punishing the disobedience; and for purposes of appeal orders dealing with these forms of contempt have hitherto been treated as civil proceedings. (b) Disobedience by inferior judges or magistrates to the lawful order of a superior court. Such disobedience, if amounting to wilful misconduct, would usually give ground for amotion or removal from office, or for prosecution or indictment or information for misconduct (Archbold, Criminal Pleading, 147, 23rd ed.). (c) Disobedience or misconduct by executive officers of the law, e.g. sheriffs and their bailiffs or gaolers. The contempt consists in not complying with the terms of writs or warrants sent for execution. For instance, a judge of assize having ordered the court to be cleared on account of some disturbance, the high sheriff issued a placard protesting against "this unlawful proceeding," and "prohibiting his officer from aiding and abetting any attempt to bar out the public from free access to the court." The lord chief justice of England, sitting in the other court, summoned the sheriff before him and fined him £500 for the contempt, and £500 more for persisting in addressing the grand jury in court, after he had been ordered to desist. A sheriff who fails to attend the assizes is liable to severe fine as being in contempt (Oswald, 51). And in Harvey's case (1884, 26 Ch. D. 644) steps were taken to attach a sheriff who had failed to execute a writ of attachment for contempt of court in the mistaken belief that he was not entitled to break open doors to take the person in contempt. The Sheriffs Act 1887 enumerates many instances in which misconduct is punishable under that act, but reserves to superior courts of record power to deal with such misconduct as a contempt (s. 29). CONTEMPT OF COURT, in English law, any disobedience | benefit of the injured party rather than a criminal process for or disrespect to the authority or privileges of a legislative body, or interference with the administration of a court of justice. 1. The High Court of Parliament. Each of the two houses of Parliament has by the law and custom of parliament power to protect its freedom, dignity and authority against insult, disregard or violence by resort to its own process and not to ordinary courts of law and without having its process interfered with by those courts. The nature and limits of this authority to punish for contempt have been the subject of not infrequent conflict with the courts of law, from the time when Lord Chief Justice Holt threatened to commit the speaker for attempting | to stop the trial of Ashby v. White (1701), as a breach of privilege, to the cases of Burdett v. Abbott (1810), Stockdale v. Hansard and Howard v. Gosset (1842, 1843), and Bradlaugh v. Gosset (1834). It is now the accepted view that the power of either House to punish contempt is exceptional and derived from ancient usage, and does not flow from their being courts of record. Orders for committal by the Commons are effectual only while the House sits; orders by the Lords may be for a time specified, in which event prorogation does not operate as a discharge of the offender. It was at one time considered that the privilege of committing for contempt was inherent in every deliberative body invested with authority by the constitution, and consequently that colonial legislative bodies had by the nature of their functions the power to commit for contempt. But in Kielley v. Carson (1843; 4 Moore, P.C. 63) it was held that the power belonged to parliament by ancient usage only and not on the theory above stated, and in each colony it is necessary to inquire how far the colonial legislature has acquired, | by order in council or charter or from the imperial legislature, power to punish breach of privilege by imprisonment or committal for contempt. This power has in some cases been given directly, in others by authority to make laws and regulations under sanctions like those enforced by the Houses of the imperial parliament. In the case of Nova Scotia the provincial assembly has power to give itself by statute authority to commit for contempt (Fielding v. Thomas, 1896; L.R.A.C. 600). In Barton v. Taylor (1886; 11 A.C. 197) the competence of the legislative assembly of New South Wales to make standing orders punishing contempt was recognized to exist under the colonial constitution, but the particular standing orders under consideration are held not to cover the acts which had been punished. (See May, Parl. Pr., 10th ed., 1896; Anson, Law and Custom of the Constitution, 3rd ed., 1897.) 2. Courts of Justice. The term contempt of court, when used with reference to the courts or persons to whom the exercise of the judicial functions of the crown has been delegated, means insult offered to such court or person by deliberate defiance of its authority, disobedience to its orders, interruption of its proceedings or interference with the due course of justice, or any conduct calculated or tending to bring the authority or administration of the law into disrespect or disregard, or to interfere with or prejudice parties or witnesses during the litigation. The ingenuity of the judges and of those who are concerned to defeat or defy justice have rendered contempt almost Protean in its character. But for practical purposes most, if not all, contempts fall within the classification which follows: (a) Disobedience to the judgment or order of a court commanding the doing or abstaining from a particular act, e.g. an order to execute a conveyance of property or an order on a person in a fiduciary capacity to pay into court trust moneys as to which he is an accounting party. This includes disobedience by the members of a local authority to a mandamus to do some act which they are by law bound to do; and proceedings for contempt have been taken in the case of guardians of the poor who have refused to enforce the Vaccination Acts, e.g. at Keighley and Leicester, and of town councillors who have refused to comply with an order to take specified measures to drain their borough (e.g. Worcester). This process for compelling obedience is in substance a process of civil execution for the (d) Misconduct or neglect of duty by subordinate officials of courts of justice, including solicitors. In these cases it is more usual for the superior authorities to remove the offender from office, or for disciplinary proceedings to be instituted by the Law Society. But in the case of an unqualified person assuming to act as a solicitor or in the case of breach of an undertaking given by a solicitor to the court, proceedings for contempt are still taken. (e) Misconduct by parties, jurors or witnesses. Jurors who fail to attend in obedience to a jury summons and witnesses who fail to attend on subpoena are liable to punishment for contempt, and parties, counsel or solicitors who practise a fraud on the court are similarly liable. (f) Contempt in facie curiae. "Some contempts," says Blackstone, may arise in the face of the court, as by rude and contumelious behaviour, by obstinacy, perverseness or prevarication, by breach of the peace, or any wilful disturbance whatever "; in other words, direct insult to or interference with a sitting court is treated as contempt of the court. It is immaterial whether the offender is juror, party, witness, counsel, solicitor or a stranger to the case at hearing, and occasionally it is found necessary to punish for contempt persons under trial for felony or misdemeanour if by violent language or conduct they interrupt the proceedings at their trial. Judges have even treated as contempt the continuance outside the court-house after warning of a noise sufficient to disturb the proceedings of the court; and in Victoria Chief Justice Higginbotham committed for contempt a builder who persisted after warning in building operations close to the central criminal court in Melbourne, which interfered with the due conduct of the business of the sittings. (g) Attempts to prevent or interfere with the due course of justice, whether made by a person interested in a particular case or by an outsider. This branch of contempt takes many forms, such as frauds on the court by justices, solicitors or counsel (e.g. by fraudulently circularizing shareholders of a company against which a winding-up petition had been filed), tampering with witnesses by inducing them through threats or persuasion not to attend or to withhold evidence or to commit perjury, threatening judge or jury or attempting to bribe them and the like; and also by "scandalizing the court itself " by abusing the parties concerned in a pending case, or by creating prejudice | returned, which the court refused to disturb) was actuated by against such persons before their cause is heard. Invectives against judges. The locus classicus on the subject of contempt by attacks on judges is a judgment prepared by Sir Eardley-Wilmot in the case of an application for an attachment against J. Almon in 1765, for publishing a pamphlet libelling the court of king's bench. The judgment was not actually delivered as the case was settled, but has long been accepted as correctly stating the law. Sir Eardley-Wilmot said that the offence of libelling judges in their judicial capacity is the most proper case for an attachment, for the "arraignment of the justice of the judges is arraigning the king's justice; it is an impeachment of his wisdom and goodness in the choice of his judges; and excites in the minds of the people a general dissatisfaction with all judicial determinations, and indisposes their minds to obey them. To be impartial, and to be universally thought so, are both absolutely necessary for the giving justice that free, open and uninterrupted current which it has for many ages found all over this kingdom, and which so eminently distinguishes and exalts it above all nations upon the earth." Again, "the constitution has provided very apt and proper remedies for correcting and rectifying the involuntary mistakes of judges, and for punishing and removing them for any perversion of justice. But if their authority is to be trampled on by pamphleteers and news-writers, and the people are to be told that the power given to the judges for their protection is prostituted to their destruction, the court may retain its power some little time, but I am sure it will eventually lose all its authority." The object of the discipline enforced by the court by proceedings for contempt of court is not now, if it ever was, to vindicate the personal dignity of the judges or to protect them from insult as individuals, but to vindicate the dignity and authority | of the court itself and to prevent acts tending to obstruct the due course of justice. The question whether a personal invective against judges should be dealt with brevi manu by the court attacked, or by proceedings at the instance of the attorneygeneral by information or indictment for a libel on the administration of justice or on the judge attacked, or should be dealt with by a civil action for damages, depends on the nature and occasion of the attack on the judge. There has at times been a disposition by judges in colonial courts to use the process of the court to punish criticisms on their acts by counsel or parties or even outsiders, which the privy council has been prone to discourage. For instance in a Nova Scotia case a barrister was suspended from practice for writing to the chief justice of the province a letter relating to a case in which the barrister was suitor. The privy council while considering the letter technically a contempt, held the punishment inappropriate. In Macleod v. St Aubyn (1899, A.C. 549) it was said that proceedings for scandalizing the court itself were obsolete in England. But in 1900 the king's bench division, following the Almon case, summarily punished a scurrilous personal attack on a judge of assize with reference to his remarks in a concluded case, published immediately after the conclusion of the case (R. v. Gray, 1900, 2 Q.B. 36). The same measure may be meted out to those who publish invectives against judges or juries with the object of creating suspicion or contempt as to the administration of justice. But the existence of this power does not militate against the right of the press to publish full reports of trials and judgments or to make with fairness, good faith, candour and decency, comments and criticisms on what passed at the trial and on the correctness of the verdict or the judgment. To impute corruption is said to go beyond the limits of fair criticism. Shortt (Law relating to Works of Literature) states the law to be that the temperate and respectful discussion of judicial determination is not prohibited, but mere invective and abuse, and still more the imputation of false, corrupt and dishonest motives is punishable. In an information granted in 1788 against the corporation of Yarmouth for having entered upon their books an order "stating that the assembly were sensible that Mr W. (against whom an action had been brought for malicious prosecution, and a verdict for £3000 | | motives of public justice, of preserving the rights of the corporation to their admiralty jurisdiction, and of supporting the honour and credit of the chief magistrate," Mr Justice Buller said, "The judge and jury who tried the case, confirmed by the court of common pleas, have said that instead of his having been actuated by motives of public justice, or by any motives which should influence the actions of an honest man, he had been actuated by malice. These opinions are not reconcilable; if the one be right the other must be wrong. It is therefore a direct insinuation that the court had judged wrong in all they have done in this case, and is therefore clearly a libel on the administration of justice." The exact limits of the power to punish for contempt of court in respect of statements or comments on the action of judges and juries, or with reference to pending proceedings, have been the subject of some controversy, owing to the difficulty of reconciling the claims of the press to liberty and of the public to free discussion of the proceedings of courts of justice with the claims of the judges to due respect and of the parties to litigation that their causes should not be prejudiced before trial by outside interference. As the law now stands it is permissible to publish contemporaneous reports of the proceedings in cases pending in any court (Law of Libel Amendment Act 1888, s. 3), unless the proceedings have taken place in private (in camera), or the court has in the interests of justice prohibited any report until the case is concluded, a course now rarely, if ever, adopted. But it is not permissible to make any comments on a pending case calculated to interfere with the due course of justice in the case, nor to publish statements about the cause or the parties calculated to have that effect. This rule applies even when the case has been tried and the jury has disagreed if a second trial is in prospect. Applications are frequently made to commit proprietors and editors who comment too freely or who undertake the task of trying in their newspapers a pending case. The courts are now slow to move unless satisfied that the statements or comments may seriously affect the course of justice, e.g. by reaching the jurors who have to try the case. The difference between pending and decided cases has been frequently recognized by the courts. What would be a fair comment in a decided case may tend to influence the mind of the judge or the jury in a case waiting to be heard, and will accordingly be punished as a contempt. In Tichborne v. Mostyn the publisher of a newspaper was held to have committed a contempt by printing in his paper extracts from affidavits in a pending suit, with comments upon them. In the case of R. v. Castro it was held that after a true bill has been found, and the indictment removed into the court of queen's bench, and a day fixed for trial, the case was pending; and it was a contempt of court to address public meetings, alleging that the defendant was not guilty, that there was a conspiracy against the defendant, and that he could not have a fair trial; and the court ordered the parties to answer for their contempt. In the case of the Moat Farm murder (1903) the high court punished as contempt a series of articles published in a newspaper while the preliminary inquiry was proceeding and before the case went to a jury (R. v. Parker, 1903, 2 K.B. 432). The like course was followed in 1905 in the case of statements made in a Welsh newspaper about a woman awaiting trial for attempted murder (R. v. Davies, 1906, 1 K.B. 32); and in the case of the Weekly Dispatch in 1902 (R. v. Tibbits and Windust, 1 K.B. 77), two journalists were tried on indictment, and held to have been rightly convicted, for conspiring to prevent the course of justice by publishing matter calculated to interfere with the fair trial of persons who were under accusation. Courts having "In the superior courts the power of committing for contempt is inherent in their constitution, has been coeval with their original institution and has been always exercised " (Oswald, On Contempt, 3). The high court in which these courts are merged is the only court which has a general jurisdiction to deal summarily with all forms of contempt. Each division of that court deals with jurisdio tion. the particular contempts arising with reference to proceedings | to him, so that the court may be better informed of the circumbefore the division; but the king's bench division, in the exercise stances of the contempt. If he can clear himself on oath he is of the supervisory authority inherited from the old court of king's discharged; if he confesses the court will punish him by fine or bench as custos morum, also from time to time deals with acts | imprisonment, or both, at its discretion. But in very many cases constituting interference with justice in other inferior courts on proper apology and submission, and undertaking not to repeat whether of record or not. The nature and limits of this jurisdic- the contempt, and payment of costs, the court allows the tion after much discussion have been defined by decisions in 1903 proceedings to drop without proceeding to fine or imprison. and 1905 in attempts to try by newspapers cases under inquiry by justices or awaiting trial at assizes or quarter sessions. The exercise of this authority in the king's bench division, being in a criminal cause or matter, is not the subject of appeal to any higher court. Inferior courts of record have, as a general rule, power to punish only those contempts which are committed in facie curiae or consist in disobedience to the lawful orders or judgments of the court. For instance, a county court may summarily punish persons who insult the judge or any officer of the court or any juror or witness, or wilfully interrupt the proceedings, or misbehave in the court-house (County Court Act 1888, s. 162), and may also attack persons who having means refuse to comply with an order to pay money, or refuse to comply with an order to deliver up a specific chattel or disobey an injunction. A court of quarter sessions has at common law a like power as to contempts in facie curiae and is said to have power to punish its officials for contempt in non-attendance or neglect of duty. Contempt of court is a misdemeanour and is punishable by fine and imprisonment or either at discretion. The offence may be tried summarily, or may be prosecuted on information or on indictment as was done in the case of the Punishment. Weekly Dispatch already mentioned. The prerogative of pardon extends to all contempts of court which are dealt with by a sentence of clearly punitive character; but it is doubtful whether it extends to committals for disobedience to orders made in aid of the execution of a civil judgment. Contempt is usually dealt with summarily by the court contemned in the case of contempt in facie curiae. The offender may be instantly apprehended and without further proof or examination fined or sent to prison. In the case of other contempts the High Court not only can deal with contempts affecting itself, but can also intervene summarily to protect inferior courts from contempts. This jurisdiction was asserted and exercised in the Moat Farm case (1903) and the South Wales Post case (1905) already mentioned. Except in cases of contempt in facie curiae evidence on oath as to the alleged contempt must be laid before the court, and application made for the "committal" or "attachment" of the offender. The differences between the two modes are technical rather than substantial. The procedure for dealing with contempt of court varies somewhat according as the contempt consists in disobeying an order of the High Court made in a civil cause, or consists in interference with the course of justice by persons not present in court nor parties to the cause. In the first class of cases the court proceeds by order of committal or giving leave to issue writ of attachment. In either case the person said to be in contempt must have full notice of the proposed motion and of the grounds on which he is said to be in contempt; and the rules regulating such proceedings must be strictly complied with (R. v. Tuck, 1906, 2 Ch. 692). In proceedings on the crown side of the king's bench division it is still usual to apply in the first place for a rule nisi for leave to attach the alleged offender who is given an opportunity of explaining, excusing or justifying the incriminated acts. It is essential that before punishment the alleged offender should have had full notice as to the specific offence charged and opportunity of answering to it. The king's bench procedure is that generally used for interference with the due course of criminal justice or disobedience to prerogative writs such as mandamus. An order of committal is an order in execution specifying the nature of the detention to be suffered, or the penalty to be paid. The process of attachment merely brings the accused into court; he is then required to answer on oath interrogatories administered From time to time proposals have been made to deprive the superior courts of the power to deal summarily with contempts not committed in facie curiae, and to require proceedings on other charges for contempt to go before a jury. This distinction has already been made in some British colonies, e.g. British Guiana, by an ordinance of 1900 (No. 31). Recent decisions in England have so fully defined the limits of the offence and declared the practice of the courts that it would probably only result in undue licence of the press if the power now carefully and judicially exercised of dealing summarily with journalistic interference with the ordinary course of justice were taken away and the delay involved in submitting the case to a jury were made inevitable. The courts now only act in clear cases, and in cases of doubt can always send the question to a jury. The experience of other countries makes it undesirable to part with the summary remedy so long as it is in the hands of a trusted judicature. Scotland.-In Scotland the courts of session and justiciary have, at common law, and exercise the power of punishing contempt committed during a judicial proceeding by censure, fine or imprisonment proprio motu without formal proceedings or a summary complaint. The nature of the offence is there in substance the same as in England (see Petrie, 1889: 7 Rettie Justiciary 3; Smith, 1892: 20 Rettie Justiciary 52). England, but conflicts have arisen between the bench and popular Ireland. In Ireland the law of contempt is on the same lines as in opinion, due to political and religious differences, which have led to proposals for making juries and not judges arbiters in cases of contempt. British Dominions beyond Seas.-The courts of most British possessions have acquired and freely exercise the power of the court of king's bench to deal summarily with contempt of court; and, as already stated, it is not infrequently the duty of the privy council to restrain too exuberant a vindication of the offended dignity of a colonial court. (W. F. C.) CONTI, PRINCES OF. The title of prince of Conti, assumed by a younger branch of the house of Condé, was taken from Conti-sur-Selles, a small town about 20 m. S.W. of Amiens, which came into the Condé family by the marriage of Louis of Bourbon, first prince of Condé, with Eleanor de Roye in 1551. FRANÇOIS (1558-1614), the third son of this marriage, was given the title of marquis de Conti, and between 1581 and 1597 was elevated to the rank of a prince. Conti, who belonged to the older faith, appears to have taken no part in the wars of religion until 1587, when his distrust of Henry, third duke of Guise, caused him to declare against the League, and to support Henry of Navarre, afterwards King Henry IV. of France. In 1589 after the murder of Henry III., king of France, he was one of the two princes of the blood who signed the declaration recognizing Henry IV. as king, and he continued to support Henry, although on the death of Charles cardinal de Bourbon in 1590 he himself was mentioned as a candidate for the throne. In 1605 Conti, whose first wife Jeanne de Cöeme, heiress of Bonnétable, had died in 1601, married the beautiful and witty Louise Marguerite (1574-1631), daughter of Henry duke of Guise and Catherine of Cleves, whom, but for the influence of his mistress Gabrielle d'Estrées, Henry IV. would have made his queen. Conti died in 1614. His only child Marie having predeceased him in 1610, the title lapsed. His widow followed the fortunes of Marie de' Medici, from whom she received many marks of favour, and was secretly married to François de Bassompierre (q.v.), who joined her in conspiring against Cardinal Richelieu. Upon the exposure of the plot the cardinal exiled her to her estate at Eu, near Amiens, where she died. princess wrote Aventures de la cour de Perse, in which, under the veil of fictitious scenes and names, she tells the history of her own time. The In 1629 the title of prince de Conti was revived in favour of ARMAND DE BOURBON (1629-1666), second son of Henry II. of He served under Marshal Villars in the War of the Spanish Succession, but he lacked the soldierly qualities of his father. In 1713 he married Louise Elisabeth (1693-1775), daughter of Louis Henri de Bourbon, prince de Condé, and grand-daughter of Louis XIV. He was a prominent supporter of the financial schemes of John Law, by which he made large sums of money. Bourbon, prince of Condé, and brother of Louis, the great | by Louis XIV., and also by the regent, Philip duke of Orleans. Condé. He was destined for the church and studied theology at the university of Bourges, but although he received several benefices he did not take orders. He played a conspicuous part in the intrigues and fighting of the Fronde, became in 1648 commander-in-chief of the rebel army, and in 1650 was with his brother Condé imprisoned at Vincennes. Released when Mazarin went into exile, he wished to marry Mademoiselle de Chevreuse (1627–1652), daughter of the famous confidante of Anne of Austria, but was prevented by his brother, who was now supreme in the state. He was concerned in the Fronde of 1651, but soon afterwards became reconciled with Mazarin, and in 1654 married the cardinal's niece, Anne Marie Martinozzi | (1639-1672), and secured the government of Guienne. He took command of the army which in 1654 invaded Catalonia, where he captured three towns from the Spaniards. He afterwards led the French forces in Italy, but after his defeat before Alessandria in 1657 retired to Languedoc, where he devoted himself to study and mysticism until his death. At Clermont Conti had been a fellow student of Molière's for whom he secured an introduction to the court of Louis XIV., but afterwards, when writing a treatise against the stage entitled Traité de la comédie et des spectacles selon les traditions de l'Église (Paris, 1667), he charged the dramatist with keeping a school of atheism. Conti also wrote Lettres sur la grâce, and Du devoir des grands et des devoirs des gouverneurs de province. LOUIS ARMAND DE BOURBON, prince de Conti (1661-1685), eldest son of the preceding, succeeded his father in 1666, and in 1680 married Marie Anne, a daughter of Louis XIV. and Louise de la Vallière. He served with distinction in Flanders in 1683, and against the wish of the king went to Hungary, where he assisted the Imperialists to defeat the Turks at Gran in 1683. After a dissolute life he died at Fontainebleau from smallpox. FRANÇOIS LOUIS DE BOURBON, prince de Conti (1664-1709), younger brother of the preceding, was known until 1685 as prince de la Roche-sur-Yon. Naturally of great ability, he received an excellent education and was distinguished both for the independence of his mind and the popularity of his manners. On this account he was not received with favour by Louis XIV.; so in 1683 he assisted the Imperialists in Hungary, and while there he wrote some letters in which he referred to Louis as le roi du théâtre, for which on his return to France he was temporarily banished to Chantilly. Conti was a favourite of his uncle the great Condé, whose grand-daughter Marie Thérese de Bourbon (1666-1732) he married in 1688. In 1689 he accompanied his intimate friend Marshal Luxembourg to the Netherlands, and shared in the French victories at Fleurus, Steinkirk and Neerwinden. On the death of his cousin, Jean Louis Charles, duc de Longueville (1646-1694), Conti in accordance with his cousin's will, claimed the principality of Neuchâtel against Marie, duchesse de Nemours (1625-1707), a sister of the duke. He failed to obtain military assistance from the Swiss, and by the king's command yielded the disputed territory to Marie, although the courts of law had decided in his favour. In 1697 Louis XIV. offered him the Polish crown, and by means of bribes the abbé de Polignac secured his election. Conti started rather unwillingly for his new kingdom, probably, as St Simon remarks, owing to his affection for Françoise, wife of Philip II., duke of Orleans, and daughter of Louis XIV. and Madame de Montespan. When he reached Danzig and found his rival Augustus II., elector of Saxony, already in possession of the Polish crown, he returned to France, where he was graciously received by Louis, although St Simon says the king was vexed to see him again. But the misfortunes of the French armies during the earlier years of the war of the Spanish Succession compelled Louis to appoint Conti, whose military renown stood very high, to command the troops in Italy. He fell ill before he could take the field, and died on the 9th of February 1709, his death calling forth exceptional signs of mourning from all classes. LOUIS FRANÇOIS DE BOURBON, prince de Conti (1717–1776), only son of the preceding, adopted a military career, and when the war of the Austrian Succession broke out in 1741 accompanied Charles Louis, duc de Belle-Isle, to Bohemia. His services there led to his appointment to command the army in Italy, where he distinguished himself by forcing the pass of Villafranca and winning the battle of Coni in 1744. In 1745 he was sent to check the Imperialists in Germany, and in 1746 was transferred to the Netherlands, where some jealousy between Marshal Saxe and himself led to his retirement in 1747. In this year a faction among the Polish nobles offered Conti the crown of that country, where owing to the feeble health of King Augustus III. a vacancy was expected. He won the personal support of Louis XV. for his candidature, although the policy of the French ministers was to establish the house of Saxony in Poland, as the dauphiness was a daughter of Augustus. Louis therefore began secret personal relations with his ambassadors in eastern Europe, who were thus receiving contradictory instructions; a policy known later as the secret du roi. Although Conti did not secure the Polish throne he remained in the confidence of Louis until 1755, when his influence was destroyed by the intrigues of Madame de Pompadour; so that when the Seven Years' War broke out in 1756 he was refused the command of the army of the Rhine, and began the opposition to the administration which caused Louis to refer to him as 'my cousin the advocate." In 1771 he was prominent in opposition to the chancellor Maupeou. He supported the parlements against the ministry, was especially active in his hostility to Turgot, and was suspected of aiding a rising which took place at Dijon in 1775- Conti, who died on the 2nd of August 1776, inherited literary tastes from his father, was a brave and skilful general, and a diligent student of military history. His house, over which the comtesse de Boufflers presided, was the resort of many men of letters, and he was a patron of Jean Jacques Rousseau. LOUIS FRANÇOIS JOSEPH, prince de Conti (1734-1814), son of the preceding, possessed considerable talent as a soldier, and distinguished himself during the Seven Years' War. He took the side of Maupeou in the struggle between the chancellor and the parlements, and in 1788 declared that the integrity of the constitution must be maintained. He emigrated owing to the weakness of Louis XVI., but refused to share in the plans for the invasion of France, and returned to his native country in 1790. Arrested by order of the National Convention in 1793, he was acquitted, but was reduced to poverty by the confiscation of his possessions. He afterwards received a pension, but the Directory banished him from France, and as he refused to share in the plots of the royalists he lived at Barcelona till his death in 1814, when the house of Conti became extinct. See F. de Bassompierre, Mémoires (Paris, 1877); G. Tallemant des Reaux, Historiettes (Paris, 1854-1860); L. de R. duc de Saint Simon, Mémoires (Paris, 1873); C. E. duchesse d'Orleans, Mémoires (Paris, 1880); R. L. Marquis d'Argenson, Journal et mémoires (Paris, 1859-1865); F. J. de P. cardinal de Bérnis, Mémoires et lettres (Paris, 1878); J. V. A. duc de Broglie, Le Secret du roi (Paris, 1878); P. A. Cheruel, Histoire de la minorité de Louis XIV et du ministère de Mazarin (Paris, 1879); E. Boutaric, Correspondance secrète de Louis XV sur la politique étrangère (Paris, 1866); P. Foncin, Essai sur le ministère de Turgot (Paris, 1877); E. Bourgeois Neuchâtel et la politique prussienne en Franche-Comté (Paris, 1877). CONTI, NICOLO DE' (fl. 1419-1444), Venetian explorer and writer, was a merchant of noble family, who left Venice about 1419, on what proved an absence of 25 years. We next find him in Damascus, whence he made his way over the north Arabian desert, the Euphrates, and southern Mesopotamia, to Bagdad. Here he took ship and sailed down the Tigris to LOUIS ARMAND DE BOURBON, prince de Conti (1696-1727), | Basra and the head of the Persian Gulf; he next descended eldest son of the preceding, was treated with great liberality the gulf to Ormuz, coasted along the Indian Ocean shore of Persia (at one port of which he remained some time, and entered into a business partnership with some Persian merchants), and so reached the gulf and city of Cambay, where he began his Indian life and observations. He next dropped down the west coast of India to Ely, and struck inland to Vijayanagar, the capital of the principal Hindu state of the Deccan, destroyed in 1555. Of this city Conti gives an elaborate description, one of the most interesting portions of his narrative. From Vijayanagar and the Tungabudhra he travelled to Maliapur near Madras, the traditional resting-place of the body of St Thomas, and the holiest shrine of the native Nestorian Christians, then "scattered over all India," the Venetian declares, as the Jews are among us." The narrative next refers to Ceylon, and gives a very accurate account of the Cingalese cinnamon tree; but, if Conti visited the island at all, it was probably on the return journey. His outward route now took him to Sumatra, where he stayed a year, and of whose cruel, brutal, cannibal natives he gained a pretty full knowledge, as of the camphor, pepper and gold of this " Taprobana." From Sumatra a stormy voyage of sixteen days brought him to Tenasserim, near the head of the Malay Peninsula. We then find him at the mouth of the Ganges, and trace him ascending and descending that river (a journey of several months), visiting Burdwan and Aracan, penetrating into Burma, and navigating the Irawadi to Ava. He appears to have spent some time in Pegu, from which he again plunged into the Malay Archipelago, and visited Java, his farthest point. Here he remained nine months, and then began his return by way of Ciampa (usually Cochin-China in later medieval European literature, but here perhaps some more westerly portion of Indo-China); a month's voyage from Ciampa brought him to Coloen, doubtless Kulam or Quilon, in the extreme south-west of India. Thence he continued his homeward route, touching at Cochin, Calicut and Cambay, to Sokotra, which he describes as still mainly inhabited by Nestorian Christians; to the "rich city" of Aden, "remarkable for its buildings "; to Gidda or Jidda, the port of Mecca; over the desert to Carras or Cairo; and so to Venice, where he arrived in 1444. As a penance for his (compulsory) renunciation of the Christian faith during his wanderings, Eugenius IV. ordered him to relate his history to Poggio Bracciolini, the papal secretary. The narrative closes with Conti's elaborate replies to Poggio's question on Indian life, social classes, religion, fashions, manners, customs and peculiarities of various kinds. Following a prevalent fashion, the Venetian divides his Indies into three parts, the first extending from Persia to the Indus; the second from the Indus to the Ganges; the third including all beyond the Ganges; this last he considered to excel the others in wealth, culture and magnificence, and to be abreast of Italy in civilization. We may note, moreover, Conti's account of the bamboo in the Ganges valley; of the catching, taming and rearing of elephants in Burma and other regions; of Indian tattooing and the use of leaves for writing; of various Indian fruits, especially the jack and mango; of the polyandry of Malabar; of the cockfighting of Java; of what is apparently the bird of Paradise; of Indian funeral ceremonies, and especially suttee; of the selfmutilation and immolation of Indian fanatics; and of Indian magic, navigation (" they are not acquainted with the compass "), justice, &c. Several venerable legends are reproduced; and Conti's name-forms, partly through Poggio's vicious classicism, are often absolutely unrecognizable; but on the whole this is the best account of southern Asia by any European of the 15th century; while the traveller's visit to Sokotra is an almost though not quite unique performance for a Latin Christian of the middle ages. The original Latin is in Poggio's De varietate Fortunae, book iv.; see the edition of the Abbé Oliva (Paris, 1723). The Italian version, printed in Ramusio's Navigationi et viaggi, vol. i., is only from a Portuguese translation made in Lisbon. An English translation with short notes was made by J. Winter Jones for the Hakluyt Society in the vol. entitled India in the Fifteenth Century (London, 1857); an introductory account of the traveller and his work by R. H. Major precedes. (C. R. B.) CONTINENT (from Lat. continere, "to hold together"; hence "connected," "continuous "), a word used in physical geography of the larger continuous masses of land in contrast to the great oceans, and as distinct from the submerged tracts where only the higher parts appear above the sea, and from islands generally. On looking at a map of the world, continents appear generally as wedge-shaped tracts pointing southward, while the oceans have a polygonal shape. Eurasia is in some sense an exception, but all the southern terminations of the continents advance into the sea in the form of a wedge-South America, South Africa, Arabia, India, Malaysia and Australia connected by a submarine platform with Tasmania. It is difficult not to believe that these remarkable characters have some relation to the structure of the great globe-mass, and according to T. C. Chamberlin and R. D. Salisbury, in their Geology (1906), "the true conception is perhaps that the ocean basins and continental platforms are but the surface forms of great segments of the lithosphere, all of which crowd towards the centre, the stronger and heavier-the ocean basins-taking precedence and squeezing the weaker and lighter ones-the continents-between them." The area of the most depressed, or master segments, is almost exactly twice that of the protruding or squeezed ones. This estimate includes in the latter about 10,000,000 sq. m. now covered with shallow water. The volume of the hydrosphere is a little too great for the true basins, and it runs over, covering the borders of the continents" (see CONTINENTAL SHELF). Several theories have been advanced to account for the roughly triangular shape of the continents, but that presenting the least difficulty is the one expressed above, “since in a spherical surface divided into larger and smaller segments the major part should be polygonal, while the minor residual segments are more likely to be triangular." 66 66 As bearing on this geological idea, it is interesting to notice in this connexion that the areas of volcanic activity are mostly where continent and ocean meet; and that around the continents there is an almost continuous deep" from 100 to 300 m. broad, of which the Challenger Deep (11,400 ft.) and the great Tuscarora Deep are fragments. If on a map of the world a broad inked brush be swept seawards round Africa, passing into the Mediterranean, round North and South America, round India, then continuously south of Java and round Australia south of Tasmania and northward to the tropic, this broad band will represent the encircling ribbon-like "deep," which gives strength to the suggestion that the continents in their main features are permanent forms and that their structural connexion with the oceans is not temporary and accidental. The great protruding or "squeezed segments are the Eurasian (with an area roughly of twenty-four, reckoning in millions of square miles), strongly ridged on the south and east, and relatively flat on the north-west; the African (twelve), rather strongly ridged on the east, less abruptly on the west and north; the North American (ten), strongly ridged on the west, more gently on the east, and relatively flat on the north and in the interior; the South American (nine), strongly ridged on the west and somewhat on the north-east and south-east, leaving ten for the smaller blocks. The sum of these will represent one-third of the earth's surface, while the remaining two-thirds is covered by the ocean. The foundation structure of the continents is everywhere similar. Their resulting rocks and soils are due to differential minor movements in the past, by which deposits of varying character were produced. These movements, taking place periodically and followed by long periods of rest, produce continued stability for the development and migration of forms of life, the grading of rivers, the development of varied characteristic land forms, the migration and settlement of human beings, the facility or difficulty of intelligent intercourse between races and communities, with finally the commercial interchange of those commodities produced by varying climatic conditions upon different parts of the continental surface; in short, for those geographical factors which form the chief product of past and present human history. (See GEOGRAPHY.) |