OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pückler-Muskau, Hermann Ludwig Heinrich, Fürst Von

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​PÜCKLER-MUSKAU, HERMANN LUDWIG HEINRICH, Fürst Von (1785–1871), German author, was born at Muskau in Lusatia on the 30th of October 1785. He served for some time in the bodyguard at Dresden, and afterwards travelled in France and Italy. In 1811, after the death of his father, he inherited the barony of Muskau and a considerable fortune. As an officer under the duke of Saxe-Weimar he distinguished himself in the war of liberation and was made military and civil governor of Bruges. After the war he retired from the army and visited England, where he remained about a year. In 1822, in compensation for certain privileges which he resigned, he was raised to the rank of Fürst by the king of Prussia. Some years earlier he had married the Gräfin von Pappenheim, daughter of Fürst von Hardenberg; in 1826 the marriage was legally dissolved though the parties did not separate. He again visited England and travelled in America and Asia Minor, living after his return at Muskau, which he spent much time in cultivating and improving. In 1845 he sold this estate to Prince Frederick of the Netherlands, and, although he afterwards lived from time to time at various places in Germany and Italy, his principal residence was his seat, Schloss Branitz near Kottbus, where he laid out splendid gardens as he had already done at Muskau. In 1863 he was made an hereditary member of the Prussian Herrenhaus, and in 1866 he attended the Prussian general staff in the war with Austria. He died at Branitz on the 4th of February 1871, and, in accordance with instructions in his will, his body was cremated. As a writer of books of travel he held a high position, his power of observation being keen and his style lucid and animated. His first work was Briefe eines Verstorbenen (4 vols., 1830–1831), in which he expressed many independent judgments about England and other countries he had visited and about prominent persons whom he had met. Among his later books of travel were Semilassos Vorletzter Weltgang (3 vols., 1835), Semilasso in Afrika (5 vols., 1836), Aus Mehemed-Alis Reich (3 vols., 1844) and Die Rückkehr (3 vols., 1846–1848). He was also the author of Andeutungen über Landschaftsgärtnerei (1834).
See Ludmilla Assing, Pückler-Muskaus Briefwechsel und Tagebücher (9 vols., 1873–1876); Fürst Hermann von Pückler-Muskau (1873); and Petzold, Fürst Hermann von Pückler-Muskau in seiner Bedeutung für die bildende Gartenkunst (1874).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pērōz

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​PĒRŌZ (Peirozes, Priscus, fr. 33; Perozes, Procop. Pers. i. 3 and Agath. iv. 27; the modern form of the name is Feroz, Firuz, cf. Firuzabad), Sassanid king of Persia, A.D. 457-484, son of Yazdegerd II. He rebelled against his brother Homizd III., and in 459 defeated and killed him with the help of the Ephthalites, or White Huns, who had invaded Bactria. He also killed most of his other relatives, and persecuted the Christians. But he favoured the introduction of Nestorianism, in opposition to the orthodox creed of Byzantium. With the Romans he maintained peace, but he tried to keep down the Ephthalites, who began to conquer eastern Iran. The Romans supported him with subsidies; but all his wars were disastrous. Once he was himself taken prisoner and had to give his son Kavadh as hostage till after two years he was able to pay a heavy ransom. Then he broke the treaty again and advanced with a large army. But he lost his way in the eastern desert and perished with his whole army (484). The Ephthalites invaded and plundered Persia for two years, till at last a noble Persian from the old family of Karen, Zarmihr (or Sokhra), restored some degree of order. He raised Balash, a brother of Pērōz, to the throne. (Ed. M.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Péronne

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​PÉRONNE, a town of northern France, capital of an arrondissement of the department of Somme, on the right bank of the Somme at its confluence with the Cologne, 35 m. E. by N. of Amiens by rail. Pop. (1906), 3698. The church of St Jean (1509–1525) was greatly damaged during the bombardment of 1870–71, but has since been restored. The castle of Péronne still retains four large conical-roofed towers dating from the middle ages, one of which is said to have been the prison of Louis XI. in 1468, when he was forced to agree to the “Treaty of Péronne.” Péronne has a sub-prefecture, a tribunal of first instance and a communal college. Its trade and industry are of little importance.
The Frankish kings had a villa at Péronne, which Clovis II. gave to Erchinoaldus, mayor of the palace. The latter founded a monastery here, and raised in honour of St Fursy a collegiate church, which was a wealthy establishment until the Revolution; it is the burial-place of Charles the Simple, who died of starvation in a dungeon in Péronne, into which he had been thrown by the count of Vermandois (929). After the death of Philip of Alsace, Péronne, which he had inherited through his wife, escheated to the French Crown in the reign of Philip Augustus, from whom in 1209 it received a charter. By the treaty of Arras (1435) it was given to the Burgundians; bought back by Louis XI., it passed again into the hands of Charles the Bold in 1465. On the death of Charles, however, in 1477, Louis XI. resumed possession. In 1536 the emperor Charles V. besieged Péronne, but without success; in its defence a woman called Marie Fouré greatly distinguished herself. A statue of her stands in the town, and the anniversary of the raising of the siege is still celebrated annually. It was the first town after Paris at which the League was proclaimed in 1577. Péronne's greatest misfortunes occurred during the Franco-German War. It was invested on the 27th of December 1870, and bombarded from the 28th to the 9th of the following January, upon which date, on account of the sufferings of the civil population, among whom small-pox had broken out, it was compelled to capitulate.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pöllnitz, Karl Ludwig

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​PÖLLNITZ, KARL LUDWIG, Freiherr von (1692–1775), German adventurer and writer, was born at Issum on the 25th of February 1692. His father, Wilhelm Ludwig von Pöllnitz (d. 1693), was in the military service of the elector of Brandenburg, and much of his son's youth was passed at the electoral court in Berlin. He was a man of restless and adventurous disposition, unscrupulous even for the age in which he lived, visited many of the European courts, and served as a soldier in Austria, Italy and Spain. Returning to Berlin in 1735 he obtained a position in the household of King Frederick William I. and afterwards in that of Frederick the Great, with whom he appears to have been a great favourite; and he died in Berlin on the 23rd of June 1775.
Pöllnitz's Mémoires (Liege, 1734), which were translated into German (Frankfort, 1735), give interesting glimpses of his life and the people whom he met, but they are very untrustworthy. He also wrote Nouveaux mémoires (Amsterdam, 1737); Etat abrégé de la cour de Saxe sous le regne d'Auguste III. (Frankfort, 1734; Ger. trans., Breslau, 1736); and Mémoires pour servir à l’histoire des quatres derniers souverains de la maison de Brandenbourg, published by F. L. Brunn (Berlin, 1791; Ger. trans., Berlin, 1791). Perhaps his most popular works are La Saxe galante (Amsterdam, 1734), an account of the private life of Augustus the Strong, elector of Saxony and king of Poland; and Histoire secrete de la duchesse d’Hanovre, épouse de Georges I. (London, 1732). There is an English translation of the Mémoires (London, 1738–1739). See P. von Pöllnitz, Stammtafeln der Familie von Pöllnitz (Berlin, 1894); and J. G. Droysen, Geschichte der preussischen Politik, pt. iv. (Leipzig, 1870).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pössneck

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​PÖSSNECK, a town of Germany, in the duchy of Saxe-Meiningen, 21 m. by rail S. of Jena, on the Kotschau. Pop. (1905), 12,702. It has a Gothic Evangelical church built about 1390, and a Gothic town-hall erected during the succeeding century. Its chief industries are the making of flannel, porcelain, furniture, machines, musical instruments and chocolate. The town has also tanneries, breweries, dyeworks and brick works. Pössneck, which is of Slavonic origin, passed about 1300 to the landgrave of Thuringia. Later it belonged to Saxony and later still to the duchy of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, passing to Saxe-Meiningen in 1826.
See E. Koch, Aus Pössnecks Vergangenheit (Pössneck, 1894–1895); the same writer, Beiträge zur urkundlichen Geschichte der Stadt Pössneck (Pössneck, 1896–1900); and the Geschichte der Stadt Pössneck, published by the Pössnecker Zeitung (Pössneck, 1902).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Périgord

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​PÉRIGORD, one of the old provinces of France, formed part of the military government of Guienne and Gascony, and was bounded on the N. by Angoumois, on the E. by Limousin and Quercy, on the S. by Agenais and Bazadais, and on the W. by Bordelais and Saintonge. It is now represented by the departments of Dordogne and part of Lot-et-Gaionne. Périgord was in two divisions: Périgord blanc (cap. Périgueux) and Périgord noir (cap. Sarlat). In the time of Caesar it formed the civitas Petracoriorum, with Vesunna (Périgueux) as its capital. It became later part of Aquitania secunda and formed the pagus petragoricus, alter wards the diocese of Périgueux. Since the 8th century it had its own counts (see the Histoire généalogique of P. Anselme, tome iii), who were feudatories of the dukes of Aquitaine and in the 13th century were the vassals of the king of England. In the 15th century the county passed into the hands of the dukes of Orleans, and in the 16th came to the family of d’Albret, becoming Crown land again on the accession of Henry IV.
See Dessalles, Histoire du Périgord (1888), the Bulletin of the Societé historique et archéologique du Périgord (1874 seq.), l’Inventaire sommaire de la “Collection de Périgord ” in the Bibliothèque nationale (1874); the Dictionnaire topographique du département de la Dordogne by the Vicomte de Gourgues (1873).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Pézenas

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​PÉZENAS, a town of southern France, in the department of Hérault 33 m. W.S.W. of Montpellier on the southern railway. Pop. (1906), 6432. The commerce in cognac, spirits and wines is so important that the prices current for these at the weekly sales are registered throughout the wine marts of France and Europe. There is a handsome monument to Molière, who lived at Pézenas several years and produced his first plays there in 1655 and 1656. A gateway (15th century) and old mansion of the 15th and 16th centuries are of interest.
Pézenas (Piscennae) was founded by the Gauls. In the 10th century it became the capital of a countship subsequently held by important families including those of Montmorency, Condé and Conti. In the 17th century the town was on several occasions the meeting place of the estates of Languedoc.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Söderhamn

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​SÖDERHAMN, a seaport of Sweden, in the district (län) of Gefleborg, on an inlet of the Gulf of Bothnia, near the, mouth of the Ljasne River, 183 m. N. by W. of Stockholm by rail. Pop. (1900), 11,258. This is one of the principal centres of the timber export trade, having saw-mills, planing-mills and wood-pulp works. There are also ironworks and breweries. Vessels drawing 15 ft. have access to Branthäll, where they generally load. The harbour is at the suburb of Stugsund. It is usually ice-bound for some four months in winter. The town was given municipal privileges by Gustavus Adolphus in 1620, but is modern in appearance, having been rebuilt after fires in 1860 and 1865.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sānchi

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​SĀNCHI, a small village in India, at which there is now a railway station on the Bombay-Baroda line. It is famous as the site of what are almost certainly the oldest buildings in India now standing. They are Buddhist topes (Pali. thūpa; Sanskrit, stūpa), that is, memorial mounds, standing on the level top of a small sandstone hill about 300 ft. high on the left bank of the river Betwa. The number of topes on this and the adjoining hills is considerable. On the Sānchi hill itself are only ten, but one of these is by far the most important and imposing of all. All these topes were opened and examined by General Alexander Cunningham and Lieut.-Colonel Maisey in 1851; and the great tope has been described and illustrated by them and by James Fergusson. This is a solid dome of stone, about 103 ft. in diameter, and now about 42 ft. high. It must formerly have been much higher, the top of the tope having originally formed a terrace, 34 ft. in diameter, on which stood lofty columns. Cunningham estimates the original height of the building as about 100 ft. Round the base is a flagged pathway surrounded by a stone railing and entered at the four points of the compass by gateways some 18 ft. high. Both gateways and railing are elaborately covered with bas-reliefs and inscriptions. The latter give the names of the donors of particular portions of the architectural ornamentation, and most of them are written in the characters used before and after the time of Asoka in the middle of the 3rd century B.C. The monuments are Buddhist, the bas-reliefs illustrate passages in the Buddhist writings, and the inscriptions make use of Buddhist technical terms. Some of the smaller topes give us names of men who lived in the Buddha's time, and others give names mentioned among the missionaries sent out in the time of Asoka. It is not possible from the available data to fix the exact date of any of these topes, but it may be stated that the smaller topes are probably of different dates both before and after Asoka, and that it is very possible that the largest was one of three which we are told was erected by Asoka himself. The monuments at Sānchi are now under the charge of the archaeological department; they are being well cared for, and valuable photographs have been taken of the bas-reliefs and inscriptions. The drawings in Fergusson's work entitled Tree and Serpent Worship are very unsatisfactory, and his suggestion that the carvings illustrate tree and serpent worship is quite erroneous.
Bibliography.—Alex. Cunningham, Bhilsa Topes (London, 1854); James Fergusson, Tree and Serpent Worship (London, 1873); General F. C. Maisey, Sanchi and its Remains (London, 1892); Rhys Davids, Buddhist India (London, 1902). (T. W. R. D.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sāsana Vaṃsa

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​SĀSANA VAṂSA, a history of the Buddhist order in Burma, which was composed, in that country, by Paññā-sāmi in 1851. It is written in Pali prose; and is based on earlier documents, in Pali or Burmese, still extant, but not yet edited. The earlier part of the work deals with the history of Buddhism outside of Burma. This is based on the Mahāvaṃsa, and other well-known Ceylon works; and has no independent value. The latter part of the work, about three-fifths of the whole, deals with Buddhism in Burma, and contains information not obtainable elsewhere. Down to the 11th century the account is meagre, legendary and incredible. After that date it is sober, intelligible and in all probability mostly accurate. This portion occupies about one hundred pages 8vo in the excellent edition of the text prepared for the Pali Text Society in 1897 by Dr Mabel Bode. It shows a continuous literary effort through the eight and a half centuries, and constantly renewed ecclesiastical controversy. The latter is concerned for the most part with minor questions relating to rules of the order, there being a tendency, as relaxations of the rules crept in with the lapse of time, to hark back to the original simplicity. Of differences in matters of doctrine there is no mention in this manual. Dr Bode has prefixed to her edition a detailed summary of the contents of the book. (T. W. R. D.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sénac de Meilhan, Gabriel

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​SÉNAC DE MEILHAN, GABRIEL (1736–1803), French writer, son of Jean Sénac, physician to Louis XV., was born in Paris in 1736. He entered the civil service in 1762; two years later he bought the office of master of requests, and in 1766 further advanced his position by a rich marriage. He was successively intend ant of La Rochelle, of Aix and of Valenciennes. In 1776 he became intendant-general for war, but was soon compelled to resign. He had hoped to be made minister of finance, and was disappointed by the nomination of Necker, of whom he became a bitter opponent. He was intimate with the comtesse de Tessé, sister of the duc de Choiseul, and in 1781 met Madame de Créquy, then sixty-seven years of age, and began a long friendship with her. His first book was the fictitious Mémoires d'Anne de Gonzague, princesse palatine (1786), thought by many people at the time to be genuine. In the next year followed the Considérations sur les richesses et le luxe, combating the opinions of Necker; and in 1788 the more valuable Considérations sur l'esprit et les mœurs, a book which abounds in sententious, but often excessively frank, sayings. Sénac witnessed the beginnings of the Revolution in Paris, but emigrated in 1790, making his way first to London, and then, in 1791, to Aix-la-Chapelle, where he met Pierre Alexandre de Tilly, who asserts in his Memoirs that Sénac attributed the misfortunes of Louis XVI. to the refusal of his own services. In 1793, while his recollections of the Revolution were still fresh, he wrote a novel, L'Émigré (Hamburg, 4 vols., 1797), which shows perspicacity and good judgment in its treatment of events. It was reprinted in 1904 in an abridged form by Casimir Stryienski and Frantz Funck-Brentano. At the invitation of Catherine II. Sénac went in 1792 to Russia, where he hoped to become imperial historiographer, but his manners displeased Catherine, who contented herself with dismissing him with a pension. From Russia he went to Hamburg, ​and thence to Vienna, where he found a friend in the prince de Ligne. He died on the 16th of August 1803. Sénac also wrote a moderate exposition of the causes that led to the revolution, entitled Du gouvernement, des mrenrs et des conditions en Frame avant la Revolution, avec les caractéres des principonx personages du regne de Louis XVI; the last part was reprinted (1813) by the duc de Levis with a notice of the author as Portraits et caracteres. Sénac collected his own Œuvres philosophiques et littéraires (2 vols.) at Hamburg in 1795.
See his Œuvres choisies, edited by M. de Lescure in 1862; Lettres inédites de Madame de Créqui à Sénac de Meilhan (1856), edited by Edouard Fournier; Louis Legrand, Sénac de Meilhan et l’intendance du Hainaut et du Cambrésis (1868); and the notice by Fernand Caussy prefixed to his edition (1905) of the Considerations sur l’esprit et les mœurs.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sāri

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​SĀRI, a town of Persia, in the province of Mazandaran, on the left bank of the Tejen river, 80 m. S.W. of Astarabad. Pop. 10,000. It is the seat of the governor of Mazandaran, and has post and telegraph offices. The town is picturesque but very unhealthy, has stone-paved streets and houses built of brick and covered with green and red glazed tiles.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Séres

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​SÉRES, Serros or Siros, chief town of a sanjak in the vilayet of Salonica, European Turkey, on Lake Takhino, a navigable expansion of the river Karasu or Struma (ancient Strymon), 43 m. by rail N.E. of Salonica. Pop. (1905) about 30,000, of whom about half are Bulgarians (one-third of them being Mussulmans), nearly one-fourth Greeks, about one-seventh Turks and the remainder Jews. Séres is built in a district so fertile as to bear among the Turks the name of Altin Ovassi, or Golden Plain, and so thickly studded with villages as to appear, when seen from the outliers of Rhodope on the north, like a great city with extensive gardens. It is the seat of a Greek archbishop and patriarch. It consists of the old town, Varosh, situated at the foot and on the slope of the hill crowned by the old castle, and of the new town built in the European fashion on the plain, and forming the commercial centre. The principal buildings are the Greek archiepiscopal palace, the Greek cathedral, restored since the great fire of 1879, by which it was robbed of its magnificent mosaics and woodwork, the Greek gymnasium and hospital (the former built of marble), the richly endowed Eski Jami mosque, and the ruins of the once no less flourishing Ahmed Pasha or Hagia Sophia mosque, whose revenues were formerly derived from the Crimea. On a hill above the town are the ruins of a fortress described in a Greek inscription as a “tower built by Helen in the mountainous region.” Séres is the headquarters of the Turkish wool trade, and has also manufactures of cloth and carpets. There is a large trade in rice and cereals, and the other exports include tobacco and hides.
Séres is the ancient Seris, Sirae or Sirrhae, mentioned by Herodotus in connexion with Xerxes’s retreat, and by Livy as the place where Aemilius Paulus received a deputation from Perseus. In the 14th century, when Stephen Dushan of Servia assumed the title emperor of Servia, he chose Sirrhae as his capital; and it remained in the hands of the Servians till its capture by Sultan Murad II. (1421–1451).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Södertelge

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​SÖDERTELGE a town of Sweden, in the district (län) of Stockholm, 23 m. W.S.W. of Stockholm by rail. Pop. (1900), 8,207. It is beautifully situated on a bay of Lake Mälar, which is here connected with the Baltic by the Södertelge canal, 1¼ m. in length, with a minimum depth of 10 ft. This is on the route followed by the Göta Canal steamers between Stockholm and Gothenburg; it was opened in 1819, though a canal was begun here in the first half of the 15th century at the instigation of the patriot Engelbrecht. The town contains an ancient church, believed to date from c. 1100. Here and in the neighbourhood are the residences of many of the business class of Stockholm; and the town is in favour as a summer resort, having mineral springs and baths. There are engineering shops producing railway stock and motors, jute spinning and weaving mills, and match and joinery works.