OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Comana (Cappadocia)

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​COMANA, a city of Cappadocia [frequently called Chryse or Aurea, i.e. the golden, to distinguish it from Comana in Pontus; mod. Shahr], celebrated in ancient times as the place where the rites of Mā-Enyo, a variety of the great west Asian Nature-goddess, were celebrated with much solemnity. The service was carried on in a sumptuous temple with great magnificence by many thousands of hieroduli (temple-servants). To defray expenses, large estates had been set apart, which yielded a more than royal revenue. The city, a mere apanage of the temple, was governed immediately by the chief priest, who was always a member of the reigning Cappadocian family, and took rank next to the king. The number of persons engaged in the service of the temple, even in Strabo’s time, was upwards of 6000, and among these, to judge by the names common on local tombstones, were many of Persian race. Under Caracalla, Comana became a Roman colony, and it received honours from later emperors down to the official recognition of Christianity. The site lies at Shahr, a village in the Anti-Taurus on the upper course of the Sarus (Sihun), mainly Armenian, but surrounded by new settlements of Avshar Turkomans and Circassians. The place has derived importance both in antiquity and now from its position at the eastern end of the main pass of the western Anti-Taurus range, the Kuru Chai, through which passed the road from Caesarea-Mazaca (mod. Kaisarieh) to Melitene (Malatia), converted by Septimius Severus into the chief military road to the eastern frontier of the empire. The extant remains at Shahr include a theatre on the left bank of the river, a fine Roman doorway and many inscriptions; but the exact site of the great temple has not been satisfactorily identified. There are many traces of Severus’ road, including a bridge at Kemer, and an immense number of milestones, some in their original positions, others in cemeteries.
See P. H. H. Massy in Geog. Journ. (Sept. 1905); E. Chantre, Mission en Cappadocie (1898). (D. G. H.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Comana (Pontus)

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​COMANA (mod. Gumenek), an ancient city of Pontus, said to have been colonized from Comana in Cappadocia. It stood on the river Iris (Tozanli Su or Yeshil Irmak), and from its central position was a favourite emporium of Armenian and other merchants. The moon-goddess was worshipped in the city with a pomp and ceremony in all respects analogous to those employed in the Cappadocian city. The slaves attached to the temple alone numbered not less than 6000. St John Chrysostom died there on the way to Constantinople from his exile at Cocysus in the Anti-Taurus. Remains of Comana are still to be seen near a village called Gumenek on the Tozanli Su, 7 m. from Tokat, but they are of the slightest description. There is a mound; and a few inscriptions are built into a bridge, which here spans the river, carrying the road from Niksar to Tokat. (D. G. H.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Comayagua

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​COMAYAGUA, the capital of the department of Comayagua in central Honduras, on the right bank of the river Ulua, and on the interoceanic railway from Puerto Cortes to Fonseca Bay. Pop. (1900) about 8000. Comayagua occupies part of a fertile valley, enclosed by mountain ranges. Under Spanish rule it was a city of considerable size and beauty, and in 1827 its inhabitants numbered more than 18,000. A fine cathedral, dating from 1715, is the chief monument of its former prosperity, for most of the handsome public buildings erected in the colonial period have fallen into disrepair. The present city chiefly consists of low adobe houses and cane huts, tenanted by Indians. The university founded in 1678 has ceased to exist, but there is a school of jurisprudence. In the neighbourhood are many ancient Indian ruins (see Central America: Archaeology).
Founded in 1540 by Alonzo Caceres, who had been instructed ​by the Spanish government to find a site for a city midway between the two oceans, Valladolid la Nueva, as the town was first named, soon became the capital of Honduras. It received the privileges of a city in 1557, and was made an episcopal see in 1561. Its decline dates from 1827, when it was burned by revolutionaries; and in 1854 its population had dwindled to 2000. It afterwards suffered through war and rebellion, notably in 1872 and 1873, when it was besieged by the Guatemalans. In 1880 Tegucigalpa (q.v.), a city 37 m. east-south-east, superseded it as the capital of Honduras.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Colza Oil

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​COLZA OIL, a non-drying oil obtained from the seeds of Brassica campestris, var. oleifera, a variety of the plant which produces Swedish turnips. Colza is extensively cultivated in France, Belgium, Holland and Germany; and, especially in the first-named country, the expression of the oil is an important industry. In commerce colza is classed with rape oil, to which both in source and properties it is very closely allied. It is a comparatively inodorous oil of a yellow colour, having a specific gravity varying from 0·912 to 0·920. The cake left after expression of the oil is a valuable feeding substance for cattle. Colza oil is extensively used as a lubricant for machinery, and for burning in lamps.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Combaconum

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​COMBACONUM, or Kumbakonam, a city of British India, in the Tanjore district of Madras, in the delta of the Cauvery, on the South Indian railway, 194 m. from Madras. Pop. (1901) 59,623, showing an increase of 10% in the decade. It is a large town with wide and airy streets, and is adorned with pagodas, gateways and other buildings of considerable pretension. The great gopuram, or gate-pyramid, is one of the most imposing buildings of the kind, rising in twelve stories to a height of upwards of 100 ft., and ornamented with a profusion of figures of men and animals formed in stucco. One of the water-tanks in the town is popularly reputed to be filled with water admitted from the Ganges every twelve years by a subterranean passage 1200 m. long; and it consequently forms a centre of attraction for large numbers of devotees. The city is historically interesting as the capital of the Chola race, one of the oldest Hindu dynasties of which any traces remain, and from which the whole coast of Coromandel, or more properly Cholamandal, derives its name. It contains a government college. Brass and other metal wares, silk and cotton cloth and sugar are among the manufactures.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Coma Berenices

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​COMA BERENICES (“Berenice’s Hair”), in astronomy, a constellation of the northern hemisphere; it was first mentioned by Callimachus, and Eratosthenes (3rd century B.C.), but is not included in the 48 asterisms of Ptolemy. It is said to have been named by Conon, in order to console Berenice, queen of Ptolemy Euergetes, for the loss of a lock of her hair, which had been stolen from a temple to Venus. This constellation is sometimes, but wrongly, attributed to Tycho Brahe. The most interesting member of this group is 24 Comae, a fine, wide double star, consisting of an orange star of magnitude 51/2, and a blue star, magnitude 7.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Château

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​CHÂTEAU (from Lat. castellum, fortress, through O. Fr. chastel, chasteau), the French word for castle (q.v.). The development of the medieval castle, in the 15th and 16th centuries, into houses arranged rather for residence than defence led to a corresponding widening of the meaning of the term château, which came to be applied to any seigniorial residence and so generally to all houses, especially country houses, of any pretensions (cf. the Ger. Schloss). The French distinguish the fortified castle from the residential mansion by describing the former as the château fort, the latter as the château de plaisance. The development of the one into the other is admirably illustrated by surviving buildings in France, especially in the châteaux scattered along the Loire. Of these Langeais, still in perfect preservation, is a fine type of the château fort, with its 10th-century keep and 13th-century walls. Amboise (1490), Blois (1500–1540), Chambord (begun 1526), Chenonceaux (1515–1560), Azay-le-Rideau (1521), may be taken as typical examples of the château de plaisance of the transition period, all retaining in greater or less degree some of the architectural characteristics of the medieval castle. Some description of these is given under their several headings. In English the word château is often used to translate foreign words (e.g. Schloss) meaning country house or mansion.
For the Loire châteaux see Theodore Andrea Cook, Old Touraine (1892).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Château-Gontier

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​CHÂTEAU-GONTIER, a town of western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Mayenne, on the Mayenne, 18 m. S. by E. of Laval by road. Pop. (1906) 6871. Of its churches, that of St Jean, a relic of the castle, dates from the 11th century. Château-Gontier is the seat of a subprefect and has a tribunal of first instance, a communal college for boys and a small museum. It carries on wool- and cotton-spinning, the manufacture of serge, flannel and oil, and is an agricultural market. There are chalybeate springs close to the town. Château-Gontier owes its origin and its name to a castle erected in the first half of the 11th century by Gunther, the steward of Fulk Nerra of Anjou, on the site of a farm belonging to the monks of St Aubin d’Angers. On the extinction of the family, the lordship was assigned by Louis XI. to Philippe de Comines. The town suffered severely during the wars of the League. In 1793 it was occupied by the Vendeans.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Châteauneuf, La Belle

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​CHÂTEAUNEUF, LA BELLE, the name popularly given to Renée de Rieux, daughter of Jean de Rieux, seigneur de Châteauneuf, who was descended from one of the greatest families of Brittany. The dates both of her birth and death are not known. She was maid of honour to the queen-mother Catherine de’ Medici, and inspired an ardent passion in the duke of Anjou, brother of Charles IX. This intrigue deterred the duke from the marriage which it was desired to arrange for him with Elizabeth of England; but he soon abandoned La Belle Châteauneuf for Marie of Cleves (1571). The court then wished to find a husband for Renee de Rieux, whose singular beauty gave her an influence which the queen-mother feared, and matches were in turn suggested with the voivode of Transylvania, the earl of Leicester, with Du Prat, provost of Paris, and with the count of Brienne, all of which came to nothing. Ultimately, on the ground that she had been lacking in respect towards the queen, Louise of Lorraine-Vaudémont, Renée was banished from the court. She married a Florentine named Antinotti, whom she stabbed in a fit of jealousy (1577); then she remarried, her husband being Philip Altoviti, who in 1586 was killed in a duel by the Grand Prior Henry of Angoulême, who was himself mortally wounded.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Château-Thierry

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​CHÂTEAU-THIERRY, a town of northern France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Aisne, 59 m. E.N.E. of Paris on the Eastern railway to Nancy. Pop. (1906) 6872. Château-Thierry is built on rising ground on the right bank of the Marne, over which a fine stone bridge leads to the suburb of Marne. On the quay stands a marble statue erected to the memory of La Fontaine, who was born in the town in 1621; his house is still preserved in the street that bears his name. On the top of a hill are the ruins of a castle, which is said to have been built by Charles Martel for the Frankish king, Thierry IV., and is plainly the origin of the name of the town. The chief relic is a gateway flanked by massive round towers, known as the Porte Saint-Pierre. A belfry of the 15th century and the church of St Crépin of the same period are of some interest. The town is the seat of a sub-prefect and has a tribunal of first instance and a communal college. The distinctive industry is the manufacture of mathematical and musical instruments. There is trade in the white wine of the neighbourhood, and in sheep, cattle and agricultural products. Gypsum, millstone and paving-stone are quarried in the vicinity. Château-Thierry was formerly the capital of the district of Brie Pouilleuse, and received the title of duchy from Charles IX. in 1566. It was captured by the English in 1421, by Charles V. in 1544, and sacked by the Spanish in 1591. During the wars of the Fronde it was pillaged in 1652; and in the campaign of 1814 it suffered severely. On the 12th of February of the latter year the Russo-Prussian forces were beaten by Napoleon in the neighbourhood.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Châteauroux, Marie Anne de Mailly-Nesle

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​CHÂTEAUROUX, MARIE ANNE DE MAILLY-NESLE, Duchesse de (1717–1744), mistress of Louis XV. of France, was the fourth daughter of Louis, marquis de Nesle, a descendant ​of a niece of Mazarin. In 1740, upon the death of her husband, the marquis de la Tournelle, she attracted the attention of Louis XV.; and by the aid of the duc de Richelieu, who, dominated by Madame de Tencin, hoped to rule both the king and the state, she supplanted her sister, Madame de Mailly, as titular mistress in 1742. Directed by Richelieu, she tried to arouse the king, dragging him off to the armies, and negotiated the alliance with Frederick II. of Prussia, in 1744. Her political rôle, however, has been exaggerated. Her triumph after the passing disgrace provoked by the king’s illness at Metz did not last long, for she died on the 8th of December 1744.
See Ed. and J. de Goncourt, La Duchesse de Châteauroux et ses sœurs (Paris, 1879).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Châteaubriant

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​CHÂTEAUBRIANT, a town of western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Loire-Inférieure, on the left bank of the Chère, 40 m. N.N.E. of Nantes by rail. Pop. (1906) 5969. Châteaubriant takes its name from a castle founded in the 11th century by Brient, count of Penthièvre, remains of which, consisting of a square donjon and four towers, still exist. Adjoining it is another castle, built in the first half of the 16th century by Jean de Laval, and famous in history as the residence of Françoise de Foix, mistress of Francis I. Of this the most beautiful feature is the colonnade running at right angles to the main building, and connecting it with a graceful pavilion. It is occupied by a small museum and some of the public offices. There is also an interesting Romanesque church dedicated to St Jean de Béré. Châteaubriant is the seat of a subprefect and has a tribunal of first instance. It is an important centre on the Ouest-État railway, and has trade in agricultural products. The manufacture of leather, agricultural implements and preserved angelica are carried on. In 1551 Henry II. signed an edict against the reformed religion at Châteaubriant.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Châteaudun

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​CHÂTEAUDUN, a town of north central France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Eure-et-Loir, 28 m. S.S.W. of Chartres by rail. Pop. (1906) 5805. It stands on an eminence near the left bank of the Loire. The streets, which are straight and regular, radiate from a central square, a uniformity due to the reconstruction of the town after fires in 1723 and 1870. The château, the most remarkable building in the town, was built in great part by Jean, count of Dunois, and his descendants. Founded in the 10th century, and rebuilt in the 12th and 15th centuries, it consists of a principal wing with a fine staircase of the 16th century, and, at right angles, a smaller wing adjoined by a chapel. To the left of the courtyard thus formed rises a lofty keep of the 12th century. The fine apartments and huge kitchens of the château are in keeping with its imposing exterior. The church of La Madeleine dates from the 12th century; the buildings of the abbey to which it belonged are occupied by the subprefecture, the law court and the hospital. The medieval churches of St Valérien and St Jean ​and the ruined chapel of Notre-Dame du Champdé, of which the façade in the Renaissance style now forms the entrance to the cemetery, are other notable buildings. The public institutions include a tribunal of first instance and a communal college. Flour-milling, tanning and leather-dressing, and the manufacture of blankets, silver jewelry, nails and machinery are the prominent industries. Trade is in cattle, grain, wool and hemp. Châteaudun (Castrodunum), which dates from the Gallo-Roman period, was in the middle ages the capital of the countship of Dunois.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Châteauroux

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​CHATEAUROUX, a town of central France, capital of the department of Indre, situated in a plain on the left bank of the Indre, 88 m. S. of Orleans on the main line of the Orleans railway. Pop. (1906) 21,048. The old town, close to the river, forms a nucleus round which a newer and more extensive quarter, bordered by boulevards, has grown up; the suburbs of St Christophe and Déols (q.v.) lie on the right bank of the Indre. The principal buildings of Châteauroux are the handsome modern church of St André, in the Gothic style, and the Château Raoul, of the 14th and 15th centuries; the latter now forms part of the prefecture. The hôtel de ville contains a library and a museum which possesses a collection of paintings of the Flemish school and some interesting souvenirs of Napoleon I. A statue of General Henri Bertrand (1773–1844) stands in one of the principal squares. Châteauroux is the seat of a prefect and of a court of assizes. It has tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a board of trade-arbitrators, a branch of the Bank of France, a chamber of commerce, a lycée, a college for girls and training colleges. The manufacture of coarse woollens for military clothing and other purposes, and a state tobacco-factory, occupy large numbers of the inhabitants. Wool-spinning, iron-founding, brewing, tanning, and the manufacture of agricultural implements are also carried on. Trade is in wool, iron, grain, sheep, lithographic stone and leather. The castle from which Châteauroux takes its name was founded about the middle of the 10th century by Raoul, prince of Déols, and during the middle ages was the seat of a seigniory, which was raised to the rank of countship in 1497, and in 1616, when it was held by Henry II., prince of Condé, to that of duchy. In 1736 it returned to the crown, and was given by Louis XV. in 1744 to his mistress, Marie Anne de Mailly-Nesle, duchess of Châteauroux.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Foucquet, Jean

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​FOUCQUET, JEAN, or Jehan (c. 1415–1485), French painter, born at Tours, is the most representative and national French painter of the 15th century. Of his life little is known, but it is certain that he was in Italy about 1437, where he executed the portrait of Pope Eugenius IV., and that upon his return to France, whilst retaining his purely French sentiment, he grafted the elements of the Tuscan style, which he had acquired during his sojourn in Italy, upon the style of the Van Eycks, which was the basis of early 15th-century French art, and thus became the founder of an important new school. He was court painter to Louis XI. Though his supreme excellence as an illuminator and miniaturist, of exquisite precision in the rendering of the finest detail, and his power of clear characterization in work on this minute scale, have long since procured him an eminent position in the art of his country, his importance as a painter was only realized when his portraits and altarpieces were for the first time brought together from various parts of Europe in 1904, at the exhibition of the French Primitives held at the Bibliothèque Nationale in Paris. One of Foucquet’s most important paintings is the diptych, formerly at Notre Dame de Melun, of which one wing, depicting Agnes Sorel as the Virgin, is now at the Antwerp Museum and the other in the Berlin Gallery. The Louvre has his oil portraits of Charles VII., of Count Wilczek, and of Jouvenal des Ursins, besides a portrait drawing in crayon; whilst an authentic portrait from his brush is in the Liechtenstein collection. Far more numerous are his illuminated books and miniatures that have come down to us. The Brentano-Laroche collection at Frankfort contains forty miniatures from a Book of Hours, painted in 1461 for Etienne Chevalier who is portrayed by Foucquet on the Berlin wing of the Melun altarpiece. From Foucquet’s hand again are eleven out of the fourteen miniatures illustrating a translation of Josephus at the Bibliothèque Nationale. The second volume of this MS., unfortunately with only one of the original thirteen miniatures, was discovered and bought in 1903 by Mr Henry Yates Thompson at a London sale, and restored by him to France.
See Œuvres de Jehan Foucquet (Curmer, Paris, 1866–1867); A. de Champeaux and P. Gauchery, Œuvres d’art exécutées pour le duc de Berry; “Facsimiles of two histories by Jean Foucquet” from vols. i. and ii. of the Anciennetés des Juifs (London, 1902); Charles Blanc, Histoire des peintres de toutes les écoles (introduction); and Georges Lafenestre, Jehan Fouquet (Paris, 1902).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Fostoria

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​FOSTORIA, a city, partly in Seneca, partly in Hancock, and partly in Wood county, Ohio, U.S.A., 35 m. S. by E. of Toledo. Pop. (1890) 7070; (1900) 7730 (584 foreign-born); (1910) 9597. It is served by the Baltimore & Ohio, the New York, Chicago & St Louis, the Ohio Central, the Lake Erie & Western, and the Hocking Valley railways, and by two interurban electric lines. The city is situated in an agricultural region, and oil abounds in the vicinity. Among the city’s manufactures are glass, flour, planing mill products, brass and iron, carriages, barrels, incandescent lamps, carbons, wire nails and fences, automobile engines and parts, railway torpedoes and muslin underwear. The waterworks are owned and operated by the municipality. In 1832, upon the coming of the first settlers, two towns, Rome and Risdon, were laid out on the site of what is now Fostoria. A bitter rivalry arose between them, but they were finally united under one government, and the city thus formed was named in ​honour of Charles W. Foster, whose son Charles Foster (1828–1904), governor of the state from 1880 to 1884 and secretary of the United States treasury from 1891 to 1893, did much to promote its growth. Fostoria was chartered as a city in 1854.