Henri Leys, Hendrik Leys or Jan August Hendrik, Baron Leys (18 February 1815 – 26 August 1869) was a Belgian painter and printmaker. He was a leading representative of the historical or Romantic school in Belgian art and became a pioneer of the Realist movement in Belgium. His history and genre paintings and portraits earned him a European-wide reputation and his style was influential on artists in and outside Belgium.
Alexandrine "Alexine" Pieternella Françoise Tinne (17 October 1835 – 1 August 1869) was a Dutch explorer in Africa who was the first European woman to attempt to cross the Sahara. She was an early photographer.
Louis Hyacinthe Bouilhet (27 May 1821 – 18 July 1869) was a French poet and dramatist.
Bouilhet was born in Cany, Seine Inférieure. He was a schoolfellow of Gustave Flaubert, to whom he dedicated his first work, Melaenis, conte romain (1851), a narrative poem in five cantos dealing with Roman manners under the emperor Commodus. His volume of poems Fossiles attracted considerable attention for being an attempt to make science a subject for poetry. These poems were also included in his Festons et astragales (1859).
As a dramatist he was successful with his first play, Madame de Monlarcy (1856), which ran for 28 nights at the Odéon; Hélène Peyron (1858) and L'Oncle Million (1860) were also favorably received. Of his other plays, only Conjuration d'Amboise (1866) met with any real success.
Bouilhet died on 18 July 1869, at Rouen. Flaubert published his posthumous poems with a notice by the author in 1872.
Bouilhet was Flaubert's mentor and guide; Flaubert never wrote anything without his advice. A few months after Bouilhet's death in 1869, Flaubert wrote about his old friend, "When I lost my poor Bouilhet, I lost my midwife, the man who saw more clearly into my mind than I did myself." According to Starkie, Maxime Du Camp, who knew Bouilhet and Flaubert well, said of the two authors, "It was Bouilhet who was the master, in the matter of literature at least, and that it was Flaubert who obeyed." Throughout their lives, Flaubert referred to Bouilhet as "Monseigneur."
Adolphe Niel (4 October 1802 – 13 August 1869) was a French Army general and statesman.
He was born at Muret, Haute-Garonne and entered the École Polytechnique in 1821. Niel entered the engineer school at Metz, became lieutenant in the Engineers Corps in 1827, and captain in 1833. He fought in the French conquest of Algeria, participating in the storming of Constantine. There Niel led the engineer detachment with one of the storming parties, and his conduct gained for him the rank of chef de bataillon in 1837. Niel was promoted to lieutenant colonel in 1840 and to colonel in 1846. His next war service was as chief of staff to General Vaillant during the 1849 siege of Rome, after which he was made general of brigade and director of engineer services at headquarters.In 1851, Niel became a member of the Committee of Fortifications. He became a member of the council of state in 1852 and in 1853 was promoted to general of division. In the first part of the Crimean War, Niel was employed in the expedition to the Baltic Sea and directed engineering operations against Bomarsund. Early in 1855 Niel was sent to the Crimea, where he succeeded General Michel Bizot as chief of engineers. For some years Niel had been the most trusted military adviser of Napoleon III, and he was now empowered to advise the generals on the spot in accordance with the wishes of the sovereign and the home government.Niel managed to carry out this delicate and difficult task with as much success as could be expected, and he directed siege operations at the Battle of Malakoff. His reward was the grand cross of the Légion d'honneur. From 1855 to 1859 Niel was employed at headquarters and also served in the French Senate. In the war against the Austrians, Niel commanded the IV Corps and took part in the Battle of Magenta and the Battle of Solferino. Niel was made a marshal of France on the field at Solferino.After he served for some years in a home command, Niel became minister of war and held the position from 1867 to 1869. In this capacity he drafted and began to carry out a far-reaching scheme of army reform, based on universal service and the automatic creation of large reserves which needed only time to mature. Under his system, those men who had purchased exemption from conscription into the army would nonetheless be called up into a new service, the Garde Mobile. He also was able to rearm the whole of the army with the chassepot rifle, but not the Garde Mobile. He did not live to complete the development of his system.Niel died in Paris during an operation for a bladder stone, and a year later the Franco-Prussian War destroyed the old imperial army upon which the new formations were to have been grafted.