In addition to the manuals of Marquardt and Preller-Jordan, and Roscher’s Lexikon der Mythologie, see A. de Marchi, Il Culto privato di Roma antica (1896–1903), p. 28 foll.; G. Wissowa, Religion und Kultus der Römer (1902), p. 148 foll.; Archiv für Religionswissenschaft (1904, p. 42 foll.) and W. Warde Fowler in the same periodical (1906; p. 529).
LA RÉVELLIÈRE-LÉPEAUX, LOUIS MARIE DE (1753–1824), French politician, member of the Directory, the son of J. B. de la Révellière, was born at Montaign (Vendée), on the 24th of August 1753. The name of Lépeaux he adopted from a small property belonging to his family, and he was known locally as M. de Lépeaux. He studied law at Angers and Paris, being called to the bar in 1775. A deputy to the states-general in 1789, he returned at the close of the session to Angers, where with his school-friends J. B. Leclerc and Urbain René Pilastre he sat on the council of Maine-et-Loire, and had to deal with the first Vendéen outbreaks. In 1792 he was returned by the department to the Convention, and on the 19th of November he proposed the famous decree by which France offered protection to foreign nations in their struggle for liberty. Although La Révellière-Lépeaux voted for the death of Louis XVI., he was not in general agreement with the extremists. Proscribed with the Girondins in 1793 he was in hiding until the revolution of 9.10 Thermidor (27th and 28th of July 1794). After serving on the commission to prepare the initiation of the new constitution he became in July 1795 president of the Assembly, and shortly afterwards a member of the Committee of Public Safety. His name stood first on the list of directors elected, and he became president of the Directory. Of his colleagues he was in alliance with Jean François Rewbell and to a less degree with Barras, but the greatest of his fellow-directors, Lazare Carnot, was the object of his undying hatred. His policy was marked by a bitter hostility to the Christian religion, which he proposed to supplant as a civilizing agent by theophilanthropy, a new religion invented by the English deist David Williams. The credit of the coup d’état of 18 Fructidor (4th of September 1797), by which the allied directors made themselves supreme, La Révellière arrogated to himself in his Mémoires, which in this as in other matters must be read with caution. Compelled to resign by the revolution of 30 Prairial (18th of June 1799) he lived in retirement in the country, and even after his return to Paris ten years later took no part in public affairs. He died on the 27th of March 1824.
The Mémoires of La Révellière-Lépeaux were edited by R. D. D’Angers (Paris, 3 vols., 1895). See also E. Charavay, La Révellière-Lépeaux et ses mémoires (1895) and A. Meynier, Un Représentant de la bourgeoisie angevine (1905).
LARGENTIÈRE, a town of south-eastern France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Ardèche, in the narrow valley of the Ligne, 29 m. S.W. of Privas by road. Pop. (1906) 1690. A church of the 12th, 13th and 15th centuries and the old castle of the bishops of Viviers, lords of Largentière, now used as a hospital, are the chief buildings. The town is the seat of a sub-prefect and of a tribunal of first instance; and has silk-mills, and carries on silk-spinning, wine-growing and trade in fruit and silk. It owes its name to silver-mines worked in the vicinity in the middle ages.
LARGILLIÈRE, NICOLAS (1656–1746), French painter, was
born at Paris on the 20th of October 1656. His father, a merchant,
took him to Antwerp at the age of three, and while a lad he
spent nearly two years in London. The attempt to turn his
attention to business having failed, he entered, some time after
his return to Antwerp, the studio of Goubeau, quitting this at
the age of eighteen to seek his fortune in England, where he was
befriended by Lely, who employed him for four years at Windsor.
His skill attracted the notice of Charles II., who wished to retain
him in his service, but the fury aroused against Roman Catholics
by the Rye House Plot alarmed Largillière, and he went to Paris,
where he was well received by Le Brun and Van der Meulen.
In spite of his Flemish training, his reputation, especially as a
portrait-painter, was soon established; his brilliant colour and
lively touch attracted all the celebrities of the day—actresses,
public men and popular preachers flocking to his studio. Huet,
bishop of Avranches, Cardinal de Noailles, the Duclos and
President Lambert, with his beautiful wife and daughter, are
amongst his most noted subjects. It is said that James II.
recalled Largillière to England on his accession to the throne in
1685, that he declined the office of keeper of the royal collections,
but that, during a short stay in London, he painted portraits of the
king, the queen and the prince of Wales. This last is impossible,
as the birth of the prince did not take place till 1688; the three
portraits, therefore, painted by Largillière of the prince in his
youth must all have been executed in Paris, to which city he
returned some time before March 1686, when he was received by
the Academy as a member, and presented as his diploma picture
the fine portrait of Le Brun, now in the Louvre. He was received
as an historical painter; but, although he occasionally produced
works of that class (“Crucifixion,” engraved by Roettiers),
and also treated subjects of still life, it was in historical portraits
that he excelled. Horace Walpole states that he left in London
those of Pierre van der Meulen and of Sybrecht. Several of his
works are at Versailles. The church of St Étienne du Mont at
Paris contains the finest example of Largillière’s work when
dealing with large groups of figures; it is an ex voto offered by
the city to St Geneviève, painted in 1694, and containing portraits
of all the leading officers of the municipality. Largillière
passed through every post of honour in the Academy, until in
1743 he was made chancellor. He died on the 20th of March
1746. Jean Baptiste Oudry was the most distinguished of his
pupils. Largillière’s work found skilful interpreters in Van
Schuppen, Edelinck, Desplaces, Drevet, Pitou and other
engravers.
LARGS, a police burgh and watering place of Ayrshire,
Scotland. Pop. (1901) 3246. It is situated 43 m. W. by S. of
Glasgow by the Glasgow & South-Western railway. Its fine
beach and dry, bracing climate have attracted many wealthy
residents, and the number of summer visitors is also large.
The public buildings include the Clark hospital, the Victoria
infirmary convalescent home and the Stevenson institute and
mechanics’ library. Skelmorlie Aisle, the sole relic of the old
parish church of St Columba, was converted into a mausoleum
in 1636. Near it a mound covers remains, possibly those of the
Norwegians who fell in the battle (1263) between Alexander III.
and Haco, king of Norway. The harbour is used mainly by
Clyde passenger steamers and yachtsmen. From the quay a
broad esplanade has been constructed northwards round the
bay, and there is an excellent golf course. Kelburne Castle,
2 m. S., a seat of the earl of Glasgow, stands in romantic scenery.
Fairlie, 3 m. S., another seaside resort, with a station on the
Glasgow & South-Western railway, is the connecting-point
for Millport on Great Cumbrae. Once a fishing village, it has
acquired a great reputation for its yachts.
LARGUS, SCRIBONIUS, court physician to the emperor
Claudius. About A.D. 47, at the request of Gaius Julius Callistus,
the emperor’s freedman, he drew up a list of 271 prescriptions
(Compositiones), most of them his own, although he acknowledged
his indebtedness to his tutors, to friends and to the writings of
eminent physicians. Certain old wives’ remedies are also included.
The work has no pretensions to style, and contains
many colloquialisms. The greater part of it was transferred
without acknowledgment to the work of Marcellus Empiricus
(c. 410), De Medicamentis Empiricis, Physicis, et Rationabilibus,
which is of great value for the correction of the text of Largus.
See the edition of the Compositiones by G. Helmreich (Teubner series, 1887).
LARINO (anc. Larinum) a town and episcopal see of the Molise (province of Campobasso), Italy, 32 m. N.E. of Campobasso by rail (20 m. direct), 984 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) 7044. The cathedral, completed in 1319, has a good Gothic façade; the interior has to some extent been spoilt by later restoration. The campanile rests upon a Gothic arch erected in 1451. The Palazzo Comunale has a courtyard of the 16th century. That the ancient town (which is close to the modern) existed before the Roman supremacy had extended so far is proved by the coins. It lay in the 2nd Augustan region (Apulia), but the people belonged to the Frentani by race. Its strong position gave
