The Nuttall Encyclopaedia Part 69

BERMU'DAS (15), a group of 400 coral islands (five inhabited) in mid-Atlantic, 677 m. SE. of New York; have a delightful, temperate climate, and are a popular health resort for Americans. They produce a fine arrowroot, and export onions. They are held by Britain as a valuable naval station, and are provided with docks and fortifications.

BERNADOTTE, JEAN BAPTISTE JULES, a marshal of France, born at Pau; rose from the ranks; distinguished himself in the wars of the Revolution and the Empire, though between him and Napoleon there was constant distrust; adopted by Charles XIII., king of Sweden; joined the Allies as a naturalised Swede in the war against France in alliance with Russia; became king of Sweden himself under the t.i.tle of Charles XIV., to the material welfare, as it proved, of his adopted country (1764-1844).

BERNARD, CLAUDE, a distinguished French physiologist, born at St.

Julien; he studied at Paris; was Majendie's a.s.sistant and successor in the College of France; discovered that the function of the pancreas is the digestion of ingested fats, that of the liver the transformation into sugar of certain elements in the blood, and that there are nervous centres in the body which act independently of the great cerebro-spinal centre (1813-1878).

BERNARD, ST., abbot of Clairvaux, born at Fontaines, in Burgundy; p.r.o.nounced one of the grandest figures in the church militant; studied in Paris, entered the monastery of Citeaux, founded in 1115 a monastery at Clairvaux, in Champagne; drew around him disciples who rose to eminence as soldiers of the cross; prepared the statutes for the Knights-Templar; defeated Abelard in public debate, and procured his condemnation; founded 160 monasteries; awoke Europe to a second crusade; dealt death-blows all round to no end of heretics, and declined all honours to himself, content if he could only awake some divine pa.s.sion in other men; represented in art as accompanied by a white dog, or as contemplating an apparition of the Virgin and the Child, or as bearing the implements of Christ's pa.s.sion (1091-1174). Festival, Aug. 20.

BERNARD, SIMON, a French engineer, born at Dole; distinguished as such in the service of Napoleon, and for vast engineering works executed in the United States, in the construction of ca.n.a.ls and forts (1779-1839).

BERNARD OF MENTHON, an ecclesiastic, founder of the monasteries of the Great and the Little St. Bernard, in the pa.s.sage of the Alps (923-1008). Festival, June 15.

BERNARD OF MORLAIX, a monk of Cluny, of the 11th century; wrote a poem ent.i.tled "De Contemptu Mundi," translated by Dr. Neale, including "Jerusalem the Golden."

BERNARDIN DE SAINT-PIERRE, commonly called Saint-Pierre simply, a celebrated French writer, born at Havre; author of "Paul and Virginia,"

written on the eve of the Revolution, called by Carlyle "the swan-song of old dying France," (1739-1814).

BERNARDINE, ST., OF SIENA, born at Ma.s.sa Carrara, in Italy, of n.o.ble family; founder of the Observantines, a branch, and restoration on strict lines, of the Franciscan order; established 300 monasteries of the said branch; his works, written in a mystical vein, fill five folio vols.

(1380-1444).

BERNAUER, AGNES, wife of Duke Albrecht of Bavaria, whom his father, displeased at the marriage, had convicted of sorcery and drowned in the Danube.

BERNE (47), a fine Swiss town on the Aar, which almost surrounds it, in a populous canton of the same name; since 1848 the capital of the Swiss Confederation; commands a magnificent view of the Bernese Alps; a busy trading and manufacturing city.

BERNERS, JOHN BOUCHIER, LORD, writer or translator of romance; was Chancellor of the Exchequer in 1516, and governor of Calais from 1520; translated Froissart's "Huon of Bordeaux," &c.

BERNERS, JULIANA, writer on hunting and hawking; lived in the 14th century; said to have been prioress of a nunnery.

BERNESE ALPS, a chain in the Middle Alps, of which the eastern half is called the Bernese Oberland; form the watershed between the Aar and the Rhone.

BERNHARD, DUKE OF WEIMAR, a great German general; distinguished himself on the Protestant side in the Thirty Years' war; fought under the standard of Gustavus Adolphus; held command of the left wing at the battle of Lutzen, and completed the victory after the fall of Gustavus; died at Neuburg, as alleged, without sufficient proof, by poison (1604-1639).

BERNHARDT, SARAH, a dramatic artiste, born in Paris; of Jewish descent, but baptized as a Christian; distinguished specially as a tragedienne; of abilities qualifying her to shine in other departments of the profession and of art, of which she has given proof; _b_. 1844.

BERNI, FRANCESCO, an Italian poet, born in Tuscany, who excelled in the burlesque, to whom the Italian as a literary language owes much; remodelled Boiardo's "Orlando Innamorato" in a style surpa.s.sing that of the original.

BERNIER, a French physician and traveller, born at Angers; physician for 12 years to Aurungzebe, the Great Mogul; published "Travels," a work full of interest, and a model of exact.i.tude (1625-1688).

BERNIER, THE ABBe, born in Mayenne, France; one of the princ.i.p.al authors of the Concordat; promoted afterwards to be Bishop of Orleans (1762-1806).

BERNI'NA, a mountain in the Swiss canton of Grisons, 13,290 ft.

high, remarkable for its extensive glaciers.

BERNINI, GIOVANNI LORENZO, an Italian painter, sculptor, and architect, born at Naples; produced his "Apollo and Daphne" at eighteen, his masterpiece; was architect to the Pope, and designed the colonnade of St. Peter's; he died wealthy (1598-1680).

BERNOUIL'LI, name of a Swiss family of mathematicians, born at Basel, though of Dutch origin--JAMES, JOHN, and DANIEL, of whom John is the most celebrated; was professor first at St. Petersburg and then at Basel; discovered the exponential calculus and the method of integrating rational fractions, as well as the line of swiftest descent (1667-1748).

BERNSTORFF, COUNT, a celebrated statesman, diplomatist, and philanthropist of Denmark; called the Danish Oracle by Frederick the Great; founded an Agricultural Society and an hospital at Copenhagen, and obtained the emanc.i.p.ation of the serfs (1711-1772).

BERNSTORFF, COUNT, a nephew of the preceding; also statesman and diplomatist (1712-1772).

BERNSTORFF, PIERRE, Danish minister, son of the preceding, a guardian of civil and political liberty (1735-1797).

BERO'SUS, a priest of the temple of Belus in Babylon, who, 3rd century B.C., translated into Greek certain records of Babylonish history, valuable fragments of which are preserved by Josephus and Eusebius; these have been collected and published by W. Richter, in Germany.

BERRI, an ancient province of France, forms dep. of Indre and Cher, which became crown property in 1100 under Philippe I., and a duchy in 1630, giving t.i.tle to a succession of French princes.

BERRI, DUC DE, second son of Charles X. and father of Count de Chambord, a benevolent man; a.s.sa.s.sinated by a fanatic, Louvel, as he was leaving the Opera House (1778-1820).

BERRI, d.u.c.h.eSSE DE, dowager of preceding, distinguished herself by her futile efforts to restore the Bourbon dynasty in the reign of Louis Philippe (1798-1890).

BERRYER, PIERRE ANTOINE, an eminent French barrister, born at Paris; a red-hot Legitimist, which brought him into trouble; was member of the National a.s.sembly of 1848; inimical to the Second Empire, and openly protested against the _coup d'etat_ (1790-1868).

BER'SERKER, a Norse warrior who went into battle unharnessed, whence his name (which means bare of sark or shirt of mail), and is said to have been inspired with such fury as to render him invulnerable and irresistible.

BERT, PAUL, a French physiologist and statesman, born at Auxerre; was professor of Physiology at Paris; took to politics after the fall of the Empire; Minister of Public Instruction under Gambetta; sent governor to Tonquin; died of fever soon after; wrote a science primer for children ent.i.tled "La Premiere Annee d'Enseignement Scientifique" (1833-1886).