5th arrondissement in the Rue de Bondy, entrusted to M. Higonnet.
. . . The workmen went to have their tickets examined at one of
these bureaux; and the absence of employment having been
proved, they returned to get their 30 sous at their maires’ offices.[1]
Owing to the increase in the number of those claiming work or relief, disorganization set in, and both the bureaux and the maires became the centres of disturbances, those in charge of the Offices being unable to control the crowds. As a consequence M. Marie commissioned Émile Thomas, a chemist connected with the École Centrale to reorganize the works. When Thomas took the work in hand on the 5th of March, the number of unemployed had increased to 14,000 in addition to some 4000 or 5000 employed on public works, and it was steadily on the increase. On the 16th of March the daily pay of the workmen who were not working was reduced to 1 franc;, work was guaranteed for at least every other day, in which case the pay was to be 2 francs for the day. The possible usefulness of this order was stultified by the near approach of the elections, the moderate and extreme sections both trying to exploit the dissatisfied workmen. Private industry, too, was paralysed, the workpeople for the most part preferring 1 franc a day and idleness, with the possibility of future benefits. Thomas, left practically to his own resources, endeavoured to organize some special workshops where artisans could be employed at their own trades; but it was found almost impossible to persuade them to do serious work, as they knew that many of their fellows were being paid for loafing. On the 19th of May the number enrolled had increased to 87,942. The National Assembly had in the meanwhile been elected, and met on the 4th of May. The Executive Commission was elected a few days later; Louis Blanc was excluded, but all the other members of the provisional government were on it. Blanc renewed his motion for a ministry of labour; this was rejected. On the 15th the mob invaded the Assembly, and from that time the government abated their socialist tendencies, and cast about for means to put an end to what had become a serious danger to the state as well as an exhausting drain on the treasury. On the 24th of May Thomas received instructions to dismiss all unmarried men under 25 years of age who would not enlist in the army, all men who could not prove six months’ residence in Paris, and all who refused offers of private employment. Piece-Work was to be established instead of time-work, and men were to be prepared to be drafted into the provinces. Thomas foretold trouble as a consequence of the order, and it was for a time withdrawn. On the 26th of May Thomas was superseded by M. Lalanne, and on the 30th the National Assembly decreed the substitution of piece-work for time-work. On the 20th of June the remainder of the proposals were approved, and the sequel was the insurrection of the 23rd of June and following days (see French History). How far the real socialistic scheme of Louis Blanc would have been successful if it had been put in practice must remain a matter of speculation. It was entered upon hastily, without any organization, was looked upon coldly by those servants of the government who ought to have assisted it, and, in the circumstances, was foredoomed to failure from the start.
Authorities.—E. Thomas, Histoire des ateliers nationaux (1848); L. Blanc, Histoire de la révolution française de 1848 (1870–1880); 1848 Hist. révelations (1858); A. de Lamartine, Hist. de la révolution de 1848 (1849); a useful summary is given in the English Board of Trade Report on Agencies and Methods for dealing with the Unemployed (c. 7182, 1893).
NATROLITE, a mineral species belonging to the zeolite group. It is a hydrated sodium and aluminium silicate with the formula Na2Al2Si3O10·2H2O, and containing sodium (Na2O, 16·3%), was named natrolite by M. H. Klaproth in 1803. “Needle-stone” or “needle-zeolite” are other names, alluding to the common acicular habit of the crystals, which are often very slender and are aggregated in divergent tufts. Larger crystals have the form of a square prism terminated by a low pyramid: the prism angle being nearly a right angle (88° 4512′), the crystals are tetragonal in appearance, though actually orthorhombic. There are perfect cleavages parallel to the faces of the prism. The mineral also often occurs in compact fibrous aggregates, the fibres having a divergent or radial arrangement (hence the name radiolite for one variety). From other fibrous zeolites natrolite is readily distinguished by its optical characters: between crossed nicols the fibres extinguish parallel to their length, and they do not show an optic figure in convergent polarized light. Natrolite is usually white or colourless, but sometimes reddish or yellowish. The lustre is vitreous, or in finely fibrous specimens sometimes silky. The spec. grav. is 2·2, and the hardness is 512. The mineral is readily fusible, melting in a candle-flame, to which it imparts a yellow colour owing to the presence of sodium. It is decomposed by hydrochloric acid with separation of gelatinous silica.
Natrolite occurs with other zeolites in the amygdaloidal cavities of basic igneous rocks. The best specimens are the diverging groups of white prismatic crystals found in compact basalt at the Puy-de-Marman, Puy-de Dôme, France. The largest crystals are those from Brevig in Norway. The walls of cavities in the basalt of the Giant’s Causeway, in Co. Antrim, are frequently encrusted with slender needles of natrolite, and similar material is found abundantly in the volcanic rocks (basalt and phonolite) of Salesel, Aussig and several other places in the north of Bohemia.
Several varieties of natrolite have been distinguished by special names. Fargite is a red natrolite from Glenfarg in Perthshire. Bergmannite or Spreustein is an impure variety which has resulted by the alteration of other minerals, chiefly sodalite, in the augite-syenite of southern Norway.
NATTIER, JEAN MARC (1685–1766), French painter, was born in Paris in 1685, the son of Marc Nattier, a portrait painter, and of Marie Courtois, a miniaturist. He received his first instruction from his father, and having applied himself to copying pictures at the Luxembourg Gallery, he refused to proceed to the French Academy in Rome, though he had taken the first prize at the Paris Academy at the age of fifteen. In 1715 he went to Amsterdam, where Peter the Great was then staying, and painted portraits of the tsar and the empress Catherine, but declined an offer to go to Russia. Between 1715 and 1720 he devoted himself to compositions like the “Battle of Pultawa,” which he painted for Peter the Great, and the “Petrification of Phineus and of his Companions,” which led to his election to the Academy. The financial collapse of 1720 caused by the schemes of Law all but ruined Nattier, who found himself forced to devote his whole energy to portraiture. He became the painter of the artificial ladies of Louis XV.'s court. The most notable examples of his straightforward portraiture are the “Marie Leczinska” at the Dijon Museum, and a group of the artist surrounded by his family, dated 1730. He died in Paris in 1766. Many of his pictures are in the public collections of France. Thus at the Louvre is his “Magdalen”; at Nantes the portrait of “La Camargo” and “A Lady of the Court of Louis XV.” At Orléans a “Head of a Young Girl,” at Marseilles a portrait of “Mme de Pompadour,” at Perpignan a portrait of “Louis XV.,” and at Valenciennes a portrait of “Le Duc de Boufflers." The Versailles Museum owns an important group of two ladies, and the Dresden Gallery aportrait of the “Maréchal de Saxe.” At the Wallace collection Nattier is represented by “The Comtesse de Dillières,” “The Bath (Mdlle de Clermont),” “Portrait of a Lady in Blue,” “Marie Leczinska” and “A Prince of the House of France.” In the collection of Mr Lionel Phillips are the duchess of Flavacourt as “Le Silence,” and the duchess of Chateauroux as “Le Point du jour.” A portrait of the “Comtesse de Neubourg and her Daughter” formed part of the Vaile Collection, and realized 4500 gs. at the sale of this collection in 1903. Nattier's works have been engraved by Leroy, Tardieu, Lépicié, Audran, Dupin and many other noted craftsmen.
See “J. M. Nattier,” by Paul Mantz, in the Gazette des beaux-arts (1894); Life of Nattier, by his daughter, Madame Tocqué; Nattier, by Pierre de Nolhac (1904, revised 1910); and French Painters of the XVIIIth Century, by Lady Dilke (London, 1899).
NATURAL BRIDGE, a small village of Rockbridge county, Virginia, in the western part of the state, 179 m. by rail W. of Richmond, and about 16 m. S.E. of Lexington, the county-seat. It is served by the Chesapeake & Ohio and the Norfolk & Western railways. In the vicinity of the village, which is about 1500 ft.
- ↑ E. Thomas, Histoire des ateliers nationaux, p. 29.
