Cavaignac
LOUIS EUGENE, a French general, born in Paris, Oct. 15, 1802. His father, Jean Baptiste Cavaimember of the Council of Five Hundred. Young Cavaignac in 1824 joined the 2d was a furious revolutionist and Regiment of Engineers, and 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. When the revolution of 1848 broke out Cavaignac was appointed Governor-General of Algeria; but on being elected a member of the Constituent Assembly he returned to Paris and was appointed Minister of War. At the outbreak of the June insurrection Cavaignac was appointed dictator, with unlimited powers. By the energy of Cavaignac, aided by the loyalty of the army and the National Guard, the insurrection was suppressed. Toward CAVAN line faction at Florence); but he himself seems to have had leanings toward the Guelph party; for, becoming too intimate with the followers of the Cerchi, he was banished (June 24, 1300), along with the others, to Sarzana. As a poet he was, until the coming of Dante, the head of that school of poetry which had been founded by Guinicelli of Bologna, a school which delighted in philosophical, mystical sentiment. His writings are confined chiefly to sonnets, canticles, and ballads. His best known poem is his canzone on the "Nature of Love."
Among his contemporaries his epicurean philosophy gained him suspicion of atheism. Cavalcanti's friendship with Dante, one of the most interesting things about his life, took the delightful form of exchange of sonnets; and to it we owe some of the most delicate work of both.
He died in Florence in 1300.