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

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​AARAU, the capital of the Swiss canton of Aargau. In 1900 it had 7831 inhabitants, mostly German-speaking, and mainly Protestants. It is situated in the valley of the Aar, on the right bank of that river, and at the southern foot of the range of the Jura. It is about 50 m. by rail N.E. of Bern, and 31 m. N.W. of Zürich. It is a well-built modern town, with no remarkable features about it. In the Industrial Museum there is (besides collections of various kinds) some good painted glass of the 16th century, taken from the neighbouring Benedictine monastery of Muri (founded 1027, suppressed 1841—the monks are now quartered at Gries, near Botzen, in Tirol). The cantonal library contains many works relating to Swiss history and many MSS. coming from the suppressed Argovian monasteries. There are many industries in the town, especially silk-ribbon weaving, foundries, and factories for the manufacture of cutlery and scientific instruments. The popular novelist and historian, Heinrich Zschokke (1771–1848), spent most of his life here, and a bronze statue has been erected to his memory. Aarau is an important military centre. The slopes of the Jura are covered with vineyards. Aarau, an ancient fortress, was taken by the Bernese in 1415, and in 1798 became for a time the capital of the Helvetic republic. Eight miles by rail N.E. are the famous sulphur baths of Schinznach, just above which is the ruined castle of Habsburg, the original home of that great historical house. (W. A. B. C.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Brundisium

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​BRUNDISIUM (Gr. BRUNDISIUM (Gr. Βρεντέσιον, mod. Brindisi), an important harbour town of Calabria (in the ancient sense), Italy, on the E.S.E. coast. The name is said to mean “stag’s head” in the Messapian dialect, in allusion to the shape of the harbour. Tradition varies as to its founders; but we find it hostile to Tarentum, and in friendly relations with Thurii. With a fertile territory round it, it became the most important city of the Messapians, but it was developed by the Romans, into whose hands it only came after the conquest of the Sallentini in 266 B.C. They founded a colony there in 245 B.C., and the Via Appia was perhaps extended through Tarentum as far as Brundisium at this period. Pacuvius was born here about 220 B.C. After the Punic Wars it became the chief point of embarkation for Greece and the East, via Dyrrachium or Corcyra. In the Social War it received Roman citizenship, and was made a free port by Sulla. It suffered, however, from a siege conducted by Caesar in 49 B.C. (Bell. Civ. i.) and was again attacked in 42 and 40 B.C. Virgil died here in 19 B.C. on his return from Greece. Trajan constructed the Via Trajana, a more direct route from Beneventum to Brundisium. The remains of ancient buildings are unimportant, though a considerable number of antiquities, especially inscriptions, have been discovered here: one column 62 ft. in height, with an ornate capital, still stands, and near it is the base of another, the column itself having been removed to Lecce. They are said to have marked the termination of the Via Appia.
See Ch. Hülsen in Pauly-Wissowa, Realencyclopädie, iii. (1899), 902; Notizie degli Scavi, passim. Also Brindisi.  (T. As.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bruneau, Alfred

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​BRUNEAU, ALFRED (1857–), French musical composer, was born in Paris. His parents were devoted to music, and he was brought up to play the ’cello, being educated at the Paris Conservatoire. He played in Pasdeloup’s orchestra, and soon began to compose, writing a cantata, Geneviève de Paris, at an early age. In 1884 his Ouverture héroïque was performed, followed by the choral symphonies, Léda (1884), La Belle au bois dormant (1886) and Penthésilée. But he is best known as a dramatic composer. In 1887 his first opera, Kérim, was produced; and in 1891 his successful opera Le Rêve, with a libretto founded on Zola’s story. Another subject from Zola resulted in the opera L’Attaque du moulin (1893), and libretti by Zola himself were written for his next operas Messidor (1897) and L’Ouragan (1901). Among Bruneau’s other works may be mentioned his Requiem (1896), and his two collections of songs, Lieds de France and Chansons à danser. He was decorated with the Legion of Honour in 1895. His musical criticisms, published in several volumes, are remarkable for literary quality and vigour.
See Arthur Hervey’s volume on Bruneau (1907).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Brunelleschi, Filippo

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​BRUNELLESCHI (or Brunellesco), FILIPPO (1379–1446), Italian architect, the reviver in Italy of the Roman or Classic style, was born at Florence in 1379. His father, a notary, had destined him for his own profession, but observing the boy’s talent for all sorts of mechanism, placed him in the gild of goldsmiths. Filippo quickly became a skilled workman, and perfected himself in the knowledge of sculpture, perspective and geometry. He designed some portions of houses in Florence, and in 1401 he was one of the competitors for the design of the gates of the baptistery of San Giovanni. He was unsuccessful, though his work obtained praise, and he soon afterwards set out for Rome. He studied hard, and resolved to do what he could to revive the older classical style, which had died out in Italy. Moreover, he was one of the first to apply the scientific laws of perspective to his work. In 1407 he returned to Florence, just at the time when it was resolved to attempt the completion of the cathedral church of Santa Maria del Fiore. Brunelleschi’s plan for effecting this by a cupola was approved, but it was not till 1419, and after innumerable disputes, that the work was finally entrusted to him. At first he was hampered by his colleague Ghiberti, of whom he skilfully got rid. He did not live to see the completion of his great work, and the lantern on the summit was put up not altogether in accordance with the instructions and plans left by him. The great cupola, one of the triumphs of architecture, exceeds in some measurements that of St Peter’s at Rome, and has a more massive and striking appearance. Besides this masterpiece Brunelleschi executed numerous other works, among the most remarkable of which are the Pitti palace at Florence, on the pattern of which are based the Tuscan palaces of the 15th century, the churches of San Lorenzo and Spirito Santo, and the still more elegant Capella del Pazza. The beautiful carved crucifix in the church of Santa Maria Novella in Florence is also the work of Brunelleschi. He died in Florence on the 16th of April 1446, and was buried in the cathedral church of his native city.
See Manetti, Vita di Brunelleschi (Florence, 1812); Guasti, La cupola di Santa Maria del Fiore (Florence, 1857); von Fabriczy, Filippo Brunelleschi (Stuttgart, 1892).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Brummagem

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​BRUMMAGEM (an old local form of “Birmingham”), a name first applied to a counterfeit coin made in the city of Birmingham, England, in the 17th century, and later to the plated and imitation articles made there; hence cheap, showy or tawdry. The name was particularly used of the supporters of the Exclusion Bill in 1680, with the meaning of “sham Protestant.” Similarly the Tory opponents of the Bill were nicknamed “Anti-Birminghams” or “Brummagems.”
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Brunck, Richard François Philippe

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​BRUNCK, RICHARD FRANÇOIS PHILIPPE (1729–1803), French classical scholar, was born at Strassburg on the 30th of December 1729. He was educated at the Jesuits’ College at Paris, and took part in the Seven Years’ War as military commissary. At the age of thirty he returned to his native town and resumed his studies, paying special attention to Greek. He spent considerable sums of money in publishing editions of the Greek classics. The first work which he edited was the Anthologia Graeca or Analecta veterum Poetarum Graecorum (1772–1776), in which his innovations on the established mode of criticism startled European scholars; for wherever it seemed to him that an obscure or difficult passage might be made intelligible and easy by a change of text, he did not scruple to make the necessary alterations, whether the new reading were supported by manuscript authority or not. Other works by him are:—Editions of Anacreon (1778), several plays of the Greek tragedians, Apollonius Rhodius (1780), Aristophanes, with an excellent Latin translation (1781–1783), Gnomici poetae Graeci (1784), Sophocles (1786), with Latin translation, his best work, for which he received a pension of 2000 francs from the king. He also published editions of Virgil (1785), Plautus (1788) and Terence (1797). At the outbreak of the French Revolution, in which he took an active part, he was imprisoned at Besançon, and lost his pension, being reduced to such extremities that he was obliged to sell a portion of his library. In 1802 his pension was restored to him, but too late to prevent the sale of the remainder of his books. He died on the 12th of June 1803.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Brune, Guillaume Marie Anne

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​BRUNE, GUILLAUME MARIE ANNE (1763–1815), marshal of France, the son of an advocate, was born at Brives-la-Gaillarde (Corrèze), on the 13th of March 1763. Before the Revolution he went to Paris to study law, and here he became a political journalist, a Jacobin and a friend of Danton. He was appointed ​in 1793 to a superior command in the army direct from civil life, and as a general of brigade he took part in the fighting of the 13th Vendémiaire. In 1796 he fought under Bonaparte in Italy, and was promoted general of division for good service in the field. In 1798 he commanded the French army which occupied Switzerland, and in the following year he was in command of the French troops in Holland. His defence of Amsterdam against the Anglo-Russian expedition under the duke of York was completely successful; the invaders were defeated, and compelled, after a miserable retreat, to re-embark. He rendered further good service in Vendée and in Italy, and was made a marshal by Napoleon on the assumption by the latter of the imperial title in 1804. In 1807 Brune held a command in North Germany, but he was not afterwards employed during the First Empire. It is said that he was accused of venality, and on that account disgraced, but of this there is no proof. He was recalled to active service during the Hundred Days, and as commander of the army of the Var he defended the south of France against the Austrians. He was murdered by royalists during the White Terror at Avignon on the 2nd of August 1815.
See Notice historique sur la vie politique et militaire du maréchal Brune (Paris, 1821), and Vermeil de Conchard, L’Assassinat du maréchal Brune (Paris, 1887).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cartwright, Sir Richard John

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​CARTWRIGHT, SIR RICHARD JOHN (1835– ), Canadian statesman, was born in Kingston, Canada, on the 4th of December 1835, son of the Rev. R. D. Cartwright, chaplain to H.M. Forces. In 1863 he entered the Canadian parliament as a Conservative, but soon after federation in 1867 quarrelled with his party on the question of their financial policy, which he considered extravagant. By 1870 the breach was complete, and in 1873 he became finance minister of the Liberal ministry of the Hon. Alexander Mackenzie. His honesty and economy were undoubted, but the latter quality was sometimes pushed to extremes. From 1878 to 1896 he was the chief financial critic on the side of the Liberal opposition, and on the accession of Sir ​Wilfrid Laurier to power in 1896 he became minister of trade and commerce. In 1898–1899 he represented Canada on the Anglo-American joint high commission at Quebec. In 1904 failing health led to his retirement to the senate. He acted in Sir Wilfrid Laurier’s absence at the Imperial Conference 1907 as acting premier.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cartier, Sir Georges Étienne

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​CARTIER, SIR GEORGES ÉTIENNE, Bart. (1814–1873), Canadian statesman, was born in the province of Quebec on the 6th of September 1814. Called to the bar in 1835, he soon gained a large practice. He took part in the rebellion of 1837, and was forced for a time to fly the country. In 1848 he was elected to the Canadian parliament. His youthful ebullition of 1837 was soon repented of, and he became a loyal subject of the British crown. So greatly had he changed that in 1854 he became a leading member of the reconstructed Liberal-Conservative party. In 1855 he was appointed provincial secretary, and in 1857 attorney-general for Lower Canada. From 1858 to 1862 he and Sir John Macdonald were joint prime ministers of Canada, and their alliance lasted till the death of Cartier. He took the chief part in promoting many useful measures, such as the abolition of seigneurial tenure in Lower Canada (see Quebec), and the codification of the civil law of that province (1857–1864). Above all he favoured the construction of railways, and to his energy and fearless, optimism are largely due the eventual success of the Grand Trunk railway, and the resolve to construct the Canadian Pacific. In the face of great opposition, he carried his native province into federation (1864–1867), which would have been impossible without his aid. In the first cabinet of Sir John Macdonald he sat as minister of militia and defence, and carried in 1868 an important act establishing the land forces of Canada on a sound basis. Though a devout Catholic, he became involved in a political quarrel with his church, and was defeated by clerical influence at the general election of 1872. Another seat was found for him, but his health failed and he died on the 20th of May 1873.
The Life, by Alfred O. De Celles (Toronto, 1904), may be supplemented by the sketch in Dent’s Canadian Portrait Gallery (Toronto, 1880).  (W. L. G.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cartridge

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​CARTRIDGE (corruption of Fr. cartouche), a case, of brass or other metal, cardboard, silk, flannel, &c., containing an explosive charge, and usually the projectile also, for small arms and ordnance (see Ammunition).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cartwright, Edmund

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​CARTWRIGHT, EDMUND (1743–1823), English inventor, younger brother of Major John Cartwright (q.v.), was born at Marnham, Nottinghamshire, on the 24th of April 1743, and educated at Wakefield grammar school. He began his academical studies at University College, Oxford, and in 1764 he was elected to a fellowship at Magdalen. In 1770 he published Armine and Elvira, a legendary poem, which was followed in 1779 by The Prince of Peace. In 1779 he was presented to the rectory of Goadby Marwood, Leicestershire, to which in 1786 was added a prebend in the cathedral of Lincoln. He took the degree of D.D. at Oxford in 1806. He would probably have passed an obscure life as a country clergyman had not his attention been accidentally turned in 1784 to the possibility of applying machinery to weaving. The result was that he invented a power-loom, for which he took out a patent in 1785; it was a rude contrivance, though it was improved by subsequent patents in 1786 and 1787, and gradually developed into the modern power-loom. Removing to Doncaster in 1785, he started a weaving and spinning factory; it did not, however, prove a financial success, and in 1793 he had to surrender it to his creditors. A mill at Manchester, in which a number of his machines were installed, was wilfully destroyed by fire in 1791. In 1789 he patented a wool-combing machine, for which he took out further patents in 1790 and 1792; it effected large economies in the cost of manufacture, but its financial results were not more satisfactory to its inventor than those of the power-loom, even though in 1801 parliament extended the patent for fourteen years. In 1807 a memorial was presented to the government urging the benefits that had been conferred on the country by the power-loom, and the House of Commons voted him £10,000 in 1809. He then purchased a small farm at Hollander, near Sevenoaks, Kent, where he spent the rest of his life. He died at Hastings on the 30th of October 1823. Other inventions of Cartwright’s included a cordelier or machine for making rope (1792), and an engine working with alcohol (1797), together with various agricultural implements.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cartilage

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​CARTILAGE (Lat. cartilago, gristle), the firm elastic and gristly connective tissue in vertebrates. (See Connective Tissues and Joints.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cartwright, John

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​CARTWRIGHT, JOHN (1740–1824), English parliamentary reformer, was born at Marnham in Nottinghamshire on the 17th of September 1740, being the elder brother of Edmund Cartwright, inventor of the power-loom. He was educated at Newark grammar school and Heath Academy in Yorkshire, and at the age of eighteen entered the navy. He was present, in his first year of service, at the capture of Cherbourg, and served in the following year in the action between Sir Edward Hawke and Admiral Conflans. Engaged afterwards under Sir Hugh Palliser and Admiral Byron on the Newfoundland station, he was appointed to act as chief magistrate of the settlement; and the duties of this post he discharged for five years (1765–1770). Ill-health necessitated his retirement from active service for a time in 1771. When the disputes with the American colonies began, he saw clearly that the colonists had right on their side, and warmly supported their cause. At the beginning of the war he was offered the appointment of first lieutenant to the duke of Cumberland, which would have put him on the path of certain promotion. But he declined to fight against the cause which he felt to be just. In 1774 he published his first plea on behalf of the colonists, entitled American Independence the Glory and Interest of Great Britain. In the following year, when the Nottinghamshire Militia was first raised, he was appointed major, and in this capacity he served for seventeen years. He was at last illegally superseded, because of his political opinions. In 1776 appeared his first work on reform in parliament, which, with the exception of Earl Stanhope’s pamphlets (1774), appears to have been the earliest publication on the subject. It was entitled, Take your Choice—a second edition appearing under the new title of The Legislative Rights of the Commonalty vindicated. The task of his life was thenceforth chiefly the attainment of universal suffrage and annual parliaments. In 1778 he conceived the project of a political association, which took shape in 1780 as the “Society for Constitutional Information,” including among its members some of the most distinguished men of the day. From this society sprang the more famous “Corresponding Society.” Major Cartwright worked unweariedly for the promotion of reform. He was one of the witnesses on the trial of his friends, Horne Tooke, John Thelwall and Thomas Hardy, in 1794, and was himself indicted for conspiracy in 1819. He was found guilty in the following year, and was condemned to pay a fine of £100. He died in London on the 23rd of September 1824. He had married in 1780, but had no children. In 1831 a monument from a design by Macdowell was erected to him in Burton Crescent where he had lived.
The Life and Correspondence of Major Cartwright, edited by his niece F. D. Cartwright, was published in 1826.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cartwright, Peter

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​CARTWRIGHT, PETER (1785–1872), American Methodist Episcopal preacher, was born on the 1st of September 1785 in Amherst county, Virginia. His father, a veteran of the War of Independence, took his family to Kentucky in 1790, and lived near Lancaster until 1793, and then until 1802 in Logan county near the Tennessee line. Peter received little education, and was a gambler at cards and horse-racing until 1801, when he heard John Page preach. In June he was received into the church; in May 1802 was licensed as a regular exhorter, becoming known as the “Kentucky Boy”; in the autumn of 1802 was licensed to form the Livingston circuit around the mouth of the Cumberland river; in 1806 was ordained deacon by Bishop Asbury, and in 1808 presiding elder by Bishop McKendree, under whose direction he had studied theology. He was presiding elder of the Wabash district in 1812, and of Green river district in 1813–1816, and, after four years on circuit in Kentucky and two as presiding elder of the Cumberland district, was transferred in 1823 to the Illinois conference, in which he was presiding elder of various districts until 1869. Up to 1856 he preached some 14,600 times, received some 10,000 persons into the church, and baptized some 12,000 persons. He died near Pleasant Plains, Sangamon county, Illinois, on the 25th of September 1872. He was a typical backwoods preacher, an able, vigorous speaker, and a racy writer.
See the Autobiography of Peter Cartwright, the Backwoods Preacher, edited by W. P. Strickland (New York, 1856).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cartouche

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​CARTOUCHE (a French word adapted from the Ital. cartoccio, a roll of paper, Med Lat. carta, for charta, paper), originally a roll of paper, parchment or other material, containing the charge of powder and shot for a firearm, a cartridge (q.v.), which itself is a corruption of cartouche. The term was applied in architecture to various forms of ornamentation taking the shape of a scroll, such as the volute of an Ionian capital. It was particularly used of a sculptured tablet in the shape of a partly unrolled scroll on which could be placed an inscription or device. Such “cartouches” are used for titles, &c., on engravings of maps, plans, and the like. The arms of the popes and ecclesiastics of high birth were borne on an oval cartouche; and it is thus particularly applied, in Egyptian archaeology, for the oblong device with oval ends, enclosing the names of royal personages on the monuments. It is properly an oval formed by a rope knotted at one end. An amulet of similar shape, as the symbol of the “name,” was worn by men and women as a protection against the blotting out of the name after death.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ashraf

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​ASHRAF (Shurefa, Sherifs), a small scattered tribe of African “Arabs” settled near Tokar, in the valleys of the Gash and Baraka, and in the Amarar country north of Suakin. They call themselves Beni Hashin, and claim descent from Mahomet; hence their name, sherif (plural ashraf) being the title applied to descendants of the prophet. In the time of the khalifa Abdulla (1885–1898), Ashraf was the name by which the family and adherents of his late master the mahdi were known, the mahdi’s family claiming to be Ashraf. The Ashraf of Tokar remained loyal to Egypt during the Sudan troubles.
See Anglo-Egyptian Sudan, edited by Count Gleichen (London, 1905); Fire and Sword in the Sudan, by Slatin Pasha (London, 1896); for the Ashraf or Sherifs in Arabia, see Arabia: Geography.