OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Annunciation

See also Annunciation on Wikipedia; Annunciation in the 9th Edition; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​ANNUNCIATION, the announcement made by the angel Gabriel to the Virgin Mary of the incarnation of Christ (Luke i, 26-38). The Feast of the Annunciation in the Christian Church is celebrated on the 25th of March. The first authentic allusions to it are in a canon, of the council of Toledo (656), and another of the council of Constantinople “in Trullo” (692), forbidding the celebration of all festivals in Lent, excepting the Lord’s day and the Feast of the Annunciation. An earlier origin has been claimed for it on the ground that it is mentioned in sermons of Athanasius and of Gregory Thaumaturgus, but both of these documents are now admitted to be spurious. A synod held at Worcester, England (1240), forbade all servile work on this feast day. See further Lady Day.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Auxonne

See also Auxonne on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​AUXONNE, a town of eastern France, in the department of Côte d’Or, 19 m. E.S.E. of Dijon on the Paris-Lyon railway to Belfort. Pop. (1906) 2766 (town); 6307 (commune). Auxonne is a quiet town situated in a wide plain on the left bank of the Saône. It preserves remains of ramparts, a stronghold of the 16th century flanked by cylindrical towers, and a sculptured gateway of the 15th century. Vauban restored these works in the latter half of the 17th century, and built the arsenal now used as a market. The church of Notre-Dame dates from the 14th century. Of the two towers surmounting its triple porch only that to the south is finished. A lofty spire rises above a third tower over the crossing. The hôtel de ville (15th century) and some houses of the Renaissance period are also of architectural interest. A statue of Napoleon I. as a sub-lieutenant commemorates his sojourns in the town from 1788 to 1791. Auxonne has a tribunal of commerce and a communal college. Its industries are unimportant, but it has a large trade in the vegetables produced by the numerous market gardens in the vicinity.
Auxonne, the name of which is derived from its position on the Saône (ad Sonam), was in the middle ages chief place of a countship, which in the first half of the 13th century passed to the dukes of Burgundy. The town received a charter in 1229 and derived some importance from the mint which the dukes of Burgundy founded in it. It was invested by the allies in 1814, and surrendered to an Austrian force in the following year.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ava

See also Inwa on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​AVA, the ancient capital of the Burman empire, now a subdivision of the Sagaing district in the Sagaing division of Upper Burma. It is situated on the Irrawaddy on the opposite ​bank to Sagaing, with which it was amalgamated in 1889. Amarapura, another ancient capital, lies 5 m. to the north-east of Ava, and Mandalay, the present capital, 6 m. to the north. The classical name of Ava is Yadanapura, “the city of precious gems.” It was founded by Thadomin Payā in A.D. 1364 as successor to Pagān, and the religious buildings of Pagān were to a certain extent reproduced here, although on nothing like the same scale as regards either size or splendour. It remained the seat of government for about four centuries with a succession of thirty kings. In 1782 a new capital, Amarapura, was founded by Bodaw Payā, but was deserted again in favour of Ava by King Baggidaw in 1823. On his deposition by King Tharawaddi in 1837, the capital reverted to Amarapura; but finally in 1860 the last capital of Mandalay was occupied by King Mindōn. For picturesque beauty Ava is unequalled in Burma, but it is now more like a park than the site of an old capital. Traces of the great council chamber and various portions of the royal palace are still visible, but otherwise the secular buildings are completely destroyed; and most of the religious edifices are also dilapidated.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Avahi

See also Woolly lemur on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​AVAHI, the native name of a Malagasy lemur (Avahis laniger) nearly allied to the indri (q.v.), and the smallest representative of the subfamily Indrisinae, characterized by its woolly coat, and measuring about 28 in. in length, of which rather more than half is accounted for by the tail. Unlike the other members of the group, the avahi is nocturnal, and does not associate in small troops, but is met with either alone or in pairs. Very slow in its movements, it rarely descends to the ground, but, when it does, walks upright like the other members of the group. It is found throughout the forests which clothe the mountains on the east coast of Madagascar, and also in a limited district on the north-west coast, the specimens from the latter locality being of smaller size and rather different in colour. The eastern phase is generally rusty red above, with the inner sides of the limbs white; while the predominant hue in the western form is usually yellowish brown. (See Primates.) (R. L.*)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Avalanche

See also Avalanche on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​AVALANCHE (adopted from a French dialectic form, avalance, descent), a mass of snow and ice mingled with earth and stones, which rushes down a mountain side, carrying everything before it, and producing a strong wind which uproots trees on each side of its course. Where the supply of snow exceeds the loss by evaporation the surplus descends the mountain sides, slowly in the form of glaciers, or suddenly in ice-falls or in avalanches. A mass of snow may accumulate upon a steep slope and become compacted into ice by pressure, or remain loosely aggregated. When the foundation gives way, owing to the loosening effect of spring rains or from any other cause, the whole mass slides downward. A very small cause will sometimes set a mass of overloaded snow in motion. Thunder or even a loud shout is said to produce this effect when the mass is just poised, and Swiss guides often enjoin absolute silence when crossing dangerous spots.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Avallon

See also Avallon on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​AVALLON, a town of central France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Yonne, 34 m. S.S.E. of Auxerre on a branch of the Paris-Lyon railway. Pop. (1906) 5197. The town, with wide streets and picturesque promenades, is finely situated on a promontory, the base of which is washed on the south by the Cousin, on the east and west by small streams. Its chief building, the church of St Lazare, dates from the 12th century. The two western portals are adorned with sculpture in the ornate Romanesque style; the tower on the left of the façade was rebuilt in the 17th century. The Tour de L’Horloge, pierced by a gateway through which passes the Grande Rue, is a 15th century structure containing a museum on its second floor. Remains of the ancient fortifications, including seven of the flanking towers, are still to be seen. Avallon has a statue of Vauban, the military engineer. The public institutions include the subprefecture, a tribunal of first instance, and a communal college. The manufacture of biscuits and gingerbread, and of leather and farm implements is carried on, and there is considerable traffic in wood, wine, and the live-stock and agricultural produce of the surrounding country.
Avallon (Aballo) was in the middle ages the seat of a viscounty dependent on the duchy of Burgundy, and on the death of Charles the Bold passed under the royal authority.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Avalon

See also Avalon on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​AVALON (also written Avallon, Avollon, Avilion and Avelion), in Welsh mythology the kingdom of the dead, afterwards an earthly paradise in the western seas, and finally, in the Arthurian romances, the abode of heroes to which King Arthur was conveyed after his last battle. In Welsh the name is Ynys yr Afallon, usually interpreted “Isle of Apples,” but possibly connected with the Celtic tradition of a king over the dead named Avalloc (in Welsh Afallach). If the traditional derivation is correct, the name is derived from the Welsh afal, an apple, and, as no other large fruit was well known to the races of northern Europe, is probably intended to symbolize the feasting and enjoyments of elysium. Other forms of the name are Ynysvitrin and Ynysgutrin, “Isle of Glass”—which appear to be identical with Glasberg, the Teutonic kingdom of the dead. Perhaps owing to a confusion between Glasberg or Ynysvitrin and the Anglo-Saxon Glaestinga-burh, Glastonbury, the name “Isle of Avalon” was given to the low ridge in central Somersetshire which culminates in Glastonbury Tor, while Glastonbury itself came to be called Avalon. Attempts have also been made to identify Avalon with other places in England and Wales.
See Studies in the Arthurian Legend, by J. Rhys (Oxford, 1891); also Arthur (King); Atlantis.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Avadāna

See also Avadana on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​AVADĀNA, the name given to a type of Buddhist romance literature represented by a large number of Sanskrit (Nepalese) collections, of which the chief are the Avadānasataka (Century of Legends), and the Divyāvadāna (The Heavenly Legend). Though of later date than most of the canonical Buddhist books, they are held in veneration by the orthodox, and occupy much the same position with regard to Buddhism that the Purānas do towards Brahminism.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Arklow

See also Arklow on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​ARKLOW, a seaport and market town of Co. Wicklow, Ireland, in the east parliamentary division, 49 m. S. of Dublin, by the Dublin & South-Eastern railway. Pop. (1901) 4944. Sea-fisheries are prosecuted, and there are oyster-beds on the coast, but the produce requires to be freed from a peculiar flavour by the purer waters of the Welsh and English coast before it is fit for food. The produce of the copper and lead mines of the Vale of Avoca is shipped from the port. There are cordite and explosives works, established by Messrs Kynoch of Birmingham, England. In 1882 an act was passed providing for the improvement of the harbour and for the appointment of harbour commissioners. The town hall and the Protestant church (1899) were gifts of the earl of Carysfort, in whose property the town is situated. There are slight ruins of an ancient castle of the Ormondes, demolished in 1649 by Cromwell. On the 9th of June 1798 the Irish insurgents, attacking the town, were defeated by the royal troops near Arklow Bridge, and their leader, Father Michael Murphy, was killed.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ariège

See also Ariège (department) on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​ARIÈGE, an inland department of southern France, bounded S. by Spain, W. and N. by the department of Haute-Garonne, N.E. and E. by Aude, and S.E. by Pyrénées-Orientales. It ​embraces the old countship of Foix, and a portion of Languedoc and Gascony. Area, 1893 sq. m. Pop. (1906) 205,684. Ariège is for the most part mountainous. Its southern border is occupied by the snow-clad peaks of the eastern Pyrenees, the highest of which within the department is the Pic de Montcalm (10,512 ft.). Communication with Spain is afforded by a large number of ports or cols, which are, however, for the most part difficult paths, and only practicable for a few months in the year. Farther to the north two lesser ranges running parallel to the main chain traverse the centre of the department from south-east to north-west. The more southerly, the Montagne de Tabe, contains, at its south-eastern end, several heights between 7200 and 9200 ft., while the Montagnes de Plantaurel to the north of Foix are of lesser altitude. These latter divide the fertile alluvial plains of the north from the mountains of the centre and south. The department is intersected by torrents belonging to the Garonne basin—the Salat, the Arize, which, near Mas d’Azil, flows through a subterranean gallery, the Ariège and the Hers. The climate is mild in the south, but naturally very severe among the mountains. Generally speaking, the arable land, which is chiefly occupied by small holdings, is confined to the lowlands. Wheat, maize and potatoes are the chief crops. Good vineyards and market gardens are found in the neighbourhood of Pamiers in the north. Flax and hemp are also cultivated. The mountains afford excellent pasture, and a considerable number of cattle, sheep and swine are reared. Poultry- and bee-farming flourish. Forests cover more than one-third of the department and harbour wild boars and even bears. Game, birds of prey and fish are plentiful. There is abundance of minerals, including lead, copper, manganese and especially iron. Grindstones, building-stone, talc, gypsum, marble and phosphates are also produced. Warm mineral springs of note are found at Ax, Aulus and Ussat. Pamiers and St Girons are the most important industrial towns. Iron founding and forging, which have their chief centre at Pamiers are principal industries. Flour-milling, paper-making and cloth-weaving may also be mentioned. Ariège is served by the Southern railway. It forms the diocese of Pamiers and belongs to the ecclesiastical province of Toulouse. It is within the circumscriptions of the académie (educational division) and of the court of appeal of Toulouse and of the XVII. army corps. Its capital is Foix; it comprises the arrondissements of Foix, St Girons and Pamiers, with 20 cantons and 338 communes. Foix, Pamiers, St Girons and St Lizier-de-Cousérans are the more noteworthy towns. Mention may also be made of Mirepoix, once the seat of a bishopric, and possessing a cathedral (15th and 16th centuries) with a remarkable Gothic spire.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Arkansas City

* related portals: Kansas.
* sister projects: Wikipedia article, Wikidata item.
See also Arkansas City, Kansas on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​ARKANSAS CITY, a city of Cowley county, Kansas, U.S.A., situated near the S. boundary of the state, in the fork of the Arkansas and Walnut rivers. Pop. (1890) 8347; (1900) 6140, of whom 302 were negroes; (1905) 7634; (1910) 7508. The city is served by the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fé, the Missouri Pacific, the St Louis & San Francisco, the Midland Valley and the Kansas South-Western railways. To the south is the Chilocco Indian school (in Key county, Oklahoma), established by the U.S. government in 1884. A canal joining the Arkansas and Walnut rivers furnishes good water power. The manufactories include flour mills, packing establishments, a creamery and a paint factory. The city is situated in the midst of a rich agricultural region and is a supply centre for southern Kansas and Oklahoma, with large jobbing interests. The municipality owns and operates the waterworks. Arkansas City, first known as Creswell, was settled in 1870, was chartered as a city under its present name in 1872 and was rechartered in 1880.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Arjuna

See also Arjuna on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​ARJUNA, in Hindu mythology, a semi-divine hero of the Mahabharata. He was the third son of Pandu, son of Indra, His character as sketched in the great epic is of the noblest kind. He is the central figure of that portion of the epic known as the Bhagwad-gita, where he is represented as horrified at the impending slaughter of a battle and as being comforted by Krishna.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Barry, Spranger

See also Spranger Barry on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​BARRY, SPRANGER (1719–1777), British actor, was born in Dublin on the 23rd of November 1719, the son of a silversmith, to whose business he was brought up. His first appearance on the stage was at the Smock Alley theatre on the 5th of February 1744, and his engagement at once increased its prosperity. His first London appearance was made in 1746 as Othello at Drury Lane. Here his talents were speedily recognized, and in Hamlet and Macbeth he alternated with Garrick, arousing the latter’s jealousy by his success as Romeo. This resulted in his leaving Drury Lane for Covent Garden in 1750, accompanied by Mrs Cibber, his Juliet. Both houses now at once put on Romeo and Juliet for a series of rival performances, and Barry’s impersonation was preferred by the critics to Garrick’s. In 1758 Barry built the Crow Street theatre, Dublin, and later a new theatre in Cork, but he was not successful as a manager and returned to London to play at the Haymarket, then under the management of Foote. As his second wife, he married in 1768 the actress Mrs Dancer (1734–1801), and he and Mrs Barry played under Garrick’s management, Barry appearing in 1767, after ten years’ absence from the stage, in Othello, his greatest part. In 1774 they both moved to Covent Garden, where Barry remained until his death on the 10th of January 1777. He was a singularly handsome man, with the advantage of height which Garrick lacked.
His second wife, Ann Street Barry, was born in Bath in 1734, the daughter of an apothecary. Early in life she married an actor of the name of Dancer, and it was as Mrs Dancer that she made her first recorded appearance in 1758 as Cordelia to Spranger Barry’s Lear at the Crow Street theatre. During the next nine years she played all the leading tragic parts, but without any great success, and it was not until she came to Drury Lane with Barry that her reputation advanced to the high point at which it afterwards stood. After his death, she remained at Covent Garden and married a man much younger than herself, named Crawford, being first billed as Mrs Crawford in 1778. Her last appearance is said to have been as Lady Randolph in Douglas at Covent Garden in 1798. This part, and that of Desdemona, were among her great impersonations; in both she was considered by some critics superior to Mrs Siddons, who expressed her fear of her in one of her letters. She died on the 29th of November 1801 and was buried in Westminster Abbey.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Barrès, Maurice

See also Maurice Barrès on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​BARRÈS, MAURICE (1862–), French novelist and politician, was born at Charmes (Vosges) on the 22nd of September 1862; he was educated at the lycée of Nancy, and in 1883 went to Paris to continue his legal studies. He was already a contributor to the monthly periodical, Jeune France, and he now issued a periodical of his own, Les Taches d’encre, which survived for a few months only. After four years of journalism he went to Italy, where he wrote Sous l’œil des barbares (1888), the first volume of a trilogie du moi, completed by Un Homme libre (1889), and Le Jardin de Bérénice (1891). He divided the world into moi and the barbarians, the latter including all those antipathetic to the writer’s individuality. These apologies for individualism were supplemented by L’Ennemi des lois (1892), and an admirable volume of impressions of travel, Du sang, de la volupté et de la mort (1893). His early books are written in an elaborate style and are often very obscure. Barrès carried his theory of individualism into politics as an ardent partisan of General Boulanger. He directed a Boulangist paper at Nancy, and was elected deputy in 1889, retaining his seat in the legislature until 1893. His play, Une Journée parlementaire, was produced at the Comédie Française in 1894. In 1897 he began his trilogy, Le Roman de l’énergie nationale, with the publication of Les Déracinés. The series is a plea for local patriotism, and for the preservation of the distinctive qualities of the old French provinces. The first narrates the adventures of seven young Lorrainers, who set out to conquer fortune in Paris. Six of them survive in the second novel of the trilogy, L’Appel au soldat (1900), which gives the history of Boulangism; the sequel, Leurs figures (1902), deals with the Panama scandals. Later works are:—Scènes et doctrines du nationalisme (1902); Les Amitiés françaises (1903), in which he urges the inculcation of patriotism by the early study of national history; Ce que j’ai vu à Rennes (1904); Au service de l’Allemagne (1905), the experiences of an Alsatian conscript in a German regiment; Le Voyage de Sparte (1906). M. Barrès was admitted to the French Academy in 1906.
See also R. Doumic, Les Jeunes (1896); J. Lionnet, L’Évolution des idees (1903); Anatole France, La Vie littéraire (4th series, 1892).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Barré, Isaac

* related portals: Isaac Barré.
* sister projects: Wikipedia article, Wikidata item.
See also Isaac Barré on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​BARRÉ, ISAAC (1726–1802), British soldier and politician, was born at Dublin in 1726, the son of a French refugee. He was educated at Trinity College, Dublin, entered the army, and in 1759 was with Wolfe at the taking of Quebec, on which occasion he was wounded in the cheek. His entry into parliament in 1761 under the auspices of Lord Shelburne, who had selected him “as a bravo to run down Mr Pitt,” was characterized by a virulent attack on Pitt, of whom, however, he became ultimately a devoted adherent. A vigorous opponent of the taxation of America, his mastery of invective was powerfully displayed in his championship of the American cause, and the name “Sons of Liberty,” which he had applied to the colonists in one of his speeches, became a common designation of the American organizations directed against the Stamp Act, as well as of later patriotic clubs. His appointment in 1782 to the treasurership of the navy, which carried with it a pension of £3200 a year, at a time when the government was ostensibly advocating economy, caused great discontent; subsequently, however, he received from the younger Pitt the clerkship of the pells in place of the pension, which thus was saved to the public. Becoming blind, he retired from office in 1790 and died on the 20th of July 1802.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bartan

See also Bartın on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​BARTAN, more correctly Bartin, a town in the vilayet of Kastamuni, Asiatic Turkey, retaining the name of the ancient village Parthenia and situated near the mouth of the Bartan-su (anc. Parthenius), which formed part of the boundary between Bithynia and Paphlagonia. Various aetiological explanations of the name Parthenius were given by the ancients, e.g. that the maiden Artemis hunted on its banks, or that the flow of its waters was gentle and maiden-like. The town, which is the residence of a kaïmakam, is built on two low limestone hills and its streets are paved with limestone blocks. It is noted for the fine boxwood grown in the vicinity, is a port of call for Black Sea coasting steamers and carries on a considerable trade with Constantinople which might be increased were it not for the obstruction of the harbour by a bar. Pop. 8677, according to Cuinet, La Turquie d’Asie (1894).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bartenstein

See also Bartoszyce on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer. Now a town of Poland.
​BARTENSTEIN, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Prussia, on the Alle, 34 m. S. of Königsberg by rail. Pop. (1900) 6805. It has a considerable trade in corn and live stock, and its industries comprise founding and carriage-building, tanneries, breweries and potteries. Bartenstein is celebrated for the treaty concluded here on the 26th of April 1807, between Prussia and Russia.