charmingly picturesque,
with mountain, forest, and river (numerous tributaries of the Rhone); has
excellent grazing lands; grows the vine abundantly, besides the usual
cereals; the people are industrious and thrifty, but for the most part
poor. Aix-les-Bains, Evian, and Challes are popular watering-places.
Chambery was the old capital.

SAVOY, HOUSE OF, an ancient royal house of Europe (represented now
by the king of Italy), whose territorial possessions were constituted a
county of the empire in the 12th century under the name Savoy; was
created a duchy in the 15th century. By the treaty of Utrecht (1713) the
island of Sicily was ceded to Savoy and the title of king bestowed upon
the duke; in 1720 Victor Amadeus II. was forced to cede Sicily to Austria
in exchange for Sardinia, which with Savoy and Piedmont, &c., constituted
the kingdom of Sardinia till its dissolution in 1860, when Savoy was
ceded to France and the remaining portion merged in the new Italian
kingdom under Victor Emmanuel.

SAVOY, THE, a district of the Strand, London, in which a palace was
built in 1245 called of the Savoy, in which John of France was confined
after his capture at Poitiers; was burnt at the time of the Wat Tyler
insurrection, but rebuilt in 1505 as a hospital; it included a chapel,
which was damaged by fire in 1864, but restored by the Queen.

SAXE, MAURICE, marshal of France, natural son of Augustus II., king
of POLAND (q. v.) distinguished himself under various war
captains, Marlborough and Prince Eugene in particular, and eventually
entered the service of France; commanding in the War of the Austrian
Succession he took Prague and Egra, and was made a marshal, and appointed
to the command of the army of Flanders, in which he gained victories and
captured fortresses, and was thereafter loaded with honours by Louis XV.;
was one of the strongest and most dissolute men of his age; died of
dropsy, the result of his debaucheries (1698-1750).

SAXE-COBURG, DUKE OF, second son of the Queen, Duke of Edinburgh;
married a daughter of Alexander II., czar of Russia; succeeded to the
dukedom in 1893; retains his annuity as an English prince of L10,000;
_b_. 1844.

SAXE-WEIMAR, AMALIA, DUCHESS OF, was of the Guelph family, and
married to the duke, and in two years was left a widow and in government
of the duchy, attracting to her court all the literary notabilities of
the day, Goethe the chief, till in 1775 she resigned her authori