Chretien-Francois de**, eldest son of M. Lamoignon, first president of the parliament of Paris, was born in that city on the 26th of June 1644. Not choosing to intrust his education to any one, his father became his first instructor, and taught him the elementary parts of learning. After having attended a course of rhetoric under Rapin, young Lamoignon applied himself to the study of law, and in this pursuit found great assistance in the conferences of the advocates whom the president assembled at his residence. It was the wish of the president that his son should first appear at the bar as a simple advocate; and, accordingly, the latter continued for about two years in the ordinary practice of the profession. Possessing a refined taste, and full of the good principles which he had derived from the study of the ancients, the young lawyer brought to the courts of law that judicial eloquence which the mania for citation and false display had exiled from their precincts. In 1666, he was appointed counsellor to the parliament. Two years afterwards, when the plague had appeared at Soissons, and apprehensions were entertained that the contagion might reach Paris, M. de Lamoignon was employed to take the necessary measures for arresting its progress. In the discharge of this duty he displayed equal energy and intelligence. Whilst abundant resources of medicine were accumulated at Soissons to combat the evil at its source, he established a sanitary line or cordon, which completely intercepted all communication with the centre of infection. He had himself written out the details of this operation, so foreign to the nature of his ordinary pursuits, but which was nevertheless crowned with complete success. Being appointed master of requests some time afterwards, he was one of the commissioners whom Louis XIV. formed into a particular council, when he himself held the seals after the death of the chancellor Seguier. In 1674, he was appointed advocate-general to the parliament, an office which had become vacant by the death of a son of the celebrated Bignon. During the twenty-five years that he held this office, he rendered the most important services to jurisprudence; and if the eloquent pleadings he pronounced have not been preserved, history has at least transmitted to us the sentiments of admiration which they excited. It is to a discourse pronounced in the cause of the Marquis of Langey by this celebrated magistrate, who knew so well how to reconcile the interests of morality and society with the respect due to laws consecrated by long usage, that France owes the abolition of the *congress* (a court for proving virility or impotence), an institution worthy of the rude age that gave it birth, but which had hitherto been preserved. It was in conformity with his conclusions that the decree of abolition was pronounced by the first president, his father. Louis XIV. had thought of Lamoignon for the situation of first president of the parliament; a mistake, perhaps even an injustice, had deprived him of that of attorney-general, which was given to Labriffre; but the distinction with which he exercised the functions of advocate-general, his zeal, and his marked predilection for that office, induced him to retain it eight years after he had been made president à mortier, that is, in 1690. In 1707, when enfeebled by the excessive labour he had undergone, he resigned in favour of his eldest son, and died on the 7th of August 1709. M. de Lamoignon loved and cultivated letters; and his intimate connections with some of the greatest geniuses of his age, particularly with Bourdaloue, Boileau, Racine, and Regnard, have also added to his celebrity. It is to him that the sixth epistle of Boileau is addressed. But notwithstanding his friendship for men of letters, he refused to become a member of the French Academy, when that society called upon him to join it; though he afterwards accepted a place in the Academy of Inscriptions, of which he became president. The only production of M. de Lamoignon that has been printed is his letter on the death of Bourdaloue, which is appended to the third volume of the *Careme* of that celebrated preacher; but he also wrote a life of his father, Guillaume de Lamoignon, which is said to breathe the most ardent filial piety and affection.

**LA MOTTA**, a town of Italy, in the Austrian delegation of Treviso. It stands at the junction of the rivers Montegnano and Livenza, is defended by a castle, and contains 3276 inhabitants.

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**LAMP**

A contrivance for giving light. Lamps were in general use amongst the Jews, Greeks, and Romans. The candlestick with seven branches, placed in the sanctuary by Moses, and those which Solomon afterwards prepared for the temple, were crystal lamps filled with oil, and fixed upon the branches. The lamps or candlesticks made use of by the Jews in their own houses were generally put into a very high stand on the ground. The lamps supposed to be used by the foolish virgins, in the gospel, were of a different kind. According to critics and