OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Boucher, Jonathan

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​BOUCHER, JONATHAN (1738–1804), English divine and philologist, was born in the hamlet of Blencogo, near Wigton, Cumberland, on the 12th of March 1738. He was educated at the Wigton grammar school, and about 1754 went to Virginia, where he became a private tutor in the families of Virginia planters. Among his charges was John Parke Custis, the step-son of George Washington, with whom he began a long and intimate friendship. Returning to England, he was ordained by the bishop of London in March 1762, and at once sailed again for America, where he remained until 1775 as rector of various Virginia and Maryland parishes, including Hanover, King George’s county, Virginia, and St Anne’s at Annapolis, Maryland. He was widely known as an eloquent preacher, and his scholarly attainments won for him the friendship and esteem of some of the ablest scholars in the colonies. During his residence in Maryland he vigorously opposed the “vestry act,” by which the powers and emoluments of the Maryland pastors were greatly diminished. When the struggle between the colonies and the mother country began, although he felt much sympathy for the former, his opposition to any form of obstruction to the Stamp Act and other measures, and his denunciation of a resort to force created a breach between him and his parish, and in a fiery farewell discourse preached after the opening of hostilities he declared that no power on earth should prevent him from praying and shouting “God save the King.” In the succeeding autumn he returned to England, where his loyalism was rewarded by a government pension. In 1784 he became vicar of Epsom in Surrey, where he continued until his death on the 27th of April 1804, becoming known as one of the most eloquent preachers of his day. He was an accomplished writer and scholar, contributed largely to William Hutchinson’s History of the County of Cumberland (2 vols., 1794 seq.), and published A View of the Causes and Consequences of the American Revolution (1797), dedicated to George Washington, and consisting of thirteen discourses delivered in America between 1763 and 1775. His philological studies, to which the last fourteen years of his life were devoted, resulted in the compilation of “A Glossary of Provincial and Archaic Words,” intended as a supplement to Dr Johnson’s Dictionary, but never published except in part, which finally in 1831 passed into the hands of the English compilers of Webster’s Dictionary, by whom it was utilized.
His son, Barton Boucher (1794–1865), rector of Fonthill Bishops, Wiltshire, in 1856, was well known as the author of religious tracts, hymns and novels.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Boucicault, Dion

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​BOUCICAULT, DION (1822–1890), Irish actor and playwright, was born in Dublin on the 26th of December 1822, the son of a French refugee and an Irish mother. Before he was twenty he was fortunate enough to make an immediate success as a dramatist with London Assurance, produced at Covent Garden on the 4th of March 1841, with a cast that included Charles Matthews, William Farren, Mrs Nesbitt and Madame Vestris. He rapidly followed this with a number of other plays, among the most successful of the early ones being Old Heads and Young Hearts, Louis XI., and The Corsican Brothers. In June 1852 he made his first appearance as an actor in a melodrama of his own entitled The Vampire at the Princess’s theatre. From 1853 to 1869 he was in the United States, where he was always a popular favourite. On his return to England he produced at the Adelphi a dramatic adaptation of Gerald Griffin’s novel, The Collegians, entitled The Colleen Bawn. This play, one of the most successful of modern times, was performed in almost every city of the United Kingdom and the United States, and made its author a handsome fortune, which he lost in the management of various London theatres. It was followed by The Octoroon (1861), the popularity of which was almost as great. Boucicault’s next marked success was at the Princess’s theatre in 1865 with Arrah-na-Pogue, in which he played the part of a Wicklow carman. This, and his admirable creation of Con in his play The Shaughraun (first produced at Drury Lane in 1875), won him the reputation of being the best stage Irishman of his time. In 1875 he returned to New York City and finally made his home there, but he paid occasional visits to London, where his last appearance was made in his play, The Jilt, in 1886. The Streets of London and After Dark were two of his late successes as a dramatist. He died in New York on the 18th of September 1890. Boucicault was twice married, his first wife being Agnes Robertson, the adopted daughter of Charles Kean, and herself an actress of unusual ability. Three children, Dion (b. 1859), Aubrey (b. 1868) and Nina, also became distinguished in the profession.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Boucicaut, Jean

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​BOUCICAUT, JEAN [Jean le Meingre, called Boucicaut] (c. 1366–1421), marshal of France, was the son of another Jean le Meingre, also known as Boucicaut, marshal of France, who died on the 15th of March 1368 (N.S.). At a very early age he became a soldier; he fought in Normandy, in Flanders and in Prussia, distinguishing himself at the battle of Roosebeke in 1382; and then after a campaign in Spain he journeyed to the Holy Land. Boucicaut’s great desire appears to have been to fight the Turk, and in 1396 he was one of the French soldiers who marched to the defence of Hungary and shared in the Christian defeat at Nicopolis, where he narrowly escaped death. After remaining for some months a captive in the hands of the sultan, he obtained his ransom and returned to France; then in 1399 he was sent at the head of an army to aid the Eastern emperor, Manuel II., who was harassed by the Turks. Boucicaut drove the enemy from his position before Constantinople and returned to France for fresh troops, but instead of proceeding ​again to eastern Europe, he was despatched in 1401 to Genoa, who in 1396 had placed herself under the dominion of France. Here he was successful in restoring order and in making the French occupation effective, and he was soon able to turn his attention to the defence of the Genoese possessions in the Mediterranean. The energy which he showed in this direction involved him not only in a quarrel with Janus, king of Cyprus, but led also to a short war with Venice, whose fleet he encountered off Modon in the Archipelago in October 1403. This battle has been claimed by both sides as a victory. Peace was soon made with the republic, and then in 1409, while the marshal was absent on a campaign in northern Italy, Genoa threw off the French yoke, and Boucicaut, unable to reduce her again to submission, retired to Languedoc. He fought at Agincourt, where he was taken prisoner, and died in England. Boucicaut, who was very skilful in the tournament, founded the order of the Dame blanche à l’écu vert, a society the object of which was to defend the wives and daughters of absent knights.
There is in existence an anonymous account of Boucicaut’s life and adventures, entitled Livre des faits du bon messire Jean le Meingre dit Boucicaut, which was published in Paris by T. Godefroy in 1620. See J. Delaville le Roulx, La France en Orient: expéditions du maréchal Boucicaut (Paris, 1886).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Boucher, François

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​BOUCHER, FRANÇOIS (1703–1770), French painter, was born in Paris, and at first was employed by Jean François Cars (1670–1739), the engraver, father of the engraver Laurent Cars (1699–1771), to make designs and illustrations for books. In 1727, ​however, he went to Italy, and at Rome became well known as a painter. He returned to Paris in 1731 and soon became a favourite in society. His picture “Rinaldo and Armida” (1734) is now in the Louvre. He was made inspector of the Gobelins factory in 1755 and court painter in 1765, and was employed by Madame de Pompadour both to paint her portrait and to execute various decorative works. He died in 1770. His Watteau-like style and graceful voluptuousness gave him the title of the Anacreon of painting, but his repute declined until recent years. The Wallace collection, at Hertford House, has some of his finest pictures, outside the Louvre. His etchings were also numerous and masterly.
See Antoine Bret’s notice in the Nécrologe des hommes célèbres for 1771, and the monographs by the brothers de Goncourt and Paul Mantz.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bouchor, Maurice

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​BOUCHOR, MAURICE (1855–), French poet, was born on the 15th of December 1855 in Paris. He published in succession Chansons joyeuses (1874), Poèmes de l’amour et de la mer (1875), Le Faust moderne (1878) in prose and verse, and Les Contes parisiens (1880) in verse. His Aurore (1883) showed a tendency to religious mysticism, which reached its fullest expression in Les Symboles (1888; new series, 1895), the most interesting of his works. Bouchor (whose brother, Joseph Félix Bouchor, b. 1853, became well known as an artist) was a sculptor as well as a poet, and he designed and worked the figures used in his charming pieces as marionettes, the words being recited or chanted by himself or his friends behind the scenes. These miniature dramas on religious subjects, Tobie (1889), Noël (1890) and Sainte Cécile (1892), were produced in Paris at the Théâtre des Marionnettes. A one-act verse drama by Bouchor, Conte de Noël, was played at the Théâtre Français in 1895, but Dieu le veut (1888) was not produced. In conjunction with the musician Julien Tiersot (b. 1857), he made efforts for the preservation of the French folk-songs, and published Chants populaires pour les écoles (1897).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bouchotte, Jean Baptiste Noël

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​BOUCHOTTE, JEAN BAPTISTE NOËL (1754–1840), French minister, was born at Metz on the 25th of December 1754. At the outbreak of the Revolution he was a captain of cavalry, and his zeal led to his being made colonel and given the command at Cambrai. When Dumouriez delivered up to the Austrians the minister of war, the marquis de Beurnonville, in April 1793, Bouchotte, who had bravely defended Cambrai, was called by the Convention to be minister of war, where he remained until the 31st of March 1794. The predominant rôle of the Committee of Public Safety during that period did not leave much scope for the new minister, yet he rendered some services in the organization of the republican armies, and chose his officers with insight, among them Kléber, Masséna, Moreau and Bonaparte. During the Thermidorian reaction, in spite of his incontestable honesty, he was accused by the anti-revolutionists. He was tried by the tribunal of the Eure-et-Loire and acquitted. Then he withdrew from politics, and lived in retirement until his death on the 8th of June 1840.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Gohier, Louis Jérôme

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​GOHIER, LOUIS JÉRÔME (1746–1830), French politician, was born at Semblançay (Indre-et-Loire) on the 27th of February 1746, the son of a notary. He was called to the bar at Rennes, and practised there until he was sent to represent the town in the states-general. In the Legislative Assembly he represented Ille-et-Vilaine. He took a prominent part in the deliberations; he protested against the exaction of a new oath from priests (Nov. 22, 1791), and demanded the sequestration of the emigrants’ property (Feb. 7, 1792). He was minister of justice from March 1793 to April 1794, and in June 1799 he succeeded Treilhard in the Directory, where he represented the republican interest. His wife was intimate with Josephine Bonaparte, and when Bonaparte suddenly returned from Egypt in October 1799 he repeatedly protested his friendship for Gohier, who was then president of the Directory, and tried in vain to gain him over. After the coup d’état of the 18th Brumaire (Nov. 9, 1799), he refused to abdicate his functions, and sought out Bonaparte at the Tuileries “to save the republic,” as he boldly expressed it. He was escorted to the Luxembourg, and on his release he retired to his estate at Eaubonne. In 1802 Napoleon made him consul-general at Amsterdam, and on the union of the Netherlands with France he was offered a similar post in the United States. His health did not permit of his taking up a new appointment, and he died at Eaubonne on the 29th of May 1830.
His Mémoires d’un vétéran irréprochable de la Révolution was published in 1824, his report on the papers of the civil list preparatory to the trial of Louis XVI. is printed in Le Procès de Louis XVI (Paris, an III) and elsewhere, while others appear in the Moniteur.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Goldast ab Haiminsfeld, Melchior

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​GOLDAST AB HAIMINSFELD, MELCHIOR (1576–1635), Swiss writer, an industrious though uncritical collector of documents relating to the medieval history and Constitution of Germany, was born on the 6th of January 1576 (some say 1578), of poor Protestant parents, near Bischofszell, in the Swiss Canton of Thurgau. His university career, first at Ingolstadt (1585–1586), then at Altdorf near Nuremberg (1597–1598), was cut short by his poverty, from which he suffered all his life, and which was the main cause of his wanderings. In 1598 he found a rich protector in the person of Bartholomaeus Schobinger, of St Gall, by whose liberality he was enabled to study at St Gall (where he first became interested in medieval documents, which abound in the conventual library) and elsewhere in Switzerland. Before his patron’s death (1604) he became (1603) secretary to Henry, duke of Bouillon, with whom he went to Heidelberg and Frankfort. But in 1604 he entered the service of the Baron von Hohensax, then the possessor of the precious MS. volume of old German poems, returned from Paris to Heidelberg in 1888, and, partially published by Goldast. Soon he was back in Switzerland, and by 1606 in Frankfort, earning his living by preparing and correcting books for the press. In 1611 he was appointed councillor at the court of Saxe-Weimar, and in 1615 he entered the service of the count of Schaumburg at Bückeburg. In 1624 he was forced by the war to retire to Bremen; there in 1625 he deposited his library in that of the town (his books were bought by the town in 1646, but many of his MSS. passed to Queen Christina of Sweden, and hence are now in the Vatican library), he himself returning to Frankfort. In 1627 he became councillor to the emperor and to the archbishop-elector of Trèves, and in 1633 passed to the service of the landgrave of Hesse-Darmstadt. He died at Giessen early in 1635.
His immense industry is shown by the fact that his biographer, Senckenburg, gives a list of 65 works published or written by him, some extending to several substantial volumes. Among the more important are his Paraeneticorum veterum pars i. (1604), which contained the old German tales of Kunig Tyrol von Schotten, the Winsbeke and the Winsbekin; Suevicarum rerum scriptores (Frankfort, 1605, new edition, 1727); Rerum Alamannicarum scriptores (Frankfort, 1606, new edition by Senckenburg, 1730); Constitutiones imperiales (Frankfort, 1607–1613, 4 vols.); Monarchia s. Romani imperii (Hanover and Frankfort, 1612–1614, ​3 vols.); Commentarii de regni Bohemiae juribus (Frankfort, 1627, new edition by Schmink, 1719). He also edited De Thou’s History (1609–1610) and Willibald Pirckheimer’s works (1610). In 1688 a volume of letters addressed to him by his learned friends was published.
Life by Senckenburg, prefixed to his 1730 work. See also R. von Raumer’s Geschichte d. germanischen Philologie (Munich, 1870).  (W. A. B. C.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Gokak

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​GOKAK, a town of British India, in the Belgaum district of Bombay, 8 m. from a station on the Southern Mahratta railway. Pop. (1901) 9860. It contains old temples with inscriptions, and is known for a special industry of modelled toys. About 4 m. N.W. are the Gokak Falls, where the Ghatprabha throws itself over a precipice 170 ft. high. Close by, the water has been impounded for a large reservoir, which supplies not only irrigation but also motive power for a cotton-mill employing 2000 hands.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Golconda

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​GOLCONDA, a fortress and ruined city of India, in the Nizām’s Dominions, 5 m. W. of Hyderabad city. In former times Golconda was the capital of a large and powerful kingdom of the Deccan, ruled by the Kutb Shahi dynasty which was founded in 1512 by a Turkoman adventurer on the downfall of the Bahmani dynasty, but the city was subdued by Aurangzeb in 1687, and annexed to the Delhi empire. The fortress of Golconda, situated on a rocky ridge of granite, is extensive, and contains many enclosures. It is strong and in good repair, but is commanded by the summits of the enormous and massive mausolea of the ancient kings about 600 yds. distant. These buildings, which are now the chief characteristics of the place, form a vast group, situated in an arid, rocky desert. They have suffered considerably from the ravages of time, but more from the hand of man, and nothing but the great solidity of their walls has preserved them from utter ruin. These tombs were erected at a great expense, some of them being said to have cost as much as £150,000. Golconda fort is now used as the Nizām’s treasury, and also as the state prison. Golconda has given its name in English literature to the diamonds which were found in other parts of the dominions of the Kutb Shahi dynasty, not near Golconda itself.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Goito

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​GOITO, a village of Lombardy, Italy, in the province of Mantua, from which it is 11 m. N.W., on the road to Brescia. Pop. (village) 737; (commune) 5712. It is situated on the right bank of the Mincio near the bridge. Its position has given it a certain military importance in various campaigns and it has been repeatedly fortified as a bridge-head. The Piedmontese forces won two actions (8th of April and 30th of May 1848) over the Austrians here.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Gokcha

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​GOKCHA, (Gök-Chai; Armenian Sevanga; ancient Haosravagha), the largest lake of Russian Transcaucasia, in the government of Erivan, in 40° 9′ to 40° 38′ N. and 45° 1′ to 45° 40′ E. Its altitude is 6345 ft., it is of triangular shape, and measures from north-west to south-east 45 m., its greatest width being 25 m., and its maximum depth 67 fathoms. Its area is 540 sq. m. It is surrounded by barren mountains of volcanic origin, 12,000 ft. high. Its outflow is the Zanga, a left bank tributary of the Aras (Araxes); it never freezes, and its level undergoes periodical oscillations. It contains four species of Salmonidae, and two of Cyprinidae, which are only met with in the drainage area of this lake. A lava island in the middle is crowned by an Armenian monastery.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Faizabad

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​FAIZABAD, a town of Afghanistan, capital of the province of Badakshan, situated on the Kokcha river. In 1821 it was destroyed by Murad Beg of Kunduz, and the inhabitants removed to Kunduz. But since Badakshan was annexed by Abdur Rahman, the town has recovered its former importance, and is now a considerable place of trade. It is the chief cantonment for eastern Afghanistan and the Pamir region, and is protected by a fort built in 1904.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Fajardo

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​FAJARDO, a district and town on the E. coast of Porto Rico, belonging to the department of Humacao. Pop. (1899) of the district, 16,782; and of the town, 3414. The district is highly fertile and is well watered, owing in great measure to its abundant rainfall. Sugar production is its principal industry, but some attention is also given to the growing of oranges and pineapples. The town, which was founded in 1774, is a busy commercial centre standing 11/4 m. from a large and well-sheltered bay, at the entrance to which is the cape called Cabeza de San Juan. It is the market town for a number of small islands off the E. coast, some of which produce cattle for export.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Falaise

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​FALAISE, a town of north-western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Calvados, on the right bank of the Ante, 19 m. S. by E. of Caen by road. Pop. (1906) ​6215. The principal object of interest is the castle, now partly in ruins, but formerly the seat of the dukes of Normandy and the birthplace of William the Conqueror. It is situated on a lofty crag overlooking the town, and consists of a square mass defended by towers and flanked by a small donjon and a lofty tower added by the English in the 15th century; the rest of the castle dates chiefly from the 12th century. Near the castle, in the Place de la Trinité, is an equestrian statue in bronze of William the Conqueror, to whom the town owed its prosperity. The churches of La Trinité and St Gervais combine the Gothic and Renaissance styles of architecture, and St Gervais also includes Romanesque workmanship. A street passes by way of a tunnel beneath the choir of La Trinité. Falaise has populous suburbs, one of which, Guibray, is celebrated for its annual fair for horses, cattle and wool, which has been held in August since the 11th century. The town is the seat of a subprefecture and has tribunals of first instance and commerce, a chamber of arts and manufacture, a board of trade-arbitrators and a communal college. Tanning and important manufactures of hosiery are carried on.
From 1417, when after a siege of forty-seven days it succumbed to Henry V., king of England, till 1450, when it was retaken by the French, Falaise was in the hands of the English.