OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Labé, Louise Charlin Perrin

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​LABÉ, LOUISE CHARLIN PERRIN (c. 1525–1566), French poet, called La Belle Cordière, was born at Lyons about 1525, the daughter of a rich ropemaker, named Charley or Charlin. At the siege of Perpignan she is said to have fought on horseback in the ranks of the Dauphin, afterwards Henry II. Some time before 1551 she married Ennemond Perrin, a ropemaker. She formed a library and gathered round her a society which included many of the learned ladies of Lyons,—Pernette du Guillet, Claudine and Sibylle Scève and Clémence de Bourges, and the poets Maurice Scève, Charles Fontaine, Pontus de Tyard; and among the occasional visitors were Clément Marot and his friend Melin de Saint-Gelais, with probably Bonaventure des Périers and Rabelais. About 1550 the poet Olivier de Magny passed through Lyons on his way to Italy in the suite of Jean d’Avanson, the French envoy to the Holy See. As the friend of Ronsard, “Prince of Poets,” he met with an enthusiastic reception from Louise, who straightway fell in love with him. There seems little doubt that her passion for Magny inspired her eager, sincere verse, and the elegies probably express her grief at his first absence. A second short visit to Lyons was followed by a second longer absence. Magny’s influence is shown more decisively in her Sonnets, which, printed in 1555, quickly attained great popularity. During his second visit to Italy Magny had apparently consoled himself, and Louise, despairing of his return, encouraged another admirer, Claude Rubys, when her lover returned unexpectedly. Louise dismissed Rubys, but Magny’s jealousy found vent in an ode addressed to the Sire Aymon (Ennemond), which ruined her reputation; while Rubys, angry at his dismissal, avenged himself later in his Histoire véritable de Lyons (1573). This scandal struck a fatal blow at Louise’s position. Shortly afterwards her husband died, and she returned to her country house at Parcieu, where she died on the 25th of April 1566, leaving the greater part of the fortune she was left to the poor. Her works include, besides the Elegies and Sonnets mentioned, a prose Débat de folie et d’amour (translated into English by, Robert Greene in 1608).
See editions of her Œuvres by P. Blanchemain (1875), and by C. Boy (2 vols., 1887). A sketch of Louise Labé and of the Lyonnese ​Society is in Miss Edith Sichel’s Women and Men of the French Renaissance (1901). See also J. Favre, Olivier de Magny (1885).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Labīd

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​LABĪD (Abū ʽAqīl Labīd ibn Rabī’a) (c. 560–c. 661), Arabian poet, belonged to the Banī ’Āmir, a division of the tribe of the Hawāzin. In his younger years he was an active warrior and his verse is largely concerned with inter-tribal disputes. Later, he was sent by a sick uncle to get a remedy from Mahomet at Medina and on this occasion was much influenced by a part of the Koran. He accepted Islam soon after, but seems then to have ceased writing. In Omar’s caliphate he is said to have settled in Kufa. Tradition ascribes to him a long life, but dates given are uncertain and contradictory. One of his poems is contained in the Moʽallakat (q.v.).
Twenty of his poems were edited by Chalidī (Vienna, 1880); another thirty-five, with fragments and a German translation of the ​whole, were edited (partly from the remains of A. Huber) by C. Brockelmann (Leiden, 1892); cf. A. von Kremer, Über die Gedichte des Lebyd (Vienna, 1881). Stories of Labīd are contained in the Kitābul-Aghāni, xiv. 93 ff. and xv. 137 ff.  (G. W. T.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Potsdam (New York)

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​POTSDAM, a village of St Lawrence county, New York, U.S.A., in the township of Potsdam, on the Raquette river, about 68 m. N.E. of Watertown. Pop. of the village (1905) 4162; (1910) 4036; of the township (1905) 8992; (1910) 8725. The village is served by the New York Central & Hudson River railway. It has a public library and is the seat of a state Normal School (1869), an outgrowth of St Lawrence Academy (founded in 1810 by Benjamin Raymond and maintained by him until 1816, when it was incorporated); of the Thomas S. Clarkson Memorial School of Technology (1896), founded by his sisters in honour of Thomas Streatfield Clarkson (1837–1894); and of the Crane Normal Institute of Music. The village has a considerable trade in dairy products. In the neighbourhood are extensive quarries of the well-known “Potsdam sandstone,” the uppermost division of the Cambrian system, described as a “fine-grained sandstone cemented with silica,” and very durable. The House of Parliament at Quebec, All Saints Cathedral at Albany, New York, and many other public edifices were built of this stone.
The “Ten Towns” of St Lawrence county, including the township of Potsdam, were sold by the state in 1787. The first settlement was made on the Raquette river, close to the present village, in 1803; the township was incorporated in ISO6 and the village in 1831. Potsdam was named after Potsdam in Prussia because of the occurrence in each locality of reddish sandstone.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Potocki, Stanislaw Felix

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​POTOCKI, STANISLAW FELIX (1752-1805), Polish politician, son of Franciszek Salezy Potocki, palatine of Kiev, of the Tulczyn line of the family, was born in 1752. He entered the public service, and owing to the influence of his relations became grand standard-bearer of the Crown at the age of twenty-two. In 1782 he was made palatine of Russia, in 1784 a lieutenant-general, and in 1789 he purchased the rank of a general of artillery from the Saxon minister, Brühl, for 20,000 ducats. Elected deputy for Braclaw at the famous Four Years' Diet, he began that career of treachery which was to terminate in the ruin of his country. Yet his previous career had awakened many hopes in him. A grand seigneur ruling patriarch ally in his vast estates, liberal, enlightened, a generous master and a professed patriot, his popularity culminated in 1784 when he presented an infantry regiment of 400 men as a free gift to the republic. But he identified the public welfare with the welfare of the individual magnates. His scheme was the division of Poland into an oligarchy of autonomous grandees exercising the supreme power in rotation (in fact a perpetual interregnum), and in 1788 he won over to his views two other great lords, Xavier Branicki and Severin Rzewuski. The election of Malachowski (q.v.) and Kazimierz Sapieha as marshals of the diet still further alienated him from the Liberals; and, after strenuously but vainly opposing every project of reform, he retired to Vienna whence he continued to carry on an active propaganda against the new ideas. He protested against the constitution of the 3rd of May 1791, and after attempting fruitlessly to induce the emperor Leopold to take up arms “for the defence of the liberties of the republic,” proceeded with his friends in March 1792 to St Petersburg, and subsequently with the connivance of the empress Catherine formed the confederation of Targowica for the maintenance of the ancient institutions of Poland (May 14, 1792), of which he was the marshal, or rather the dictator, directing its operations from his castle at Tulczyn. When the May constitution was overthrown and the Prussians were already in occupation of Great Poland, Potocki (March 1793) went on a diplomatic mission to St Petersburg; but, finding himself duped and set aside, retired to Vienna till 1797, when he settled down at Tulczyn and devoted himself for the remainder of his life to the improvement of his estates. He wrote On the ​Polish Succession (Pol.) (Amsterdam, 1789); Protest against the Succession to the Throne (Pol.) (ibid. 1790); and other political works.
See Friedrich Schulz, Poland in the year 1793 (Pol.) (Warsaw, X899); Josef Zajaczek, History of the Revolution of 1794 (Pol.) (Lemberg, 1881). (R. N. B.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Potoroo

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​POTOROO, or Rat Kangaroo, any member of the diprotodont marsupial sub-family Potoroinae (see Marsupalia). None of them exceed a common rabbit in size. They inhabit Australia and Tasmania, are nocturnal, and feed on the leaves of grasses and other plants, as well as roots and bulbs, which they dig up with their forepaws; in this way some of them do considerable damage to cultivated crops. About ten species are known, presenting a considerable range of diversity in minor characters. The members of the type genus (Potorous) run, rather than leap, and do not use the hind feet for kicking. In the genus Bettongia the tail is prehensile, and with it they collect grass and twigs for making nests in their burrows.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pototan

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​POTOTAN, a town of the province of Iloilo, island of Panay, Philippine Islands, on the Jalaur river, about 17 m. N. of Iloilo. Pop. (1903), 37,373, including the population of Dingle (12,129) and Mina (4280), annexed after the census was taken. There is a fine church in the old town and a large stone church in Dingle; in the old town are several other buildings of masonry and some beautiful “fire” trees for shade. The principal industries are the cultivation of sugar-cane, Indian corn, rice, tobacco and hemp, and the raising of cattle, carabaos, sheep and horses.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Potlatch

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​POTLATCH, a term, corrupted from a Nootka Indian word for “gift,” for a ceremonial custom among some of the Indian tribes of north-west America, consisting in the distribution by an individual of his property among his friends and neighbours, who make equivalent gifts, with interest, in return.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Potomac

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​POTOMAC, a river in the east central part of the United States, having its source in the Alleghany Mountains and flowing S.E. into Chesapeake Bay. It is formed by the union of its north and south branches, about 15 m. S.E. of Cumberland, Maryland. The main stream has a length of about 450 m. and is navigable for large vessels for 113 m. above its mouth. The north branch, about 110 m. long, rises in the north-eastern part of West Virginia, pursues a north-easterly course, and forms part of the boundary between Maryland and West Virginia. The south branch has its sources in Highland county, Va., and in Pendleton county, W.Va., and flows north-east for about 140 m. until it joins the north branch. From the junction of these two streams until it reaches Harper's Ferry the Potomac river separates Maryland from West Virginia. At Harper's Ferry it receives the waters of the Shenandoah river and cuts through the Blue Ridge Mountains in a gorge noted for its scenic beauty. From this point to its mouth it forms the boundary between Virginia and Maryland. The stream crosses the Blue Ridge Mountains at an elevation of about 245 ft., and at Georgetown (Washington), 62 m. distant, it meets tidewater. Of this descent about 90 ft. occurs about 15 m. above Washington, at the Great Falls, a series of rapids about a mile long and including a cataract about 35 ft. high. Three and a half miles above Washington are the Little Falls, which mark the head of navigation. Large vessels, however, are prevented by a bridge from proceeding above Georgetown. At Washington there are two channels, with respective depths at mean low water of 18 and 21 ft. Large sums have been spent since 1870 on improving these channels. A few miles below the city the river broadens into a deep tidal estuary from 2½ to 7 m. wide; and channels 24 ft. deep and 200 ft. wide through all the shoals were secured by the project of 1899. The Anacostia river, or “ East Branch,” which flows into the Potomac just south of Washington, is navigable for large vessels for about 2 m. and for small scows and lighters as far as Bladensburg, Md., 8¾ m. above its mouth; its natural channel was narrow and tortuous and about 18 ft. deep; in 1909 improvements (begun in 1902) had procured a channel 20 ft. deep at mean low water and 380 ft. wide. The Chesapeake & Ohio Canal, from Georgetown to Cumberland, Md., follows the Potomac closely on the Maryland side. The shipments over the Potomac above Washington in 1907 were valued at $7,596,494, and those below Washington at $21,093,800, the principal commodities being sand and gravel, ice, oils, naval ordnance and supplies, and building and paving materials. The shipments on the Anacostia river were of much the same character, and in 1907 were valued at $4,312,687.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Potosí (city)

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​POTOSÍ, a city of Bolivia, capital of the department of Potosi, 47 m. (direct) S.W. of Sucré, or 88 m. by the post-road. Pop. (1906, estimate), 23,450. Potosi stands on a barren terrace on the northern slope of the Cerro Gordo de Potosi, 12,992 ft. above sea-level, and is one of the highest towns in the world. The famous cerro from which its name is taken rises above the town to a height of 15,381 ft., a barren, white-capped cone honeycombed with mining shafts. The town is regularly laid out with streets crossing each other at right angles. The smoke begrimed buildings, many of which are unoccupied and in ruins, are commonly of adobe. A large plaza forms the conventional centre, around which are grouped various religious edifices, the government house, town hall, national college, the old “ royal mint ” dating from 1585, and the treasury. The city has a massive, plain cathedral, which in part dates from early colonial times, and in part from the closing years of Spanish rule. The water supply is derived from a costly system, of reservoirs and aqueducts constructed by the Spanish government during the years of the city's greatest prosperity. There are 27 of these artificial lakes, and the aqueducts originally numbered 32, some of which are no longer serviceable. Rough mountain roads and pack animals are the only means of transportation to and from Potosí, but a railway from Oruro to Tupiza via Potosí, forming part of the projected Pan-American route, was contracted for in 1908. In 1611 the population of Potosí was reported to be 160,000, which probably included the whole mining district. A part of the diminution since then is explained by the fact that the great majority of the mines on the cerro have been abandoned. ​The foundation of the city dates from 1547, two years after the first discovery of silver on the cerro by an Indian herder named Gualci. Charles V. conferred upon it the title of “villa imperial.” From 1545 to 1800 the crown tax of one-fifth upon the mineral product amounted to £32,600,000, showing an acknowledged output of £163,000,000. The actual output, however, must have been much greater, as Spain was flooded with contraband silver, and there was a large trade in it at La Plata ports, whence it was taken to Brazil and Portugal. The total output to 1864 has been estimated at more than £400,000,000, but the annual output at the beginning of the 20th century barely exceeded 400,000 ozs. The struggle for independence began in Potosi on the 9th of November 1810, but the Spanish forces succeeded in retaining possession down to 1822.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Potocki, Ignaty

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​POTOCKI, IGNATY (1741-1809), Polish statesman and writer, son of Eustachy Potocki, general of artillery of the army of Lithuania, was born at Podhajce. He was educated first at Warsaw beneath the eye of the pedagogic reformer Stanislaw Konarski (1700-1773), and subsequently in Italy, where he proposed to take orders. On returning home, however, he abandoned this idea, and as a member of the newly instituted commission of education rendered invaluable services to his country for the next sixteen years. He earnestly desired a reform of the constitution also, and was thus attracted to the party of the Czartoryscy. Elected deputy to every diet since 1778, he was a conspicuous member of the patriotic opposition. In matters of importance nothing was done without his advice, and he was esteemed as much for his character as for his talents. His influence was at its height during the Four Years' Diet, 1788-1792. He was appointed a member of the committee for the reform of the constitution, defended eloquently the right of the towns to the franchise, and was an advocate of an alliance with Prussia. Thus he was one of the creators of the constitution of the 3rd of May 1791, although his aristocratic antecedents prevented him from going the lengths of the more radical reformers. On the formation of the confederation of Targowica, Potocki emigrated to Dresden; but on the outbreak of the revolution of 1794 returned to Poland, was appointed a member of the national government, and entrusted with the conduct of foreign affairs. On the fall of Warsaw he surrendered to Suvarov and was sent to Russia, where he remained till 1796. On his return to Poland he retired to the village of Klimuntowo, where for the next thirteen years he devoted himself to literature. At the end of the war of 1809 he was commissioned to go to Vienna to present to Napoleon the petitions of the Galicians for the incorporation of their province with the grand duchy of Warsaw. He died at Vienna the same year. The most notable of Potocki's works is: Vom Entstehen und Untergange der polnischen Konstitutionen vom 3ten May 1791 (Lemberg, 1793).
See August Sokolowski, Illustrated History of Poland (Pol.), vol. iv. (Vienna, 1901).
(R. N. B.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Roué

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ROUÉ, a dissipated debauche. The word is French, and its original meaning was "broken on the wheel." Breaking on the wheel was a form of execution reserved in France, and some other countries, for crimes of peculiar atrocity. A roué, therefore, came by a natural process to be understood to mean a man morally worse than a pendard or gallows-bird, who only deserved hanging for common crimes. He was also a leader in wickedness, since the chief of a gang of brigands (for instance) would be broken on the wheel, while his obscure followers were merely hanged. Philip, duke of Orleans, who was regent of France from 1715 to 1723, gave the term the sense of impious and callous debauchee, which it has borne since his time, by habitually applying it to the very bad male company who amused his privacy and his leisure. The locus classicus for the origin of this use of the epithet is in the Memoirs of Saint-Simon (vol. xii. pp. 441-46, ed. Chéruel and Regnier, Paris, 1873-86).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rovuma

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​ROVUMA, a river in East Africa, forming during the greater part of its course the boundary between German and Portuguese territory. The lower Rovuma is formed by the junction in 11° 25′ S., 38° 31′ E. of two branches of nearly equal importance, the longer of which, the Lujenda, comes from the south-west, the other, which still bears the name Rovuma, from the west. Its source lies on an undulating plateau, 3000 ft. high, immediately to the east of Lake Nyasa, in 10° 45′ S., 35° 40′ E., the head-stream flowing first due west before turning south and east. In its eastward course the Rovuma flows near the base of the escarpment of an arid sandstone plateau to the north, from which direction the streams, which have cut themselves deep channels in the plateau edge, have almost all short courses. On the opposite bank the Rovuma receives, besides the Lujenda, the Msinje and Luchulingo, flowing in broad valleys running from south to north. The Lujenda rises in close proximity to Lake Chilwa, in the small Lake Chiuta (1700 ft.), the swamps to the south of this being separated from Chilwa only by a narrow wooded ridge. The stream which issues from Chiuta passes by a swampy valley into the narrow Lake Amaramba, from which the Lujenda finally issues as a stream 80 yds. wide. Lower down it varies greatly in width, containing in many parts long wooded islands which rise above the flood level, and are often inhabited. The river is fordable in many places in the dry season. At its mouth it is about a mile wide. The lower Rovuma, which is often half a mile wide but generally shallow, flows through a swampy valley flanked by plateau escarpments containing several small backwaters of the river. The mouth, which lies in 10° 28′ S., 40° 30′ E., is entirely in German territory, the boundary near the coast being formed by the parallel of 10° 40′. The length of the Rovuma is about 500 m.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Row, John

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​ROW, JOHN (c. 1525–1580), Scottish reformer, was born near Stirling and educated in that town and at St Andrews, where he began to practise as an advocate in the consistorial court. In 1550 he was sent to Rome in the interests of John Hamilton, archbishop of St Andrews, and attracted the notice of the highest authorities, who, when his failing health drove him back to Scotland in 1558, nominated him papal nuncio to inquire into the spread of heresy in that country. That inquiry ultimately led him to change his faith. Much influenced by Knox’s preaching, he joined the reformers and in April 1560 was admitted minister of Kennoway in Fife, and in July of the same year minister of the Old or Middle Church at Perth. He was one of the commission of six who drew up the “Confession of Faith” and the “First Book of Discipline,” and during the struggle with Queen Mary was often employed on important engagements. He was moderator of the Church Assembly at Edinburgh in July 1567 and at Perth in the following December, and again in Edinburgh 1576 and Stirling 1578. Meanwhile he helped to compile the “ Second Book of Discipline,” and became more than ever opposed to the Episcopal system of church government. He was a considerable scholar and is said to have been the first to teach Hebrew in Scotland. He died at Perth on the 16th of October 1580.
His son John Row (1568–1646), minister of Carnock, wrote a Historie of the Kirk of Scotland 1558 to 1637, which was continued to 1639 by his son, the third John Row (c. 1598–c. 1672), rector of the Perth grammar school and then (appointed by Cromwell) principal of King’s College, Aberdeen, who, with his father and grandfather was a famous Hebraist, but left the Church of Scotland to become an Independent minister. This Historie was published by the Wodrow Society and by the Maitland Club in 1842.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Rowel

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​ROWEL (from O. Fr. rouel or roel, dim. of roue, Lat. rota, wheel), the name of the small revolving wheel or disk with radiating points forming the termination of a rider’s spur. The earliest rowels probably did not revolve but were fixed. They appear on monuments of the 13th century, as in the great seal of Henry III. of England, but the older “prick” spurs remained the standard form till the 14th century (see Spur). In veterinary science, the word is used of a small disk of leather or other material used as a seton.