OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Brynmawr

See also Brynmawr on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​BRYNMAWR, a market town of Brecknockshire, Wales, 141/2 m. S.E. of Brecknock and 156 m. from London by rail. Pop. of urban district (1901) 6833. It is on the London & North-Western and Rhymney joint railway connecting Rhymney and Abergavenny, being also a junction for a branch line to Pontypool via Blaenavon, and the terminus of the Great Western line from Newport via Nantyglo. The town owes its origin to the development during the first half of the 19th century of ironworks at the upper ends of the valleys that converge in its neighbourhood, its site being previously known as Waun Helygen (Willow-tree Common). The Nantyglo ironworks afford occupation to large numbers of the inhabitants of Brynmawr. Both coal and iron ore were formerly worked, but the coal is exhausted and the ore unsuitable for modern processes. Brynmawr was formed into an ecclesiastical parish in 1875 out of portions of the civil parishes of Llanelly and Llangattock. In 1894 this was formed into an urban district, which was enlarged in 1900 by the addition of a portion of the parish of Aberystruth in Monmouthshire, the whole being at the same time consolidated into a civil parish.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bryaxis

See also Bryaxis on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​BRYAXIS, one of the four great sculptors who worked on the mausoleum at Halicarnassus, about 350 B.C. His work on that monument cannot be separated from that of his companions, but a basis has been discovered at Athens bearing his signature, and adorned with figures of horsemen in relief. He is said to have made a great statue of Serapis for Sinope, but as to this there are grave historic difficulties. He also made a great statue of Apollo, set up at Daphne near Antioch (see E. A. Gardner, Handbook of Greek Sculpture, ii. 374).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bryce, James

See also James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​BRYCE, JAMES (1838–), British jurist, historian and politician, son of James Bryce (LL.D. of Glasgow, who had a school in Belfast for many years), was born at Belfast, Ireland, on the 10th of May 1838. After going through the high school and university courses at Glasgow, he went to Trinity College, Oxford, and in 1862 was elected a fellow of Oriel. He went to the bar and practised in London for a few years, but he was soon called back to Oxford as regius professor of civil law (1870–1893). His reputation as a historian had been made as early as 1864 by his Holy Roman Empire. He was an ardent Liberal in politics, and in 1880 he was elected to parliament for the Tower Hamlets division of London; in 1885 he was returned for South Aberdeen, where he was re-elected on succeeding occasions. His intellectual distinction and political industry made him a valuable member of the Liberal party. In 1886 he was made under secretary for foreign affairs; in 1892 he joined the cabinet as chancellor of the duchy of Lancaster; in 1894 he was president of the Board of Trade, and acted as chairman of the royal commission on secondary education; and in Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman’s cabinet (1905) he was made chief secretary for Ireland; but in February 1907 he was appointed British ambassador at Washington, and took leave of party politics, his last political act being a speech outlining what was then the government scheme for university reform in Dublin—a scheme which was promptly discarded by his successor Mr Birrell. As a man of letters Mr Bryce was already well known in America. His great work The American Commonwealth (1888; revised edition, 1910) was the first in which the institutions of the United States had been thoroughly discussed from the point of view of a historian and a constitutional lawyer, and it at once became a classic. His Studies in History and Jurisprudence (1901) and Studies in Contemporary Biography (1903) were republications of essays, and in 1897, after a visit to South Africa, he published a volume of Impressions of that country, which had considerable weight in Liberal circles when the Boer War was being discussed. Meanwhile his academic honours from home and foreign universities multiplied, and he became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1894. In earlier life he was a notable mountain-climber, ascending Mount Ararat in 1876, and publishing a volume on Transcaucasia and Ararat in 1877; in 1899–1901 he was president of the Alpine Club.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bryn Mawr College

See also Bryn Mawr College on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​BRYN MAWR COLLEGE, an institution of advanced learning for women, at Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania, U.S.A., 5 m. W. of Philadelphia. The site occupies 52 acres and overlooks a broad expanse of rolling country. The buildings are of grey stone in the Jacobean Gothic style, and consist of an administration and lecture hall, a science hall, a library containing in 1908 about 55,000 volumes mostly for special study, a gymnasium, a hospital and six halls of residence. The requirements for matriculation are high; students are required to choose their studies according to the “group system,” which permits them to specialize in two or more subjects; and instruction is given largely by means of lectures. The college is open to “hearers” who are not required to matriculate, to undergraduate matriculated students who are not studying for a degree, to undergraduate matriculated students who are candidates for the degree of B.A., and to graduate students who are candidates for the degree of M.A. or Ph.D. The government rests in a board of thirteen trustees and sixteen directors, all the trustees being members of the board of directors. The president of the college is a trustee and director. The institution was founded by Dr Joseph W. Taylor (1810–1880), a member of the Society of Orthodox Friends, and he provided that the trustees also should be members, but otherwise Bryn Mawr College is non-sectarian. It was incorporated in 1880, and was opened for instruction in 1885. In 1908 it had 419 students.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Brzozowski, Thaddeus

See also Tadeusz Brzozowski on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​BRZOZOWSKI, THADDEUS (d. 1820), nineteenth general of the Jesuits, was appointed in succession to Gabriel Gruber on the 2nd of September 1805. In 1801 Pius VII. had given the Jesuits liberty to reconstitute themselves in north Russia (see Jesuits: History), and in 1812 Brzozowski secured the recognition of the Jesuit college of Polotsk as a university, though he could not obtain permission to go to Spain to agitate for the recognition ​of the Spanish Jesuits. In 1814 Pius VII., in accordance with the bull Sollicitudo omnium ecclesiarum, gave to Brzozowski among others full authority to receive those who desired to enter the society. The Russian government, however, soon began to be alarmed at the growth of the Jesuits, and on the 20th of December 1815 published an edict expelling them from St Petersburg. Brzozowski, having vainly requested to be allowed to retire to Rome, died on the 5th of February 1820. He is interesting mainly from the fact that he was general of the Society at the time of its restoration throughout Europe.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bryennius, Nicephorus

See also Nikephoros Bryennios on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​BRYENNIUS, NICEPHORUS (1062–1137), Byzantine soldier, statesman and historian, was born at Orestias (Adrianople). His father, of the same name, had revolted against the feeble Michael VII., but had been defeated and deprived of his eyesight. The son, who was distinguished for his learning, personal beauty and engaging qualities, gained the favour of Alexius I. (Comnenus) and the hand of his daughter Anna, with the titles of Caesar (then ranking third) and Panhypersebastos (one of the new dignities introduced by Alexius). Bryennius successfully defended the walls of Constantinople against the attacks of Godfrey of Bouillon (1097); conducted the peace negotiations between Alexius and Bohemund, prince of Antioch (1108); and played an important part in the defeat of Malik-Shah, the Seljuk sultan of Iconium (1116). After the death of Alexius, he refused to enter into the conspiracy set on foot by his mother-in-law and wife to depose John, the son of Alexius, and raise himself to the throne. His wife attributed his refusal to cowardice, but it seems from certain passages in his own work that he really regarded it as a crime to revolt against the rightful heir; the only reproach that can be brought against him is that he did not nip the conspiracy in the bud. He was on very friendly terms with the new emperor John, whom he accompanied on his Syrian campaign (1137), but was forced by illness to return to Byzantium, where he died in the same year. At the suggestion of his mother-in-law he wrote a history (called by him Ὕλη Ἱστορίας, materials for a history) of the period from 1057 to 1081, from the victory of Isaac I. (Comnenus) over Michael VI. to the dethronement of Nicephorus Botaneiates by Alexius. The work has been described as rather a family chronicle than a history, the object of which was the glorification of the house of Comnenus. Part of the introduction is probably a later addition. In addition to information derived from older contemporaries (such as his father and father-in-law) Bryennius made use of the works of Michael Psellus, John Scylitza and Michael Attaliota. As might be expected, his views are biased by personal considerations and his intimacy with the royal family, which at the same time, however, afforded him unusual facilities for obtaining material. His model was Xenophon, whom he has imitated with ​a tolerable measure of success; he abstains from an excessive use of simile and metaphor, and his style is concise and simple.
Editio princeps, P. Possinus, 1661; in Bonn Corpus Scriptorum Hist. Byz., by E. Meincke (1836), with du Cange’s valuable commentary; Migne, Patrologia Graeca, cxxvii.; see also J. Seger, Byzantinische Historiker des 10. und 11. Jahrhunderts (1888), and C. Krumbacher, Geschichte der byzantinischen Litteratur (1897). The estimate of his work in R. Nicolai, Griechische Literaturgeschichte, iii. p. 76 (1878), is too unfavourable.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bréal, Michel Jules Alfred

See also Michel Bréal on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​BRÉAL, MICHEL JULES ALFRED (1832– ), French philologist, was born on the 26th of March 1832, at Landau in Rhenish Bavaria, of French parents. After studying at Weissenburg, Metz and Paris, he entered the École Normale in 1852. In 1857 he went to Berlin, where he studied Sanskrit under Bopp and Weber. On his return to France he obtained an appointment in the department of oriental MSS. at the Bibliothèque Impériale. In 1864 he became professor of comparative grammar at the Collège de France, in 1875 member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-lettres, in 1879 inspecteur-général of public instruction for higher schools until the abolition of the office in 1888. In 1890 he was made commander of the Legion of Honour. Among his works, which deal mainly with mythological and philological subjects, may be mentioned: L’Étude des origines de la religion Zoroastrienne (1862), for which a prize was awarded him by the Académie des Inscriptions; Hercule et Cacus (1863), in which he disputes the principles of the symbolic school in the interpretation of myths; Le Mythe d’Oedipe (1864); Les Tables Eugubines (1875); Mélanges de mythologie et de linguistique (2nd. ed., 1882); Leçons de mots (1882,1886), Dictionnaire étymologique latin (1885) and Grammaire latine (1890). His Essai de Sémantique (1897), on the signification of words, has been translated into English by Mrs H. Cust with preface by J. P. Postgate. His translation of Bopp’s Comparative Grammar (1866–1874), with introductions, is highly valued. He has also written pamphlets on education in France, the teaching of ancient languages, and the reform of French orthography. In 1906 he published Pour mieux connaître Homère.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Changarnier, Nicolas Anne Théodule

See also Nicolas Changarnier on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​CHANGARNIER, NICOLAS ANNE THÉODULE (1793–1877), French general, was born at Autun on the 26th of April 1793. Educated at St Cyr, he served for a short time in the bodyguard of Louis XVIII., and entered the line as a lieutenant in January 1815. He achieved distinction in the Spanish campaign of 1823, and became captain in 1825. In 1830 he entered the Royal Guard and was sent to Africa, where he took part in the Mascara expedition. Promoted commandant in 1835, he distinguished himself under Marshal Clausel in the campaign against Ahmed Pasha, bey of Constantine, and became lieutenant-colonel in 1837. The part he took in the expedition of Portes-de-Fer gained him a colonelcy, and his success against the Hajutas and Kabyles, the cross of the Legion of Honour. Three more years of brilliant service in Africa won for him the rank of maréchal de camp in 1840, and of lieutenant-general in 1843. In 1847 he held the Algiers divisional command. He visited France early in 1848, assisted the provisional government to establish order, and returned to Africa in May to succeed General Cavaignac in the government of Algeria. He was speedily recalled on his election to the general assembly for the department of the Seine, and received the command of the National Guard of Paris, to which was added soon afterwards that of the troops in Paris, altogether nearly 100,000 men. He held a high place and exercised great influence in the complicated politics of the next two years. In 1849 he received the grand cross of the Legion of Honour. An avowed enemy of republican institutions, he held a unique position in upholding the power of the president; but in January 1851 he opposed Louis Napoleon’s policy, was in consequence deprived of his double command, and at the coup d’état in December was arrested and sent to Mazas, until his banishment from France by the decree of the 9th of January 1852. He returned to France after the general amnesty, and resided in his estate in the department of Saône-et-Loire. In 1870 he held no command, but was present with the headquarters, and afterwards with Bazaine in Metz. He was employed on an unsuccessful mission to Prince Frederick Charles, commanding the German army which besieged Metz, and on the capitulation became a prisoner of war. At the armistice he returned to Paris, and in 1871 was elected to the National Assembly by four departments, and sat for the Somme. He took an active part in politics, defended the conduct of Marshal Bazaine, and served on the committee which elaborated the monarchical constitution. When the comte de Chambord refused the compromise, he moved the resolution to extend the executive power for ten years to Marshal MacMahon. He was elected a life senator in 1875. He died in Paris on the 14th of February 1877.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Changos

See also Chango people on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​CHANGOS, a tribe of South American Indians who appear to have originally inhabited the Peruvian coast. A few of them still live on the coast of Atacama, northern Chile. They are a dwarfish race, never exceeding 5 ft. in height. Their sole occupation is fishing, and in former times they used boats of inflated sealskins, lived in sealskin huts, and slept on heaps of dried seaweed. They are a hospitable and friendly people, and never resisted the whites.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Chandragupta Maurya

See also Chandragupta Maurya on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​CHANDRAGUPTA MAURYA (reigned 321–296 B.C.), known to the Greeks as Sandracottus, founder of the Maurya empire and first paramount ruler of India, was the son of a king of Magadha by a woman of humble origin, whose caste he took, and whose name, Mura, is said to have been the origin of that of Maurya assumed by his dynasty. As a youth he was driven into exile by his kinsman, the reigning king of Magadha. In the course of his wanderings he met Alexander the Great, and, according to Plutarch (Alexander, cap. 62), encouraged him to invade the Ganges kingdom by enlarging on the extreme unpopularity of the reigning monarch. During his exile he collected a large force of the warlike clans of the north-west frontier, and on the death of Alexander attacked the Macedonian garrisons and conquered the Punjab. He next attacked Magadha, dethroned and slew the king, his enemy, with every member of his family, and established himself on the throne (321). The great army acquired from his predecessor he increased until it reached the total of 30,000 cavalry, 9000 elephants, and 600,000 infantry; and with this huge force he overran all northern India, establishing his empire from the Arabian Sea to the Bay of Bengal. In 305 Seleucus Nicator crossed the Indus, but was defeated by Chandragupta and forced to a humiliating peace (303), by which the empire of the latter was still farther extended in the north. About six years later Chandragupta died, leaving his empire to his son Bindusura.
An excellent account of the court and administrative system of Chandragupta has been preserved in the fragments of Megasthenes, who came to Pataliputra as the envoy of Seleucus shortly after 303. The government was, of course, autocratic and even tyrannous, but it was organized on an elaborate system, army and civil service being administered by a series of boards, while the cities were governed by municipal commissioners responsible for public order and the upkeep of public works. Chandragupta himself is described as living in barbaric splendour, appearing in public only to hear causes, offer sacrifice, or to go on military and hunting expeditions, and withal so fearful of assassination that he never slept two nights running in the same room.
See J. W. MacCrindle, Ancient India as described by Megasthenes and Arrian (Calcutta, 1877); V. A. Smith, Early Hist. of India (Oxford, 1908); also the articles India: History, and Inscriptions: Indian.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Chang Chun, Kiu

See also Qiu Chuji on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​CHANG CHUN, KIU (1148–1227), Chinese Taoist sage and traveller, was born in 1148. In 1219 he was invited by Jenghiz Khan, founder of the Mongol empire and greatest of Asiatic conquerors, to visit him. Jenghiz’ letter of invitation, dated the 15th of May 1219 (by present reckoning), has been preserved, and is among the curiosities of history; here the terrible warrior appears as a meek disciple of wisdom, modest and simple, almost Socratic in his self-examination, alive to many of the deepest truths of life and government. Chang Chun obeyed this summons; and leaving his home in Shantung (February 1220) journeyed first to Peking. Learning that Jenghiz had gone far west upon fresh conquests, the sage stayed the winter in Peking. In February 1221 he started again and crossed eastern Mongolia to the camp of Jenghiz’ brother Ujughen, near Lake Bör or Buyur in the upper basin of the Kerulun-Amur. Thence he travelled south-westward up the Kerulun, crossed the Karakorum region in north-central Mongolia, and so came to the Chinese Altai, probably passing near the present Uliassutai. After traversing the Altai he visited Bishbalig, answering to the modern Urumtsi, and moved along the north side of the Tian Shan range to lake Sairam, Almalig (or Kulja), and the rich valley of the Ili. We then trace him to the Chu, over this river to Talas and the Tashkent region, and over the Jaxartes (or Syr Daria) to Samarkand, where he halted for some months. Finally, through the “Iron Gates” of Termit, over the Oxus, and by way of Balkh and northern Afghanistan, Chang Chun reached Jenghiz’ camp near the Hindu Kush. Returning home he followed much the same course as on his outward route: certain deviations, however, occur, such as a visit to Kuku-khoto. He was back in Peking by the end of January 1224. From the narrative of his expedition (the Si yu ki, written by his pupil and companion Li Chi Chang) we derive some of the most faithful and vivid pictures ever drawn of nature and man between the Great Wall of China and Kabul, between the Aral and the Yellow Sea: we may particularly notice the sketches of the Mongols, and of the people of Samarkand and its neighbourhood; the account of the fertility and products of the latter region, as of the Ili valley, at or near Almalig-Kulja; and the description of various great mountain ranges, peaks and defiles, such as the Chinese Altai, the Tian Shan, Mt Bogdo-ola (?), and the Iron Gates of Termit. There is, moreover, a noteworthy reference to a land apparently identical with the uppermost valley of the Yenisei. After his return Chang Chun lived at Peking till his death on the 23rd of July 1227. By order of Jenghiz some of the former imperial garden grounds were made over to him, for the foundation of a Taoist monastery.
See E. Bretschneider, Mediaeval Researches from Eastern Asiatic Sources, vol. i. pp. 35–108, where a complete translation of the narrative is given, with a valuable commentary; C. R. Beazley Dawn of Modern Geography, iii. 539.  (C. R. B.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Chang-chow

See also Zhangzhou on Wikipedia; Chang-chow in the 9th Edition; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​CHANG-CHOW, a town of China, in the province of Fu-kien, on a branch of the Lung Kiang, 35 m. W. of Amoy. It is surrounded by a wall 41/2 m. in circumference, which, however, includes a good deal of open ground. The streets are paved with granite, but are very dirty. The river is crossed by a curious bridge, 800 ft. long, constructed of wooden planks supported on twenty-five piles of stones about 30 ft. apart. The city is a centre of the silk-trade, and carries on an extensive commerce in different directions. Brick-works and sugar-factories are among its chief ​industrial establishments. Its population is estimated at about 1,000,000.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Change

See also Change on Wikipedia; and our 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica disclaimer.
​CHANGE (derived through the Fr. from the Late Lat. cambium, cambiare, to barter; the ultimate derivation is probably from the root which appears in the Gr. κάμπτειν, to bend), properly the substitution of one thing for another, hence any alteration or variation, so applied to the moon’s passing from one phase to another. The use of the word for a place of commercial business has usually been taken to be a shortened form of Exchange (q.v.) and so is often written 'Change. The New English Dictionary points out that “change” appears earlier than “exchange” in this sense. “Change” is particularly used of coins of lower denomination given in substitution for those of larger denomination or for a note, cheque, &c., and also for the balance of a sum paid larger than that which is due. A further application is that in bell-ringing, of the variations in order in which a peal of bells may be rung. The term usually excludes the ringing of the bells according to the diatonic scale in which they are hung (see Bell). It is from a combination of these two meanings that the thieves’ slang phrase “ringing the changes” arises; it denotes the various methods by which wrong change may be given or extracted, or counterfeit coin passed.