Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition | Page 6

masonry and otherwise improved the post, and Vauban's fortifications followed in 1680-1688. During the 18th century the fortifications and the naval importance of the town continued to develop. In 1694 an English squadron under John, 3rd Lord Berkeley, was miserably defeated in attempting a landing; but in 1794, during the revolutionary war, the French fleet, under Villaret de Joyeuse, was as thoroughly beaten in the same place by the English admiral Howe.
BREST-LITOVSK (Polish Brzesc-Litevski; and in the Chron. Berestie and Berestov), a strongly fortified town of Russia, in the government of Grodno, 137 m. by rail S. from the city of Grodno, in 52�� 5' N. lat. and 23�� 39' E. long., at the junction of the navigable river Mukhovets with the Bug, and at the intersection of railways from Warsaw, Kiev, Moscow and East Prussia. Pop. (1867) 22,493; (1901) 42,812, of whom more than one-half were Jews. It contains a Jewish synagogue, which was regarded in the 16th century as the first in Europe, and is the seat of an Armenian and of a Greek Catholic bishop; the former has authority over the Armenians throughout the whole country. The town carries on an extensive trade in grain, flax, hemp, wood, tar and leather. First mentioned in the beginning of the 11th century, Brest-Litovsk was in 1241 laid waste by the Mongols and was not rebuilt till 1275; its suburbs were burned by the Teutonic Knights in 1379; and in the end of the 15th century the whole town met a similar fate at the hands of the khan of the Crimea. In the reign of the Polish king Sigismund III. diets were held there; and in 1594 and 1596 it was the meeting-place of two remarkable councils of the bishops of western Russia. In 1657, and again in 1706, the town was captured by the Swedes; in 1794 it was the scene of Suvarov's victory over the Polish general Sierakowski; in 1795 it was added to the Russian empire. The Brest-Litovsk or King's canal (50 m. long), utilizing the Mukhovets-Bug rivers, forms a link in the waterways that connect the Dnieper with the Vistula.
BRETEUIL, LOUIS CHARLES AUGUSTE LE TONNELIER, BARON DE (1730-1807), French diplomatist, was born at the chateau of Azay-le-F��ron (Indre) on the 7th of March 1730. He was only twenty-eight when he was appointed by Louis XV. ambassador to the elector of Cologne, and two years later he was sent to St Petersburg. He arranged to be temporarily absent from his post at the time of the palace revolution by which Catherine II. was placed on the throne. In 1769 he was sent to Stockholm, and subsequently represented his government at Vienna, Naples, and again at Vienna until 1783, when he was recalled to become minister of the king's household. In this capacity he introduced considerable reforms in prison administration. A close friend of Marie Antoinette, he presently came into collision with Calonne, who demanded his dismissal in 1787. His influence with the king and queen, especially with the latter, remained unshaken, and on Necker's dismissal on the 11th of July 1789, Breteuil succeeded him as chief minister. The fall of the Bastille three days later put an end to the new ministry, and Breteuil made his way to Switzerland with the first party of ��migr��s. At Soleure, in November 1790, he received from Louis XVI. exclusive powers to negotiate with the European courts, and in his efforts to check the ill-advised diplomacy of the ��migr�� princes, he soon brought himself into opposition with his old rival Calonne, who held a chief place in their councils. [v.04 p.0501] After the failure of the flight to Varennes, in the arrangement of which he had a share, Breteuil received instructions from Louis XVI., designed to restore amicable relations with the princes. His distrust of the king's brothers and his defence of Louis XVI.'s prerogative were to some extent justified, but his intransigeant attitude towards these princes emphasized the dissensions of the royal family in the eyes of foreign sovereigns, who looked on the comte de Provence as the natural representative of his brother and found a pretext for non-interference on Louis's behalf in the contradictory statements of the negotiators. Breteuil himself was the object of violent attacks from the party of the princes, who asserted that he persisted in exercising powers which had been revoked by Louis XVI. After the execution of Marie Antoinette he retired into private life near Hamburg, only returning to France in 1802. He died in Paris on the 2nd of November 1807.
See the memoirs of Bertrand de Molleville (2 vols., Paris, 1816) and of the marquis de Bouill�� (2 vols., Paris, 1884); and E. Daudet, Coblentz, 1789-1793 (1889), forming part of his Hist. de l'��migration.
BR��TIGNY, a French town (dept. Eure-et-Loir, arrondissement and canton of