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    "source_title": "Encyclopaedia Britannica (1911)",
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    "chunk_id": "1911:bussyrabutin:ed145be878c6",
    "title": "BUSSY-RABUTIN",
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    "verified_text": "bussy-rabutin, french memoir-writer, was born on the 13th of april 1618 at epiry, near autun. he represented a family of distinction in burgundy (see sevigne, madame de), and his father, leonor de rabutin, was lieutenant-general of the province of nivernais. roger was the third son, but by the death of his elder brothers became the representative of the family. he entered the army when he was only sixteen and fought through several campaigns, succeeding his father in the office of _mestre de camp_. he tells us himself that his two ambitions were to become \"honnete homme\" and to distinguish himself in arms, but the luck was against him. in 1641 he was sent to the bastille by richelieu for some months as a punishment for neglect of his duties in his pursuit of gallantry. in 1643 he married a cousin, gabrielle de toulongeon, and for a short time he left the army. but in 1645 he succeeded to his father's position in the nivernais, and served under conde in catalonia. his wife died in 1646, and he became more notorious than ever by an attempt to abduct madame de miramion, a rich widow. this affair was with some difficulty settled by a considerable payment on bussy's part, and he afterwards married louise de rouville. when conde joined the party of the fronde, bussy joined him, but a fancied slight on the part of the prince finally decided him for the royal side. he fought with some distinction both in the civil war and on foreign service, and buying the commission of _mestre de camp_ in 1655, he went to serve under turenne in flanders. he served there for several campaigns and distinguished himself at the battle of the dunes and elsewhere; but he did not get on well with his general, and his quarrelsome disposition, his overweening vanity and his habit of composing libellous _chansons_ made him eventually the enemy of most persons of position both in the army and at court. in the year 1659 he fell into disgrace for having taken part in an orgy at roissy near paris during holy week, which caused great scandal. bussy was ordered to retire to his estates, and beguiled his enforced leisure by composing, for the amusement of his mistress, madame de montglas, his famous _histoire amoureuse des gaules_. this book, a series of sketches of the intrigues of the chief ladies of the court, witty enough, but still more ill-natured, circulated freely in manuscript, and had numerous spurious sequels. it was said that bussy had not spared the reputation of madame, and the king, angry at the report, was not appeased when bussy sent him a copy of the book to disprove the scandal. he was sent to the bastille on the 17th of april 1665, where he remained for more than a year, and he was only liberated on condition of retiring to his estates, where he lived in exile for seventeen years. bussy felt the disgrace keenly, but still bitterer was the enforced close of his military career. in 1682 he was allowed to revisit the court, but the coldness of his reception there made his provincial exile seem preferable, and he returned to burgundy, where he died on the 9th of april 1693. the _histoire amoureuse_ is in its most striking passages adapted from petronius, and, except in a few portraits, its attractions are chiefly those of the scandalous chronicle. but his _memoires_, published after his death, are extremely lively and characteristic, and have all the charm of a historical romance of the adventurous type. his voluminous correspondence yields in variety and interest to few collections of the kind, except that of madame de sevigne, who indeed is represented in it to a great extent, and whose letters first appeared in it. the literary and historical student, therefore, owes bussy some thanks. the best edition of the _histoire amoureuse des gaules_ is that of paul boiteau in the bibliotheque elzevirienne (3 vols., paris, 1856-1859). the _memoires_ (2 vols., 1857) and _correspondance_ (6 vols., 1858-1859) were edited by ludovic lalanne. bussy wrote other things, of which the most important, his _genealogy of the rabutin family_, remained in ms. till 1867, while his _considerations sur la guerre_ was first published in dresden in 1746. he also wrote, for the use of his children, a series of biographies, in which his own life serves a moral purpose. bustard (corrupted from the lat. _avis tarda_, though the application of the epithet[1] is not easily understood), the largest british land-fowl, and the _otis tarda_ of linnaeus, which formerly frequented the champaign parts of great britain from east lothian to dorsetshire, but of which the native race is now extirpated. its existence in the northern locality just named rests upon sir robert sibbald's authority (_circa_ 1684), and though hector boethius (1526) unmistakably described it as an inhabitant of the merse, no later writer than the former has adduced any evidence in favour of its scottish domicile. the last examples of the native race were probably two killed in 1838 near swaffham, in norfolk, a district in which for some years previously a few hen-birds of the species, the remnant of a plentiful stock, had maintained their existence, though no cock-bird had latterly been known to bear them company. in suffolk, where the neighbourhood of icklingham formed its chief haunt, an [v.04 p.0876] end came to the race in 1832; on the wolds of yorkshire about 1826, or perhaps a little later; and on those of lincolnshire about the same time. of wiltshire, george montagu, author of an _ornithological dictionary_, writing in 1813, says that none had been seen in their favourite haunts on salisbury plain for the last two or three years. in dorsetshire there is no evidence of an indigenous example having occurred since that date, nor in hampshire nor sussex since the opening of the 19th century. from other english counties, as cambridgeshire, hertfordshire and berkshire, it disappeared without note being taken of the event, and the direct cause or causes of its extermination can only be inferred from what, on testimony cited by henry stevenson (_birds of norfolk_, ii. pp. 1-42), is known to have led to the same result in norfolk and suffolk. in the latter the extension of plantations rendered the country unfitted for a bird whose shy nature could not brook the growth of covert that might shelter a foe, and in the former the introduction of improved agricultural implements, notably the corn-drill and the horse-hoe, led to the discovery and generally the destruction of every nest, for the bird's chosen breeding-place was in wide fields--\"brecks,\" as they are locally called--of winter-corn. since the extirpation of the native race the bustard is known to great britain only by occasional wanderers, straying most likely from the open country of champagne or saxony, and occurring in one part or another of the united kingdom some two or three times every three or four years, and chiefly in midwinter. an adult male will measure nearly 4 ft. from the tip of the bill to the end of the tail, and its wings have an expanse of 8 ft. or more,--its weight varying (possibly through age) from 22 to 32 lb. this last was that of one which was recorded by the younger naumann, the best biographer of the bird (_vogel deutschlands_, vii. p. 12), who, however, stated in 1834 that he was assured of the former existence of examples which had attained the weight of 35 or 38 lb. the female is considerably smaller. compared with most other birds frequenting open places, the bustard has disproportionately short legs, yet the bulk of its body renders it a conspicuous and stately object, and when on the wing, to which it readily takes, its flight is powerful and sustained. the bill is of moderate length, but, owing to the exceedingly flat head of the bird, appears longer than it really is. the neck, especially of the male in the breeding-season, is thick, and the tail, in the same sex at that time of year, is generally carried in an upright position, being, however, in the paroxysms of courtship turned forwards, while the head and neck are simultaneously reverted along the back, the wings are lowered, and their shorter feathers erected. in this posture, which has been admirably portrayed by joseph wolf (_zool. sketches_, pl. 45), the bird presents a very strange appearance, for the tail, head and neck are almost buried amid the upstanding feathers before named, and the breast is protruded to a remarkable extent. the bustard is of a pale grey on the neck and white beneath, but the back is beautifully barred with russet and black, while in the male a band of deep tawny-brown--in some examples approaching a claret-colour--descends from either shoulder and forms a broad gorget on the breast. the secondaries and greater wing-coverts are white, contrasting vividly, as the bird flies, with the black primaries. both sexes have the ear-coverts somewhat elongated--whence doubtless is derived the name _otis_ (gr. [greek: otis])--and the male is adorned with a tuft of long, white, bristly plumes, springing from each side of the base of the mandible. the food of the bustard consists of almost any of the plants natural to the open country it loves, but in winter it will readily forage on those which are grown by man, and especially coleseed and similar green crops. to this vegetable diet much animal matter is added when occasion offers, and from an earthworm to a field-mouse little that lives and moves seems to come amiss to its appetite. though not many birds have had more written about them than the bustard, much is unsettled with regard to its economy. a moot point, which will most likely always remain undecided, is whether the british race was migratory or not, though that such is the habit of the species in most parts of the european continent is beyond dispute. equally uncertain as yet is the question whether it is polygamous or not--the evidence being perhaps in favour of its having that nature. but one of the most singular properties of the bird is the presence in some of the fully-grown males of a pouch or gular sac, opening under the tongue. this extraordinary feature, first discovered by james douglas, a scottish physician, and made known by eleazar albin in 1740, though its existence was hinted by sir thomas browne sixty years before, if not by the emperor frederick ii, has been found wanting in examples that, from the exhibition of all the outward marks of virility, were believed to be thoroughly mature; and as to its function and mode of development judgment had best be suspended, with the understanding that the old supposition of its serving as a receptacle whence the bird might supply itself or its companions with water in dry places must be deemed to be wholly untenable. the structure of this pouch--the existence of which in some examples has been well established--is, however, variable; and though there is reason to believe that in one form or another it is more or less common to several exotic species of the family _otididae_, it would seem to be as inconstant in its occurrence as in its capacity. as might be expected, this remarkable feature has attracted a good deal of attention (_journ. fur ornith._, 1861, p. 153; _ibis_, 1862, p. 107; 1865, p. 143; _proc. zool. soc._, 1865, p. 747; 1868, p. 741; 1869, p. 140; 1874, p. 471), and the later researches of a.h. garrod show that in an example of the australian bustard (_otis australis_) examined by him there was, instead of a pouch or sac, simply a highly dilated oesophagus--the distension of which, at the bird's will, produced much the same appearance and effect as that of the undoubted sac found at times in the _o. tarda_. the distribution of the bustards is confined to the old world--the bird so called in the fur-countries of north america, and thus giving its name to a lake, river and cape, being the canada goose (_bernicla canadensis_). in the palaearctic region we have the _o. tarda_ already mentioned, extending from spain to mesopotamia at least, and from scania to morocco, as well as a smaller species, _o. tetrax_, which often occurs as a straggler in, but was never an inhabitant of, the british islands. two species, known indifferently by the name of houbara (derived from the arabic), frequent the more southern portions of the region, and one of them, _o. macqueeni_, though having the more eastern range and reaching india, has several times occurred in north-western europe, and once even in england. in the east of siberia the place of _o. tarda_ is taken by the nearly-allied, but apparently distinct, _o. dybovskii_, which would seem to occur also in northern china. africa is the chief stronghold of the family, nearly a score of well-marked species being peculiar to that continent, all of which have been by later systematists separated from the genus _otis_. india, too, has three peculiar species, the smaller of which are there known as floricans, and, like some of their african and one of their european cousins, are remarkable for the ornamental plumage they assume at the breeding-season. neither in madagascar nor in the malay archipelago is there any form of this family, but australia possesses one large species already named. from xenophon's days (_anab._ i. 5) to our own the flesh of bustards has been esteemed as of the highest flavour. the bustard has long been protected by the game-laws in great britain, but, as will have been seen, to little purpose. a few attempts have been made to reinstate it as a denizen of this country, but none on any scale that would ensure success. many of the older authors considered the bustards allied to the ostrich, a most mistaken view, their affinity pointing apparently towards the cranes in one direction and the plovers in another. (a. n.) [1] it may be open to doubt whether _tarda_ is here an adjective. several of the medieval naturalists used it as a substantive.",
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