OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Anthony, Saint

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​ANTHONY, SAINT, the first Christian monk, was born in Egypt about 250. At the age of twenty he began to practise an ascetical life in the neighbourhood of his native place, and after fifteen years of this life he withdrew into solitude to a mountain by the Nile, called Pispir, now Der el Memun, opposite Arsinoë in the Fayum. Here he lived strictly enclosed in an old fort for twenty years. At last in the early years of the 4th century he emerged from his retreat and set himself to organize the monastic life of the crowds of monks who had followed him and taken up their abode in the caves around him. After a time, again in pursuit of more complete solitude, he withdrew to the mountain by the Red Sea, where now stands the monastery that bears his name (Der Mar Antonios). Here he died about the middle of the 4th century. His Life states that on two occasions he went to Alexandria, to strengthen the Christians in the Diocletian persecution and to preach against Arianism. Anthony is recognized as the first Christian monk and the first organizer and father of Christian monachism (see Monasticism). Certain letters and sermons are attributed to him, but their authenticity is more than doubtful. The monastic rule which bears his name was not written by him, but was compiled out of these writings ​and out of discourses and utterances put into his mouth in the Life and the Apophthegmata Patrum. According to this rule live a number of Coptic Syrian and Armenian monks to this day. The chief source of information about St Anthony is the Life, attributed to St Athanasius. This attribution, as also the historical character of the book, and even the very existence of St Anthony, were questioned and denied by the sceptical criticism of thirty years ago; but such doubts are no longer entertained by critical scholars.
The Greek Vita is among the works of St Athanasius; the almost contemporary Latin translation is among Rosweyd’s Vitae Patrum (Migne, Patrol. Lat. lxxiii.); an English translation is in the Athanasius volume of the “Nicene and Post-Nicene Library.” Accounts of St Anthony are given by Card. Newman, Church of the Fathers (Historical Sketches) and Alban Butler, Lives of the Saints (Jan. 17). Discussions of the historical and critical questions raised will be found in E. C. Butler’s Lausiac History of Palladius (1898, 1904), Part I. pp. 197, 215-228; Part II. pp. ix.-xii. (E. C. B.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Arnaldus de Villa Nova

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​ARNALDUS DE VILLA NOVA, also called Arnaldus de Villanueva, Arnaldus Villanovanus or Arnaud de Villeneuve (c. 1235–1313), alchemist, astrologer and physician, appears to have been of Spanish origin, and to have studied chemistry, medicine, physics, and also Arabian philosophy. After having lived at the court of Aragon, he went to Paris, where he gained a considerable reputation; but he incurred the enmity of the ecclesiastics and was forced to flee, finally finding an asylum in Sicily. About 1313 he was summoned to Avignon by Pope Clement V., who was ill, but he died on the voyage. Many alchemical writings, including Thesaurus Thesaurorum or Rosarius Philosophorum, Novum Lumen, Flos Florum, and Speculum Alchimiae, are ascribed to him, but they are of very doubtful authenticity. Collected editions of them were published at Lyons in 1504 and 1532 (with a biography by Symphorianus Campegius), at Basel in 1585, at Frankfort in 1603, and at Lyons in 1686. He is also the reputed author of various medical works, including Breviarium Practicae.
See J. B. Hauréau in the Histoire littéraire de la France (1881), vol. 28; E. Lalande, Arnaud de Villeneuve, sa vie et ses œuvres (Paris, 1896). A list of writings is given by J. Ferguson in his Bibliotheca Chemica (1906). See also U. Chevalier, Repertoire des sources hist., &c., Bio-bibliographie (Paris, 1903).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Arnica

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​ARNICA, a genus of plants belonging to the natural order Compositae, and containing 18 species, mostly north-west American. The most important species is Arnica montana (mountain tobacco), a perennial herb found in upland meadows in northern and central Europe (but not extending to Britain), and on the mountains of western and central Europe. A closely allied species (A. angustifolia), with very narrow leaves, is met with in Arctic Asia and America. The heads of flowers are large, 2 to 21/2 in. across, orange-yellow in colour, and borne on the summit of the stem or branches; the outer ray-flowers are an inch in length. The achenes (fruits) are brown and hairy, and are crowned by a tuft of stiffish hairs (pappus). The root-stock of A. montana is tough, slender, of a dark brown colour and an inch or two in length. It gives off numerous simple roots from its under side, and shows on its upper side the remains of rosettes of leaves. It yields an essential oil in small quantity, and a resinous matter called arnicin, C$_{12}$H$_{22}$O$_2$, a yellow crystalline substance with an acrid taste. The tincture prepared from it is an old remedy which has a popular reputation in the treatment of bruises and sprains. The plant was introduced into English gardens about the middle of the 18th century, but is not often grown; it is a handsome plant for a rockery.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Arnault, Antoine Vincent

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​ARNAULT, ANTOINE VINCENT (1766–1834), French dramatist, was born in Paris in January 1766. His first play, Marius à Minturnes (1791), immediately established his reputation. A year later he followed up his first success with a second republican tragedy, Lucrèce. He left France during the Terror and on his return was arrested by the revolutionary authorities, but was liberated through the intervention of Fabre d’Eglantine and others. He was commissioned by Bonaparte in 1797 with the reorganization of the Ionian Islands, and was nominated to the Institute and made secretary general of the university. He was faithful to his patron through his misfortunes, and after the Hundred Days remained in exile until 1819. In 1829 he was re-elected to the Academy and became perpetual secretary in 1833. Others of his plays are Blanche et Montcassin, ou les Vénitiens (1798); and Germanicus (1816), the performance of which was the occasion of a disturbance in the parterre which threatened serious political complications. His tragedies are perhaps less known now than his Fables (1813, 1815 and 1826), which are written in very graceful verse. Arnault collaborated in a Vie politique et militaire de Napoléon (1822), and wrote some very interesting Souvenirs d’un sexagénaire (1833), which contain much out-of-the-way information about the history of the years previous to 1804. Arnault died at Goderville on the 16th of September 1834.
His eldest son, Émilien Lucien (1787–1863), wrote several tragedies, the leading rôles in which were interpreted by Talma.
See Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi, vol. 7. Arnault’s Œuvres complètes (4 vols.) were published at the Hague and Paris in 1818–1819 and again (8 vols.) at Paris in 1824.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Arneth, Alfred

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​ARNETH, ALFRED, Ritter von (1819–1897), Austrian historian, born at Vienna on the 10th of July 1819, was the son of Joseph Calasanza von Arneth (1791–1863), a well-known historian and archaeologist, who wrote a history of the Austrian empire (Vienna, 1827) and several works on numismatics. Alfred Arneth studied law, and became an official of the Austrian state archives, of which in 1868 he was appointed keeper. He was a moderate liberal in politics and a supporter of the ideal of German unity. As such he was elected to the Frankfort parliament in 1848. In 1861 he became a member of the Lower Austrian diet and in 1869 was nominated to the Upper House of the Austrian Reichsrath. In 1879 he was appointed president of the Kaiserliche Akademie der Wissenschaften (Academy of Sciences) at Vienna, and in 1896 succeeded von Sybel as chairman of the historical commission at Munich. He died on the 30th of July 1897.
Arneth was an indefatigable worker, and, as director of the archives, his broad-minded willingness to listen to the advice of experts, as well as his own sound sense, did much to promote the more scientific treatment and use of public records in most of the archives of Europe. His scientific temper and the special facilities which he enjoyed for drawing from original sources give to his numerous historical works a very special value.
Among his publications may be mentioned: Leben des Feld-marschalls Grafen Guido Starhemberg (Vienna, 1863); Prinz Eugen von Savoyen (3 vols., ib. 1864); Gesch. der Maria Theresa (10 vols., ib. 1863–1879); Maria Theresa u. Marie Antoinette, ihr Briefwechsel (ib. 1866); Marie Antoinette, Joseph II. und Leopold II., ihr Briefwechsel (1866); Maria Theresa und Joseph II., ihre Korrespondenz samt Briefen Josephs an seinen Bruder Leopold (3 vols., 1867); Beaumarchais und Sonnenfels (1868); Joseph II. und Katharina von Russland, ihr Briefwechsel (1869); Johann Christian Barthenstein und seine Zeit (1871); Joseph II. und Leopold von Toskana, ihr Briefwechsel (2 vols., 1872); Briefe der Kaiserin Maria Theresa an ihre Kinder und Freunde (4 vols., 1881); Marie Antoinette: Correspondance secrète entre Marie-Thérèse et le comte de Mercy-Argenteau (3 vols., Paris, 1875), in collaboration with Auguste Geffroy; Graf Philipp Cobenzl und seine Memoiren (1885); Correspondance secrète du comte de Mercy-Argenteau avec l’empereur Joseph II. et Kaunitz (2 vols., 1889–1891), in collaboration with Jules Flammermont; Anton Ritter von Schmerling. Episoden aus seinem Leben 1835, 1848–1849 (1895); Johann Freiherr von Wessenberg, ein österreichischer Staatsmann des 19. Jahrh. (2 vols., 1898). Arneth also published in 1893 two volumes of early reminiscences under the title of Aus meinem Leben.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Arndt, Johann

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​ARNDT, JOHANN (1555–1621), German Lutheran theologian, was born at Ballenstedt, in Anhalt, and studied in several universities. He was at Helmstadt in 1576; at Wittenberg in 1577. At Wittenberg the crypto-Calvinist controversy was then at its height, and he took the side of Melanchthon and the crypto-Calvinists. He continued his studies in Strassburg, under the professor of Hebrew, Johannes Pappus (1549–1610), a zealous Lutheran, the crown of whose life’s work was the forcible suppression of Calvinistic preaching and worship in the city, and who had great influence over him. In Basel, again, he studied theology under Simon Sulzer (1508–1585), a broad-minded divine of Lutheran sympathies, whose aim was to reconcile the churches of the Helvetic and Wittenberg confessions. In 1581 he went back to Ballenstedt, but was soon recalled to active life by his appointment to the pastorate at Badeborn in 1583. After some time his Lutheran tendencies exposed him to the anger of the authorities, who were of the Reformed Church. Consequently, in 1590 he was deposed for refusing to remove the pictures from his church and discontinue the use of exorcism in baptism. He found an asylum in Quedlinburg (1590), and afterwards was transferred to St Martin’s church at Brunswick (1599). Arndt’s fame rests on his writings. These were mainly of a mystical and devotional kind, and were inspired by St Bernard, J. Tauler and Thomas à Kempis. His principal work, Wahres Christentum (1606–1609), which has been translated into most European languages, has served as the foundation of many books of devotion, both Roman Catholic and Protestant. Arndt here dwells upon the mystical union between the believer and Christ, and endeavours, by drawing attention to Christ’s life in His people, to correct the purely forensic side of the Reformation theology, which paid almost exclusive attention to Christ’s death for His people. Like Luther, Arndt was very fond of the little anonymous book, Deutsche Theologie. He published an edition of it and called attention to its merits in a special preface. After Wahres Christentum, his best-known work is Paradiesgärtlein aller christlichen Tugenden, which was published in 1612. Both these books have been translated into English; Paradiesgärtlein with the title the Garden of Paradise. Several of his sermons are published in R. Nesselmann’s Buch der Predigten (1858). Arndt has always been held in very high repute by the German Pietists. The founder of Pietism, Philipp Jacob Spener, repeatedly called attention to him and his writings, and even went so far as to compare him with Plato (cf. Karl Scheele, Plato und Johann Arndt, Ein Vortrag, &c., 1857).
A collected edition of his works was published in Leipzig and Görlitz in 1734. A valuable account of Arndt is to be found in C. Aschmann’s Essai sur la vie, &c., de J. Arndt. See further, Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Balustrade

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​BALUSTRADE, a parapet or low screen consisting of a coping or rail supported on balusters (q.v.). Sometimes it is employed purely as a decorative feature beneath the sill of a window which was not carried down to the ground. Sometimes flowing foliage takes the place of the parapet, and sometimes so-called balustrades are formed of vertical slabs of stone, pierced as in the Ca’ d’oro at Venice and the balconies of the minarets at Cairo.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Balue, Jean

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​BALUE, JEAN (c. 1421–1491), French cardinal and minister of Louis XI., was born of very humble parentage at Angle in Poitou, and was first patronized by the bishop of Poitiers. In 1461 he became vicar-general of the bishop of Angers. His activity, cunning and mastery of intrigue gained him the appreciation of Louis XI., who made him his almoner. In a short time Balue became a considerable personage. In 1465 he received the bishopric of Évreux; the king made him le premier du grant conseil, and, in spite of his dissolute life, obtained for him a cardinalate (1468). But in that year Balue was compromised in the king’s humiliation by Charles the Bold at Péronne and excluded from the council. He then intrigued with Charles against his master: their secret correspondence was intercepted, and on the 23rd of April 1469 Balue was thrown into prison, where he remained eleven years, but not, as has been alleged, in an iron cage. In 1480, through the intervention of Pope Sixtus IV., he was set at liberty, and from that time lived in high favour at the court of Rome. He received the bishopric of Albano and afterwards that of Palestrina. In 1484 he was even sent to France as legate a latere. He died at Ancona in 1491.
See Henri Forgeot, “Jean Balue, cardinal d’Angers” (1895), in the Bibliothèque de l’école des hautes études.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Baluster

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​BALUSTER (through the Fr. from the Ital. balaustro, so-called from a supposed likeness to the flower of the βαλαύστιον, or wild pomegranate; the word has been corrupted in English into “banister”), a small moulded shaft, square or circular, in stone or wood and sometimes in metal, supporting the coping of a parapet or the rail of a staircase, an assemblage of them being known as a balustrade. The earliest examples are those shown in the bas-reliefs representing the Assyrian palaces, where they were employed as window balustrades and apparently had Ionic capitals. They do not seem to have been known to either the Greeks or the Romans, but early examples are found in the balconies in the palaces at Venice and Verona. In the hands of the Italian revivalists they became features of the greatest importance, and were largely employed for window balconies and roof parapets.
The term “baluster shaft” is given to the shaft dividing a window in Saxon architecture. In the south transept of the abbey at St Albans, England, are some of these shafts, supposed to have been taken from the old Saxon church. Norman bases and capitals have been added, together with plain cylindrical Norman shafts.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Baltzar, Thomas

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​BALTZAR, THOMAS (c. 1630–1663), German violinist, was born at Lübeck. He visited England in 1656 and made a great impression on Evelyn and Anthony Wood. In 1661 he was appointed leader of the king’s famous band of twenty-four violins, but his intemperate habits cut short his career within two years. Nothing like his violin-playing had ever been heard in England before, and in all probability the instrumental music of Henry Purcell owes much to its influence.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Baluchistan (Persia)

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​BALUCHISTAN, a province of Persia consisting of the western part of Baluchistan (q.v.) in a wider sense. Persian Baluchistan has an area of about 60,000 sq. m., and lying along the northern shore of the Arabian Sea, is bounded E. by British and ​independent Baluchistan, N. by Seistan and the central Persian desert, and W. by Kerman. The country has little water and only a small part of it is under cultivation, the remainder being composed of arid, waterless plains, deserts—some stony, others with moving sands—barren hills and mountains. The principal rivers are the Mashkid and that of Bampur which flow away from the sea and are lost in depressions called hamuns. The rivers which flow into the sea are unimportant and dry during the greater part of the year. Persian Baluchistan forms an administrative division of the province of Kerman and is subdivided into the following twenty districts:—(1) Bampur; (2) Serhad; (3) Dizek; (4) Jalk; (5) Sib; (6) Irafshan; (7) Magas; (8) Serbaz; (9) Lashar; (10) Champ; (11) Fannuj; (12) Bazman; (13) Aptar; (14) Daman; (15) Aprandagan; (16) Asfehgeh; (17) Surmij; (18) Meskutan; (19) Pushteh; (20) Makran, the country of the Ichthyophagi, with the subdistricts Kasrkand, Geh, Bint, Dasht, Kucheh and Bahu. The total population of Baluchistan is under 200,000. The province was practically independent until the occupation of Bampur by Persian troops in 1849, and over some of the extreme eastern districts Persian supremacy was not recognized until 1872.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Balzac, Jean Louis Guez de

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​BALZAC, JEAN LOUIS GUEZ DE (1594–1654), French author, was born at Angoulême in 1594. At the age of eighteen he travelled in Holland with Théophile de Viaud, with whom he later exchanged bitter recriminations. He was early befriended by the duc d’Épernon and his son Louis, Cardinal de la Valette, who took him to Rome. His letters written to his acquaintances and to many who held a high position at the French court gained for him a great reputation. Compliments were showered upon him, he became an habitué of the Hôtel de Rambouillet, and his head appears to have been turned a little by his success. Richelieu was lavish of praise and promises, but never offered Balzac the preferment he expected. In 1624 a collection of his Lettres was published, and was received with great favour. From the château of Balzac, whither he had retired, he continued to correspond with Jean Chapelain, Valentin Conrart and others. In 1634 he was elected to the Academy. He died at Angoulême on the 18th of February 1654. His fame rests chiefly upon the Lettres, a second collection of which appeared in 1636. Recueil de nouvelles lettres was printed in the next year. His letters, though empty and affected in matter, show a real mastery of style, introducing a new clearness and precision into French prose and encouraging the development of the language on national lines by emphasizing its most idiomatic elements. Balzac has thus the credit of executing in French prose a reform parallel to Malherbe’s in verse. In 1631 he published an eulogy of Louis XIII. entitled Le Prince; in 1652 the Socrate chrétien, the best of his longer works; Aristippe ou de la Cour in 1658; and several dissertations on style.
His Œuvres were collected (2 vols.) in 1665 by Valentine Conrart. There are numerous English translations from Balzac, dating from the 17th century.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Balādhurī

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​BALĀDHURĪ (Abū-l-ʽAbbās Ahmad ibn Yahyā ibn Jābir al-Balādhurī), Arabian historian, was a Persian by birth, though his sympathies seem to have been strongly with the Arabs, for Masʽūdī refers to one of his works in which he refuted the Shuʽūbites (see Abu ʽUbaida). He lived at the court of the caliphs al-Mutawakkil and al-Mustaʽīn and was tutor to the son of al-Muʽtazz. He died in 892 as the result of a drug called balādhur (hence his name). The work by which he is best known is the Futūh ul-Buldān (Conquests of Lands), edited by M. J. de Goeje as Liber expugnationis regionum (Leiden, 1870; Cairo, 1901). This work is a digest of a larger one, which is now lost. It contains an account of the early conquests of Mahomet and the early caliphs. Balādhurī is said to have spared no trouble in collecting traditions, and to have visited various parts of north Syria and Mesopotamia for this purpose. Another great historical work of his was the Ansāb ul-Ashrāf (Genealogies of the Nobles), of which he is said to have written forty parts when he died. Of this work the eleventh book has been published by W. Ahlwardt (Greifswald, 1883), and another part is known in manuscript (see Journal of the German Oriental Society, vol. xxxviii. pp. 382-406). He also made some translations from Persian into Arabic. (G. W. T.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Batten

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​BATTEN, (1) A term (a form of “baton”) used in joinery (q.v.) for a board not more than 4 to 7 in. broad or 3 in. thick, used for various purposes, such as for strengthening or holding together laths and other wood-work; and specially, on board ship, a strip of wood nailed to a mast to prevent rubbing, or fixing down a tarpaulin over a hatchway, in rough weather, to keep out water. (2) A verb (the root is found in words of several Teutonic languages meaning profit or improvement, and also in the English “better” ​and “boot”) meaning to improve in condition, especially in the case of animals by feeding; so, to feed gluttonously; the word is used figuratively of prospering at the expense of another.