OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nott, Eliphalet

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​NOTT, ELIPHALET (1773–1866), American divine, was born on the 25th of June 1773 at Ashford, Connecticut. He was left an orphan without resources, but graduated in 1795 at Brown University. In 1804 he became president of Union College, Schenectady, New York, a position which he held till his death on the 29th of January 1866. He found the college financially embarrassed, but succeeded in placing it on a sound footing. He was known also as the inventor of the first stove for anthracite coal. His publications include sermons, Counsels to Young Men (1810), and Lectures on Temperance (1847).
Life by C. van Santvoord (ed. Tayler Lewis, 1876).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Nothomb, Jean Baptiste, Baron

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​NOTHOMB, JEAN BAPTISTE, Baron (1805–1881), Belgian statesman and diplomat, was born at Messancy in Luxemburg on the 3rd of July 1805. He was educated at the Athenaeum of Luxemburg and the university of Liége. He was in Luxemburg when the revolution of August broke out, but was nominated a member of the commission appointed to draw up the constitution. He was a member of the national congress, and became secretary-general of the ministry of foreign affairs under Surlet de Chokier. He supported the candidature of the duke of Nemours, and joined in the proposal to offer the crown to Prince Leopold of Saxe-Coburg, being one of the delegates sent to London. When the Eighteen Articles were replaced by the Twenty-four less favourable to Belgium, he insisted on the necessity of compliance, and in 1839 he faced violent opposition to support the territorial cessions in Limburg and Luxemburg, which had remained an open question so long as Holland refused to acknowledge the Twenty-four Articles. His Essai historique et politique sur la révolution belge (1838) won for him the praise of Palmerston and the cross of the Legion of Honour from Louis Philippe. In 1837 he became minister of public works, and to him was largely due the rapid development of the Belgian railway system, and the increase in the mining industry. In 1840 he was sent as Belgian envoy to the Germanic confederation, and in 1841, on the fall of the Lebeau ministry, he organized the new cabinet, reserving for himself the portfolio of minister of the interior. In 1845 he was defeated, and retired from parliamentary life, but he held a number of diplomatic appointments before his death at Berlin on the 6th of September 1881.
See T. juste, Souvenirs du baron Nothomb (Brussels, 1882).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lena

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​LENA, a river of Siberia, rising in the Baikal Mountains, on the W. side of Lake Baikal, in 54° 10′ N. and 107° 55′ E. Wheeling round by the S., it describes a semicircle, then flows N.N.E. and N.E., being joined by the Kirenga and the Vitim, both from the right; from 113° E. it flows E.N.E as far as Yakutsk (62° N., 127° 40′ E.), where it enters the lowlands, after being joined by the Olekma, also from the right. From Yakutsk it goes N. until joined by its right-hand affluent the Aldan, which deflects it to the north-west; then, after receiving its most important left-hand tributary, the Vilyui, it makes its way nearly due N. to the Nordenskjöld Sea, a division of the Arctic, disemboguing S.W. of the New Siberian Islands by a delta 10,800 sq. m. in area, and traversed by seven principal branches, the most important being Bylov, farthest east. The total length of the river is estimated at 2860 m. The delta arms sometimes remain blocked with ice the whole year round. At Yakutsk navigation is generally practicable from the middle of May to the end of October, and at Kirensk, at the confluence of the Lena and the Kirenga, from the beginning of May to about the same time. Between these two towns there is during the season regular steamboat communication. The area of the river basin is calculated at 895,500 sq. m. Gold is washed out of the sands of the Vitim and the Olekma, and tusks of the mammoth are dug out of the delta.
See G. W. Melville, In the Lena Delta (1885).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lenbach, Franz von

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​LENBACH, FRANZ VON (1836–1904), German painter, was born at Schrobenhausen, in Bavaria, on the 13th of December 1836. His father was a mason, and the boy was intended to follow his father’s trade or be a builder. With this view he was sent to school at Landsberg, and then to the polytechnic at Augsburg. But after seeing Hofner, the animal painter, executing ​some studies, he made various attempts at painting, which his father’s orders interrupted. However, when he had seen the galleries of Augsburg and Munich, he finally obtained his father’s permission to become an artist, and worked for a short time in the studio of Gräfle, the painter; after this he devoted much time to copying. Thus he was already accomplished in technique when he became the pupil of Piloty, with whom he set out for Italy in 1858. A few interesting works remain as the outcome of this first journey—“A Peasant seeking Shelter from Bad Weather” (1855), “The Goatherd” (1860, in the Schack Gallery, Munich), and “The Arch of Titus” (in the Palfy collection, Budapest). On returning to Munich, he was at once called to Weimar to take the appointment of professor at the Academy. But he did not hold it long, having made the acquaintance of Count Schack, who commissioned a great number of copies for his collection. Lenbach returned to Italy the same year, and there copied many famous pictures. He set out in 1867 for Spain, where he copied not only the famous pictures by Velasquez in the Prado, but also some landscapes in the museums of Granada and the Alhambra (1868). In the previous year he had exhibited at the great exhibition at Paris several portraits, one of which took a third-class medal. Thereafter he exhibited frequently both at Munich and at Vienna, and in 1900 at the Paris exhibition was awarded a Grand Prix for painting. Lenbach, who died in 1904, painted many of the most remarkable personages of his time.
See Berlepsch, “Lenbach,” Velhagen und Klasings Monatshefte (1891); Bégouen, Les Portraits de Lenbach à l’exposition de Munich (1899); K. Knackfuss, Lenbach, and Franz von Lenbach Bildnisse (1900).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lennep

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​LENNEP, a town of Germany, in the Prussian Rhine province, 18 m. E. of Düsseldorf, and 9 m. S. of Barmen by rail, at a height of 1000 ft. above the level of the sea. Pop. (1905) 10,323. It lies in the heart of one of the busiest industrial districts in Germany, and carries on important manufactures of the finer kinds of cloth, wool, yarn and felt, and also of iron and steel goods. It has an Evangelical and a Protestant church, a modern school and a well-equipped hospital. Lennep, which was the residence of the counts of Berg from 1226 to 1300, owes the foundation of its prosperity to an influx of Cologne weavers during the 14th century.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lennep, Jacob van

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​LENNEP, JACOB VAN (1802–1868), Dutch poet and novelist, was born on the 24th of March 1802 at Amsterdam, where his father, David Jacob van Lennep (1774–1853), a scholar and ​poet, was professor of eloquence and the classical languages in the Athenaeum. Lennep took the degree of doctor of laws at Leiden, and then settled as an advocate in Amsterdam. His first poetical efforts had been translations from Byron, of whom he was an ardent admirer, and in 1826 he published a collection of original Academische Idyllen, which had some success. He first attained genuine popularity by the Nederlandsche Legenden (2 vols., 1828) which reproduced, after the manner of Sir Walter Scott, some of the more stirring incidents in the early history of his fatherland. His fame was further raised by his patriotic songs at the time of the Belgian revolt, and by his comedies Het Dorp aan de Grenzen (1830) and Het Dorp over de Grenzen (1831), which also had reference to the political events of 1830. In 1833 he broke new ground with the publication of De Pleegzoon (The Adopted Son), the first of a series of historical romances in prose, which have acquired for him in Holland a position somewhat analogous to that of Sir Walter Scott in Great Britain. The series included De Roos van Dekama (2 vols., 1836), Onze Voorouders (5 vols., 1838), De Lotgevallen van Ferdinand Huyck (2 vols., 1840), Elizabeth Musch (3 vols., 1850), and De Lotgevallen van Klaasje Zevenster (5 vols., 1865), several of which have been translated into German and French, and two—The Rose of Dekama (1847) and The Adopted Son (New York, 1847)—into English. His Dutch history for young people (Voornaamste Geschiedenissen van Noord-Nederland aan mijne Kindern verhaald, 4 vols., 1845) is attractively written. Apart from the two comedies already mentioned, Lennep was an indefatigable journalist and literary critic, the author of numerous dramatic pieces, and of an excellent edition of Vondel’s works. For some years Lennep held a judicial appointment, and from 1853 to 1856 he was a member of the second chamber, in which he voted with the conservative party. He died at Oosterbeek near Arnheim on the 25th of August 1868.
There is a collective edition of his Poetische Werken (13 vols., 1859–1872), and also of his Romantische Werken (23 vols., 1855–1872). See also a bibliography by P. Knoll (1869); and Jan ten Brink, Geschiedenis der Noord-Nederlandsche Letteren in de XIX $^e$ Eeuw (No. iii.).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lenclos, Ninon de

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​LENCLOS, NINON DE (1615–1705), the daughter of a gentleman of good position in Touraine, was born in Paris in November 1615. Her long and eventful life divides into two periods, during the former of which she was the typical Frenchwoman of the gayest and most licentious society of the 17th century, during the latter the recognized leader of the fashion in Paris, and the friend of wits and poets. All that can be pleaded in defence of her earlier life is that she had been educated by her father in epicurean and sensual beliefs, and that she retained throughout the frank demeanour, and disregard of money, which won from Saint Évremond the remark that she was an honnête homme. She had a succession of distinguished lovers, among them being Gaspard de Coligny, the marquis d’Éstrées, La Rochefoucauld, Condé and Saint Évremond. Queen Christina of Sweden visited her, and Anne of Austria was powerless against her. After she had continued her career for a preposterous length of time, she settled down to the social leadership of Paris. Among her friends she counted Mme de la Sablière, Mme de la Fayette and Mme de Maintenon. It became the fashion for young men as well as old to throng round her, and the best of all introductions for a young man who wished to make a figure in society was an introduction to Mlle de Lenclos. Her long friendship with Saint Évremond must be briefly noticed. They were of the same age, and had been lovers in their youth, and throughout his long exile the wit seems to have kept a kind remembrance of her. The few really authentic letters of Ninon are those addressed to her old friend, and the letters of both in the last few years of their equally long lives are exceptionally touching, and unique in the polite compliments with which they try to keep off old age. If Ninon owes part of her posthumous fame to Saint Évremond, she owes at least as much to Voltaire, who was presented to her as a promising boy poet by the abbé de Chateauneuf. To him she left 2000 francs to buy books, and his letter on her was the chief authority of many subsequent biographers. Her personal appearance is, according to Sainte-Beuve, best described in Clélie, a novel by Mlle de Scudéry, in which she figures as Clarisse. Her distinguishing characteristic was neither beauty nor wit, but high spirits and perfect evenness of temperament.
The letters of Ninon published after her death were, according to Voltaire, all spurious, and the only authentic ones are those to Saint Évremond, which can be best studied in Dauxmesnil’s edition of Saint Évremond, and his notice on her. Sainte-Beuve has an interesting notice of these letters in the Causeries du Lundi, vol. iv. The Correspondance authentique was edited by E. Colombey in 1886. See also Helen K. Hayes, The Real Ninon de l’Enclos (1908); and Mary C. Rowsell, Ninon de l’Enclos and her century (1910).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lenfant, Jacques

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​LENFANT, JACQUES (1661–1728), French Protestant divine, was born at Bazoche in La Beauce on the 13th of April 1661, son of Paul Lenfant, Protestant pastor at Bazoche and afterwards at Châtillon-sur-Loing until the revocation of the edict of Nantes, when he removed to Cassel. After studying at Saumur and Geneva, Lenfant completed his theological course at Heidelberg, where in 1684 he was ordained minister of the French Protestant church, and appointed chaplain to the dowager electress palatine. When the French invaded the Palatinate in 1688 Lenfant withdrew to Berlin, as in a recent book he had vigorously attacked the Jesuits. Here in 1689 he was again appointed one of the ministers of the French Protestant church; this office he continued to hold until his death, ultimately adding to it that of chaplain to the king, with the dignity of Consistorialrath. He visited Holland and England in 1707, preached before Queen Anne, and, it is said, was invited to become one of her chaplains. He was the author of many works, chiefly on church history. In search of materials he visited Helmstädt in 1712, and Leipzig in 1715 and 1725. He died at Berlin on the 7th of August 1728.
An exhaustive catalogue of his publications, thirty-two in all, will be found in J. G. de Chauffepié’s Dictionnaire. See also E. and S. Haag’s France Protestante. He is now best known by his Histoire du concile de Constance (Amsterdam, 1714; 2nd ed., 1728; English trans., 1730). It is of course largely dependent upon the laborious work of Hermann von der Hardt (1660–1746), but has literary merits peculiar to itself, and has been praised on all sides for its fairness. It was followed by Histoire du concile de Pise (1724), and (posthumously) by Histoire de la guerre des Hussites et du concile de Basle (Amsterdam, 1731; German translation, Vienna, 1783–1784). Lenfant was one of the chief promoters of the Bibliothèque Germanique, begun in 1720; and he was associated with Isaac Beausobre (1659–1738) in the preparation of the new French translation of the New Testament with original notes, published at Amsterdam in 1718.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lemprière, John

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​LEMPRIÈRE, JOHN (c. 1765–1824), English classical scholar, was born in Jersey, and educated at Winchester and Pembroke College, Oxford. He is chiefly known for his Bibliotheca Classica or Classical Dictionary (1788), which, edited by various later scholars, long remained a readable if not very trustworthy reference book in mythology and classical history. In 1792, after holding other scholastic posts, he was appointed to the head-mastership of Abingdon grammar school, and later became the vicar of that parish. While occupying this living, he published a Universal Biography of Eminent Persons in all Ages and Countries (1808). In 1809 he succeeded to the head-mastership of Exeter free grammar school. On retiring from this, in consequence of a disagreement with the trustees, he was given the living of Meeth in Devonshire, which, together with that of Newton Petrock, he held till his death in London on the 1st of February 1824.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lemur

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​LEMUR (from Lat. lemures, “ghosts”), the name applied by Linnaeus to certain peculiar Malagasy representatives of the order Primates (q.v.) which do not come under the designation of either monkeys or apes, and, with allied animals from the same island and tropical Asia and Africa, constitute the sub-order Prosimiae, or Lemuroidea, the characteristics of which are given in the article just mentioned. The typical lemurs include species like Lemur mongoz and L. catta, but the English name “lemur” is often taken to include all the members of the sub-order, although the aberrant forms are often conveniently termed “lemuroids.” All the Malagasy lemurs, which agree in the structure of the internal ear, are now included in the family Lemuridae, confined to Madagascar and the Comoro Islands, which comprises the great majority of the group. The other families are the Nycticebidae, common to tropical Asia and Africa, and the Tarsiidae, restricted to the Malay countries. In the more typical Lemuridae there are two pairs of upper incisor teeth, separated by a gap in the middle line; the premolars may be either two or three, but the molars, as in the lower jaw, are always three on each side. In the lower jaw the incisors and canines are directed straight forwards, and are of small size ​and nearly similar form; the function of the canine being discharged by the first premolar, which is larger than the other teeth of the same series. With the exception of the second toe of the hind-foot, the digits have well-formed, flattened nails as in the majority of monkeys. In the members of the typical genus Lemur, as well as in the allied Hapalemur and Lepidolemur, none of the toes or fingers are connected by webs, and all have the hind-limbs of moderate length, and the tail long. The maximum number of teeth is 36, there being typically two pairs of incisors and three of premolars in each jaw. In habits some of the species are nocturnal and others diurnal; but all subsist on a mixed diet, which includes birds, reptiles, eggs, insects and fruits. Most are arboreal, but the ring-tailed lemur (L. catta) often dwells among rocks. The species of the genus Lemur are diurnal, and may be recognized by the length of the muzzle, and the large tufted ears. In some cases, as in the black lemur (L. macaco) the two sexes are differently coloured; but in others, especially the ruffed lemur (L. varius), there is much individual variation in this respect, scarcely any two being alike. The gentle lemurs (Hapalemur) have a rounder head, with smaller ears and a shorter muzzle, and also a bare patch covered with spines on the fore-arm. The sportive lemurs (Lepidolemur) are smaller than the typical species of Lemur, and the adults generally lose their upper incisors. The head is short and conical, the ears large, round and mostly bare, and the tail shorter than the body. Like the gentle lemurs they are nocturnal. (See Avahi, Aye-Aye, Galago, Indri, Loris, Potto, Sifaka and Tarsier.) (R. L.*)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lenkoran

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​LENKORAN, a town in Russian Transcaucasia, in the government of Baku, stands on the Caspian Sea, at the mouth of a small stream of its own name, and close to a large lagoon. The lighthouse stands in 38° 45′ 38″ N. and 48° 50′ 18″ E. Taken by storm on New Year’s day 1813 by the Russians, Lenkoran was in the same year formally surrendered by Persia to Russia by the treaty of Gulistan, along with the khanate of Talysh, of which it was the capital. Pop. (1867) 15,933, (1897) 8768. The fort has been dismantled; and in trade the town is outstripped by Astara, the customs station on the Persian frontier.
The District of Lenkoran (2117 sq. m.) is a thickly wooded mountainous region, shut off from the Persian plateau by the Talysh range (7000-8000 ft. high), and with a narrow marshy strip along the coast. The climate is exceptionally moist and warm (annual rainfall 52.79 in; mean temperature in summer 75° F., in winter 40°), and fosters the growth of even Indian species of vegetation. The iron tree (Parrotia persica), the silk acacia, Carpinus betulus, Quercus iberica, the box tree and the walnut flourish freely, as well as the sumach, the pomegranate, and the Gleditschia caspica. The Bengal tiger is not unfrequently met with, and wild boars are abundant. Of the 131,361 inhabitants in 1897 the Talyshes (35,000) form the aboriginal element, belonging to the Iranian family, and speaking an independently developed language closely related to Persian. They are of middle height and dark complexion, with generally straight nose, small round skull, small sharp chin and large full eyes, which are expressive, however, rather of cunning than intelligence. They live exclusively on rice. In the northern half of the district the Tatar element predominates (40,000) and there are a number of villages occupied by Russian Raskolniks (Nonconformists). Agriculture, bee-keeping, silkworm-rearing and fishing are the principal occupations.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Praguerie, The

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​PRAGUERIE, THE, a revolt of the French nobility against King Charles VII. in 1440. It was so named because a similar rising had recently taken place in Prague, Bohemia, at that time closely associated with France through the house of Luxemburg, kings of Bohemia, and it was caused by the reforms of Charles VII. at the close of the Hundred Years’ War, by which he sought to lessen the anarchy in France. The attempt to reduce the brigand-soldiery, and especially the ordinances passed by the estates of Languedoïl at Orleans in 1439, which not only gave the king an aid of 100,000 francs (an act which was later used by the king as though it were a perpetual grant and so freed him from that parliamentary control of the purse so important in England), but demanded as well royal nominations to officerships in the army, marked a gain in the royal prerogative which the nobility resolved to challenge. The main instigator was Charles I., duke of Bourbon, who three years before had attempted a similar rising, and had been forced to ask pardon of the king. He and his bastard brother, Alexander, were joined by the former favourite, Georges de la Trémoille, John V., duke of Brittany, who allied himself with the English, the duke of Alençon, the count of Vendôme, and captains of mercenaries like Antoine de Chabannes, or lean de la Roche. The duke of Bourbon gained over to their side the dauphin Louis—afterwards Louis XI.—then sixteen years old, and proposed to set aside the king in his favour, making him regent. Louis was readily induced to rebel; but the country was saved from a serious civil war by the energy of the king's officers and the solid loyalty of his “good cities.” The constable de Richemont marched with the king's troops into Poitou, his old battleground with Georges de la Trémoille, and in two months he had subdued the country. The royal artillery battered down the feudal strongholds. The dauphin and the duke of Alençon failed to bring about any sympathetic rising in Auvergne, and the Praguerie was over, except for some final pillaging and plundering in Saintonge and Poitou, which the royal army failed to prevent. Charles VII. then attempted to ensure the loyalty of the duke of Bourbon by the gift of a large pension, forgave all the rebellious gentry, and installed his son in Dauphiné (see Louis XI.). The ordinance of Orleans was enforced.