CAVAIGNAC, Louis Engine, French gen eral: b. Paris, 15 Oct. 1802; d. 28 Oct. 1857. His father, Jean Baptiste Cavaignac (q.v.), was a furious revolutionist, and member of the Council of Five Hundred. Young Cavaignac entered the Ecole Polytechnique in 1820, and afterward the military school at Metz, and in 1824 joined the 2d regiment of engineers. He served in the campaign in the Morea, and in 1829 was appointed captain. Being at Arras on the outbreak of the revolution of 1830 he was the first officer in his regiment to declare for the new order of things. In 1832 he was sent to Africa, where he remained for several years, and greatly distinguished himself in defending the French settlement against the Arabs and by his judicious organization of military hospitals, barracks and works of defense. In 1844 he received the appointment of brigadier-general, with the government of the province of Oran in Algeria. Cavaignac was in Africa when the revolution of February 1848 took place. In March of that year he was created by the pro visional government general of division and governor of Algeria. Shortly afterward the office of Minister of War was offered to him, but declined. On 23 April he was chosen repre sentative of the department of Lot in the Na tional Assembly, and proceeding to Paris to take his seat arrived there on 17 May. The capital was then in a state of great excite ment from an attempt on the assembly by the Red Republicans two days before. Cavaignac was offered again the portfolio of the Minister of War, and this time accepted it. The meas ures which he adopted to guard against the crisis which was evidently approaching were prompt and decisive. In a few days an army of nearly 30,000 men was assembled in and around Paris, and this precaution was speedily justified by the events which followed. On 23 June, at 11 o'clock A.m., the terrible Com munist insurrection burst forth, and for three days Paris presented the most dreadful scene of tumult and bloodshed which had been wit nessed there since the massacre of Saint Bar tholomew. About 15,000 persons perished, and
property was destroyed to the value of upward of $1,000,000. By the energy of General Cavaig nac aided by the loyalty of the army and the national guard, the insurrection was suppressed on 26 June. On that day the National Assembly delegated the entire executive power to Cavaig nac as dictator, who resigned it again into its hands on the 29th, and received it anew on the same day, with an acknowledgment by the legislative body of the services rendered by him to his country. Notwithstanding these he was defeated in the elections for the presidency in the month of December following, and Louis Napoleon was preferred to the office. On 20 December he resigned his dictatorship. After the coup &Etat of 2 Dec. 1851, he was arrested and conveyed to the fortress of Ham, but was liberated after about a month's detention. In 1852 and in 1857 he was elected member for Paris of the legislative body, but on both oc casions was incapacitated from taking his seat by refusing to take the oath of allegiance to the Emperor. The last years of his life were spent at his country-seat in the department of Sarthe. Consult Montfort, 'Biographic du gen eral Cavaignac' (1848); Deschamps, 'Vie de Cavaignac' (1870).
Aris tide, French organ builder: b. Montpellier, 2 Feb. 1811; d. Paris, 13 Oct. 1899. He built the organs in the Parisian churches of Saint Sulpice, the Madeleine, etc., invented the pressure method for sounding tones of different depths and heights. His writings include a 'Projet d'orgue monumental pour la basilique de Saint Pierre de Rome' (1875). Consult Lefebvre, 'Le grand orgue de l'eglise Saint-Michel du Havre) (Havre 1:4:•:). an account of a work executed by Cavaille-Coll in 1887-89.