OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Boiling to Death

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​BOILING TO DEATH, a punishment once common both in England and on the continent. The only extant legislative notice of it in England occurs in an act passed in 1531 during the reign of Henry VIII., providing that convicted poisoners should be boiled to death; it is, however, frequently mentioned earlier as a punishment for coining. The Chronicles of the Grey Friars (published by the Camden Society, 1852) have an account of boiling for poisoning at Smithfield in the year 1522, the man being fastened to a chain and lowered into boiling water several times until he died. The preamble of the statute of Henry VIII. (which made poisoning treason) in 1531 recites that one Richard Roose (or Coke), a cook, by putting poison in some food intended for the household of the bishop of Rochester and for the poor of the parish of Lambeth, killed a man and woman. He was found guilty of treason and sentenced to be boiled to death without benefit of clergy. He was publicly boiled at Smithfield. In the same year a maid-servant for poisoning her mistress was boiled at King’s Lynn. In 1542 Margaret Davy, a servant, for poisoning her employer, was boiled at Smithfield. In the reign of Edward VI., in 1547, the act was repealed.
See also W. Andrews, Old Time Punishments (Hull, 1890); Notes and Queries, vol i. (1862), vol ix. (1867); Du Cange (s.v. Caldariis decoquere).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Boisgobey, Fortuné du

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​BOISGOBEY, FORTUNÉ DU (1824–1891), French writer of fiction, whose real surname was Castille, was born at Granville (Manche) on the 11th of September 1824. He served in the army pay department in Algeria from 1844 to 1848, and extended his travels to the East. He made his literary début in the Petit journal with a story entitled Deux comédiens (1868). With Le Forçat colonel (1872) he became one of the most popular feuilleton writers. His police stories, though not so convincing ​as those of Émile Gaboriau, with whom his name is generally associated, had a great circulation, and many of them have been translated into English. Among his stories may be mentioned: Les Mystères du nouveau Paris (1876), Le Demi-Monde sous la Terreur (1877), Les Nuits de Constantinople (1882), Le Cri du sang (1885), La Main froide (1889). Boisgobey died on the 26th of February 1891.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bois Brûlés

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​BOIS BRÛLÉS, or Brulés (a French translation of their Indian name Sichangu), a sub-tribe of North American Dakota Indians (Teton river division). The name is most frequently associated with the half-breeds in Manitoba, who in 1869 came into temporary prominence in connexion with Riel’s Rebellion (see Red River); at that time they had lost all tribal purity, and were alternatively called Metis (half-castes), the majority being descendants of French-Canadians.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cleopatra

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​CLEOPATRA, the regular name of the queens of Egypt in the Ptolemaic dynasty after Cleopatra, daughter of the Seleucid Antiochus the Great, wife of Ptolemy V., Epiphanes. The best known was the daughter of Ptolemy XIII. Auletes, born 69 (or 68) B.C. At the age of seventeen she became queen of Egypt jointly with her younger brother Ptolemy Dionysus, whose wife, in accordance with Egyptian custom, she was to become. A few years afterwards, deprived of all royal authority, she withdrew into Syria, and made preparation to recover her rights by force of arms. At this juncture Julius Caesar followed Pompey into Egypt. The personal fascinations of Cleopatra induced him to undertake a war on her behalf, in which Ptolemy lost his life, and she was replaced on the throne in conjunction with a younger brother, of whom, however, she soon rid herself by poison. In Rome she lived openly with Caesar as his mistress until his assassination, when, aware of her unpopularity, she returned at once to Egypt. Subsequently she became the ally and mistress of Mark Antony (see Antonius). Their connexion was highly unpopular at Rome, and Octavian (see Augustus) declared war upon them and defeated them at Actium (31 B.C.). Cleopatra took to flight, and escaped to Alexandria, where Antony joined her. Having no prospect of ultimate success, she accepted the proposal of Octavian that she should assassinate Antony, and enticed him to join her in a mausoleum which she had built in order that “they might die together.” Antony committed suicide, in the mistaken belief that she had already done so, but Octavian refused to yield to the charms of Cleopatra who put an end to her life, by applying an asp to her bosom, according to the common tradition, in the thirty-ninth year of her age (29th of August, 30 B.C.). With her ended the dynasty of the Ptolemies, and Egypt was made a Roman province. Cleopatra had three children by Antony, and by Julius Caesar, as some say, a son, called Caesarion, who was put to death by Octavian. In her the type of queen characteristic of the Macedonian dynasties stands in the most brilliant light. Imperious will, masculine boldness, relentless ambition like hers had been exhibited by queens of her race since the old Macedonian days before Philip and Alexander. But the last Cleopatra had perhaps some special intellectual endowment. She surprised her generation by being able to speak the many tongues of her subjects. There may have been an individual quality in her luxurious profligacy, but then her predecessors had not had the Roman lords of the world for wooers.
For the history of Cleopatra see Antonius, Marcus; Caesar, Gaius Julius; Ptolemies. The life of Antony by Plutarch is our main authority; it is upon this that Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra is based. Her life is the subject of monographs by Stahr (1879, an apologia), and Houssaye, Aspasie, Cléopâtre, &c. (1879).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Clepsydra

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​CLEPSYDRA (from Gr. κλέπτειν, to steal, and ὕδωρ, water), the chronometer of the Greeks and Romans, which measured time by the flow of water. In its simplest form it was a short-necked earthenware globe of known capacity, pierced at the bottom with several small holes, through which the water escaped or “stole away.” The instrument was employed to set a limit to the speeches in courts of justice, hence the phrases aquam dare, to give the advocate speaking time, and aquam perdere, to waste time. Smaller clepsydrae of glass were very early used in place of the sun-dial, to mark the hours. But as the length of the hour varied according to the season of the year, various arrangements, of which we have no clear account, were necessary to obviate this and other defects. For instance, the flow of water varied with the temperature and pressure of the air, and secondly, the rate of flow became less as the vessel emptied itself. The latter defect was remedied by keeping the level of the water in the clepsydra uniform, the volume of that discharged being noted. Plato is said to have invented a complicated clepsydra to indicate the ​hours of the night as well as of the day. In the clepsydra or hydraulic clock of Ctesibius of Alexandria, made about 135 B.C., the movement of water-wheels caused the gradual rise of a little figure, which pointed out the hours with a little stick on an index attached to the machine. The clepsydra is said to have been known to the Egyptians. There was one in the Tower of the Winds at Athens; and the turret on the south side of the tower is supposed to have contained the cistern which supplied the water.
See Marquardt, Das Privatleben der Römer, i. (2nd ed., 1886), p. 792; G. Bilfinger, Die Zeitmesser der antiken Völker (1886), and Die antiken Stundenangaben (1888).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Clergy, Benefit of

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​CLERGY, BENEFIT OF, an obsolete but once very important feature in English criminal law. Benefit of clergy began with the claim on the part of the ecclesiastical authorities in the 12th century that every clericus should be exempt from the jurisdiction of the temporal courts and be subject to the spiritual courts alone. The issue of the conflict was that the common law courts abandoned the extreme punishment of death assigned to some offences when the person convicted was a clericus, and the church was obliged to accept the compromise and let a secondary punishment be inflicted. The term “clerk” or clericus always included a large number of persons in what ​were called minor orders, and in 1350 the privilege was extended to secular as well as to religious clerks; and, finally, the test of being a clerk was the ability to read the opening words of verse 1 of Psalm li., hence generally known as the “neck-verse.” Even this requirement was abolished in 1705. In 1487 it was enacted that every layman, when convicted of a clergyable felony, should be branded on the thumb, and disabled from claiming the benefit a second time. The privilege was extended to peers, even if they could not read, in 1547, and to women, partially in 1622 and fully in 1692. The partial exemption claimed by the Church did not apply to the more atrocious crimes, and hence offences came to be divided into clergyable and unclergyable. According to the common practice in England of working out modern improvements through antiquated forms, this exemption was made the means of modifying the severity of the criminal law. It became the practice to claim and be allowed the benefit of clergy; and when it was the intention by statute to make a crime really punishable with death, it was awarded “without benefit of clergy.” The benefit of clergy was abolished by a statute of 1827, but as this statute did not repeal that of 1547, under which peers were given the privilege, a further statute was passed in 1841 putting peers on the same footing as commons and clergy.
For a full account of benefit of clergy see Pollock and Maitland, History of English Law, vol. i. 424-440; also Stephen, History of the Criminal Law of England, vol. i.; E. Friedberg, Corpus juris canonici (Leipzig, 1879–1881).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Clerestory

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​CLERESTORY, or Clearstory (Ital. chiaro piano, Fr. clairevoie, claire étage, Ger. Lichtgaden), in architecture, the upper storey of the nave of a church, the walls of which rise above the aisles and are pierced with windows (“clere” being simply “clear,” in the sense of “lighted”). Sometimes these windows are very small, being mere quatrefoils or spherical triangles. In large buildings, however, they are important objects, both for beauty and utility. The windows of the clerestories of Norman work, even in large churches, are of less importance than in the later styles. In Early English they became larger; and in the Decorated they are more important still, being lengthened as the triforium diminishes. In Perpendicular work the latter often disappears altogether, and in many later churches, as at Taunton, and many churches in Norfolk and Suffolk, the clerestories are close ranges of windows. The term is equally applicable to the Egyptian temples, where the lighting of the hall of columns was obtained over the stone roofs of the adjoining aisles, through slits pierced in vertical slabs of stone. The Romans also in their baths and palaces employed the same method, and probably derived it from the Greeks; in the palaces at Crete, however, light-wells would seem to have been employed.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Clerfayt, François Sebastien Charles Joseph de Croix, Count of

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​CLERFAYT (or Clairfayt), FRANÇOIS SEBASTIEN CHARLES JOSEPH DE CROIX, Count of (1733–1798), Austrian field marshal, entered the Austrian army in 1753. In the Seven Years’ War he greatly distinguished himself, earning rapid promotion, and receiving the decoration of the order of Maria Theresa. At the conclusion of the peace, though still under thirty, he was already a colonel. During the outbreak of the Netherlands in 1787, he was, as a Walloon by birth, subjected to great pressure to induce him to abandon Joseph II., but he resisted all overtures, and in the following year went to the Turkish war in the rank of lieutenant field marshal. In an independent command Clerfayt achieved great success, defeating the Turks at Mehadia and Calafat. In 1792, as one of the most distinguished of the emperor’s generals, he received the command of the Austrian contingent in the duke of Brunswick’s army, and at Croix-sous-Bois his corps inflicted a reverse on the troops of the French revolution. In the Netherlands, to which quarter he was transferred after Jemappes, he opened the campaign of 1793 with the victory of Aldenhoven and the relief of Maestricht, and on March 18th mainly brought about the complete defeat of Dumouriez at Neerwinden. Later in the year, however, his victorious career was checked by the reverse at Wattignies, and in 1794 he was unsuccessful in West Flanders against Pichegru. In the course of the campaign Clerfayt succeeded the duke of Saxe-Coburg in the supreme command, but was quite unable to make head against the French, and had to recross the Rhine. In 1795, now field marshal, he commanded on the middle Rhine against Jourdan, and this time the fortune of war changed. Jourdan was beaten at Höchst and Mainz brilliantly relieved. But the field marshal’s action in concluding an armistice with the French not being approved by Thugut, he resigned the command, and became a member of the Aulic Council in Vienna. He died in 1798. A brave and skilful soldier, Clerfayt perhaps achieved more than any other Austrian commander (except the archduke Charles) in the hopeless struggle of small dynastic armies against a “nation in arms.”
See von Vivenot, Thugut, Clerfayt, und Würmser (Vienna, 1869).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Clergy Reserves

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​CLERGY RESERVES, in Canada. By the act of 1791, establishing the provinces of Upper and Lower Canada, the British government set apart one-eighth of all the crown lands for the support of “a Protestant clergy.” These reservations, after being for many years a stumbling-block to the economic development of the province, and the cause of much bitter political and ecclesiastical controversy, were secularized by the Canadian parliament in 1854, and the proceeds applied to other purposes, chiefly educational. Owing to the wording of the imperial act, the amount set apart is often stated as one-seventh, and was sometimes claimed as such by the clergy.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Behn, Aphra

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​BEHN, APHRA (otherwise Afra, Aphara or Ayfara) (1640–1689), British dramatist and novelist, was baptized at Wye, Kent, in 1640. Her father, John Johnson, was a barber. While still a child she was taken out to Surinam, then an English possession, from which she returned to England in 1658, when it was handed over to the Dutch. In Surinam Aphra learned the history, and acquired a personal knowledge of the African prince Oroonoko and his beloved Imoinda, whose adventures she has related in her novel, Oroonoko. On her return she married Mr Behn, a London merchant of Dutch extraction. The wit and abilities of Mrs Behn brought her into high estimation at court, and—her husband having died by this time—Charles II. employed her on secret service in the Netherlands during the Dutch war. At Antwerp she successfully accomplished the objects of her mission; and in the latter end of 1666 she wormed out of one Van der Aalbert the design formed by De Ruyter, in conjunction with the DeWitts, of sailing up the Thames and burning the English ships in their harbours. This she communicated to the English court, but although the event proved her intelligence to have been well founded, it was at the time disregarded. Disgusted with political service, she returned to England, and from this period she appears to have supported herself by her writings. Among her numerous plays are The Forced Marriage, or the Jealous Bridegroom (1671); The Amorous Prince (1671); The Town Fop (1677); and The Rover, or the Banished Cavalier (in two parts, 1677 and 1681); and The Roundheads (1682). The coarseness that disfigures her plays was the fault of her time; she possessed great ingenuity, and showed an admirable comprehension of stage business, while her wit and vivacity were unfailing. Of her short tales, or novelettes, the best is the story of Oroonoko, which was made the basis of Thomas Southerne’s popular tragedy. Mrs Behn died on the 16th of April 1689, and was buried in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey.
See Plays written by the Late Ingenious Mrs Behn (1702; reprinted, 1871); also “Aphra Behn’s Gedichte und Prosawerke,” by P. Siegel in Anglia (Halle, vol. xxv., 1902, pp. 86-128,329-385); and A. C. Swinburne’s essay on “Social Verse” in Studies in Prose and Poetry (1894).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Beggar-My-Neighbour

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​BEGGAR-MY-NEIGHBOUR, a simple card-game. An ordinary pack is divided equally between two players, and the cards are held with the backs upwards. The first player lays down his top card face up, and the opponent plays his top card on it, and this goes on alternately as long as no court-card appears; but if either player turns up a court-card, his opponent has to play four ordinary cards to an ace, three to a king, two to a queen, one to a knave, and when he has done so the other player takes all the cards on the table and places them under his pack; if, however, in the course of this playing to a court-card, another court-card turns up, the adversary has in turn to play to this, and as long as neither has played a full number of ordinary cards to any court-card the trick continues. The player who gets all the cards into his hand is the winner.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Behbahan

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​BEHBAHAN, a walled town of Persia in the province of Fars, pleasantly situated in the midst of a highly cultivated plain, 128 m. W.N.W. of Shiraz and 3 m. from the left bank of the river Tab, here called Kurdistan river. It is the capital of the Kuhgilu-Behbahan sub-province of Fars and has a population of about 10,000. The walls are about 3 m. in circumference and a Narinj Kalah (citadel) stands in the south-east corner. At a short distance north-west of the city are the ruins of Arrajan, the old capital of the province.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Begonia

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​BEGONIA (named from M. Begon, a French patron of botany), a large genus (natural order, Begoniaceae) of succulent herbs or undershrubs, with about three hundred and fifty species in tropical moist climates, especially South America and India. About one hundred and fifty species are known in cultivation, and innumerable varieties and hybrid forms. Many are tuberous. The flowers are usually showy and large, white, rose, scarlet or yellow in colour; they are unisexual, the male containing numerous stamens, the female having a large inferior ovary and two to four branched or twisted stigmas. The fruit is a winged capsule containing numerous minute seeds. The leaves, which are often large and variegated, are unequal-sided.
Cuttings from flowering begonias root freely in sandy soil, if placed in heat at any season when moderately firm; as soon as rooted, they should be potted singly into 3-in. pots, in sandy loam mixed with leaf-mould and sand. They should be stopped to keep them bushy, placed in a light situation, and thinly shaded in the middle of very bright days. In a few weeks they will require another shift. They should not be overpotted, but instead assisted by manure water. The pots should be placed in a light pit near the roof glass. The summer-flowering kinds will soon begin blooming, but the autumn and winter flowering sorts should be kept growing on in a temperature of from 55° to 60° by night, with a few degrees more in the day. The tuberous-rooted sorts require to be kept at rest in winter, in a medium temperature, almost but not quite dry. In February they should be potted in a compost of sandy loam and leaf-mould, and placed in a temperate pit until May or June, when they may be moved to the greenhouse for flowering. If they afterwards get at all pot-bound, weak manure should be applied. After blooming, the supply of water must be again slackened; in winter the plants should be stored in a dry place secure from frost; they are increased by late summer and autumn cuttings, after being partially cut down.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Behemoth

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​BEHEMOTH (the intensive plural of the Hebrew b’hemah, a beast), the animal mentioned in the book of Job (ch. xl. 15), probably the hippopotamus, which in ancient times was found in Egypt below the cataracts of Syene. The word may be used in Job as typical of the primeval king of land animals, as leviathan of the water animals. The modern use expresses the idea of a very large and strong animal.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Coif

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​COIF (from Fr. coiffe, Ital. cuffia, a cap), a close-fitting covering for the head. Originally it was the name given to a head-covering worn in the middle ages, tied like a night-cap under the chin, and worn out of doors by both sexes; this was later worn by men as a kind of night-cap or skull-cap. The coif was also a close-fitting cap of white lawn or silk, worn by English serjeants-at-law as a distinguishing mark of their profession. It became the fashion to wear on the top of the white coif a small skull-cap of black silk or velvet; and on the introduction of wigs at the end of the 17th century a round space was left on the top of the wig for the display of the coif, which was afterwards covered by a small patch of black silk edged with white (see A. Pulling, Order of the Coif, 1897). The random conjecture of Sir H. Spelman (Glossarium archaiologicum) that the coif was originally designed to conceal the ecclesiastical tonsure has unfortunately been quoted by annotators of Blackstone’s Commentaries as well as by Lord Campbell in his Lives of the Chief Justices. It may be classed with the curious conceit, recorded in Brand’s Popular Antiquities, that the coif was derived from the child’s caul, and was worn on the advocate’s head for luck.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cognizance

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​COGNIZANCE (Lat. cognoscere, to know), knowledge, notice, especially judicial notice, the right of trying or considering a case judicially, the exercise of jurisdiction by a court of law. In heraldry a “cognizance” is an emblem, badge or device, used as a distinguishing mark by the body of retainers of a royal or noble house.