BALUE

balue, jean (_c._ 1421-1491), french cardinal and minister of louis xi., was born of very humble parentage at angle in poitou, and was first patronized by the bishop of poitiers. in 1461 he became vicar-general of the bishop of angers. his activity, cunning and mastery of intrigue gained him the appreciation of louis xi., who made him his almoner. in a short time balue became a considerable personage. in 1465 he received the bishopric of evreux; the king made him _le premier du grant conseil_, and, in spite of his dissolute life, obtained for him a cardinalate (1468). but in that year balue was compromised in the king's humiliation by charles the bold at peronne and excluded from the council. he then intrigued with charles against his master: their secret correspondence was intercepted, and on the 23rd of april 1469 balue was thrown into prison, where he remained eleven years, but not, as has been alleged, in an iron cage. in 1480, through the intervention of pope sixtus iv., he was set at liberty, and from that time lived in high favour at the court of rome. he received the bishopric of albano and afterwards that of palestrina. in 1484 he was even sent to france as legate _a latere_. he died at ancona in 1491. see henri forgeot, "jean balue, cardinal d'angers" (1895), in the _bibliotheque de l'ecole des hautes etudes_. baluster (through the fr. from the ital. _balaustro_, so-called from a supposed likeness to the flower of the [greek: balaustion], or wild pomegranate; the word has been corrupted in english into "banister"), a small moulded shaft, square or circular, in stone or wood and sometimes in metal, supporting the coping of a parapet or the rail of a staircase, an assemblage of them being known as a balustrade. the earliest examples are those shown in the bas-reliefs representing the assyrian palaces, where they were employed as window balustrades and apparently had ionic capitals. they do not seem to have been known to either the greeks or the romans, but early examples are found in the balconies in the palaces at venice and verona. in the hands of the italian revivalists they became features of the greatest importance, and were largely employed for window balconies and roof parapets. the term "baluster shaft" is given to the shaft dividing a window in saxon architecture. in the south transept of the abbey at st albans, england, are some of these shafts, supposed to have been taken from the old saxon church. norman bases and capitals have been added, together with plain cylindrical norman shafts.