wool-spinning, the weaving of light woollen fabrics, and the manufacture of millboard and farm implements.
Rethel (Castrum Retectum), of Roman origin, was from the end of the 10th century the seat of a countship which passed successively to the families of Flanders, Burgundy, Cleves, Foix and Gonzaga. In 1581 it was erected into a duchy in favour of the latter. In 1663 it was sold by Charles VI. de Gonzaga to Mazarin, whose family held it till the Revolution.
RETINITE (Gr., ῥητίνη, resin), a general name applied to various resins, particularly those from beds of brown coal, which are near amber in appearance, but contain little or no succinic acid. It may conveniently serve as a generic name, since no two independent occurrences prove to be alike, and the indefinite multiplication of names, no one of them properly specific, is not to be desired.
RETINUE (O. Fr. retenue, from retenir, Lat. retenere, hold back, retain), a body of persons “retained” in the service of a noble or royal personage, a suite of “retainers.” Such retainers were not in the domestic service of their lord, but were his “livery” and claimed his protection. They were a source of trouble and abuse in the 15th and early 16th century (see Livery and Maintenance).
RETORT (Lat. retorquere, to twist or turn back), a word used in two distinct meanings: (1) a sharp reply, answer to an argument, statement or charge; (2) a vessel used in chemistry and manufacture. The chemical retort is a flask-shaped or bulbous vessel made of glass, earthenware or metal, with a neck, bent downwards, which leads to a receiver; such vessels are particularly used for distillation (q.v.). The name is also given to the apparatus, varying in size and shape, used in the distinctive distillation of various substances, such as coal, in the manufacture of gas (q.v.).
RETREAT (O. Fr. retrete, mod. retraite, from Lat. retrahere, to draw back), a withdrawal, especially of a body of troops after a defeat or in face of a superior enemy. In military usage “retreat” is also the term for a signal, given by bugle and drum at or about sunset. It is the last general signal before “tattoo.” In religious usage, a “retreat” is a period and place set apart for prayer, self-examination and other spiritual exercises. Such “retreats” conducted by a director have long been the practice in the Roman Church. They were introduced into the English Church by Pusey. The word is also used of an institution or home where insane persons or habitual inebriates may be treated. For the law relating to “licensed retreats” for inebriates, see Inebriety, Law of.
RETRENCHMENT (Fr. retrenchement, an old form of retranchement, from retrancher, to cut down, cut short), an act of cutting down or reduction, particularly of expenditure; the word is familiar in this, its most general sense, from the motto of the Gladstonian Liberal party in British politics, “Peace, Retrenchment and Reform.” A special technical use of the term is in fortification, where it is applied to a work or series of works constructed in rear of existing defences in order to bar the further progress of the enemy should he succeed in breaching or storming these. A modern example may be found in the siege of Port Arthur in 1904. When early in the siege Fort Panlung fell into the hands of the Japanese, the Russians connected up the two adjacent first-line forts to a fort in the rear by means of new works, the whole forming a rough semicircle facing the lost fort. This retrenchment prevented the Japanese from advancing, and remained in the hands of the defenders up to the fall of the whole line of forts.
RETRO-COGNITION (from Lat. retro, back, cognitio, the acquiring of knowledge), a word invented by F. W. H. Myers to denote a supposed faculty of acquiring direct knowledge of the past beyond the reach of the subject's ordinary memory. The alleged manifestations of the faculty are of several kinds, of which the most important are as follows: (1) There are many recorded cases in which an impression has been received in dream or vision representing some recent event—shipwreck, death-bed scene, railway accident—outside the knowledge of the percipient. (2) Analogous to the transmission of habits and physical peculiarities in particular families, it is alleged that there are also cases of the transmission of definite memories of scenes and events in the life of some ancestor. (3) It is asserted that pictures of past scenes may be called up in certain cases by the presence of a material object associated with those scenes—e.g. a vision of the destruction of Pompeii by a piece of cinder from the buried city, or the scene of a martyrdom by a charred fragment of bone—the percipient being unaware at the time of the nature of the object. For this supposed faculty the American geologist, Professor Denton, has suggested the name “psychometric.” There are also cases recorded in which pictures of historical scenes unknown to the seer have been described in the crystal. (4) Some spirit mediums profess to realise incidents belonging to their previous incarnation. Thus Flournoy's medium, Hélène Smith, represented herself as having been successively incarnated as a Hindoo Princess, Simandini, and as Marie Antoinette, and gave vivid descriptions of scenes in which she had figured in these capacities.
It will be gathered that the facts afford little warrant for the assumption of a faculty of retro-cognition. The cases described in the first class, though apparently exhibiting knowledge not within the range of the percipient's ordinary faculties, hardly call for such an extreme hypothesis. In the other cases the result recorded may plausibly be attributed to the imagination of the percipient, working upon hints given by bystanders, or aided by the emergence of forgotten knowledge.
Bibliography.—See W. Denton, The Soul of Things (Wellesley, Mass., U.S.A., 1863); F. W. H. Myers, article “The Subliminal Self” in Proc. S. P. R. vol. xi.; Human Personality (London, 1903); Th. Flournoy, Des Indes à la planète Mars (Geneva, 1900). (F. P.)
RETROGRADE (from the Lat. retro, backwards, gradiri, to go), in astronomy, the direction of the apparent motion of a planet from E. to W.; the opposite of its regular motion around the sun, and due to the motion of the earth.
RETZ, SEIGNEURS AND DUKES OF. The district of Retz or Rais, in S. Brittany, belonged in early times to a house which bore its name, and of which the eldest branch became extinct in the 13th century in the Chabot family. From the Chabot family the lordship passed to the Lavals. Gilles de Laval, sire de Retz (1404–1440), the comrade-in-arms of Joan of Arc and marshal of France, gave himself over to the most revolting debauchery, and was strangled and burned at Nantes. The barony of Retz passed successively to the families of Tournemine, Annebaut and Gondi. In 1581 it was erected into a duchy in the peerage of France (duché-pairie) for Albert de Gondi, marshal of France and general of the galleys. Pierre de Gondi, brother of the first duc de Retz, became bishop of Paris in 1570 and cardinal in 1587. He was succeeded by his nephews, Henri (d. 1622) and Jean François de Gondi (d. 1654), for whom the episcopal see of Paris was erected into an archbishopric in 1622, and by his great-nephew, Jean François Paul de Gondi, the famous cardinal de Retz. With the death of the last male of the house of Gondi in 1676 the duché-pairie became extinct; the lordship passed to the house of Neuville-Villeroy. (M. P.*)
RETZ, JEAN FRANÇOIS PAUL DE GONDI, CARDINAL DE (1614-–679), French churchman and agitator, was born at Montmirail in 1614. The family was one of those which had been introduced into France by Catherine de' Medici, but it acquired great estates in Brittany and became connected with the noblest houses of the kingdom. It may be added that Retz himself always spelt his designation “Rais.” He was the third son, and according to Tallemant des Réaux was made a knight of Malta on the very day of his birth. The death of his second brother, however, destined him for a closer Connexion with the church. The family of Retz had military traditions, but it had also much church influence, and, despite the very unclerical leanings of the future cardinal, which were not corrected by the teachings of his tutor St Vincent de Paul, the intentions of his family never varied respecting him. By unanimous consent his physical appearance was not that of a soldier. He was
