(1873), &c.; and novels, Les Filles d’Ève (1852) and many others. In 1849, through the influence of Rachel, he was entrusted with the administration of the Théâtre Français, a position he filled with unfailing tact and success until 1859, when he was made inspector-general of works of art. He died on the 26th of February 1896.
His Confessions, souvenirs d’un démi-siècle appeared in 1885–1891. See also J. Lemaître, Arsène Houssaye (1897), with a bibliography.
His son, Henry Houssaye (1848– ), the historian, was born in Paris. His early writings were devoted to classical antiquity, studied not only in books but on the actual Greek sites which he visited in 1868. He published successively Histoire d’Apelles (1867), a study on Greek art; L’Armée dans la Grèce antique (1867); Histoire d’Alcibiade et de la république athénienne depuis la mort de Périclès jusqu’à l’avènement des trente tyrans (1873); Papers on Le Nombre des citoyens d’Athènes au V ème siècle avant l’ère chrétienne (1882); La Loi agraire à Sparte (1884); Le Premier Siège de Paris en 52 av. J.-C. (1876); and two volumes of miscellanies, Athènes, Rome, Paris, l’histoire et les mœurs (1879), and Aspasie, Cléopatre, Théodora (6th ed. 1889). The military history of Napoleon I. then attracted him. His first volume on this subject, called 1814 (1888), went through no fewer than forty-six editions. It was followed by 1815, the first part of which comprises the first Restoration, the return from Elba and the Hundred Days (1893); the second part, Waterloo (1899); and the third part, the second abdication and the White Terror (1905). He was elected a member of the French Academy in 1895.
HOUSTON, SAM, or Samuel (1793–1863), American general and
statesman, of Scotch-Irish descent, was born near Lexington,
Virginia, on the 2nd of March 1793. His father, who had
fought in the War of Independence, died in 1806, and soon
afterward Samuel removed with his mother to the frontier in
Blount county, Tennessee. When he was about fifteen his
elder brothers obtained for him a place as clerk in a trader’s
store, but he ran away and lived with the Cherokee Indians of
East Tennessee for nearly three years. On his return he opened
a country school, and later attended a session or two of the
Academy at Maryville. During the War of 1812 he served under
Andrew Jackson against the Creek Indians, and his bravery
at the battle of Tohopeka, in which he was disabled by several
wounds, won promotion to a lieutenancy. In 1817 he was
appointed sub-agent in managing the business relating to the
removal of the Cherokees from East Tennessee to a reservation
in what is now Arkansas, but he was offended at a rebuke from
John C. Calhoun, then secretary of war, for appearing before
him in Indian garments, as well as at an inquiry into charges
affecting his official integrity, and he resigned in 1818. He
entered a law office in Nashville, and was admitted to the bar,
and was soon elected a district attorney. From 1823 to 1827
Houston represented the ninth district of Tennessee in Congress,
and in 1827 was elected governor of the state by the Jackson
Democrats. He married Eliza Allen in January 1829; his wife
left him three months later, and he resigned his office of governor,
again took up his residence among the Cherokees, who were at
this time about to remove to Indian Territory, and was formally
adopted a member of their nation.
In 1830 and again in 1832 he visited Washington to expose the frauds practised upon the Cherokees by government agents, and attracted national attention by an encounter on the 13th of April 1832 with William Stanberry, a Congressman from Ohio, who intimated that Houston himself was seeking to defraud them. Commissioned by President Jackson, Houston went to Texas in December 1832 to negotiate treaties with the Indian tribes there for the protection of American traders on the border. He decided to remain in Texas, and was elected a delegate to the constitutional convention which met at San Felipe on the 1st of April 1833 to draw up a memorial to the Mexican Congress asking for the separation of Texas from Coahuila, in which the anti-American party was in control, as well as to frame a constitution for the commonwealth as a new member of the Mexican Republic, and he served as chairman of the drafting committee, and took a prominent part in the preparations for war when next year the petition was refused. In October 1835, soon after the outbreak of the War for Texan Independence, the committees of the township of Nacogdoches chose Houston as commander-in-chief of the forces in eastern Texas, and after the San Felipe convention in November he was chosen commander-in-chief of the Texan army. On the 21st of April 1836, while in command of 743 raw troops, he met on the bank of the San Jacinto about 1600 Mexican veterans led by Santa Anna and completely routed them; on the next day Santa Anna was taken prisoner.
Texan independence was won by this victory (although the Mexican government repudiated the treaty negotiated by Santa Anna), and Houston was elected president of Texas (1st of September) and was inaugurated on the 22nd of October. His term expired in December 1838; he was elected again in 1841 and served until 1844. During his first term a newly founded city was named in his honour and this was the seat of government in 1837–39 and in 1842–45. Texas having been admitted as a state of the American Union in 1845, Houston was elected one of its first two United States senators. He served as a stalwart Union Democrat from March 1846 until 1859; he opposed the Kansas-Nebraska bill in an able speech (3rd March 1854), and spoke frequently in defence of the rights of the Indians. In 1859 he was elected governor of Texas and tried to prevent the secession of his state; upon his refusal, in March 1861, to swear allegiance to the Confederacy he was declared deposed. He died at Huntsville, Texas, on the 26th of July 1863. Houston was an able soldier, wary, intrepid and resolute; and was a legislator of rare foresight, cool discrimination and fearless candour.
See A. M. Williams, Sam Houston and the War of Independence in Texas (Boston, 1893); Henry Bruce, Life of General Houston (New York, 1891); and W. C. Crane, Life and Select Literary Remains of Sam Houston (Philadelphia, 1884).
HOUSTON, a city and the county-seat of Harris county, Texas,
U.S.A., at the head of deep-sea navigation on Buffalo Bayou,
a tributary of Galveston Bay, 50 m. N.W. of Galveston, and
about 325 m. W. of New Orleans. Pop. (1880) 16,513; (1890)
27,557; (1900) 44,633, of whom 4415 were foreign-born and
14,608 were negroes; (1910 census) 78,800. The land area
in 1906 was 16.02 sq. m.; in 1908, about 20 sq. m. It is served
by the Galveston, Harrisburg & San Antonio (Southern Pacific),
the Galveston, Houston & Henderson, the Gulf, Colorado
& Santa Fe, the Houston & Texas Central (Southern Pacific),
the Houston, East & West Texas, the International & Great
Northern, the Missouri, Kansas & Texas, the San Antonio &
Aransas Pass, the Trinity & Brazos Valley, the St Louis, Brownsville
& Mexico, the Texas & New Orleans, and the Houston Belt
& Terminal railways, several of which have their headquarters
at Houston. The Federal government has greatly improved
the natural channel from the city to the Gulf of Mexico, straightening,
widening and deepening it to a depth of 25 ft. for the entire
distance from the Galveston jetties to the Houston turning
basin—where the municipality has constructed free municipal
wharves. The city occupies an unusually fine site on both sides
of the Buffalo Bayou. Among the principal buildings are a
Carnegie library, the Houston Lyceum, the Federal building,
the Masonic temple, the city high school, the city hall and
market house, the Harris County Court House, the Cotton
Exchange, and the First and Commercial National banks.
Houston is the seat of the Texas Dental College, of St Thomas
College (1903), and of the Houston, Annunciation and St Agnes
academies; and the will (1901) of William Marsh Rice provided
an endowment (valued in 1908 at about $7,000,000) for the
William M. Rice Institute for the Advancement of Literature,
Science and Art, of which Dr Edgar Odell Lovett, formerly
professor of mathematics (1900–1905) and of astronomy (1905–1908)
in Princeton University, was made president in 1908.
The city is the most important railway and shipping centre of
South Texas, and has a large trade in cotton (the receipts for
the year ending Aug. 31, 1907 being 2,967,535 bales), cotton-seed
