* Your assessment is very important for improving the work of artificial intelligence, which forms the content of this project
Dictionary of World Biography the Canadian parliament in 1873. In 1887 he became leader of the Liberals and Prime Minister 1896â1911, being the first French-Canadian to lead a national government. His period of office was one of prosperity and expansion, especially in the wheat-growing provinces in the west. The issue on which he finally fell, in the election of 1911, was his support for commercial reciprocity with the US. He led the anti-conscriptionist wing of his party in World War I. His political (and legal) heir was W. L. Mackenzie *King. Schull. J., Laurier. 1966. Lautrec, Henri Toulouse see Toulouse Lautrec, Henri La Vallière, Louise Françoise de la Beaume le Blanc, Duchesse de (1644â1710). French mistress. She was only 17 when *Louis XIV first saw her and fell in love. By her sweetness and sincerity, coupled with a lack of ambition or greed, she won â to everyoneâs surprise â the admiration of the court. When supplanted by Madame de *Montespan (1674), she departed without rancour to the Carmelite convent where she spent the rest of her life. Only one of her three children by Louis survived her. Laval, Pierre (1883â1945). French politician, born in the Auvergne. Possibly of Moorish descent, he was largely self-educated but won academic degrees, and became a lawyer, small businessman and publisher. He was a member of the Chamber of Deputies 1914â 19, originally a radical, pacifist and socialist then an independent deputy 1924â27 and Senator 1927â44. He became a premier 1931â32, 1935â36 and as Foreign Minister 1934â36 negotiated the *HoareLaval Pact (1935), accepting Italyâs occupation of Ethiopia. He advocated friendship with Italy and Germany. After the collapse of France he took a leading part in the establishment of Marshal *Pétainâs Vichy regime, was Premier briefly (1940) until forced out by Pétain who detested him. In April 1942 he became Prime Minister again in active collaboration with the Germans: he set up the notorious French milicia with its Gestapo-like activities and supplied conscript labour for German factories. After the liberation of France he fled to Germany and then to Spain. He was repatriated, tried, condemned and executed for treason. Laval was ambitious, persuasive and subtle. He may have deluded himself that by his appeasement he preserved some degree of independence for Vichy France; in fact, he went further than the Germans expected. Cole, H., Laval. 1963. Laveran, (Charles Louis) Alphonse (1845â1922). French parasitologist. He served as a military surgeon in Algeria and in 1880 discovered the parasite that causes malaria. He established the laboratory of tropical diseases at the Pasteur Institute, Paris, in 1907, won the Nobel Prize for Medicine (1907) and published 600 research papers. Lavigerie, Charles Martial Allemand (1825â1892). French cardinal. After teaching at the Sorbonne, he became Archbishop of Algiers 1867, and also of Carthage (now Tunis) in 1884, and took a leading role in organising international opposition to slavery in central Africa. Lavoisier, Antoine-Laurent (1743â1794). French chemist, born in Paris. In 1768 he invested heavily in the âFerme généraleâ, a private syndicate that collected taxes on behalf of the crown, retaining a percentage, and this provided him with funds to pursue scientific research. Elected to the Académie de Sciences (1768), he directed the Gunpowder Office 1776â91. He also made practical use of his scientific knowledge in agriculture and acquired an estate for experimental purposes. Lavoisier has been called the father of modern chemistry. By his experimental work he not only made many new discoveries but refuted the long-held belief that water could be converted into earth and the current theory that the existence of an invisible, inflammable gas, phlogiston, explained many of the problems of combustion. His own experiments showed that air was composed of two gases, which he called oxygen and âazoteâ (later known as nitrogen), and that oxygen played an essential role in the respiration of animals and plants. In 1783, almost simultaneously with *Cavendish and *Priestley, he announced that water is a combination of hydrogen and oxygen. He wrote the important Opuscules physiques et chymiques (1774) and constructed the first table of elements. Methods of Chemical Nomenclature (1787), written with the assistance of *Berthollet and *Fourcroy, coined about 30 names still in use for elements. In 1789, he proposed the law of the conservation of mass â essentially that matter is neither created nor destroyed, but is transformed in the course of chemical changes. By burning, for example, coal is converted into carbon dioxide, other gases and particulates, but the total mass is conserved. Although mass cannot be created or destroyed, it may be rearranged in space and changed into different types of particles. (This is a central premise in the argument for anthropogenic global warming.) By burning objects in a sealed chamber he established that combustion was accompanied by the chemical combination of oxygen with the substance burned (creating what became known as oxides). After the Revolution he played a leading part in the establishment of the metric system. He was a liberal constitutionalist, believed in social reform, and played his part in the various Revolutionary assemblies, but he had made powerful scientific enemies, including *Marat. His previous role as tax farmer led to his arrest and condemnation during the Terror. Appeals to delay his guillotining met with the chilling (but authentic) response: âThe Revolution has no need of scientists.â McKie, D., Antoine Lavoisier: Scientist, Economist, Social Reformer. 1952; Donovan, A., Antoine Lavoisier: Science, Administration and Revolution. 1993; Poiner, J-P., Lavoisier. 1996; Smartt, Bell, M., Lavoisier in the Year One. 2005. 487