chat Any of several species of songbird named for their harsh, chattering notes. True chats (chat-thrushes) make up a major division of the thrush family (Turdidae). Australian chats (usually placed in the family Maluridae), which inhabit scrubby open lands, are about 5 in. (13 cm) long. The yellow-breasted chat (Icte- ria virens, family Parulidae) of North America is the largest wood warbler (7.5 in., or 19 cm, long). Greenish gray above and bright yellow below, with white “spectacles,” it hides in
thickets but may perch in the open to Yellow-breasted chat (Icteric virens) utter its mewing, churring, and whis- ron austing-bruce coleman inc. tling sounds. See also redstart.
Chateaubriand \sha-to-bre-'a n \, viscount of (b. Sept. 4, 1768, Saint-Malo, France—d. July 4, 1848, Paris) French author and statesman. A cavalry officer at the start of the French Revolution, he refused to join the Royalists and instead sailed to the U.S., where he traveled with fur traders. On Louis XVI’s fall he returned to join the Royalist army. A tala (1801), part of an unfinished epic, drew on his travels in the U.S. The Genius of Christianity (1802), which asserted the value of Chris¬ tianity on the basis of its poetic and artistic appeal, influenced many Romantic writers and brought him briefly into favour with Napoleon. With the 1814 Restoration he became a major political figure. Other works include the novel Rene (1805) and his memoirs (6 vol., 1849-50), perhaps his most lasting monument. He was the preeminent French writer of his day.
(Francois-Auguste-) Rene,
Viscount de Chateaubriand, detail of an oil painting by Girodet-Trioson; in the National Museum of Versailles and the Trianons, France.
CLICHE MUSEES NATIONAUX
Chateauguay \'sha-t9-ge\, Bat¬ tle of (Oct. 26, 1813) Engagement in the War of 1812, in which the British compelled a U.S. force to abandon an attack on Montreal. An advance unit of 1,500 men from an invading U.S. force of about 4,000 troops under Wade Hampton was stopped at Chateauguay, Que., by Brit¬ ish troops (most of them French Canadians) who occupied the woods along the riverbank. The battle was followed by the withdrawal of the U.S. force from Canada.
Chatham, Earl of See William Pin, the Elder
Chatham Strait Vchat- 3 m\ Narrow passage, North Pacific Ocean. Extending off southeastern Alaska 150 mi (240 km) between the Admi-
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380 I Chattahoochee River ► Chavez
ralty and Kuiu islands on the east and the Chicagof and Baranof islands on the west, it is 3-10 mi (5-16 km) wide. It forms part of the Inside Pas¬ sage between Alaska and Washington state.
Chattahoochee River \ 1 cha-t3- , hii-che\ River, southeastern U.S. Ris¬ ing in northeastern Georgia, it flows southwest to the Alabama border and then south, forming a section of the Alabama-Georgia and Georgia- Florida boundaries, to join the Flint River at Chattahoochee, Fla., after a course of about 436 mi (702 km). Dammed at the Georgia-Florida bor¬ der, it forms Lake Seminole, below which the river is known as the Apalachicola River.
Chattanooga City (pop., 2000: 155,554) and port of entry, southeast¬ ern Tennessee, U.S. Lying on the Tennessee River between Missionary Ridge to the east and Lookout Mountain to the southwest, it was estab¬ lished as a trading post (Ross’s Landing) in 1815. Renamed Chattanooga in 1838, it developed as a river port. A strategic Confederate communi¬ cations point in the American Civil War, it was a major objective of the Union armies, with fighting culminating in the Battles of Chickamauga and Chattanooga (1863).
Chattanooga, Battle of (Nov. 23-25, 1863) Decisive engagement of the American Civil War. The battle was fought at Chattanooga, Tenn., a vital railroad junction. A Confederate army under Braxton Bragg besieged a Union army in September 1863, and to lift the siege, Union troops under Ulysses S. Grant marched on Bragg’s troops. At battles on Lookout Moun¬ tain and Missionary Ridge, the Union troops forced the Confederate army to retreat. With this victory, the North was poised to split the South hori¬ zontally by marching across Georgia to the sea. See also Battle of Chicka¬ mauga.
Chatterjee \'chat-or-je\, Bankim Chandra orig. Bankim Chan¬ dra Cattopadhyay (b. June 26/27, 1838, near Naihati, Bengal, India—d. April 8, 1894, Calcutta) Indian novelist. Chatterjee was edu¬ cated in Calcutta (now Kolkata) and served as a deputy magistrate in civil service for many years. His first notable Bengali work was Daughter of the Lord of the Fort (1865). His epoch-making newspaper, Bangadarsan, serialized some of his later works. Though his novels were considered structurally faulty, his contemporaries saw him as a prophet, and his val¬ iant Hindu heroes aroused great pride and patriotism. He helped create the Indian school of fiction and established Bengali prose as a literary language. Chatterjee is considered the greatest Bengali novelist.
Chatterton, Thomas (b. Nov. 20, 1752, Bristol, Gloucestershire, Eng.—d. Aug. 24, 1770, London) English poet. At age 11 Chatterton wrote a pastoral eclogue on an old parchment and passed it off success¬ fully as a 15th-century work. Thereafter he created more poems in a simi¬ lar vein, attributing them to a fictitious monk he called Thomas Rowley. After a mock suicide threat freed him from an apprenticeship to an attor¬ ney, he set out for London. There he had some success with a comic opera, The Revenge , but when a prospective patron died, he found himself pen¬ niless and without prospects and committed suicide at 17. Considered a precursor of Romanticism, he was praised by such poets as Samuel Taylor Coleridge, John Keats, Lord Byron, and William Wordsworth.
Chaucer Vcho-ssrV Geoffrey (b. c. 1342/43, London?, Eng.—d. Oct. 25, 1400, London) English poet. Of middle-class birth, he was a courtier, diplomat, and civil servant, trusted by three kings in his active and varied career, and a poet only by avocation. His first important poem. Book of the Duchesse (1369/70), was a dream vision elegy for the duchess of Lan¬ caster. In the 1380s he produced mature works, including The Parliament of Fowls, a dream vision for St. Valentine’s Day about a conference of birds choosing their mates; the fine tragic verse romance Troilus and Cri- seyde; and the unfinished dream vision Legend of Good Women. His best- known work, the unfinished Canterbury Tales (written 1387-1400), is an intricate dramatic narrative that employs a pilgrimage to the shrine of St. Thomas Becket in Canterbury as a framing device for a highly varied col¬ lection of stories; not only the most famous literary work in Middle English, it is one of the finest works of English literature. In this and other works Chaucer established the southern English dialect as England’s lit¬ erary language, and he is regarded as the first great English poet.
Chaumette \sho-'met\, Pierre-Gaspard (b. May 24, 1763, Nevers, France—d. April 13, 1794, Paris) French Revolutionary leader. In 1791 he signed the petition that demanded the abdication of Louis XVI. As procurator-general of the Paris Commune from 1792, he instituted such social reforms as improved hospital conditions. Strenuously anti-Catholic
and a misogynist, he promoted the anti-Christian cult of the goddess Rea¬ son and banned women’s participation in political demonstrations. He was executed during the Reign of Terror because of his democratic extremism.
Chaumont \shd-'mo n . Treaty of (1814) Treaty signed by Austria, Prussia, Russia, and Britain binding them to defeat Napoleon. The Brit¬ ish foreign secretary Viscount Castlereagh played a leading part in nego¬ tiating the treaty, by which the signatories undertook not to negotiate separately, and promised to continue the struggle until Napoleon was overthrown. The treaty tightened allied unity and made provision for a durable European settlement.