in Le Roman d’un enfant (1890). His education began in Rochefort, but at the age of seventeen, being destined for the navy, he entered the naval school, Le Borda, and gradually rose in his profession, attaining the rank of captain in 1906. In January 1910 he was placed on the reserve list. His pseudonym is said to be due to his extreme shyness and reserve in early life, which made his comrades call him after le Loti, an Indian flower which loves to blush unseen. He was never given to books or study (when he was received at the French Academy, he had the courage to say, “Loti ne sait pas lire”), and it was not until 1876 that he was persuaded to write down and publish some curious experiences at Constantinople, in Aziyadé, a book which, like so many of Loti’s, seems half a romance, half an autobiography. He proceeded to the South Seas, and on leaving Tahiti published the Polynesian idyl, originally called Rarahu (1880), which was reprinted as Le Mariage de Loti, and which first introduced to the wider public an author of remarkable originality and charm. Le Roman d’un spahi, a record of the melancholy adventures of a soldier in Senegambia, belongs to 1881. In 1882 Loti issued a collection of short studies under the general title of Fleurs d’ennui. In 1883 he achieved the widest celebrity, for not only did he publish Mon frère Yves, a novel describing the life of a French bluejacket in all parts of the world—perhaps his most characteristic production—but he was involved in a public discussion in a manner which did him great credit. While taking part as a naval officer in the Tongking War, Loti had exposed in the Figaro a series of scandals which followed on the capture of Hué (1883), and was suspended from the service for more than a year. He continued for some time nearly silent, but in 1886 he published a novel of life among the Breton fisher-folk, called Pêcheur d’islande, the most popular of all his writings. In 1887 he brought out a volume of extraordinary merit, which has not received the attention it deserves; this is Propos d’exil, a series of short studies of exotic places, in his peculiar semi-autobiographic style. The fantastic novel of Japanese manners, Madame Chrysanthème, belongs to the same year. Passing over one or two slighter productions, we come in 1890 to Au Maroc, the record of a journey to Fez in company with a French embassy. A collection of strangely confidential and sentimental reminiscences, called Le Livre de la pitié et de la mort, belongs to 1891. Loti was on board his ship at the port of Algiers when news was brought to him of his election, on the 21st of May 1891, to the French Academy. In 1892 he published Fantôme d’orient, another dreamy study of life in Constantinople, a sort of continuation of Aziyadé. He described a visit to the Holy Land, somewhat too copiously, in three volumes (1895–1896), and wrote a novel, Ramuntcho (1897), a story of manners in the Basque province, which is equal to his best writings. In 1900 he visited British India, with the view of describing what he saw; the result appeared in 1903—L’Inde (sans les Anglais). At his best Pierre Loti was unquestionably the finest descriptive writer of the day. In the delicate exactitude with which he reproduced the impression given to his own alert nerves by unfamiliar forms, colours, sounds and perfumes, he was without a rival. But he was not satisfied with this exterior charm; he desired to blend with it a moral sensibility of the extremest refinement, at once sensual and ethereal. Many of his best books are long sobs of remorseful memory, so personal, so intimate, that an English reader is amazed to find such depth of feeling compatible with the power of minutely and publicly recording what is felt. In spite of the beauty and melody and fragrance of Loti’s books his mannerisms are apt to pall upon the reader, and his later books of pure description were rather empty. His greatest successes were gained in the species of confession, half-way between fact and fiction, which he essayed in his earlier books. When all his limitations, however, have been rehearsed, Pierre Loti remains, in the mechanism of style and cadence, one of the most original and most perfect French writers of the second half of the 19th century. Among his later works were: La Troisième jeunesse de Mme Prune (1905); Les Désenchantées (1906, Eng. trans. by C. Bell); La Mort de Philae (1908); Judith Renaudin (Théâtre Antoine, 1904), a five-act historical play based on an earlier book; and, in collaboration with Émile Vedel, a translation of King Lear, also produced at the Théâtre Antoine in 1904. (E. G.)
LÖTSCHEN PASS, or Lötschberg, an easy glacier pass (8842 ft.) leading from Kandersteg in the Bernese Oberland to the Lötschen valley in the Valais. It is a very old pass, first mentioned distinctly in 1352, but probably crossed previously by the Valaisans who colonized various parts of the Bernese Oberland. In 1384 and again in 1419 battles were fought on it between the Bernese and the Valaisans, while in 1698 a mule path (of which traces still exist) was constructed on the Bernese slope, though not continued beyond owing to the fear of the Valaisans that the Bernese would come over and alter their religion. In 1906 the piercing of a tunnel (812 m. long) beneath this pass was begun, starting a little above Kandersteg and ending at Goppenstein near the mouth of the Lötschen valley. Subsidies were granted by both the confederation and the canton of Bern. This pass is to be carefully distinguished from the Lötschenlücke (10,512 ft.), another easy glacier pass which leads from the head of the Lötschen valley to the Great Aletsch glacier. (W. A. B. C.)
LOTTERIES. The word lottery[1] has no very definite signification. It may be applied to any process of determining prizes by lot, whether the object be amusement or gambling or public profit. In the Roman Saturnalia and in the banquets of aristocratic Romans the object was amusement; the guests received apophoreta. The same plan was followed on a magnificent scale by some of the emperors. Nero gave such prizes as a house or a slave. Heliogabalus introduced an element of absurdity—one ticket for a golden vase, another for six flies. This custom descended to the festivals given by the feudal and merchant princes of Europe, especially of Italy; and it formed a prominent feature of the splendid court hospitality of Louis XIV. In the Italian republics of the 16th century the lottery principle was applied to encourage the sale of merchandise. The lotto of Florence and the seminario of Genoa are well known, and Venice established a monopoly and drew a considerable revenue for the state. The first letters patent for a lottery in France were granted in 1539 by Francis I., and in 1656 the Italian, Lorenzo Tonti (the originator of “Tontines”) opened another for the building of a stone bridge between the Louvre and the Faubourg St Germain. The institution became very popular in France, and gradually assumed an important place in the government finance. The parlements frequently protested against it, but it had the support of Mazarin, and L. Phelypeaux, comte de Pontchartrain, by this means raised the expenses of the Spanish Succession War. Necker, in his Administration des finances, estimates the public charge for lotteries at 4,000,000 livres per annum. There were also lotteries for the benefit of religious communities and charitable purposes. Two of the largest were the Loteries de Piété and Des Enfans Trouvés. These and also the great Loterie de l’École militaire were practically merged in the Loterie Royale by the decree of 1776, suppressing all private lotteries in France. The financial basis of these larger lotteries was to take 524ths for expenses and benefit, and return 1924ths to the public who subscribed. The calculation of chances had become a familiar science. It is explained in detail by Caminade de Castres in Enc. méth. finances, ii. s.v. “Loterie.” The names of the winning numbers in the first drawing were (1) extrait, (2) ambe, (3) terne, (4) quaterne, (5) quine. After this there were four drawings called primes gratuites. The extrait gave fifteen times the price of the ticket; the quine gave one
- ↑ The word “lottery” is directly derived from Ital. lotteria, cf. Fr. loterie, formed from lotto, lot, game of chance. “Lot” is in origin a Teutonic word, adopted into Romanic languages. In O. Eng. it appears as hlot, cf. Dutch lot, Ger. Loos, Dan. lod, &c. The meaning of the Teutonic root hleut from which these words have derived is unknown. Primarily “lot” meant the object, such as a disk or counter of wood, a pebble, bean or the like, which was drawn or cast to decide by chance, under divine guidance, various matters, such as disputes, divisions of property, selection of officers and frequently as a method of divination in ancient times. From this original sense the meaning develops into that which falls to a person by lot, chance or fate, then to any portion of land, &c., allotted to a person, and hence, quite generally, of a quantity of anything.
