alion to command them. In May 1793 he
was charged with the suppression of the disturbances in the Jura, which
he quelled without bloodshed. Under Pichegru he took part in the Rhine
campaign of that year as a brigade commander, and at Weissenburg and in
the Palatinate won the warm commendation of Lazare Hoche. At Fleurus his
stubborn fighting in the centre of the field contributed greatly to
Jourdan's victory. In the subsequent campaigns he commanded the left
wing of the French armies on the Rhine between Neuwied and Dusseldorf,
and took a great part in all the successful and unsuccessful expeditions
to the Lahn and the Main. In 1798 Championnet was named
commander-in-chief of the "army of Rome" which was protecting the infant
Roman republic against the Neapolitan court and the British fleet.
Nominally 32,000 strong, the army scarcely numbered 8000 effectives,
with a bare fifteen cartridges per man. The Austrian general Mack had a
tenfold superiority in numbers, but Championnet so well held his own
that he ended by capturing Naples itself and there setting up the
Parthenopean Republic. But his intense earnestness and intolerance of
opposition soon embroiled him with the civilians, and the general was
recalled in disgrace. The following year, however, saw him again in the
field as commander-in-chief of the "army of the Alps." This, too, was at
first a mere paper force, but after three months' hard work it was able
to take the field. The campaign which followed was uniformly
unsuccessful, and, worn out by the unequal struggle, Championnet died at
Antibes on the 9th of January 1800. In 1848 a statue was erected in his
honour at Valence.

See A.R.C. de St Albin, _Championnet, ou les Campagnes de Hollande, de
Rome et de Naples_ (Paris, 1860).

CHAMPLAIN, SAMUEL DE (1567-1635), French explorer, colonial pioneer and
first governor of French Canada, was born at Brouage, a small French
port on the Bay of Biscay, in 1567. His father was a sea captain, and
the boy was early skilled in seamanship and navigation. He entered the
army of Henry IV., and served in Brittany under Jean d'Aumont, Francois
de St Luc and Charles de Brissac. When the army of the League was
disbanded he accompanied his uncle, who had charge of the ships in which
the Spanish allies were conveyed home, and on reaching Cadiz secured
(1599) the command of one of the vessels about to make an expedition to
the West Indies. He was gone over two years, visit