URFE, n' (156S-1625). A French pastoral romancer, born in :Marseilles of noble family. Errfi. was educated for the Church. but married his sister-in-law, Diane de Chateau mourand (1600). On the fall of the League he withdrew to Savoy and began to write in the pastoral style suggested by the Spanish 21 m adis de Gaul, which had been translated into French at the instigation of Francis I. (1540-48), and by the Greek pastoral romances which were ren dered into French early in the sixteenth century. Fiction of this character had made a timid ap pearance in France before Urfa. for instance, in Fumle's rray el parfait amour (1599). It had already acquired its great masterpieces in Italy (Poliziano's Orfea, 1471 or 1472; Sating zaro's ,Ireadia: Tasso's Aminta, 1573; Ouarini's Pastor Pith). 1590), in England (Spenser's Shep herd's Calendar, 1570), and in Spain (Monte mayor's Diana, 1542; Gil Polo's Diana En amorada, 1564, and Cervantes's (lalatea, 1581). All these romances were popular in Primee, but Urft's Astree was the first that became a sort of social breviary for a generation. It is a novel of 5155 pages. Its first two volumes appeared in 1610, the third in 1619, the posthumous fourth and fifth in 1627, with other unofficial continua tions. Of this interminable treatise on the verb aimcr, Urfe borrows his pastoral scenes from the Diana, his warlike episodes from .Amnadis, and from the Greeks and Latins some episodes and much of his story-telling art; but he is superior to them all in character-drawing, in good humor, and in the higher social aim of his work. In the subtle differentiation of his lovers, Urfe is a not uni)orthy forerunner of Racine and Alarivaux, unapproaehed by any novelist of his century but Madame de Lafayette. Urfim was a sort of real istic idealist: be chose the scene of his own birth, the banks of the Lignon, for the scene of his novel, and his conversations are lively, far beyond the wont of his time. His aim throughout is
the refinement of society, and here its influence is hard to overestimate. The Motet de Ram bonillet seems to have been organized in its imitation. Astree's popularity was astounding. Bishops like Camus, saints like Francis de Sales, joined with realistic novelists like Sorel to sound the praise of this 'exquisite work.' La. Fontaine, the scholarly Duet, the sprightly Fontanelle, the cynic La Roehefoueauld, all rejoiced in it. For two generations it was an accepted book of reference on deportment and breeding. In many, in 1624, a princely and aristocratic coterie, on organizing an Academie des rrais amants, assumed the names of the characters of the Astree.
Consult: Bonafous, Etude stir l'Astree et sur H. d'Urfd (Paris, 1846) ; Korting. Geselviehte des fmnzilsischen Romans ins _Men Jahrhundert, vol. i. (Oppeln, 1885).
URGA, (Chin. K'ulan). The capital of Northern Mongolia, situated on the Tola River and the highway leading from Kiakhta (q.v.) to Peking. 175 miles south of Kiakhta (Map: China, C 2). It consists of the Mongolian town, inhabited mostly by lamas, and of the Chinese town, a few miles distant, where the Chinese and Russian merchants live. In the Mongolian town is situated the residence of the head of the Lamaist Church in Mongolia. There are also numerous temples surrounded by the houses of the lamas. In the Temple of Maidary is a colossal gilt statue of that divinity, over 33 feet high. During the religious festivals the town is visited by great numbers of pilgrims. Popula tion, 30,000. including about 10.000 lamas.