ch he completed was his
"Philoctetus on the Island of Lemnos." He died on the 15th of July
1788. A monument to his memory was erected by his fellow-students in the
church of Santa Maria in the Via Lata.

DROUET, JEAN BAPTISTE (1763-1824), French Revolutionist, chiefly noted
for the part he played in the arrest of Louis XVI. at Varennes, was born
at Sainte-Menehould. He served for seven years in the army, and
afterwards assisted his father, who was post-master of his native town.
The carriages conveying the royal family on their flight to the frontier
stopped at his door on the evening of the 21st of June 1791; and the
passengers, travelling under assumed names, were recognized by Drouet,
who immediately took steps which led to their arrest and detection on
reaching Varennes. For this service the Assembly awarded him 30,000
francs, but he appears to have declined the reward. In September 1792 he
was elected deputy to the Convention, and took his place with the most
violent party. He voted the death of the king without appeal, showed
implacable hostility to the Girondins, and proposed the slaughter of all
English residents in France. Sent as commissioner to the army of the
north, he was captured at the siege of Maubeuge and imprisoned at
Spielberg till the close of 1795. He then became a member of the Council
of Five Hundred, and was named secretary. Drouet was implicated in the
conspiracy of Babeuf, and was imprisoned; but he made his escape into
Switzerland, and thence to Teneriffe. There he took part in the
successful resistance to the attempt of Nelson on the island, in 1797,
and later visited India. The first empire found in him a docile
sub-prefect of Sainte-Menehould. After the second Restoration he was
compelled to quit France. Returning secretly he settled at Macon, under
the name of Merger and a guise of piety, and preserved his incognito
till his death on the 11th of April 1824.

See G. Lenotre, _Le Drame de Varennes_ (Paris, 1905).

DROWNING AND LIFE SAVING. To "drown" (a verb used both transitively and
intransitively, of which the origin, though traced to earlier forms, is
unknown) is to suffer or inflict death by submersion in water, or
figuratively to submerge entirely in water or some other liquid. As a
form of ancient capital punishment, the method of drowning is referred
to at the end of this article, but the interest of the subject is mainly
associated with rescue-work in cases of accide