appointed by the duke of Chartres to the responsible office of gouverneur of his sons, a bold step which led to the resignation of all the tutors as well as to much social scandal, though there is no reason to suppose that the intellectual interests of her pupils suffered on that account. The better to carry out her ingenious theories of education, she wrote several works for their use, the best known of which are the Théâtre d’éducation (4 vols., 1779–1780), a collection of short comedies for young people, Les Annales de la vertu (2 vols., 1781) and Adèle et Théodore (3 vols., 1782). Sainte-Beuve tells how she anticipated many modern methods of teaching. History was taught with the help of magic lantern slides and her pupils learnt botany from a practical botanist during their walks. In 1789 Madame de Genlis showed herself favourable to the Revolution, but the fall of the Girondins in 1793 compelled her to take refuge in Switzerland along with her pupil Mademoiselle d’Orléans. In this year her husband, the marquis de Sillery, from whom she had been separated since 1782, was guillotined. An “adopted” daughter, Pamela,[1] had been married to Lord Edward Fitzgerald (q.v.) in the preceding December.
In 1794 Madame de Genlis fixed her residence at Berlin, but, having been expelled by the orders of King Frederick William, she afterwards settled in Hamburg, where she supported herself for some years by writing and painting. After the revolution of 18th Brumaire (1799) she was permitted to return to France, and was received with favour by Napoleon, who gave her apartments at the arsenal, and afterwards assigned her a pension of 6000 francs. During this period she wrote largely, and produced, in addition to some historical novels, her best romance, Mademoiselle de Clermont (1802). Madame de Genlis had lost her influence over her old pupil Louis Philippe, who visited her but seldom, although he allowed her a small pension. Her government pension was discontinued by Louis XVIII., and she supported herself largely by her pen. Her later years were occupied largely with literary quarrels, notably with that which arose out of the publication of the Dîners du Baron d’Holbach (1822), a volume in which she set forth with a good deal of sarcastic cleverness the intolerance, the fanaticism, and the eccentricities of the “philosophes” of the 18th century. She survived until the 31st of December 1830, and saw her former pupil, Louis Philippe, seated on the throne of France.
The numerous works of Madame de Genlis (which considerably exceed eighty), comprising prose and poetical compositions on a vast variety of subjects and of various degrees of merit, owed much of their success to adventitious causes which have long ceased to operate. They are useful, however (especially the voluminous Mémoires inédits sur le XVIII e siècle, 10 vols., 1825), as furnishing material for history. Most of her writings were translated into English almost as soon as they were published. A list of her writings with useful notes is given by Quérard in La France littéraire. Startling light was thrown on her relations with the duc de Chartres by the publication (1904) of her correspondence with him in L’Idylle d’un “gouverneur” by G. Maugras. See also Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi, vol. iii.; H. Austin Dobson, Four Frenchwomen (1890); L. Chabaud, Les Précurseurs du féminisme (1901); W. de Chabreul, Gouverneur de princes, 1737–1830 (1900); and Lettres inédites à . . . Casimir Baecker, 1802–1830 (1902), edited by Henry Lapauze.
GENNA, a word of obscure origin borrowed from the Assamese, and used technically by anthropologists to describe a class of social and religious ordinances based on sanctions which derive their validity from a vague sense of mysterious danger which results from disobedience to them. These prohibitions—or system of things forbidden—affect the relations, permanent and temporary, of individuals (either as members of a tribe, village, clan or household, or as occupying an official position in the village or clan) towards other persons or groups of persons and towards material objects which possess intrinsic sanctity. The term is extended to the communal rites performed by the village, clan or household, either as magical ceremonies or as prophylactics on special occasions when the social, commensal, conjugal and alimentary relations of the group affected are subjected to temporary modifications. These practices and beliefs are observed among the hill tribes of Assam from the Abors and Mishmis on the north to the Lusheis on the south, all linguistically members of the Tibeto-Burman group, and among the Khasis, members of the Mon-Khmer group. Genna and taboo (q.v.) are products of an identical level of culture and similar psychological processes, and provide the mechanism of the social and religious systems.
Permanent Gennas.—The only universal genna is that which forbids the intermarriage of members of the same clan. In some cases in Manipur animals are genna to the tribe—i.e. they must not be killed or eaten—but tribal differentiation is, in practice, based on dialectical distinctions rather than on tribal gennas. The village as such possesses no permanent gennas, but the clans, as the units of marriage under the law of exogamy, have distinct elementary gennas, especially the clan to which the priest-chief belongs. The most important individual gennas are those which protect the priest-chief from impurity or contact with “sacred” substances such as the flesh of animals used in sacrifices. He may neither eat in a strange house, nor utter words of abuse, nor take an oath in a dispute, except in his representative capacity on behalf of his village. The first-fruits are genna to the village until he eats, thus establishing an opposition between him and his co-villagers. Married and unmarried women are subject to alimentary gennas; thus unmarried girls are forbidden the flesh of any male animal or of any female animal dying gravid.
Ritual Gennas.—Ritual gennas are held annually to foster the rice crops, all other industries and activities being genna (forbidden) during the cultivating season, to secure good hunting, to avert sickness, especially epidemics, to take omens, and to lay finally to rest the ghosts of all that have died within the year. The village gates are closed, men and women eat apart, and conjugal relations are suspended. Special village gennas are held when rain is needed, when a villager dies in any manner out of the ordinary, as women in childbirth, when an animal gives birth to still-born offspring, and when any permanent genna has been violated. Clan gennas are held for all ordinary cases of death. Household gennas are held on the occasions of birth (when the aliment and conduct of the father are specially regulated), naming, ear-piercing, the first hair-cutting, sickness, and, in certain areas, tattooing. Individuals are subjected to temporary gennas as warriors both before and after a head-hunting raid, pregnant women, married persons at the beginning of their married life, the wives of the priest-chief, and those who from ambition or pride of wealth seek to perpetuate their names by erecting a stone monument, an act which confers the right to wear the distinctive clothes of the priest-chief which otherwise are genna to the whole village. Ritual gennas are of varying duration. Some last for a month while others are complete in two days. As religious or magical rites, they prevent danger or establish and restore normal relations with powers which are potentially harmful or require placation.
Authorities.—Official records of the government of India, Nos. 23 (1855), 27 (1859), 68 (1870); Colonel T. H. Lewin, Hill Tracts of Chittagong; Report on the Census of Assam (1891), vol. i. Report, note by A. W. Davis, p. 237 seq.; Major P. R. T. Gurdon, The Khasis (1907); T. C. Hodson, Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, vol. xxxvi. (1906). (T. C. H.)
GENNADIUS II. [as layman Georgios Scholarios] (d. c. 1468), patriarch of Constantinople from 1454 to 1456, philosopher and theologian, was one of the last representatives of Byzantine learning. Extremely little is known of his life, but he appears to have been born at Constantinople about 1400 and to have entered the service of the emperor John VII. Paleologus as imperial judge or counsellor. Georgios first appears conspicuously in history as present at the great council held in 1438 at Ferrara and Florence with the object of bringing about a union between the Greek and Latin Churches. At the same council was present the celebrated Platonist, Gemistus Pletho, the most powerful opponent of the then dominant Aristotelianism, and consequently the special object of reprobation to Georgios. In church matters, as in philosophy, the two were opposed,—Pletho maintaining strongly the principles of the Greek Church, and being unwilling to accept union through compromise, while Georgios, more politic and cautious, pressed the necessity for union and was instrumental in drawing up a form which from its vagueness and ambiguity might be accepted by both parties.
- ↑ See Gerald Campbell, Edward and Pamela Fitzgerald
