should be taken from the Jews; and, as the emperor still hesitated, the bigots threw on Reuchlin the whole blame of their ill success. Pfefferkorn circulated at the Frankfort fair of 1511 a gross libel (Handspiegel wider und gegen die Juden) declaring that Reuchlin had been bribed; and Reuchlin retorted as warmly in the Augenspiegel (1 SI 1). His adversary's next move was to declare the Augenspiegel a dangerous book; the Cologne theological faculty, with the inquisitor Jakob von Hochstraten (d. 1527) took up this cry, and on the 7th of October 1512 they obtained an imperial order confiscating the Augenspiegel. Reuchlin was timid, but he was honesty itself. He was willing to receive corrections in theology, which was not his subject, but he could not unsay what he had said; and as his enemies tried to press him into a corner he met them with open defiance in a Defensio contra Calumniatores (1513). The universities were now appealed to for opinions, and were all against Reuchlin. Even Paris (August 1514) condemned the Augenspiegel, and called on Reuchlin to recant. Meantime a formal process had begun at Mainz before the grand inquisitor, but Reuchlin by an appeal succeeded in transferring the question to Rome. judgment was not finally given till July 1516; and then, though the decision was really for Reuchlin, the trial was simply quashed. The result had cost Reuchlin years of trouble and no small part of his modest fortune, but it was worth the sacrifice. For far above the direct importance of the issue was the great stirring of public opinion which had gone forward. And if the obscurantists escaped easily at Rome, with only a half condemnation, they received a crushing blow in Germany. N o party could survive the ridicule that was poured on them in the Epistolae Obscurorum Virorum, the first volume of which written chiefly by Crotus Rubeanus appeared in 1514, and the second by Ulrich von Hutten in 1517. Hutten and Franz von Sickingen did all they could to force Reuchlin's enemies to a restitution of his material damages; they even threatened a feud against the Dominicans of Cologne and Spires. In 1520 a commission met in Frankfort to investigate the case. It condemned Hochstraten. But the final decision of Rome did not indemnify him. The contest ended, however; public interest had grown cold, absorbed entirely by the Lutheran question, and Reuchlin had no reason to fear new attacks. Reuchlin did not long enjoy his victory in peace. In 1519 Stuttgart was visited by famine, civil war and pestilence. From November of this year to the spring of 1 521 the veteran statesman sought refuge in Ingolstadt and taught there for a year as professor of Greek and Hebrew. It was forty-one years since at Poitiers he had last spoken from a public chair; but the old man of sixty-five had not lost his gift of teaching, and hundreds of scholars crowded round him. This gleam of autumn sunshine was again broken by the plague; but now he was called to Tübingen and again spent the winter of 1 521-22 teaching in his own systematic way. But in the spring he found it necessary to Visit the baths of Liebenzell, and here he was seized with jaundice, of which he died on the 30th of June 1522, leaving in the history of the new learning a name only second to that of his younger contemporary Erasmus.
The authorities for Reuchlin’s life are enumerated in L. Geiger, Johann Reuchlin (1871), which is the standard biography. The controversy about the books of the Jews is well sketched by D. F Strauss, Ulrich von Hutten. See also S. A. Hirsch, “ John Reuchlin, the Father of the Study of Hebrew among the Christians,” and his “John Pfefferkorn and the Battle of Books,” in his Essays (London, 1905). Some interesting details about Reuchlin are given in the autobiography of Conrad Pellicanus (q.v.), which was not published when Geiger’s book appeared. See also the article on Reuchlin in Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie, and literature there cited. (W. R. S.)
REUMONT, ALFRED VON (1808–1887), German scholar and
diplomatist, the son of Gerhard Reumont (1765–1829), was born
on the 15th of August 1808 and was named Alfred after the
English king, Alfred the Great. Educated at the universities of
Bonn and Heidelberg, he obtained a position in Florence through
the influence of an Englishman, William Craufurd, but soon he
entered the Prussian diplomatic service and was employed in
Florence, in Constantinople and in Rome. He also spent some
time in the Foreign Office in Berlin. From 1851 to 1860 he
represented his country in Florence. Reumont was the friend
and adviser of Frederick William IV. In 1879 he founded the
Aachener Geschichtsverein, and having spent his concluding
years at Bonn and at Aix-la-Chapelle, he died in the latter city
on the 27th of April 1887.
Reumont’s numerous writings deal mainly with Italy, in which country he passed many years of his life. On the history of Florence and of Tuscany he wrote Tavole cronologiche e sincrone della storia fiorentina (1841; Supplement, 1875); Geschichte Toscanas seit dem Ende des jiorentinischen Freistaats (Gotha, 1876–77); and Lorenzo de' Medici (Leipzig, 1874, and again 1883). This last book has been translated into English by R. Harrison (1876). He remembered his connexion with Florence when he wrote Römische Briefe von einem Florentiner (Leipzig, 1840–44), and his residence in Rome was also responsible for his Geschichte der Stadt Rom (3 vols., 1867–70). Turning his attention to the history of Naples, he wrote Die Carafa von Maddaloni: Neapel unter spanischer Herrschaft (1851; Eng. trans., 1854), and more general works on Italian history are: Beiträge zur italienischen Geschichte (6 vols., Berlin, 1853-57), and Charakterbilder aus der neueren Geschichte Italiens (1886). More strictly biographical in their nature are: Die Jugend Caterina.: de Medici (1854), which has been translated into French by A. Baschet (1866); '»Die Grzijin von Albany (1860) and a life of his close friend Capponi, Gino Capponi, ein Zeit- und Lebensbild (Gotha, 1880). His Ganganelli: Papst Clemens XIV., seine Briefe und seine Zeit (Berlin, 1847) is valuable for the relations between this pope and the jesuits. Other works which may be mentioned are Zeitgenossen, Biograjien und Charakteristiken (Berlin, 1862); Bibliografia dei laoori pubblicati in Germania sulla storia d'Italia (Berlin, 1863); Biographische Denkblätter nach persönlichen Erinnerungen (Leipzig, 1878); and Saggi di storia e letteratura (F lorenee, 1880). Reumont's other important work, one which he was peculiarly fitted to write, was his Aus Friedrich Wilhelms IV. gesunden und kranken Tagen (Leipzig, 1885).
See H. Hüffer, Alfred von Reumont (Cologne, 1904); and the same s article in the Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie, Band xxviii.
RÉUNION, known also by its former name Bourbon, an
island and French colony in the Indian Ocean, 400 m. S.E. of
Tamatave, Madagascar, and 130 S.W. of Port Louis, Mauritius.
It is elliptic in form; its greatest length is 45 m. and its greatest breadth 32 m., and it has an area of 965 sq. m. It lies between 20° 51′ and 21° 22′ S. and 55° 15′ and 55° 54′ E.
The coast-line (about 130 m.) is little indented, there are no
natural harbours and no small islets round the shore. The
narrow coast-lands are succeeded by hilly ground which in
turn gives place to mountain masses and tableland, which
occupy the greater part of the island. The main axis runs
N .W. and S.E., and divides the island into a windward (E.)
district and a leeward (W.) district, the dividing line being
practically that of the watershed. The form of the mountains
is the result of double volcanic action. First there arose from
the sea a mountain whose summit is approximately represented
by Piton des Neiges (10,069 ft.), a denuded crater of immense
proportions, and at a later date another crater opened towards
the E., which, piling up the mountain mass of Le Volcan, turned
what was till then a circle into an ellipse. The oldest erupted
rocks belong to the type of the andesites; the newest are
varieties of basalt. The two massifs are united by high tablelands.
In the older massif the most striking features are now
three areas of subsidence—the cirques of Salazie, Riviére des
Galets and Cilaos-which lie N.W. and S. of the Piton des
Neiges. The first, which may be taken as typical, is surrounded
by high almost perpendicular walls of basaltic lava, and its
surface is rendered irregular by hills and hillocks of débris fallen
from the heights. Towards the S. lies the vast stratum of
rocks (ISO to 200 ft. deep) which, on the 26th of November
1875, suddenly sweeping down from the Piton des Neiges and
the Gros Morne (a “shoulder ” of the piton), buried the little
village of Grand Sable and nearly a hundred of its inhabitants.
Besides the Piton des Neiges and the Gros Morne the chief
heights in this part of the island are the pyramidical Cimandef
(7300 ft.), another shoulder of the piton, and the Grand Bernard
(9490 ft.), separating the cirques of Mafate and Cilaos.
The second massif, Le Volcan, is cut off from the rest of the island by two “enclosures,” each about 500 or 600 ft. deep.
