COMITIA, constitutional assemblies of the Roman citizens for electing magistrates, putting some question to the vote of the people, the declaration of war, &c.

COMITY OF NATIONS, the name given for the effect given in one country to the laws and institutions of another in dealing with a native of it.

COMMANDITE, SOCIETE EN, partnership in a business by a supply of funds, but without a share in the management or incurring further liability.

COMMELIN, ISAAC, Dutch historian; wrote the “Lives of the
Stadtholders William I. and Maurice” (1598-1676).

COMMENTARIES OF JULIUS CAESAR, his memoirs of the Gallic and Civil Wars, reckoned the most perfect model of narration that in such circumstances was ever written, and a masterpiece.

COMMITTEE OF PUBLIC SAFETY, a committee of nine created by the French Convention, April 6, 1793, to concentrate the power of the executive, “the conscience of Marat, who could see salvation in one thing only, in the fall of 260,000 aristocrats’ heads”; notable, therefore, for its excesses in that line; was not suppressed till Oct. 19, 1796, on the advent of the Directory to power.

COM`MODUS, LUCIUS AURELIUS, Roman emperor, son and successor of Marcus Aurelius; carefully trained, but on his father’s death threw up the reins and gave himself over to every form of licentiousness; poison administered by his mistress Marcia being slow in operating, he was strangled to death by a hired athlete in 162.

COMMON LAW is law established by usage and confirmed by judicial decision.

COMMON-SENSE, PHILOSOPHY OF, the philosophy which rests on the principle that the perceptions of the senses reflect things as they actually are irrespectively of them.

COMMUNE, THE, a revolutionary power installed in Paris after the “admonitory” insurrection of March 18, 1871, and overthrown in the end of May.

COMMUNISM, community of property in a State.

COMNE`NUS, name of a dynasty of six emperors of Constantinople.

COMO, LAKE OF, one of the chief lakes of Lombardy and the third in size, at the foot of the Pennine Alps, 80 m. long and 21/2 at greatest breadth; is traversed by the Adda, and is famed for the beauty and rich variety of its scenery.

COMORIN, CAPE, a low sandy point, the most southerly of India, from which the seaman is beckoned off by a peak 18 m. inland.

COMORO ISLES (63), an archipelago of four volcanic islands at the N. of the channel of Mozambique; under the protectorate of France since 1886; the people are Mohammedans, and speak Arabic.

COMPARETTI, an Italian philologist; his writings are numerous; b. 1835.

COMPIEGNE (14), a quiet old town in the dep. of Oise, 50 m.  NE. of Paris; has some fine old churches, but the chief edifice is the palace, built by St. Louis and rebuilt by Louis XIV., where the marriage of Napoleon to Maria Louisa was celebrated; here Joan of Arc was made prisoner in 1430, and Louis Napoleon had hunting ground.