Page:Men of the Time, eleventh edition.djvu/296
Earl of Sussex, May 26, 1874, and took his seat in the House of Lords on the 8th of the following month. At a Council held at Windsor, May 16, 1878, the Queen declared the intended marriage of the Duke of Connaught and Stratheam to Princess Margaret Louise, of Prussia, third daughter of Prince Frederick Charles, and grand niece of the Emperor of Germany. The marriage was celebrated at Windsor, March 13, 1879. His Royal Highness's staff services are:—Brigade Major at Aldershot in 1873; Brigade Major to the Cavalry Brigadier at the same quarters in 1875, in the October of which year he was appointed Assistant Adjutant-General at Gibraltar, which post he held until April, 1876. In 1880 he was made a General of Brigade at Aldershot. He commanded the Guards Brigade in the First Division in the expedition to Egypt in 1882. He was appointed in Oct., 1882, honorary Colonel of the 13th Bengal Lancers serving in Egypt.
CONSCIENCE, Henri, novelist, was born at Antwerp, Dec. 3, 1812. His father, who was of French origin, was long employed in the French marine, and became a buyer and seller of ships. The son, to gratify, as far as he could, his avidity for reading, became a private teacher, and being thus engaged when the Belgian revolution of 1830 broke out, he entered the army, serving six years as a volunteer. An active military life had a wholesome effect on his dreamy disposition, and he became the poet of the army. His French songs, full of point and spirit, were very popular amongst his comrades. He was discharged in 1836, after having attained the rank of sergeant-major, but through some misunderstanding he quarrelled with his family. He was by turns a working gardener, an employé in the archives of Antwerp, and clerk to an Academy of Arts. After quitting the military service, he allied himself to a party which had in view the establishment of a Flemish literature, in opposition to the French literature of the 18th century. To this task he devoted all his powers, and his first work, "The Year of Miracles," published in 1837, contains a series of brilliant dramatic pictures of the Spanish rule in Flanders. It was received by the public with great favour. The success of this publication excited the resentment of his father, who renoimced him completely; but by the kindness of a friend, the painter Wappers, he obtained a small pension from Leopold I., which saved him from destitution, and enabled him to publish in 1837 another volume, "Phantasia," a collection of Flemish poetry and legends; "Leeuw van Vlandern," the Lion of Flanders, a truly original work, which will sustain his reputation as a national romance writer, appeared in 1838. In 1845 he obtained the appointment of Assistant Professor in the University of Ghent, where he had to instruct the Royal children in the Flemish language and literature. Henri Conscience has produced a variety of interesting sketches, illustrative of Flemish manners; such as "Evening Hours," "The Executioner's Child," "The New Niobe," "The Conscript," "The Poor Gentleman," "Quintin Metzys," "Pages from the Book of Nature," "Jacob van Artevelde," "Blind Rosa," and several other works which have been translated into English, German, Danish, and Italian. He published his memoirs in the Revue Contemporaine in 1858. In 1870 he once more gained the prize of literature, given every fifth year, by his romance " Bavo en Lieveken," which may be classed among his best works. In this work, as in all his writings, M. Conscience contrives to insinuate the gravest and best advice under the most amusing forms, and, according to his wont, he pleads the cause of virtue, by proving that after all it is the best policy. One