L A N L A N
l'édit du roi d'Espagne (Antwerp, 1581) is sometimes attributed to Languet. There seems little doubt, however, that it was really the work of the prince himself, with the help either of Pierre de Villiers (see Motley, Rise of Dutch Republic) or of Languet (Groen van Prinsterer, Archives).
LANNES, Jean (1769-1809), marshal of France, was born at Lectoure, 11th April 1769. He was the son of a livery stables keeper, and was himself in early life apprenticed to a dyer. He had had but little education, but not withstanding this his great strength and proficiency in all manly sports caused him in 1792 to be elected sergeant-major of the battalion of volunteers of Gers, which he had joined on the breaking out of the war between Spain and the French republic. He served through the campaigns in the Pyrenees in 1793 and 1794, and in the latter year was elected chef de brigade. However, in 1795, on the reform of the army introduced by the Thermidorians, he was dismissed from his rank. Not discouraged by this check, he re-enlisted as a simple volunteer in the army of Italy. In the famous campaign of 1796 he again fought his way up to high rank, being eventually made once more chef de brigade by Bonaparte. He was distinguished in every battle, and was wounded at Arcola. He was chosen by Bonaparte to accompany him to Egypt as general of one of Kléber's brigades, in which capacity he greatly distinguished himself, especially on the retreat from Syria. He went with Bonaparte to France, assisted at the 18th Brumaire, and was appointed general of division, and commandant of the consular guard. He commanded the advanced guard in the crossing of the Alps in 1800, was instrumental in winning the battle of Montebello, from which he afterwards took his title, and bore the brunt of the battle of Marengo. In 1801 Napoleon tried his favourite general as a diplomatist, and sent him as ambassador to Portugal. Opinions differ as to his merits in this capacity, but it may be presumed that Napoleon did not believe in them, as he never made such use of him again. On the establishment of the empire he was created a marshal of France, and commanded once more the advanced guard of a great French army in the campaign of Austerlitz. At Austerlitz he commanded the left, at Jena the centre, and at Friedland the centre of the French army, showing himself a general of division of the greatest merit, carrying out the orders given him to the letter, and never thinking them impossible. He was now to be tried as a commander-in-chief, for Napoleon took him to Spain in 1808, and gave him a corps d'armée, with which he won a victory over Castaños on November 22. In January 1809 he was sent to attempt the capture of Saragossa, and by February 21 was in possession of the place. Napoleon then created him Duc de Montebello, and once more, for the last time, gave him the command of the advanced guard of an army of invasion. At Aspern he was ordered with two divisions to cut the Austrian army under the archduke Charles in half; he succeeded entirely, though under a heavy fire, but finding himself unsupported by Napoleon, who had been thrown into confusion by the news that his bridges over the Danube had been broken, he had to retreat. During the retreat he exposed himself as usual to the hottest fire, and received a mortal wound. As he was being carried from the field to die at Vienna, he is said to have met and reproached his old general for his ambition; but this, to say the least, is a contested statement. Napoleon said of him that "he had found him a pigmy, and made him a giant"; and there can be no doubt of his marvellous ability on the field, and his extraordinary courage. His eldest son was made a peer of France by Louis XVIII.
A Vie militaire de J. Lannes was published in 1809 by René Perin, but details can be found in all the military histories of the time.
LA NOUE, François de (1531-1591), surnamed Bras-de-Fer, one of the gallant Huguenot captains of the 16th century, was born near Nantes in 1531, of an honour able and ancient Breton family. His first exploit was the capture of Orleans at the head of only fifteen cavaliers in 1567, during the second Huguenot war. At the battles of Jarnac in March 1569 and of Moncontour in the following October, La Noue was taken prisoner; but he was exchanged on the latter occasion in time to resume the governorship of Poitou, and inflict a signal defeat on the royalist troops before Rochefort. At the siege of Fontenay (1570) his left arm was shattered by a bullet; and the iron limb that replaced it won him from his soldiers the sobriquet of Iron-Arm. When peace was made in France in the same year, La Noue carried his sword against the Spaniards in the Netherlands, but was taken at the recapture of Mons by the Spanish in 1572. Permitted to return to France, he was commissioned by Charles IX. to attempt to reconcile the inhabitants of La Rochelle, the great stronghold of the Huguenots, to the king. But the Rochellois were too much alarmed by the recent massacre of St Bartholomew to come to any terms; and La Noue, perceiving that war was imminent, and knowing that his post was on the Huguenot side, gave up his royal commission, and from 1574 till 1578 acted as general of La Rochelle. When peace was again concluded, La Noue once more went to aid the Protestant estates of the Netherlands. Holding a high rank in their army, he took several towns and captured Count Egmont in 1580; but a few weeks afterwards he himself fell into the hands of the Spaniards. Thrust into a loathsome prison at Limburg, La Noue, the admiration of all, of whatever faith, for his gallantry, honour, and purity of character, was kept confined for five years by a powerful nation, whose reluctance to set him free is one of the sincerest tributes to his reputation. At length, in June 1585, La Noue was exchanged for Egmont and other prisoners of consideration, while a heavy ransom and a pledge not to bear arms against his Catholic majesty were also exacted from him. Till 1589 La Noue took no part in public matters, but in that year he joined Henry of Navarre and Henry III. against the Leaguers. He was present at both sieges of Paris, and at several of the chief battles; but at the siege of Lamballe in Brittany he received the wound of which he died some days later at Moncontour, August 4, 1591.
Bentivoglio exaggerates in saying that La Noue was as famous by his pen as by his sword. What writings he has left are of value enough, but it is not by them that he is remembered. He was the author of Discours Politiques et Militaires, 1587; Déclaration pour prise d'armes et la défense de Sedan et Jamets, 1588; Observations sur l'Histoire de Guicciardini, 2 vols., 1592; and notes on Plutarch's Lives, which have not been published. His Correspondance was published in 1854. See La Vie de François, seigneur de La Noue, by Moyse Amirault, Leyden, 1661; Brantôme's Vies des Capitaines Français; C. Vincen's Les Héros de la Réforme: Fr. de La Noue (1875); and Haag, La France Protestante.
LANSDOWNE, William Petty Fitzmaurice, first Marquis of (1737-1805), better known as a statesman while earl of Shelburne, was born at Dublin, May 20, 1737. He was a descendant of the lords of Kerry, and his grandfather, who was created earl of Kerry, married a daughter of Sir William Petty. On the death without issue of Sir William Petty's son, the first earl of Shelburne, the estates passed to his nephew John Fitzmaurice (afterwards advanced to the earldom of Shelburne), the father of the subject of the present notice. The latter spent his childhood "in the remotest parts of the south of Ireland," and, according to his own account, when at the age of sixteen he entered Christ Church, Oxford, he had both "everything to learn and everything to unlearn." From a tutor whom he describes as "narrow-minded" he received advantageous guidance in his studies, but he attributes
