appeared at the Théâtre Français. His gifts as a comedian gave him immediate and marked success, both with the public and with his fellow actors. He was the spokesman of his company on occasions of state, and in this capacity he frequently appeared before Louis XIV., who treated him with great favour. One of his most famous impersonations was Alceste in the Misanthrope of Molière. His first play, Le Notaire obligeant, produced in 1685, was well received. La Désolation des joueuses (1687) was still more successful. Le Chevalier à la mode (1687) is generally regarded as his best work, though his claim to original authorship in this and some other cases has been disputed. In Le Chevalier à la mode appears the bourgeoise infatuated with the desire to be an aristocrat. The type is developed in Les Bourgeoises à la mode (1692) and Les Bourgeoises de qualité (1700). Dancourt was a prolific author, and produced some sixty plays in all. Some years before his death he terminated his career both as an actor and as an author by retiring to his château at Courcelles le Roi, in Berry, where he employed himself in making a poetical translation of the Psalms and in writing a sacred tragedy. He died on the 7th of December 1725. The plays of Dancourt are faithful descriptions of the manners of the time, and as such have real historical value. The characters are drawn with a realistic touch that led to his being styled by Charles Palissot the Teniers of comedy. He is very successful in his delineation of low life, and especially of the peasantry. The dialogue is sparkling, witty and natural. Many of the incidents of his plots were derived from actual occurrences in the “fast” and scandalous life of the period, and several of his characters were drawn from well-known personages of the day. Most of the plays incline to the type of farce rather than of pure comedy. Voltaire defined his talent in the words: “Ce que Regnard était à l’égard de Molière dans la haute comédie, le comédien Dancourt l’était dans la farce.”
His two daughters, Manon and Marie Anne (Mimi), both obtained success on the stage of the Théâtre Français.
The complete works of Dancourt were published in 1760 (12 vols. 12mo). An edition of his Théâtre choisi, with a preface by F. Sarcey, appeared in 1884.
DANDELION (Taraxacum officinale), a perennial herb belonging
to the natural order Compositae. The plant has a wide range,
being found in Europe, Central Asia, North America, and the
Arctic regions, and also in the south temperate zone. The leaves
form a spreading rosette on the very short stem; they are smooth,
of a bright shining green, sessile, and tapering downwards. The
name dandelion is derived from the French dent-de-lion, an
appellation given on account of the tooth-like lobes of the leaves.
The long tap-root has a simple or many-headed rhizome; it is
black externally, and is very difficult of extirpation. The flower-stalks
are smooth, brittle, leafless, hollow, and very numerous.
The flowers bloom from April till August, and remain open from
five or six in the morning to eight or nine at night. The flower-heads
are of a golden yellow, and reach 11/2 to 2 in. in width;
the florets are all strap-shaped. The fruits are olive or dull
yellow in colour, and are each surmounted by a long beak, on
which rests a pappus of delicate white hairs, which occasions
the ready dispersal of the fruit by the wind; each fruit contains
one seed. The globes formed by the plumed fruits are nearly
two inches in diameter. The involucre consists of an outer
spreading (or reflexed) and an inner and erect row of bracts.
In all parts of the plant a milky juice is contained, which has a
somewhat complex composition. The chief constituent is
taraxacin, a neutral principle. In addition the juice contains
taraxacerin (derived from the former), asparagin, inulin, resins
and salts. An extract (dose 5-15 grains), a liquid extract (dose
1/2-1 drachm) and a succus (dose 1-2 drachms) of the root are all
used medicinally. For the purposes formerly recognized taraxacum
is now never used, but it has been shown to possess definite
cholagogue properties, and may therefore be prescribed along
with ammonium chloride in cases of hepatic constipation, which
it very constantly relieves. The root—which is the medicinal
product—is most bitter from March to July, but the milky juice
it contains is less abundant in the summer than in the autumn.
For this reason, the extract and succus are usually prepared
during the months of September and October. After a frost a
change takes place in the root, which loses its bitterness to a
large extent. In the dried state the root will not keep well,
being quickly attacked by insects. Externally it is brown and
wrinkled, internally white, with a yellow centre and concentric
paler rings. It is two inches to a foot long, and about a quarter
to half an inch in diameter. The leaves are bitter, but are sometimes
eaten as a salad; they serve as food for silkworms when
mulberry leaves are not to be had. The root is roasted as a
substitute for coffee. Several varieties of the dandelion are
recognized by botanists; they differ in the degree and mode of
cutting of the leaf-margin and the erect or spreading character
of the outer series of bracts. The variety palustre, which affects
boggy situations, and flowers in late summer and autumn, has
nearly entire leaves, and the outer bracts of its involucre are
erect.
 |
| Dandelion (Taraxacum officinale). |
| 1, Unopened head; 2, ripe head from which all the fruits except two have been removed; 3, one floret, enlarged; 4, one fruit. |
DANDOLO, the name of one of the most illustrious patrician
families of Venice, of which the earliest recorded member was
one of the electors of the first doge (A.D. 697). The Dandolo
gave to Venice four doges; of these the first and most famous was
Enrico Dandolo (c. 1120–1205), elected on the 1st of January
1193 (more Veneto, 1192). He had distinguished himself in various
military enterprises and diplomatic negotiations in the course of
an active career, and although over seventy years old and of
very weak sight (the story that he had been made blind by the
emperor Manuel Comnenus while he was at Constantinople is a
legend), he proved a most energetic and capable ruler. His first
care was to re-establish Venetian authority over the Dalmatians
who had rebelled with the king of Hungary’s protection, but he
failed to capture Zara, owing to the arrival of the Pisan fleet,
and although the latter was defeated by the Venetians, the undertaking
was suspended. In the meanwhile the situation in the
East was becoming critical. The Eastern emperor Isaac II.
Angelus had been deposed, imprisoned, and blinded by his
