BEPPU, bip'poo, Japan, a bathing place and seaport on the Islaud of Kiushiu, famed for its hot allcaline baths. It is seven miles by rail from Oita. There is a sanatorium for consump tive railway employees. Beppu is also a port of call for steamers.
BEFtANE, formerly a TurIcish town in the vilayet of Kossova, which came into the possession of Serbia after the Balkan wars. After the invasion of Serbia by the Austro German and Bulgarian armies in 1915 it re verted to the Bulgarians under whose jurisdic tion it now is. It was the scene of some of the heaviest fighting between the Turks and the Serbians during the First Balkan War. In October 1912 it was stormed by the Montene grins and by them occupied. The population is almost entirely Slavic, only a small percent age being Turkish.
BgRANGER, Pierre Jean de, pe-ar zhOn de, national poet of France: b. Paris, 19 Aug. 1780; d. there, 16 July 1857. His father was a restless and scheming man, and young Beranger, left in a great measure to himself, ran a great chance of spending his life as a gamin and vagabond in the streets of Paris. A few days after the destruction of the bastille he was conveyed to Peronne and placed under the charge of an aunt who kept a tavern, and to whom for a time he acted as waiter. At the age of 14 he was apprenticed to M. Laisnez, a printer in Peronne, but after remaining in that employment for some time, was suddenly summoned to Paris by his father, who wished his assistance. The improvidence and prodi gality of his father was constantly involving them in difficulties, and Beranger, with as yet no settled vocation in life, was enduring all the hardships and privation which men of genius in a similar position to himself have frequently had to encounter before the recog nition of their talents. He had now, besides malcing an unsuccessful attempt in the drama, produced a number of poems, including his 'Roger Bontemps,) (Le Grenier,) (Les Gueux' and (Le Vieil Habit.) Some of these were sent by him in 1804 to Lucien Bonaparte, in the hope thereby of obtaining some patronage or assistance. In this, probably the only appli cation he ever made for aid in the course of a long life, Beranger was not disappointed. Lucien sent for him, encouraged him to proceed in poetical career and made over to him his own income as member of the French In stitute. He was afterward employed in editing the Annales du Mush', and in 1809 received an appointment as clerk in the office of the secre tary to the university. Many of his songs had now become extremely popular and in 1815 the first collection of them was published. A second collection was published in 1821, but Beranger had made hiniself extremely obnox ious to the Bourbon gorvernment by his satires on the established order of things; and in addi tion to being dismissed frotn his office in the university, he was prosecuted and sentenced to three months' imprisonment and a fine of 500 francs. A third collection appeared in 1825,
and a fourth in 1828, which last publication subjected him to a second state prosecution, an• imprisonment of nine months, and a fine of 10,000 francs. Nothing, however, could daunt his spirit, and in prison he sull con tinued to busy himself in the composition of his songs and lyrical satires upon government. In 1833 he published his fifth and last collec tion, which contains some of the most power ful effusions of his genius. He VraS elected to the Constituent Assembly of the Second Republic, took his seat, and soon after re signed. He refused all honors from the Second Empire. The concluding years of his life were spent in a dignified retirement and he received the honor of a public funeral, which the most eminent men of France, both of the world of literature and politics, attended.
The great attraction of Beranger's songs is the unequaled grace and sprightliness which they display, combined with great descriptive powers, much comic humor, and occasional bursts of indignation and invective when some social or political grievance is denounced They are sometimes also, it must be admitted, marked by a tendency to levity and looseness of morals, but in this respect they partake emi nently of the French character. No one, in deed, was more thoroughly Freuch than Beranger, and the glory of his beloved patrie, as paramount to all other considerations, ap pears constantly as the inspiring genius of his poetry. The intense nationality of his songs constitutes one of their principal charms, and in this respect he bears some resemblance to Thomas Moore. He has sometimes been called the Burns of France, but though like him essen tially a poet of the people, he falls far beneath the pathos and depth of feeling displayed by the Ayrshire Bard in depicting the passion of love. In private life Beranger was the most amiable and benevolent of men, beloved by his friends alike for his social qualities and kindli ness of heart, while his charities were so numerous and extensive as often to exceed the bounds of prudence. Consult Boiteau, Paul, (Vie de Beranger) (5 vols. 1860-61); Brunetiere, (Poisie lyriquel (Paris 1894); Janin, (Beranger et son temps' (1866); Sainte Beuve, (Portraits contemporains' ; Nivalet, (Souvenirs historiques et etude analytique sur Beranger et son ceuvre) (Paris 1892) ; Peyrat, (Beranger et Lamennais) (1861),