OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Girard, Jean Baptiste

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​GIRARD, JEAN BAPTISTE [known as “Le Père Girard” or “Le Père Gregoire”] (1765–1850), French-Swiss educationalist, was born at Fribourg and educated for the priesthood at Lucerne. He was the fifth child in a family of fourteen, and his gift for teaching was early shown at home in helping his mother with the ​younger children; and after passing through his noviciate he spent some time as an instructor in convents, notably at Würzburg (1785–1788). Then for ten years he was busy with religious duty. In 1798, full of Kantian ideas, he published an essay outlining a scheme of national Swiss education; and in 1804 he began his career as a public teacher, first in the elementary school at Fribourg (1805–1823), then (being driven away by Jesuit hostility) in the gymnasium at Lucerne till 1834, when he retired to Fribourg and devoted himself with the production of his books on education, De l’enseignement régulier de la langue maternelle (1834, 9th ed. 1894; Eng. trans. by Lord Ebrington, The Mother Tongue, 1847), and Cours éducatif (1844–1846). Father Girard’s reputation and influence as an enthusiast in the cause of education became potent not only in Switzerland, where he was hailed as a second Pestalozzi, but in other countries. He had a genius for teaching, his method of stimulating the intelligence of the children at Fribourg and interesting them actively in learning, and not merely cramming them with rules and facts, being warmly praised by the Swiss educationalist François Naville (1784–1846) in his treatise on public education (1832). His undogmatic method and his Liberal Christianity brought him into conflict with the Jesuits, but his aim was, in all his teaching, to introduce the moral idea into the minds of his pupils by familiarizing them with the right or wrong working of the facts he brought to their attention, and thus to elevate character all through the educational curriculum.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Girardin, Delphine de

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​GIRARDIN, DELPHINE DE (1804–1855), French author, was born at Aix-la-Chapelle on the 26th of January 1804. Her mother, the well-known Madame Sophie Gay, brought her up in the midst of a brilliant literary society. She published two volumes of miscellaneous pieces, Essais poétiques (1824) and Nouveaux Essais poétiques (1825). A visit to Italy in 1827, during which she was enthusiastically welcomed by the literati of Rome and even crowned in the capitol, was productive of various poems, of which the most ambitious was Napoline (1833). Her marriage in 1831 to Émile de Girardin (see below) opened up a new literary career. The contemporary sketches which she contributed from 1836 to 1839 to the feuilleton of La Presse, under the nom de plume of Charles de Launay, were collected under the title of Lettres parisiennes (1843), and obtained a brilliant success. Contes d’une vieille fille à ses neveux (1832), La Canne de Monsieur de Balzac (1836) and Il ne faut pas jouer avec la douleur (1853) are among the best-known of her romances; and her dramatic pieces in prose and verse include L’École des journalistes (1840), Judith (1843), Cléopâtre (1847), Lady Tartufe (1853), and the one-act comedies, C’est la faute du mari (1851), La Joie fait peur (1854), Le Chapeau d’un horloger (1854) and Une Femme qui déteste son mari, which did not appear till after the author’s death. In the literary society of her time Madame Girardin exercised no small personal influence, and among the frequenters of her drawing-room were Théophile Gautier and Balzac, Alfred de Musset and Victor Hugo. She died on the 29th of June 1855. Her collected works were published in six volumes (1860–1861).
See Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi, t. iii.; G. de Molènes, “Les Femmes poètes,” in Revue des deux mondes (July 1842); Taxile Delord, Les Matinées littéraires (1860); L’Esprit de Madame Girardin, avec une préface par M. Lamartine (1862); G. d’Heilly, Madame de Girardin, sa vie et ses œuvres (1868); Imbert de Saint Amand, Mme de Girardin (1875).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Girard, Philippe Henri de

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​GIRARD, PHILIPPE HENRI DE (1775–1845), French mechanician, was born at Lourmarin, Vaucluse, on the 1st of February 1775. He is chiefly known in connexion with flax-spinning machinery. Napoleon having in 1810 decreed a reward of one million francs to the inventor of the best machine for spinning flax, Girard succeeded in producing what was required. But he never received the promised reward, although in 1853, after his death, a comparatively small pension was voted to his heirs, and having relied on the money to pay the expenses of his invention he got into serious financial difficulties. He was obliged, in 1815, to abandon the flax mills he had established in France, and at the invitation of the emperor of Austria founded a flax mill and a factory for his machines at Hirtenberg. In 1825, at the invitation of the emperor Alexander I. of Russia, he went to Poland, and erected near Warsaw a flax manufactory, round which grew up a village which received the name of Girardow. In 1818 he built a steamer to run on the Danube. He did not return to Paris till 1844, where he still found some of his old creditors ready to press their claims, and he died in that city on the 26th of August 1845. He was also the author of numerous minor inventions.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Giraud, Giovanni, Count

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​GIRAUD, GIOVANNI, Count (1776–1834), Italian dramatist, of French origin, was born at Rome, and showed a precocious passion for the theatre. His first play, L’Onestà non si vince, was successfully produced in 1798. He took part in politics as an active supporter of Pius VI., but was mainly occupied with the production of his plays, and in 1809 became director-general of the Italian theatres. He died at Naples in 1834. Count Giraud’s comedies, the best of which are Gelosie per equivoco (1807) and L’Ajonell’ imbarazzo (1824), were bright and amusing on the stage, but of no particular literary quality.
His collected comedies were published in 1823 and his Teatro domestico in 1825.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Clavie, Burning the

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​CLAVIE, BURNING THE, an ancient Scottish custom still observed at Burghead, a fishing village on the Moray Firth, near Forres. The “clavie” is a bonfire of casks split in two, lighted on the 12th of January, corresponding to the New Year of the old calendar. One of these casks is joined together again by a huge nail (Lat. clavus; hence the term). It is then filled with tar, lighted and carried flaming round the village and finally up to a headland upon which stands the ruins of a Roman altar, locally called “the Douro.” It here forms the nucleus of the bonfire, which is built up of split casks. When the burning tar-barrel falls in pieces, the people scramble to get a lighted piece with which to kindle the New Year’s fire on their cottage hearth. The charcoal of the clavie is collected and is put in pieces up the cottage chimneys, to keep spirits and witches from coming down.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Clavière, Étienne

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​CLAVIÈRE, ÉTIENNE (1735–1793), French financier and politician, was a native of Geneva. As one of the democratic leaders there he was obliged in 1782 to take refuge in England, upon the armed interference of France, Sardinia and Berne in favour of the aristocratic party. There he met other Swiss, among them Marat and Étienne Dumont, but their schemes for a new Geneva in Ireland—which the government favoured—were given up when Necker came to power in France, and Clavière, with most of his comrades, went to Paris. There in 1789 he and Dumont allied themselves with Mirabeau, secretly collaborating for him on the Courrier de Provence and also in preparing the speeches which Mirabeau delivered as his own. It was mainly by his use of Clavière that Mirabeau sustained his reputation as a financier. But Clavière also published some pamphlets under his own name, and through these and his friendship with J. P. Brissot, whom he had met in London, he became minister of finance in the Girondist ministry, from March to the 12th of June 1792. After the 10th of August he was again given charge of the finances in the provisional executive council, though with but indifferent success. He shared in the fall of the Girondists, was arrested on the 2nd of June 1793, but somehow was left in prison until the 8th of December, when, on receiving notice that he was to appear on the next day before the Revolutionary Tribunal, he committed suicide.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Clavicembalo

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​CLAVICEMBALO, or Gravicembalo (from Lat. clavis, key, and cymbalum, cymbal; Eng. clavicymbal, clavisymbal; Flemish, clavisinbal; Span. clavisinbanos), a keyboard musical instrument with strings plucked by means of small quill or leather plectra. “Cymbal” (Gr. κύμβαλον, from κύμβη, a hollow vessel) was the old European term for the dulcimer, and hence its place in the formation of the word.
See Pianoforte; Spinet; Virginal.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Clay, Cassius Marcellus

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​CLAY, CASSIUS MARCELLUS (1810–1903), American politician, was born in Madison county, Kentucky, on the 19th of October 1810. He was the son of Green Clay (1757–1826), a Kentucky soldier of the war of 1812 and a relative of Henry Clay. He was educated at Centre College, Danville, Kentucky, and at Yale, where he graduated in 1832. Influenced to some extent by William Lloyd Garrison, he became an advocate of the abolition of slavery, and on his return to his native state, at the risk of social and political ostracism, he gave utterance to his belief. He studied law, but instead of practising devoted himself to a political career. In 1835, 1837 and 1840 he was elected as a Whig to the Kentucky legislature, where he advocated a system of gradual emancipation, and secured the establishment of a public school system, and a much-needed reform in the jury system. In 1841 he was defeated on account of his abolition views. In 1844 he delivered campaign speeches for Henry Clay throughout the North. In 1845 he established, at Lexington, Kentucky, an anti-slavery publication known as The True American, but in the same year his office and press were wrecked by a mob, and he removed the publication office to Cincinnati, Ohio. During this and the earlier period of his career his zeal and hot temper involved him in numerous personal encounters and several duels, in all of which he bore himself with a reckless bravery. In the Mexican War he served as a captain of a Kentucky company of militia, and was taken prisoner, while reconnoitring, during General Scott’s advance on the City of Mexico. He left the Whig party in 1850, and as an anti-slavery candidate for governor of Kentucky polled 5000 votes. In 1856 he joined the Republican party, and wielded considerable influence as a Southern representative in its councils. In 1860 he was a leading candidate for the vice-presidential nomination. In 1861 he was sent by President Lincoln as minister to Russia; in 1862 he returned to America to accept a commission as major-general of volunteers, but in March 1863 was reappointed to his former post at St Petersburg, where he remained until 1869. Disapproving of the Republican policy of reconstruction, he left the party, and in 1872 was one of the organizers of the Liberal-Republican revolt, and was largely instrumental in securing the nomination of Horace Greeley for the presidency. In the political campaigns of 1876 and 1880 he supported the Democratic candidate, but rejoined the Republican party in the campaign of 1884. He died at Whitehall, Kentucky, on the 22nd of July 1903.
See his autobiography, The Life, Memoirs, Writings, and Speeches of Cassius Marcellus Clay (Cincinnati, 1896); and The Writings of Cassius Marcellus Clay (edited with a “Memoir” by Horace Greeley. New York, 1848).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Clavecin

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​CLAVECIN, the French for clavisymbal or harpsichord (Ger. Clavicymbel or Dockenklavier), an abbreviation of the Flemish clavisinbal and Ital. clavicimbalo, a keyboard musical instrument in which the strings were plucked by means of a plectrum consisting of a quill mounted upon a jack.
See Pianoforte; Harpsichord.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Clavijo, Ruy Gonzalez de

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​CLAVIJO, RUY GONZALEZ DE (d. 1412), Spanish traveller of the 15th century, whose narrative is the first important one of its kind contributed to Spanish literature, was a native of Madrid, and belonged to a family of some antiquity and position. On the return of the ambassadors Pelayo de Sotomayor and Hernan Sanchez de Palazuelos from the court of Timur, Henry III. of Castille determined to send another embassy to the new lord of Western Asia, and for this purpose he selected Clavijo, Gomez de Salazar (who died on the outward journey), and a master of theology named Fray Alonzo Paez de Santa Maria. They sailed from St Mary Port near Cadiz on the 22nd of May 1403, touched at the Balearic Isles, Gaeta and Rhodes, spent some time at Constantinople, sailed along the southern coast of the Black Sea to Trebizond, and proceeded inland by Erzerum, the Ararat region, Tabriz, Sultanieh, Teheran and Meshed, to Samarkand, where they were well received by the conqueror. Their return was at last accomplished, in part after Timur’s death, and with countless difficulties and dangers, and they landed in Spain on the 1st of March 1406. Clavijo proceeded at once to the court, at that time in Alcala de Henares, and served as chamberlain till the king’s death (in the spring of 1406–1407); he then returned to Madrid, and lived there in opulence till his own death on the 2nd of April 1412. He was buried in the chapel of the monastery of St Francis, which he had rebuilt at great expense.
There are two leading MSS. of Clavijo’s narrative—(a) London, British Museum, Additional MSS., 16,613 fols. 1, n.–125, v.; (b) Madrid, National Library, 9218; and two old editions of the original Spanish—(1) by Gonçalo Argote de Molina (Seville, 1582), (2) by Antonio de Sancha (Madrid, 1782), both having the misleading titles, apparently invented by Molina, of Historia del gran Tamorlan, and Vida y hazañas del gran Tamorlan (the latter at the beginning of the text itself); a better sub-title is added, viz. Itinerario y enarracion del viage y relacion de la embaxada que Ruy Gonzalez de Clavijo le hizo. Both editors, and especially Sancha, supply general explanatory dissertations. The Spanish text has also been published, with a Russian translation, in vol. xxviii. (pp. 1-455) of the Publications of the Russian Imperial Academy of Sciences (Section of Russian Language, &c.), edited by I. I. Sreznevski (1881). An English version, by Sir Clements Markham, was issued by the Hakluyt Society in 1859 (Narrative of the Embassy of R . . . G . . . de Clavijo to the Court of Timour). The identification of a great number of the places mentioned by Clavijo is a matter of considerable difficulty, and has given rise to some discussion (see Khanikof’s list in Geographical Magazine (1874), and Sreznevski’s Annotated Index in the Russian edition of 1881). A short account of Clavijo’s life is given by Alvarez y Baena in the Hijos de Madrid, vol. ix. See also C. R. Beazley, Dawn of Modern Geography, iii. 332-56.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Clavijo y Fajardo, José

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​CLAVIJO Y FAJARDO, JOSÉ (1730–1806), Spanish publicist, was born at Lanzarote (Canary Islands) in 1730. He settled in Madrid, became editor of El Pensador, and by his campaign against the public performance of autos sacramentales secured their prohibition in 1765. In 1770 he was appointed director of the royal theatres, a post which he resigned in order to take up the editorship of the Mercurio histórico y politico de Madrid: at the time of his death in 1806 he was secretary to the Cabinet of Natural History. He had in abundance the courage, perseverance and gift of pungent expression which form the equipment of the aggressive journalist, but his work would long since have been forgotten were it not that it put an end to a peculiarly national form of dramatic exposition, and that his love affair with one of Beaumarchais’ sisters suggested the theme of Goethe’s first publication, Clavigo.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lightning

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​LIGHTNING, the visible flash that accompanies an electric discharge in the sky. In certain electrical conditions of the atmosphere a cloud becomes highly charged by the coalescence of drops of vapour. A large drop formed by the fusion of many smaller ones contains the same amount of electricity upon a smaller superficial area, and the electric potential of each drop, and of the whole cloud, rises. When the cloud passes near another cloud stratum or near a hilltop, tower or tree, a discharge takes place from the cloud in the form of lightning. The discharge sometimes takes place from the earth to the cloud, or from a lower to a higher stratum, and sometimes from conductors silently. Rain discharges the electricity quietly to earth, and lightning frequently ceases with rain (see Atmospheric Electricity).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lignite

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​LIGNITE (Lat. lignum, wood), an imperfectly formed coal, usually brownish in colour, and always showing the structure of the wood from which it was derived (see Coal).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Myelat

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​MYELAT, a division of the southern Shan States of Burma, including sixteen states, none of any great size, with a total area of 3723, sq. m., and a population in 1901 of 119,415. The name properly means “the unoccupied country,” but it has been occupied for many centuries. All central Myelat and great parts of the northern and southern portions consist of rolling grassy downs quite denuded of jungle. It has a great variety of different races, Taungthus and Danus being perhaps the most numerous. They are all more or less hybrid races. The chiefs of the Myelat are known by the Burmese title of gwegunhmu, i.e. chiefs paying the revenue in silver. The amount paid by the chiefs to the British government is Rs. 99,567. The largest state, Loi Lông, has an area of 1600 sq. m., a great part of which is barren hills. The smallest, Nam Hkon, had no more than 4 sq. m., and has been recently absorbed in a neighbouring state. The majority of the states cover less than 100 sq. m. Under British administration the chiefs have powers of a magistrate of the second class. The chief cultivation besides rice is sugar-cane, and considerable quantities of crude sugar are exported. There is a considerable potato cultivation, which can be indefinitely extended when cheaper means of export are provided. Wheat also grows very well.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Myitkyina

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​MYITKYINA, the most northerly of the districts of Upper Burma in the Mandalay division, separated from Bhamo district in 1895. It is cut up into strips by comparatively low parallel ranges of hills running in a general way north and south. The chief plain is that of Myitkyina, covering 600 sq. m. To the east of the Irrawaddy, which bisects the district, it is low-lying and marshy. To the west it rises to a higher level, and is mostly dry. Except in the hills inhabited by the Kachin tribes there are practically no villages off the line of the Irrawaddy. The Indawgyi lake, a fine stretch of water measuring 16 m. by 6, lies in the south-west of the district. A very small amount of cultivation is carried on, mostly without irrigation. Area, 10,640 sq. m.; estimated population (1901) 67,399, showing a density of six persons to the square mile. More than half the total are Kachins, who inhabit the hills on both sides of the Irrawaddy. The headquarters town, Myitkyina, had in 1901 a population of 3618. It is the limit of navigation on the Irrawaddy, and the terminus of the railway from Rangoon and Sagaing.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Myingyan

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​MYINGYAN, a district in the Meiktila division of Upper Burma. It lies in the valley of the Irrawaddy, to the south of Mandalay, on the east bank of the river. Area, 3137 sq. m. Pop. (1901), 356,052, showing an increase of 1% in the decade and a density of 114 inhabitants to the square mile. The greater part of the district is flat, especially to the north and along the banks of the Irrawaddy. Inland the country rises in gently undulating slopes. The most noticeable feature is Popa hill, an extinct volcano, in the south-eastern corner of the district. The highest peak is 4962 ft. above sea-level. The climate is dry and healthy, with high south winds from March till September. The annual rainfall averages about 35 in. The temperature varies between 106° and 70° F. The ordinary crops are millet, sesamum, cotton, maize, rice, gram, and a great variety of peas and beans. The district as a whole is not well watered, and most of the old irrigation tanks had fallen into disrepair before the annexation. There are no forests, but a great deal of low scrub. The lacquer ware of Nyaung-u and other villages near Pagan is noted throughout Burma. A considerable number of Chinese inhabit Myingyan and the larger villages. The headquarters town, Myingyan, stands on the Irrawaddy, and had a population in 1901 of 16,139. It is the terminus of the branch railway through Meiktila to the main line from Mandalay to Rangoon. The steamers of the Irrawaddy Flotilla Company also call here. A cotton-pressing machine was erected here in the time of independent Burma, and still exists.