OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Harvey, Sir George

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​HARVEY, SIR GEORGE (1806–1876), Scottish painter, the son of a watchmaker, was born at St Ninians, near Stirling, in February 1806. Soon after his birth his parents removed to Stirling, where George was apprenticed to a bookseller. His love for art having, however, become very decided, in his eighteenth year he entered the Trustees' Academy at Edinburgh. Here he so distinguished himself that in 1826 he was invited by the Scottish artists, who had resolved to found a Scottish academy, to join it as an associate. Harvey's first picture, "A Village School," was exhibited in 1826 at the Edinburgh Institution; and from the time of the opening of the Academy in the following year he continued annually to exhibit. His best-known pictures are those depicting historical episodes in religious history from a puritan or evangelical point of view, such as "Covenanters Preaching," "Covenanters' Communion," "John Bunyan and his Blind Daughter," "Sabbath Evening," and the "Quitting of the Manse." He was, however, equally popular in Scotland for subjects not directly religious; and "The Bowlers," "A Highland Funeral," "The Curlers," "A Schule Skailin'," and "Children Blowing Bubbles in the Churchyard of Greyfriars', Edinburgh," manifest the same close observation of character, artistic conception and conscientious elaboration of details. In "The Night Mail" and "Dawn Revealing the New World to Columbus" the aspects of nature are made use of in different ways, but with equal happiness, to lend impressiveness and solemnity to human concerns. He also painted landscapes and portraits. In 1829 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Scottish Academy; in 1864 he succeeded Sir J. W. Gordon as president; and he was knighted in 1867. He died at Edinburgh on the 22nd of January 1876.
Sir George Harvey was the author of a paper on the "Colour of the Atmosphere," read before the Edinburgh Royal Society, and afterwards published with illustrations in Good Words; and in 1870 he published a small volume entitled Notes of the Early History of the Royal Scottish Academy. Selections from the Works of Sir George Harvey, P.R.S.A., described by the Rev. A. L. Simpson, F.S.A. Scot., and photographed by Thomas Annan, appeared at Edinburgh in 1869.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Harvest-bug

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​HARVEST-BUG, the familiar name for mites of the family Trombidiidae, belonging to the order Acari of the class Arachnida. Although at one time regarded as constituting a distinct species, described as Leptus autumnalis, harvest-bugs are now known to be the six-legged larval forms of several British species of mites of the genus Trombidium. They are minute, rusty-brown organisms, barely visible to the naked eye, which swarm in grass and low herbage in the summer and early autumn, and cause considerable, sometimes intense, irritation by piercing and adhering to the skin of the leg, usually lodging themselves in some part where the clothing is tight, such as the knee when covered with gartered stockings. They may be readily destroyed, and the irritation allayed, by rubbing the affected area with some insecticide like turpentine or benzine. They are not permanently parasitic, and if left alone will leave their temporary host to resume the active life characteristic of the adult mite, which is predatory in habits, preying upon minute living animal organisms.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lebœuf, Edmond

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​LEBŒUF, EDMOND (1809–1888), marshal of France, was born at Paris on the 5th of November 1809, passed through the École Polytechnique and the school of Metz, and distinguished himself as an artillery officer in Algerian warfare, becoming colonel in 1852. He commanded the artillery of the 1st French corps at the siege of Sebastopol, and was promoted in 1854 to the rank of general of brigade, and in 1857 to that of general of division. In the Italian War of 1859 he commanded the artillery, and by his action at Solferino materially assisted in achieving the victory. In September 1866, having in the meantime become aide-de-camp to Napoleon III., he was despatched to Venetia to hand over that province to Victor Emmanuel. In 1869, on the death of Marshal Niel, General Lebœuf became minister of war, and earned public approbation by his vigorous reorganization of the War Office and the civil departments of the service. In the spring of 1870 he received the marshal’s baton. On the declaration of war with Germany Marshal Lebœuf delivered himself in the Corps Législatif of the historic saying, “So ready are we, that if the war lasts two years, not a gaiter button would be found wanting.” It may be that he intended this to mean that, given time, the reorganization of the War Office would be perfected through experience, but the result inevitably caused it to be regarded as a mere boast, though it is now known that the administrative confusion on the frontier in July 1870 was far less serious than was supposed at the time. Lebœuf took part in the Lorraine campaign, at first as chief of staff (major-general) of the Army of the Rhine, and afterwards, when Bazaine became commander-in-chief, as chief of the III. corps, which he led in the battles around Metz. He distinguished himself, whenever engaged, by personal bravery and good leadership. Shut up with Bazaine in Metz, on its fall he was confined as a prisoner in Germany. On the conclusion of peace he returned to France and gave evidence before the commission of inquiry into the surrender of that stronghold, when he strongly denounced Bazaine. After this he retired into private life to the Château du Moncel near Argentan, where he died on the 7th of June 1888.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lecce

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​LECCE (anc. Lupiae), a town and archiepiscopal see of Apulia, Italy, capital of the province of Lecce, 24 m. S.E. of Brindisi by rail. Pop. (1906) 35,179. The town is remarkable for the number of buildings of the 17th century, in the rococo style, which it contains; among these are the cathedral of S. Oronzo, and the churches of S. Chiara, S. Croce, S. Domenico, &c., the Seminario, and the Prefettura (the latter contains a museum, with a collection of Greek vases, &c.). Buildings of an earlier period are not numerous, but the fine portal of the Romanesque church of SS. Nicola e Cataldo, built by Tancred in 1180, may be noted. Another old church is S. Maria di Cerrate, near the town. Lecce contains a large government tobacco factory, and is the centre of a fertile agricultural district. To the E. 71/2 m. is the small harbour of S. Cataldo, reached by electric tramway. Lecce is quite close to the site of the ancient Lupiae, equidistant (25 m.) from Brundusium and Hydruntum, remains of which are mentioned as existing up to the 15th century. A colony was founded there in Roman times, and Hadrian made a harbour—no doubt at S. Cataldo. Hardly a mile west was Rudiae, the birthplace of the poet Ennius, spoken of by Silius Italicus as worthy of mention for that reason alone. Its site was marked by the now deserted village of Rugge. The name Lycea, or Lycia, begins to appear in the 6th century. The city was for some time held by counts of Norman blood, among whom the most noteworthy is Bohemond, son of Robert Guiscard. It afterwards passed to the Orsini. The rank of provincial capital was bestowed by Ferdinand of Aragon in acknowledgment of the fidelity of Lecce to his cause. (T. As.)
See M. S. Briggs, In the Heel of Italy (1910).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lebrun, Charles François

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​LEBRUN, CHARLES FRANÇOIS, duc de Plaisance (1739–1824), French statesman, was born at St-Sauveur-Lendelin (Manche) on the 19th of March 1739, and in 1762 made his first appearance as a lawyer at Paris. He filled the posts successively of censeur royale (1766) and of inspector general of the domains of the crown (1768); he was also one of the chief advisers of the chancellor Maupeou, took part in his struggle against the parlements, and shared in his downfall in 1774. He then devoted himself to literature, translating Tasso’s Gerusalemme liberata (1774), and the Iliad (1776). At the outset of the Revolution he foresaw its importance, and in the Voix du citoyen, which he published in 1789, predicted the course which events would take. In the Constituent Assembly, where he sat as deputy for Dourdan, he professed liberal views, and was the proposer of various financial laws. He then became president of the directory of Seine-et-Oise, and in 1795 was elected as a deputy to the Council of Ancients. After the coup d’état of the 18th Brumaire in the year VIII. (9th November 1799), Lebrun was made third consul. In this capacity he took an active part in the reorganization of finance and of the administration of the departments of France. In 1804 he was appointed arch-treasurer of the empire, and in 1805–1806 as governor-general of Liguria effected its annexation to France. He opposed Napoleon’s restoration of the noblesse, and in 1808 only reluctantly accepted the title of duc de Plaisance (Piacenza). He was next employed in organizing the departments which were formed in Holland, of which he was governor-general from 1811 to 1813. Although to a certain extent opposed to the despotism of the emperor, he was not in favour of his deposition, though he accepted the fait accompli of the Restoration in April 1814. Louis XVIII. made him a peer of France; but during the Hundred Days he accepted from Napoleon the post of Grand Master of the university. On the return of the Bourbons in 1815 he was consequently suspended from the House of Peers, but was recalled in 1819. He died at St Mesmes (Seine-et-Oise) on the 16th of June 1824. He had been made a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in 1803.
See M. de Caumont la Force, L’Architrésorier Lebrun (Paris, 1907); M. Marie du Mesnil, Mémoire sur le prince Le Brun, duc de Plaisance (Paris, 1828); Opinions, rapports et choix d’écrits politiques de C. F. Lebrun (1829), edited, with a biographical notice, by his son Anne-Charles Lebrun.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lebel, Jean

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​LEBEL, JEAN (d. 1370), Belgian chronicler, was born near the end of the 13th century. His father, Gilles le Beal des Changes, was an alderman of Liége. Jean entered the church and became a canon of the cathedral church, but he and his brother Henri followed Jean de Beaumont to England in 1327, and took part in the border warfare against the Scots. His will is dated 1369, and his epitaph gives the date of his death as 1370. Nothing more is known of his life, but Jacques de Hemricourt, author of the Miroir des nobles de Hesbaye, has left a eulogy of his character, and a description of the magnificence of his attire, his retinue and his hospitality. Hemricourt asserts that he was eighty years old or more when he died. For a long time Jean Lebel (or le Bel) was only known as a chronicler through a reference by Froissart, who quotes him in the prologue of his first book as one of his authorities. A fragment of his work, ​in the MS. of Jean d’Outremeuse’s Mireur des istores, was discovered in 1847; and the whole of his chronicle, preserved in the library of Châlons-sur-Marne, was edited in 1863 by L. Polain. Jean Lebel gives as his reason for writing a desire to replace a certain misleading rhymed chronicle of the wars of Edward III. by a true relation of his enterprises down to the beginning of the Hundred Years’ War. In the matter of style Lebel has been placed by some critics on the level of Froissart. His chief merit is his refusal to narrate events unless either he himself or his informant had witnessed them. This scrupulousness in the acceptance of evidence must be set against his limitations. He takes on the whole a similar point of view to Froissart’s; he has no concern with national movements or politics; and, writing for the public of chivalry, he preserves no general notion of a campaign, which resolves itself in his narrative into a series of exploits on the part of his heroes. Froissart was considerably indebted to him, and seems to have borrowed from him some of his best-known episodes, such as the death of Robert the Bruce, Edward III. and the countess of Salisbury, and the devotion of the burghers of Calais. The songs and virelais, in the art of writing which he was, according to Hemricourt, an expert, have not come to light.
See L. Polain, Les Vraies Chroniques de messire Jehan le Bel (1863); Kervyn de Lettenhove, Bulletin de la société d’émulation de Bruges, series ii. vols. vii. and ix.; and H. Pirenne in Biographie nationale de Belgique.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lebeau, Joseph

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​LEBEAU, JOSEPH (1794–1865), Belgian statesman, was born at Huy on the 3rd of January 1794. He received his early education from an uncle who was parish priest of Hannut, and became a clerk. By dint of economy he raised money to study law at Liége, and was called to the bar in 1819. At Liége he formed a fast friendship with Charles Rogier and Paul Devaux, in conjunction with whom he founded at Liége in 1824 the Mathieu Laensbergh, afterwards Le politique, a journal which helped to unite the Catholic party with the Liberals in their opposition to the ministry, without manifesting any open disaffection to the Dutch government. Lebeau had not contemplated the separation of Holland and Belgium, but his hand was forced by the revolution. He was sent by his native district to the National Congress, and became minister of foreign affairs in March 1831 during the interim regency of Surlet de Chokier. By proposing the election of Leopold of Saxe-Coburg as king of the Belgians he secured a benevolent attitude on the part of Great Britain, but the restoration to Holland of part of the duchies of Limburg and Luxemburg provoked a heated opposition to the treaty of London, and Lebeau was accused of treachery to Belgian interests. He resigned the direction of foreign affairs on the accession of King Leopold, but in the next year became minister of justice. He was elected deputy for Brussels in 1833, and retained his seat until 1848. Differences with the king led to his retirement in 1834. He was subsequently governor of the province of Namur (1838), ambassador to the Frankfort diet (1839), and in 1840 he formed a short-lived Liberal ministry. From this time he held no office of state, though he continued his energetic support of liberal and anti-clerical measures. He died at Huy on the 19th of March 1865.
Lebeau published La Belgique depuis 1847 (Brussels, 4 vols., 1852), Lettres aux électeurs belges (8 vols., Brussels, 1853–1856). His Souvenirs personnels et correspondance diplomatique 1824–1841 (Brussels, 1883) were edited by A. Fréson. See an article by A. Fréson in the Biographie nationale de Belgique; and T. Juste, Joseph Lebeau (Brussels, 1865).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lebeuf, Jean

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​LEBEUF, JEAN (1687–1760), French historian, was born on the 7th of March 1687 at Auxerre, where his father, a councillor in the parlement, was receveur des consignations. He began his studies in his native town, and continued them in Paris at the Collège Ste Barbe. He soon became known as one of the most cultivated minds of his time. He made himself master of practically every branch of medieval learning, and had a thorough knowledge of the sources and the bibliography of his subject. His learning was not drawn from books only; he was also an archaeologist, and frequently went on expeditions in France, always on foot, in the course of which he examined the monuments of architecture and sculpture, as well as the libraries, and collected a number of notes and sketches. He was in correspondence with all the most learned men of the day. His correspondence with Président Bouhier was published in 1885 by Ernest Petit; his other letters have been edited by the Société des sciences historiques et naturelles de l’Yonne (2 vols., 1866–1867). He also wrote numerous articles, and, after his election as a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres (1740), a number of Mémoires which appeared in the Recueil of this society. He died at Paris on the 10th of April 1760. His most important researches had Paris as their subject.
He published first a collection of Dissertations sur l’histoire civile et ecclésiastique de Paris (3 vols., 1739–1743), then an Histoire de la ville et de tout le diocèse de Paris (15 vols., 1745–1760), which is a mine of information, mostly taken from the original sources. In view of the advance made by scholarship in the 19th century, it was found necessary to publish a second edition. The work of reprinting it was undertaken by H. Cocheris, but was interrupted (1863) before the completion of vol. iv. Adrien Augier resumed the work, giving Lebeuf’s text, though correcting the numerous typographical errors of the original edition (5 vols., 1883), and added a sixth volume containing an analytical table of contents. Finally, Fernand Bournon completed the work by a volume of Rectifications et additions (1890), worthy to appear side by side with the original work.
The bibliography of Lebeuf’s writings is, partly, in various numbers of the Bibliothèque des écrivains de Bourgogne (1716–1741). His biography is given by Lebeau in the Histoire de l’Académie royale des Inscriptions (xxix., 372, published 1764), and by H. Cocheris, in the preface to his edition.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lebrija

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​LEBRIJA, or Lebrixa, a town of southern Spain, in the province of Seville, near the left bank of the Guadalquivir, and on the eastern edge of the marshes known as Las Marismas. Pop. (1900) 10,997. Lebrija is 44 m. S. by W. of Seville, on the Seville-Cadiz railway. Its chief buildings are a ruined Moorish castle and the parish church, an imposing structure in a variety of styles—Moorish, Gothic, Romanesque—dating from the 14th century to the 16th, and containing some early specimens of the carving of Alonso Cano (1601–1667). There are manufactures of bricks, tiles and earthenware, for which clay is found in the neighbourhood; and some trade in grain, wine and oil.
Lebrija is the Nabrissa or Nebrissa, surnamed Veneria, of the Romans; by Silius Italicus (iii. 393), who connects it with the worship of Dionysus, the name is derived from the Greek νεβρίς (a “fawn-skin,” associated with Dionysiac ritual). Nebrishah was a strong and populous place during the period of Moorish domination (from 711); it was taken by St Ferdinand in 1249, but again lost, and became finally subject to the Castilian crown only under Alphonso the Wise in 1264. It was the birthplace of Elio Antonio de Lebrija or Nebrija (1444–1522), better known as Nebrissensis, one of the most important leaders in the revival of learning in Spain, the tutor of Queen Isabella, and a collaborator with Cardinal Jimenes in the preparation of the Complutensian Polyglot (see Alcala de Henares).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lebrun, Pierre Antoine

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​LEBRUN, PIERRE ANTOINE (1785–1873), French poet, was born in Paris on the 29th of November 1785. An Ode à la grande armée, mistaken at the time for the work of Écouchard Lebrun, attracted Napoleon’s attention, and secured for the author a pension of 1200 francs. Lebrun’s plays, once famous, are now forgotten. They are: Ulysse (1814), Marie Stuart (1820), which obtained a great success, and Le Cid d’Andalousie (1825). Lebrun visited Greece in 1820, and on his return to Paris he published in 1822 an ode on the death of Napoleon which cost him his pension. In 1825 he was the guest of Sir Walter Scott at Abbotsford. The coronation of Charles X. in that year inspired the verses entitled La Vallée de Champrosay, which have, perhaps, done more to secure his fame than his more ambitious attempts. In 1828 appeared his most important poem, La Grèce, and in the same year he was elected to the Academy. The revolution of 1830 opened up for him a public career; in 1831 he was made director of the Imprimerie Royale, and subsequently filled with distinction other public offices, becoming senator in 1853. He died on the 27th of May 1873.
See Sainte-Beuve, Portraits contemporains, vol. ii.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lebrun, Ponce Denis Écouchard

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​LEBRUN, PONCE DENIS ÉCOUCHARD (1729–1807), French lyric poet, was born in Paris on the 11th of August 1729, in the house of the prince de Conti, to whom his father was valet. Young Lebrun had among his schoolfellows a son of Louis Racine whose disciple he became. In 1755 he published an Ode sur les désastres de Lisbon. In 1759 he married Marie Anne de Surcourt, addressed in his Élégies as Fanny. To the early years of his marriage belongs his poem Nature. His wife suffered much from his violent temper, and when in 1774 she brought an action against him to obtain a separation, she was supported by Lebrun’s own mother and sister. He had been secrétaire des commandements to the prince de Conti, and on his patron’s death was deprived of his occupation. He suffered a further misfortune in the loss of his capital by the bankruptcy of the prince de Guémené. To this period belongs a long poem, the Veillées des Muses, which remained unfinished, and his ode to Buffon, which ranks among his best works. Dependent on government pensions he changed his politics with the times. Calonne he compared to the great Sully, and Louis XVI. to Henry IV., but the Terror nevertheless found in him its official poet. He occupied rooms in the Louvre, and fulfilled his obligations by shameless attacks on the unfortunate king and queen. His excellent ode on the Vengeur and the Ode nationale contre Angleterre on the occasion of the projected invasion of England are in honour of the power of Napoleon. This “versatility” has so much injured Lebrun’s reputation that it is difficult to appreciate his real merit. He had a genius for epigram, and the quatrains and dizaines directed against his many enemies have a verve generally lacking in his odes. The one directed against La Harpe is called by Sainte-Beuve the “queen of epigrams.” La Harpe has said that the poet, called by his friends, perhaps with a spice of irony, Lebrun-Pindare, had written many fine strophes but not one good ode. The critic exposed mercilessly the obscurities and unlucky images which occur even in the ode to Buffon, and advised the author to imitate the simplicity and energy that adorned Buffon’s prose. Lebrun died in Paris on the 31st of August 1807.
His works were published by his friend P. L. Ginguené in 1811. The best of them are included in Prosper Poitevin’s “Petits poètes français,” which forms part of the “Panthéon littéraire.”
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Codilla

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​CODILLA, the name given to the broken fibres which are separated from the flax during the scutching process. On this account it is sometimes termed scutching tow. Quantities of this material are used along with heckled tow in the production of tow yarns.