Series, 1897) and the romance of Méraugis de Portlesguez, edited by M. Michelant (1869) and by Dr M. Friedwagner (Halle, 1897). Houdenc was an imitator of Chrétien de Troyes; and Huon de Méri, in his Tournoi de l’antéchrist (1226) praises him with Chrétien in words that seem to imply that both were dead. Méraugis de Portlesguez, the hero of which perhaps derives his name from Lesguez, the port of Saint Brieuc in Brittany, is a roman d’aventures loosely attached to the Arthurian cycle.
See Gaston Paris in Hist. litt. de la France, xxx. 220-237; W. Zingerlé, Über Raoul de Houdenc und seine Werke (Erlangen, 1880); and O. Boerner, Raoul de Houdenc. Eine stilistische Untersuchung (1885).
HOUDETOT, a French noble family, taking its name from
the lordship of Houdetot, between Arques and St Valéry.
Louis de Houdetot went with Robert, duke of Normandy, to
Palestine in 1034, and the various branches of the family trace
descent from Richard I. de Houdetot (fl. 1229), who married
Marie de Montfort. Charles Louis de Houdetot received a
marquisate in 1722, and on his son Claude Constance César,
lieutenant-general in the French army, was conferred the
hereditary title of count in 1753. His wife (see below) was
the Madame de Houdetot of Rousseau’s Confessions. Their son
César Louis Marie François Ange, comte de Houdetot (1749–1825),
was governor of Martinique (1803–1809) and lieutenant-general
(1814) under the Empire. His son Frédéric Christophe, comte
de Houdetot (1778–1859), was director-general of indirect
imposts in Prussia after Jena, and prefect of Brussels in 1813.
He acquiesced in the Restoration, but had to resign from the
service after the Hundred Days. He became a peer of France
in 1819, and under the Second Empire he was returned by the
department of Calvados to the Corps Législatif. His half-brother,
Charles Île-de-France, comte de Houdetot (1789–1866), was
wounded at Trafalgar and transferred to the army, in which he
served through the Napoleonic wars. He retired at the Restoration,
but returned to the service in 1823, and in 1826 became
aide-de-camp to the duke of Orleans, becoming lieutenant-general
in 1842. He sat in the Chamber of Deputies from 1837 to 1848,
when he followed Louis Philippe into exile. A third brother,
César François Adolphe, comte de Houdetot (1799–1869), was
a well-known writer on military and other subjects.
HOUDETOT, ELISABETH FRANÇOISE SOPHIE DE LA LIVE DE BELLEGARDE,
Comtesse de (1730–1813), was born in
1730. She married the comte de Houdetot (see above) in 1748.
In 1753 she formed with the marquis de Saint Lambert (q.v.)
a connexion which lasted till his death. Mme de Houdetot
has been made famous by the chapter in Rousseau’s Confessions
in which he describes his unreciprocated passion for her. When
questioned on the subject she replied that he had much exaggerated.
A view differing considerably from Rousseau’s
is to be found in the Mémoires of Mme d’Epinay, Mme de
Houdetot’s sister-in-law.
For a discussion of her relations with Rousseau see Saint-Marc-Girardin in the Revue des deux mondes (September 1853).
HOUDON, JEAN ANTOINE (1740–1828), French sculptor,
was born at Versailles on the 18th of March 1740. At the age
of twelve he entered the École royale de Sculpture, and at
twenty, having learnt all that he could from Michel Ange Slodtz
and Pigalle, he carried off the prix de Rome and left France for
Italy, where he spent the next ten years of his life. His brilliant
talent, which seems to have been formed by the influence of that
world of statues with which Louis XIV. peopled the gardens of
Versailles rather than by the lessons of his masters, delighted
Pope Clement XIV., who, on seeing the St Bruno executed
by Houdon for the church of St Maria degli Angeli, said “he
would speak, were it not that the rules of his order impose silence.”
In Italy Houdon had lived in the presence of that second
Renaissance with which the name of Winckelmann is associated,
and the direct and simple treatment of the Morpheus which he
sent to the Salon of 1771 bore witness to its influence. This
work procured him his “agrégation” to the Academy of Painting
and Sculpture, of which he was made a full member in 1775.
Between these dates Houdon had not been idle; busts of
Catharine II., Diderot and Prince Galitzin were remarked at the
Salon of 1773, and at that of 1775 he produced, not only his
Morpheus in marble, but busts of Turgot, Gluck (in which the
marks of small-pox in the face were reproduced with striking
effect) and Sophie Arnould as Iphigeneia (now in the Wallace
Collection, London), together with his well-known marble relief,
“Grive suspendue par les pattes.” He took also an active part
in the teaching of the academy, and executed for the instruction
of his pupils the celebrated Écorché still in use. To every Salon
Houdon was a chief contributor; most of the leading men of
the day were his sitters; his busts of d’Alembert, Prince Henry
of Prussia, Gerbier, Buffon (for Catharine of Russia) and Mirabeau
are remarkable portraits; and in 1778, when the news of
Rousseau’s death reached him, Houdon started at once for
Ermenonville, and there took a cast of the dead man’s face, from
which he produced the grand and life-like head now in the Louvre.
In 1779 his bust of Molière, at the Théâtre Français, won universal
praise, and the celebrated draped statue of Voltaire, in the
vestibule of the same theatre, was exhibited at the Salon of 1781,
to which Houdon also sent a statue of Marshal de Tourville, commissioned
by the king, and the Diana executed for Catharine II.
This work was refused; the jury alleged that a statue of Diana
demanded drapery; without drapery, they said, the goddess
became a “suivante de Vénus,” and not even the proud and
frank chastity of the attitude and expression could save the
Diana of Houdon (a bronze reproduction of which is in the
Louvre) from insult. Three years later he went to America, there
to carry out a statue of Washington. With Franklin, whose bust he
had recently executed, Houdon left France in 1785, and, staying
some time with Washington at Mount Vernon, he modelled
the bust, with which he decided to go back to Paris, there
to complete the statue destined for the capitol of the State
of Virginia. After his return to his native country Houdon
executed for the king of Prussia, as a companion to a statue of
Summer, La Frileuse, a naif embodiment of shivering cold,
which is one of his best as well as one of his best-known works.
The Revolution interrupted the busy flow of commissions, and
Houdon took up a half-forgotten project for a statue of St
Scholastica. He was immediately denounced to the convention,
and his life was only saved by his instant and ingenious adaptation
of St Scholastica into an embodiment of Philosophy. Under
Napoleon, of whom in 1806 he made a nude statue now at Dijon,
Houdon received little employment; he was, however, commissioned
to execute the colossal reliefs intended for the decoration
of the column of the “Grand Army” at Boulogne (which
ultimately found a different destination); he also produced a
statue of Cicero for the senate, and various busts, amongst
which may be cited those of Marshal Ney, of Josephine and of
Napoleon himself, by whom Houdon was rewarded with the
legion of honour. He died at Paris on the 16th of July 1828.
See memoir by Émile Délerot and Arsène Legrelle in Mémoires de la société des sciences morales . . . de Seine-et-Oise, iv. 49 et seq. (1857); Anatole de Montaiglon and Georges Duplessis in Revue universelle des arts, i. and ii. (1855–1856); Hermann Dierks, Houdons Leben und Werke (Gotha, 1887); Albert Terrade, Autour de la statue de Jean Houdon (Versailles, 1892); P. E. Mangeant, Sur une statuette de Voltaire par J. Houdon (Paris, 1896).
HOUFFALIZE, a small town occupying an elevated position
(nearly 1100 ft.) in the extreme south-east of the province of
Luxemburg, Belgium, much visited during the summer on
account of its fine bracing air. There are the ruins of an old
castle, and some remains of the still older abbey of Val Ste
Catherine. The parish church dates from the 13th or 14th
century. It contains two old black marble tombs to Thierry of
Houffalize and Henri his son, the latter killed at Woeringen in
1288. Houffalize is on the eastern Ourthe, and is connected
by a steam tramway with Bourcy on the line from Libramont
to Bastogne, Spa and Liége. Pop. (1904) 1486.
HOUGHTON, RICHARD MONCKTON MILNES, 1st Baron
(1809–1885), English poet and man of letters, son of Robert
Pemberton Milnes, of Fryston Hall, Yorkshire, and the Hon.
Henrietta Monckton, daughter of the fourth Lord Galway, was
born in London on the 19th of June 1809. He was educated
