Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition | Page 6

a harbour with wooden wharves,
which soon became a station of the French navy. Colbert changed the
wooden wharves for masonry and otherwise improved the post, and
Vauban's fortifications followed in 1680-1688. During the 18th century
the fortifications and the naval importance of the town continued to
develop. In 1694 an English squadron under John, 3rd Lord Berkeley,
was miserably defeated in attempting a landing; but in 1794, during the
revolutionary war, the French fleet, under Villaret de Joyeuse, was as
thoroughly beaten in the same place by the English admiral Howe.

BREST-LITOVSK (Polish Brzesc-Litevski; and in the Chron. Berestie
and Berestov), a strongly fortified town of Russia, in the government of
Grodno, 137 m. by rail S. from the city of Grodno, in 52° 5' N. lat. and
23° 39' E. long., at the junction of the navigable river Mukhovets with
the Bug, and at the intersection of railways from Warsaw, Kiev,
Moscow and East Prussia. Pop. (1867) 22,493; (1901) 42,812, of whom
more than one-half were Jews. It contains a Jewish synagogue, which
was regarded in the 16th century as the first in Europe, and is the seat
of an Armenian and of a Greek Catholic bishop; the former has
authority over the Armenians throughout the whole country. The town
carries on an extensive trade in grain, flax, hemp, wood, tar and leather.
First mentioned in the beginning of the 11th century, Brest-Litovsk was
in 1241 laid waste by the Mongols and was not rebuilt till 1275; its
suburbs were burned by the Teutonic Knights in 1379; and in the end
of the 15th century the whole town met a similar fate at the hands of
the khan of the Crimea. In the reign of the Polish king Sigismund III.
diets were held there; and in 1594 and 1596 it was the meeting-place of
two remarkable councils of the bishops of western Russia. In 1657, and
again in 1706, the town was captured by the Swedes; in 1794 it was the
scene of Suvarov's victory over the Polish general Sierakowski; in 1795
it was added to the Russian empire. The Brest-Litovsk or King's canal
(50 m. long), utilizing the Mukhovets-Bug rivers, forms a link in the
waterways that connect the Dnieper with the Vistula.
BRETEUIL, LOUIS CHARLES AUGUSTE LE TONNELIER,
BARON DE (1730-1807), French diplomatist, was born at the chateau
of Azay-le-Féron (Indre) on the 7th of March 1730. He was only
twenty-eight when he was appointed by Louis XV. ambassador to the
elector of Cologne, and two years later he was sent to St Petersburg. He
arranged to be temporarily absent from his post at the time of the palace
revolution by which Catherine II. was placed on the throne. In 1769 he
was sent to Stockholm, and subsequently represented his government at
Vienna, Naples, and again at Vienna until 1783, when he was recalled
to become minister of the king's household. In this capacity he
introduced considerable reforms in prison administration. A close
friend of Marie Antoinette, he presently came into collision with
Calonne, who demanded his dismissal in 1787. His influence with the

king and queen, especially with the latter, remained unshaken, and on
Necker's dismissal on the 11th of July 1789, Breteuil succeeded him as
chief minister. The fall of the Bastille three days later put an end to the
new ministry, and Breteuil made his way to Switzerland with the first
party of émigrés. At Soleure, in November 1790, he received from
Louis XVI. exclusive powers to negotiate with the European courts,
and in his efforts to check the ill-advised diplomacy of the émigré
princes, he soon brought himself into opposition with his old rival
Calonne, who held a chief place in their councils. [v.04 p.0501] After
the failure of the flight to Varennes, in the arrangement of which he had
a share, Breteuil received instructions from Louis XVI., designed to
restore amicable relations with the princes. His distrust of the king's
brothers and his defence of Louis XVI.'s prerogative were to some
extent justified, but his intransigeant attitude towards these princes
emphasized the dissensions of the royal family in the eyes of foreign
sovereigns, who looked on the comte de Provence as the natural
representative of his brother and found a pretext for non-interference on
Louis's behalf in the contradictory statements of the negotiators.
Breteuil himself was the object of violent attacks from the party of the
princes, who asserted that he persisted in exercising powers which had
been revoked by Louis XVI. After the execution of Marie Antoinette he
retired into private life near Hamburg, only returning to France in 1802.
He died in Paris on the 2nd of November 1807.
See the memoirs of Bertrand de Molleville (2 vols., Paris, 1816) and of
the marquis de Bouillé (2 vols., Paris, 1884); and