SAINT-CYR SAINT ELIAS 529 SAINT-CYR, a village in the park of Versailles, 9 m. S. W. of Paris, celebrated for the female seminary (maison de St. Cyr) built here in 1686, after the designs of Mansard, by Louis XIV., under the auspices of Mme. de Mainte- non, for the education of 250 daughters of the nobility. For this school, at the request of Mme. de Maintenon, Racine wrote Athalie ; and she made it her home after the death of Louis XIV. The school was converted in 1793 into a military hospital, and in 1806 the military academy of Fontainebleau was trans- ferred to it by Napoleon. This academy be- came known as Vecole speciale militaire de St. Cyr, and is still the principal institution for training officers for the army and navy. SUT-( YK, Laurent Goavion. See GOUVION SAINT-OYB. SAINT-DENIS, a town of France, in the de- partment of the Seine, 2 m. N. of the enceinte of Paris; pop. in 1872, 31,993. Dagobert I. built here, over the grave of St. Denis, an ab- bey which soon became the richest in France. One of its manors was held in fief by some of the early Capetians, who adopted as their standard the oriflamme, originally the banner of the convent, and chose the crypt of the church as their burial place. In 1793, by or- der of the convention, the tombs of the kings were destroyed and their remains removed. The church, restored by Napoleon and subse- quent governments, ranks among the best spe- cimens of Gothic art. The convent is occu- pied by a school for female orphans of mem- bers of the legion of honor. SAINT DOMINGO. See HATTI, and SANTO DOMINGO. SAINTE-ALDEGONDE. See ALDEGONDE. SAINTE-BEUVE, Charles Augnstin, a French au- thor, born in Boulogne, Dec. 23, 1804, died in Paris, Oct. 13, 1869. His mother, a woman of English descent, instructed him in the English language and literature. He completed his studies at Charlemagne and Bourbon colleges, Paris, studied medicine, and was attached to the hospital of St. Louis till 1827. He began his literary career about 1824 as a writer for the Globe. In 1828 he became known as a critic by his Tableau historique et critique de la poe- sie francaise et du theatre francais au XVP siecle (enlarged ed., 1843). He subsequently published poetry which was bitterly assailed by the adherents of the classical school. The revolution of July transferred the Globe to the St. Simonians, whose doctrines he then advo- cated ; but he soon joined the newly estab- lished Revue des Deux Mondes and his friend Armand Carrel's National. In 1837 he deliv- ered lectures at Lausanne, which formed the groundwork of his history of Port Royal. In 1840 he received from Thiers an office in the Mazarin library, which enabled him to com- plete that work. He was elected to the French academy in 1845. In 1848-'9 he gave lectures at Liege on Chateaubriand et son groupe litte- raire sous Vempire (2 vols., I860). He returned to Paris in 1850 as a partisan of Louis Napo- leon, connected himself with the Constitution- nel, and early in 1852 with the Moniteur. In the former appeared his Causeries du Lundi. He was then also appointed professor of Latin poetry in the college de France, but the stu- dents hissed him on account of his imperialism, and he at once resigned. From 1857 to 1861 he was maitre de conferences at the normal school. In 1865 he became a member of the senate, where his support of Renan made him obnoxious to the ultramontanes. As a subtle, discriminating, and impartial critic, he had no superior, and his originality and occasional partiality for the phraseology of the 16th cen- tury made Balzac say that he had invented a new language which should be called le Sainte- Beuve. He was equally remarkable for his in- timate sympathy with the brilliant women and men who in previous periods adorned French society and literature, for his keen analysis of character, and for his rich store of anecdotes. His works include Critiques et portraits lit- teraires (5 vols., 1832-'9); Volupte, a rather pathological and singular novel (1834; 5th revised ed., 1861) ; Poesies completes (1840 ; enlarged ed., 2 vols., 1863) ; Port-Royal (5 vols., 1840-'60 ; 3d ed., 6 vols., 1867) ; Por- traits litteraires (2 vols., 1844; new ed., 3 vols., 1864); Portraits de femmes (1844; new ed., 1855) ; Portraits contemporains (2 vols., 1846; new ed., 3 vols., 1855); Causeries du Lundi (15 vols., 1851-'62) ; Galerie desfemmes celebres (1858), and Nouvelle galerie desfemmes celebres (1864), both extracted from the pre- ceding, and translated into English by Har- riet W. Preston under the title of " Portraits of Celebrated Women" (Boston, 1868); Nou- veaux Lundis (10 vols., 1863-'8) ; Madame Desbordes- Valmore, sa vie et sa correspondence (1870 ; translated by Harriet W. Preston, Bos- ton, 1872) ; and the posthumous Causeries du Lundi (3 vols., 1875; "English Portraits," selected from the same, London, 1875). SAINTE-CLAIRE DEVILLE. See DEVILLE. SAINTE GENEVIEVE, an E. S. E. county of Missouri, bounded N. E. by the Mississippi river, and drained by Riviere aux Vases, Isle au Bois, Saline, and Establishment creeks; area, about 400 sq. m. ; pop. in 1870, 8,384, of whom 431 were colored. The surface is broken and hilly. There are quarries of mar- ble, and valuable mines of lead and copper. The chief productions in 1870 were 155,228 bushels of wheat, 180,350 of Indian corn, 78,- 197 of oats, 5,970 Ibs. of tobacco, and 10,327 of wool. There were 1,967 horses, 1,805 milch cows, 3,632 other cattle, 4,997 sheep, and 11,- 066 swine. Capital, Ste. Genevieve. SAINT ELIAS, Mount, a volcanic peak on the border of Alaska and British America, lat. 60 15' N., Ion. 141 W. Its height has been va- riously estimated at 16,000 to 18,000 ft. More recently Dall from trigonometric calculation estimates it at 19,000 ft., which is higher than any other peak in North America.
