After a brilliant
career of thirty-five years of uninterrupted service, he retired in 1828.
But, after the revolution of 1830, when the Theatre Francais was in great
straits, the brothers Baptiste came to the rescue, reappeared on the stage
and helped to bring back its prosperity. The elder died in Paris on the 1st
of December 1835. The younger brother, Paul Eustache Anselme, known as
BAPTISTE _cadet_ (1765-1839), was also a comedian of great talent, and had
a long and brilliant career at the Comedie Francaise, where he made his
_debut_ in 1792 in _L'Amour et l'interet_.

BAPTISTERY (_Baptisterium_, in the Greek Church [Greek: photisterion]), the
separate hall or chapel, connected with the early Christian Church, in
which the catechumens were instructed and the sacrament of baptism
administered. The name baptistery is also given to a kind of chapel in a
large church, which serves the same purpose. The baptistery proper was
commonly a circular building, although sometimes it had eight and sometimes
twelve sides, and consisted of an ante-room ([Greek: proaulios oikos])
where the catechumens were instructed, and where before baptism they made
their confession of faith, and an inner apartment where the sacrament was
administered. In the inner apartment the principal object was the baptismal
font ([Greek: kolumbethra], or _piscina_), in which those to be baptized
were immersed thrice. Three steps led down to the floor of the font, and
over it was suspended a gold or silver dove; while on the walls were
commonly pictures of the scenes in the life of John the Baptist. The font
was at first always of stone, but latterly metals were often used.
Baptisteries belong to a period of the church when great numbers of adult
catechumens were baptized, and when immersion was the rule. We find little
or no trace of them before Constantine made Christianity the state
religion, _i.e._ before the 4th century; and as early as the 6th century
the baptismal font was built in the porch of the church and then in the
church itself. After the 9th century few baptisteries were built, the most
noteworthy of later date being those at Pisa, Florence, Padua, Lucca and
Parma. Some of the older baptisteries were very large, so large that we
hear of councils and synods being held in them. It was necessary to make
them large, because in the early Church it was customary for the bishop to
baptize all the catechumens in his diocese (and so baptisteries are
com