the greatest of the rare class of great war ministers. French history can only point to Carnot as his equal. Both had to organize armies out of old material on a new system, both were admirable contrivers of campaigns, and both devoted themselves to the material well-being of the soldiers. In private life and in the means employed for gaining his ends, Louvois was unscrupulous and shameless. The principal authority for Louvois's life and times is Camille Rousset's _Histoire de Louvois_ (Paris, 1872), a great work founded on the 900 volumes of his despatches at the Depôt de la Guerre. Saint Simon from his class prejudices is hardly to be trusted, but Madame de Sévigné throws many side-lights on his times. _Testament politique de Louvois_ (1695) is spurious. LOUYS, PIERRE (1870- ), French novelist and poet, was born in Paris on the 10th of December 1870. When he was nineteen he founded a review, _La Conque_, which brought him into contact with the leaders of the Parnassians, and counted Swinburne, Maeterlinck, Mallarmé and others among its contributors. He won notoriety by his novel _Aphrodite_ (1896), which gave a vivid picture of Alexandrian morals at the beginning of the Christian era. His _Chansons de Bilitis, roman lyrique_ (1894), which purported to be a translation from the Greek, is a glorification of Sapphic love, which in subject-matter is objectionable in the highest degree; but its delicate decadent prose is typical of a modern French literary school, and some of the "songs" were set to music by Debussy and others. Later books are: _La Femme et le pantin_ (1898); _Les Aventures du roi Pausole_ (1900); _Sanguines_ (1903); _Archipel_ (1906). Louÿs married in 1899 Louise de Heredia, younger daughter of the poet.