mache, silver and copper ware, wood-carving and boat-making. The three chief routes of communication with India are: (1) along the Jhelum valley to Murree and Rawalpindi, which has been opened throughout for wheeled traffic (195 m.); (2) over the Banihal pass (9200 ft. above the sea) to Jammu (163 m.); (3) over the Pir Panjal pass (11,400 ft.) to Gujrat (180 m.).
See Sir Walter R. Lawrence, The Valley of Kashmir (1895); M. A. Stein, Chronicle of the Kings of Kashmir (1900).
SRIRANGAM, or Seringham, a town of British India, in Trichinopoly district, Madras presidency, 2 m. N. of Trichinopoly city. Pop. (1901), 23,039. It stands on an island of the same name, formed by the bifurcation of the river Cauvery and by the channel of the Coleroon. The town is celebrated for its great temple, dedicated to Vishnu, composed of seven square enclosures, one within another, and 350 ft. distant from each other. Each enclosure has four gates with high towers, placed one in the centre of each side opposite to the four cardinal points. The successively widening enclosures and the greater elaboration of the outer as compared with the inner buildings mark the progress of the shrine in fame and wealth. The outer wall of the temple is not less than 4 m. in circumference. Not far distant is the smaller but more beautiful Jambukeswaram, a temple dedicated to Siva. From 1751 to 1755 the island and its pagodas were the object of frequent contests between the French and the English.
STAAL, MARGUERITE JEANNE CORDIER DELAUNAY, Baronne de (1684–1750), French author, was born in Paris on the 30th of August 1684. Her father was a painter named Cordier. He seems to have deserted her mother, who then resumed her maiden name, Delaunay, which was also adopted by her daughter. She was educated at a convent at Evreux, of which Mme de la Rochefoucauld, sister of the author of the Maximes, was superior. Here she became attached to Mme de Grieu, who, being appointed abbess of the convent of St Louis at Rouen, took her friend with her. Mlle Delaunay lived there until 1710 in the enjoyment of the utmost consideration. There she held a little court of her own, which included Brunel, the friend of Fontenelle, the sieur de la Rey and the abbé Vertot. She describes her own first passion for the marquis de Silly, the brother of a friend with whom she was visiting. Her affection was not returned, but she entered on a correspondence with him in which she plays the part of director. After the death of her patron, Mme de Grieu, poverty compelled her to enter the household of the duchesse du Maine at Sceaux in the capacity of femme de chambre. Her literary talent soon manifested itself in the literary court of the duchess, and secured for her, among other friendships, the somewhat undesirable admiration of the abbé Chaulieu. The duchess is said, but chiefly on the waiting-lady's own authority, to have been not a little jealous of her attendant. Enough, however, is known of the duchess's imperious and capricious temper to make it improbable that her service was agreeable. Mlle Delaunay, however, enjoyed a large share of her confidence and had a considerable share in drawing up the Mémoire des princes légitimes which demanded the meeting of the states-general. She was implicated in the affair of the Cellamare conspiracy, and was sent in 1718 to the Bastille, where she remained for two years. Even here, however, she made conquests, though she was far from beautiful. Her own account of her love for her fellow prisoner, the chevalier de Ménil, and of the passion of the chevalier de Maisonrouge, her gaoler, for her, is justly famous. She returned on her liberation to the service of the duchess, who showed no gratitude for the devotion, approaching the heroic, that Mlle Delaunay had shown in her cause. She received no promotion and still had to fulfil the wearisome duties of a waiting-maid. She refused, it is said, André Dacier, the widower of a wife more famous than himself, and in 1735, being then more than fifty, married the Baron de Staal. Her dissatisfaction with her position had become so evident that the duchess, afraid of losing her services, arranged the marriage to give Mlle Delaunay rank sufficient to allow of her promotion to be on an equality with the ladies of the court. On this footing she remained a member of the household. It was at this time that she became the friend and correspondent of Mme du Deffand. She died at Gennevilliers on the 15th of June 1750. Her Mémoires appeared about five years later, and have often been reprinted, both separately and in collections of the memoirs of the 17th and 18th centuries, to both of which the author belonged both in style and character. She has much of the frankness and seductive verve of Mme de Sévigné and her contemporaries, but more than a little alloyed with the sensibilite of a later time. It may be doubted whether she does not somewhat exaggerate the discomforts of her position and her sense of them. In her lack of illusions she was a child of the 18th century. Sainte-Beuve says that the most fit time for the reading of the Mémoires is the late autumn, under the trees of November. But her book is an extremely amusing one to read, as well as not a little instructive. The humours of the “court of Sceaux” are depicted as hardly any other society of the kind has ever been. “Dans cet art enjoué de raconter,” says Sainte-Beuve, “Madame de Staal est classique.”
Besides her Mémoires Mme de Staal left two excellent short comedies, performed at the court of Sceaux, and some letters, the answers to which are in some cases extant, and show, as well as the references of contemporaries, that the writer did not exaggerate her own charm. Her Mémoires were translated by S. Bathurst (1877) and by C. H. Bell (1892). See the edition (1877) of her Mémoires by M. de Lescure.
STABIAE, an ancient town of Campania, Italy, on the coast at the east extremity of the Gulf of Naples (mod. Castellammare di Stabia). It was dependent upon Nuceria Alfaterna (q.v.) until it joined the revolt against Rome in the Social War (90 B.C.). In 89 it was taken and destroyed by Sulla, and its territory given to Nuceria as a reward for fidelity to Rome. The place, however, continued to be visited for its natural beauties, its mineral springs and its pure milk. Remains of fine villas have been found about half a mile to the east of the modern town, and also the remains of a temple to the genius of Stabiae, which no doubt occupied the same site as it had done in Oscan times. None of these remains is now visible. The town was destroyed by the eruption of A.D. 79 (in which the elder Pliny met his death), but was soon rebuilt on the site now occupied by the modern Castellammare. Above the town on the east is the Mons Lactarius (from lac, milk). Here took place the battle between Narses and Teias in A.D. 553, which put an end to the Gothic domination in Italy.
See M. Ruggiero, Scavi di Stabia del 1749 al 1782 (Naples, 1881); J. Beloch, Campanien, 2nd ed. p. 248 sqq. (Breslau, 1890). (T. As.)
STABLE, a building in which horses are kept, including the stall in which they stand, furnished with manger and rack, the room in which the harness is kept and attended to, the loft in which the hay and corn are stored, and other accessory rooms, &c. (See Horse.) This is the current usage, but the word was formerly applied, as was the Latin stabulum, i.e. standing-place (from stare, to stand), to a stall or enclosure for all kinds of domestic animals, cows, sheep, &c. The adjective “stable,” meaning firmly established, comes directly from Latin stabilis, also from stare, to stand.
STADE, BERNHARD (1848–1906), German Protestant theologian, was born on the 11th of May 1848, at Arnstadt, in Thuringia. He studied at Leipzig and Berlin, and in course of time became (1875) professor ordinarius at Giessen. Once a member of Franz Delitzsch's class, he became a convinced adherent of the newest critical school. In 1881 he founded the Zeitschrift für alttestamentliche Wissenschaft, which he continued to edit; and his critical history of Israel (Geschichte des Volks Israel, 2 vols., 1887–1888; vol. ii. in conjunction with Oscar Holtzmann) has made him very widely known. With C. Siegfried he has revised and edited the Hebrew lexicon, Hebr. Wörterbuch zum Alten Testament (1892–1893). Stade's other works include Über die alttestamentlichen Vorstellungen vom Zustand nach dem Tode (1877), Lehrbuch der hebr. Grammatik (vol. i., 1879), Ausgewählte akademische Reden und Abhandlungen (1899), and Biblische Theologie des Alten Testaments (1905, &c). He died on the 6th of December 1906.
See O. Pfleiderer, Development of Theology (1890).
