and for the collection of specimens in natural history. On this expedition the hydrographic operations were conducted by Louis Isidore Duperry (1786–1865) who in 1822 was appointed to the command of the “Coquille,” and during the next three years carried out scientific explorations in the southern Pacific and along the coast of South America. For three years Freycinet cruised about, visiting Australia, the Marianne, Sandwich, and other Pacific islands, South America, and other places, and, notwithstanding the loss of the “Uranie” on the Falkland Islands during the return voyage, returned to France with fine collections in all departments of natural history, and with voluminous notes and drawings which form an important contribution to a knowledge of the countries visited. The results of this voyage were published under Freycinet’s supervision, with the title of Voyage autour du monde sur les corvettes “l’Uranie” et “la Physicienne” in 1824–1844, in 13 quarto volumes and 4 folio volumes of fine plates and maps. Freycinet was admitted into the Academy of Sciences in 1825, and was one
