OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Clermont-Ganneau, Charles Simon

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​CLERMONT-GANNEAU, CHARLES SIMON (1846– ), French Orientalist, the son of a sculptor of some repute, was born in Paris on the 19th of February 1846. After an education at the École des Langues Orientales, he entered the diplomatic service as dragoman to the consulate at Jerusalem, and afterwards at Constantinople. He laid the foundation of his reputation by his discovery (in 1870) of the “stele” of Mesha (Moabite Stone), which bears the oldest Semitic inscription known. In 1874 he was employed by the British government to take charge of an archaeological expedition to Palestine, and was ​subsequently entrusted by his own government with similar missions to Syria and the Red Sea. He was made chevalier of the Legion of Honour in 1875. After serving as vice-consul at Jaffa from 1880 to 1882, he returned to Paris as “secrétaire-interprète” for oriental languages, and in 1886 was appointed consul of the first class. He subsequently accepted the post of director of the École des Langues Orientales and professor at the Collège de France. In 1889 he was elected a member of the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles Lettres, of which he had been a correspondent since 1880. In 1896 he was promoted to be consul-general, and was minister plenipotentiary in 1906. He was the first in England to expose the famous forgeries of Hebrew texts offered to the British Museum by M. W. Shapira (q.v.) in 1883, and in 1903 he took a prominent part in the investigation of the so-called “tiara of Saïtapharnes.” This tiara had been purchased by the Louvre for 400,000 francs, and exhibited as a genuine antique. Much discussion arose as to the perpetrators of the fraud, some believing that it came from southern Russia. It was agreed, however, that the whole object, except perhaps the band round the tiara, was of modern manufacture.
His chief publications, besides a number of contributions to journals, are:—Palestine inconnue (1886), Études d’archéologie orientale (1880, &c.), Les Fraudes archéologiques (1885), Recueil d’archéologie orientale (1885, &c.), Album d’antiquités orientales (1897, &c.).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Clermont-Tonnerre, Stanislas Marie Adelaide, Comte de

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​CLERMONT-TONNERRE, STANISLAS MARIE ADELAIDE, Comte de (1757–1792), French politican, was born at Pont-à-Mousson on the 10th of October 1757. At the beginning of the Revolution he was a colonel, with some reputation as a freemason and a Liberal. He was elected to the states-general of 1789 by the noblesse of Paris, and was the spokesman of the minority of Liberal nobles who joined the Third Estate on the 25th of June. He desired to model the new constitution of France on that of England. He was elected president of the Constituent Assembly on the 17th of August 1789; but on the rejection by the Assembly of the scheme elaborated by the first constitutional committee, he attached himself to the party of moderate royalists, known as monarchiens, led by P. V. Malouet. His speech in favour of reserving to the crown the right of absolute veto under the new constitution drew down upon him the wrath of the advanced politicians of the Palais Royal; but in spite of threats and abuse he continued to advocate a moderate liberal policy, especially in the matter of removing the political disabilities of Jews and Protestants and of extending the system of trial by jury. In January 1790 he collaborated with Malouet in founding the Club des Impartiaux and the Journal des Impartiaux, the names of which were changed in November to the Société des Amis de la Constitution Monarchique and Journal de la Société, &c.. in order to emphasize their opposition to the Jacobins (Société des Amis de la Constitution). This club was denounced by Barnave in the Assembly (January 21st, 1791), and on the 28th of March it was attacked by a mob, whereupon it was closed by order of the Assembly. Clermont-Tonnerre was murdered by the populace during the rising of the 9th and 10th of August 1792. He was an excellent orator, having acquired practice in speaking, before the Revolution, in the masonic lodges. He is a good representative of the type of the grands seigneurs holding advanced and liberal ideas, who helped to bring about the movement of 1789, and then tried in vain to arrest its course.
See Recueil des opinions de Stanislas de Clermont-Tonnerre (4 vols., Paris, 1791), the text of his speeches as published by himself; A. Aulard, Les Orateurs de la Constituante (2nd ed., Paris, 1905).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Clermont-en-Beauvaisis

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​CLERMONT-EN-BEAUVAISIS, or Clermont-de-l’Oise, a town of northern France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Oise, on the right bank of the Brèche, 41 m. N. of Paris on the Northern railway to Amiens. Pop. (1906) 4014. The hill on which the town is built is surmounted by a keep of the 14th century, the relic of a fortress the site of which is partly occupied by a large penitentiary for women. The church dates from the 14th to the 16th centuries. The hôtel-de-ville, built by King Charles IV., who was born at Clermont in 1294, is the oldest in the north of France. The most attractive feature of the town is the Promenade du Châtellier on the site of the old ramparts. Clermont is the seat of a sub-prefect and has a tribunal of first instance, a communal college and a large lunatic asylum. It manufactures felt and corsets, and carries on a trade in horses, cattle and grain.
The town was probably founded during the time of the Norman invasions, and was an important military post, during the middle ages. It was several times taken and retaken by the contending parties during the Hundred Years’ War, and the Wars of Religion, and in 1615 Henry II., prince of Condé, was besieged and captured there by the marshal d’Ancre.
Counts of Clermont. Clermont was at one time the seat of a countship, the lords of which were already powerful in the 11th century. Raoul de Clermont, constable of France, died at Acre in 1191, leaving a daughter who brought Clermont to her husband, Louis, count of Blois and Chartres. Theobald, count of Blois and Clermont, died in 1218 without issue, and King Philip Augustus, having received the countship of Clermont from the collateral heirs of this lord, gave it to his son Philip Hurepel, whose daughter Jeanne, and his widow, Mahaut, countess of Dammartin, next held the countship. It was united by Saint Louis to the crown, and afterwards given by him (1269) to his son Robert, from whom sprang the house of Bourbon. In 1524 the countship of Clermont was confiscated from the constable de Bourbon, and later (1540) given to the duke of Orleans, to Catherine de’ Medici (1562), to Eric, duke of Brunswick (1569), from whom it passed to his brother-in-law Charles of Lorraine (1596), and finally to Henry II., prince of Condé (1611). In 1641 it was again confiscated from Louis de Bourbon, count of Soissons, then in 1696 sold to Louis Thomas Amadeus of Savoy, count of Soissons, in 1702 to Françoise de Brancas, princesse d’Harcourt, and in 1719 to Louis-Henry, prince of Condé. From a branch of the old lords of Clermont were descended the lords of Nesle and Chantilly.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Boksburg

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​BOKSBURG, a town of the Transvaal, 14 m. E. of Johannesburg by rail. Pop. of the municipality (1904) 14,757, of whom 4175 were whites. It is the headquarters of the Witwatersrand coal mining industry. The collieries extend from Boksburg eastward to Springs, 11 m. distant. Brakpan, the largest colliery in South Africa, lies midway between the places named.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bolan Pass

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​BOLAN PASS, an important pass on the Baluch frontier, connecting Jacobabad and Sibi with Quetta, which has always occupied an important place in the history of British campaigns in Afghanistan. Since the treaty of Gandamak, which was signed at the close of the first phase of the Afghan War in 1879, the Bolan route has been brought directly under British control, and it was selected for the first alignment of the Sind-Pishin railway from the plains to the plateau. From Sibi the line runs south-west, skirting the hills to Rindli, and originally followed the course of the Bolan stream to its head on the plateau. The destructive action of floods, however, led to the abandonment of this alignment, and the railway now follows the Mashkaf valley (which debouches into the plains close to Sibi), and is carried from near the head of the Mashkaf to a junction with the Bolan at Mach. An alternative route from Sibi to Quetta was found in the Harnai valley to the N.E. of Sibi, the line starting in exactly the opposite direction to that of the Bolan and entering the hills at Nari. The Harnai route, although longer, is the one adopted for all ordinary traffic, the Bolan loop being reserved for emergencies. At the Khundilani gorge of the Bolan route conglomerate cliffs enclose the valley rising to a height of 800 ft., and at Sir-i-Bolan the passage between the limestone rocks hardly admits of three persons riding abreast. The temperature of the pass in summer is very high, whereas in winter, near its head, the cold is extreme, and the ice-cold wind rushing down the narrow outlet becomes destructive to life. Since 1877, when the Quetta agency was founded, the freedom of the pass from plundering bands of Baluch marauders (chiefly Marris) has been secured, and it is now as safe as any pass in Scotland. (T. H. H.*)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Boivin, François de

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​BOIVIN, FRANÇOIS DE, Baron de Villars (d. 1618), French chronicler, entered the service of Charles, Marshal Brissac, as secretary, and accompanied him to Piedmont in 1550 when the marshal went to take command of the French troops in the war with Spain. Remaining in this service he was sent after the defeat of the French at St Quentin in 1557 to assure the French king Henry II. of the support of Brissac. He took part in the negotiations which led to the treaty of Cateau-Cambrésis in April 1559, but was unable to prevent Henry II. from ceding the conquests made by Brissac. Boivin wrote Mémoires sur les guerres démêlées tant dans le Piémont qu’au Montferrat et duche de Milan par Charles de Cossé, comte de Brissac (Paris, 1607), which, in spite of some drawbacks, is valuable as the testimony of an eye-witness of the war. An edition, carefully revised, ​appears in the Mémoires relatifs à l’histoire de France, tome x., edited by J. F. Michaud and J. J. F. Poujoulat (Paris, 1850). He also wrote Instruction sur les affaires d’état (Lyons, 1610).
See J. Lelong, Bibliothèque historique de la France (Paris, 1768–1778).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bolas

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​BOLAS (plural of Span. bola, ball), a South American Indian weapon of war and the chase, consisting of balls of stone attached to the ends of a rope of twisted or braided hide or hemp. Charles Darwin thus describes them in his Voyage of the Beagle: “The bolas, or balls, are of two kinds: the simplest, which is used chiefly for catching ostriches, consists of two round stones, covered with leather, and united by a thin, plaited thong, about 8 ft. long. The other kind differs only in having three balls united by thongs to a common centre. The Gaucho (native of Spanish descent) holds the smallest of the three in his hand, and whirls the other two around his head; then, taking aim, sends them like chain shot revolving through the air. The balls no sooner strike any object, than, winding round it, they cross each other and become firmly hitched.” Bolas have been used for centuries in the South American pampas and even the forest regions of the Rio Grande. F. Ratzel (History of Mankind) supposes them to be a form of lasso. The Eskimos use a somewhat similar weapon to kill birds. Bolas perdidas (i.e. lost) are stones attached to a very short thong, or, in some cases, having none at all.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bole

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​BOLE (Gr. βῶλος, “a clod of earth”), a clay-like substance of red, brown or yellow colour, consisting essentially of hydrous aluminium silicate, with more or less iron. Most bole differs from ordinary clay in not being plastic, but in dropping to pieces when placed in water, thus behaving rather like fuller’s-earth. Bole was formerly in great repute medicinally, the most famous kind being the Lemnian Earth (γῆ Λήμνια), from the Isle of Lemnos in the Greek Archipelago. The earth was dug with much ceremony only once a year, and having been mixed with goats’ blood was made into little cakes or balls, which were stamped by the priests, whence they became known as Terra sigillata (“sealed earth”). Large quantities of bole occur as red partings between the successive lava flows of the Tertiary volcanic series in the north of Ireland and the west of Scotland. Here it seems to have resulted from the decomposition of the basalt and kindred rocks by meteoric agencies, during periods of volcanic repose. In Antrim the bole is associated with lithomarge, bauxite and pisolitic iron-ore. Bole occurs in like manner between the great sheets of the Deccan traps in India; and a similar substance is also found interbedded with some of the doleritic lavas of Etna.
In the sense of stem or trunk of a tree, “bole” is from the O. Norwegian bolr, cf. Ger. Bohle, plank. It is probably connected with the large number of words, such as “boll,” “ball,” “bowl,” &c., which stand for a round object.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bokenam, Osbern

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​BOKENAM, OSBERN (1393?–1447?), English author, was born, by his own account, on the 6th of October 1393. Dr Horstmann suggests that he may have been a native of Bokeham, now Bookham, in Surrey, and derived his name from the place. In a concluding note to his Lives of the Saints he is described as “a Suffolke man, frere Austyn of Stoke Clare.” He travelled in Italy on at least two occasions, and in 1445 was a pilgrim to Santiago de Compostela. He wrote a series of thirteen legends of holy maidens and women. These are written chiefly in sevenand eight-lined stanzas, and nine of them are preceded by prologues. Bokenam was a follower of Chaucer and Lydgate, and doubtless had in mind Chaucer’s Legend of Good Women. His chief, but by no means his only, source was the Legenda Aurea of Jacobus de Voragine, archbishop of Genoa, whom he cites as “Januence.” The first of the legends, Vita Scae Margaretae, virginis et martiris, was written for his friend, Thomas Burgh, a Cambridge monk; others are dedicated to pious ladies who desired the history of their name-saints. The Arundel MS. 327 (British Museum) is a unique copy of Bokenam’s work; it was finished, according to the concluding note, in 1447, and presented by the scribe, Thomas Burgh, to a convent unnamed “that the nuns may remember him and his sister, Dame Betrice Burgh.” The poems were edited (1835) for the Roxburghe Club with the title Lyvys of Seyntys . . ., and by Dr Carl Horstmann as Osbern Bokenams Legenden (Heilbronn, 1883), in E. Kölbing’s Altengl. Bibliothek, vol. i. Both editions include a dialogue written in Latin and English taken from Dugdale’s Monasticon Anglicanum (ed. 1846, vol. vi. p. 1600); “this dialogue betwixt a Secular asking and a Frere answerynge at the grave of Dame Johan of Acres shewith the lyneal descent of the lordis of the honoure of Clare fro . . . MCCXLVIII to . . . MCCCLVI”. Bokenam wrote, as he tells us, plainly, in the Suffolk speech. He explains his lack of decoration on the plea that the finest flowers had been already plucked by Chaucer, Gower and Lydgate.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Boito, Arrigo

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​BOITO, ARRIGO (1842– ), Italian poet and musical composer, was born at Padua on the 24th of February 1842. He studied music at the Milan Conservatoire, but even in those early days he devoted as much of his time to literature as to music, forecasting the divided allegiance which was to be the chief characteristic of his life’s history. While at the Conservatoire he wrote and composed, in collaboration with Franco Faccio, a cantata, Le Sorelle d’Italia, which was performed with success. On completing his studies Boito travelled for some years, and after his return to Italy settled down in Milan, dividing his time between journalism and music. In 1866 he fought under Garibaldi, and in 1868 conducted the first performance of his opera Mefistofele at the Scala theatre, Milan. The work failed completely, and was withdrawn after a second performance. It was revived in 1875 at Bologna in a much altered and abbreviated form, when its success was beyond question. It was performed in London in 1880 with success, but in spite of frequent revivals has never succeeded in firmly establishing itself in popular favour. Boito treated the Faust legend in a spirit far more nearly akin to the conception of Goethe than is found in Gounod’s Faust, but, in spite of many isolated beauties, his opera lacks cohesion and dramatic interest. His energies were afterwards chiefly devoted to the composition of libretti, of which the principal are Otello and Falstaff, set to music by Verdi; La Gioconda, set by Ponchielli; Amleto, set by Faccio; and Ero e Leandre, set by Bottesini and Mancinelli. These works display a rare knowledge of the requirements of dramatic poetry, together with uncommon literary value. Boito also published a book of poems and a novel, L’Alfier Meno. The degree of doctor of music was conferred upon him in 1893 by the university of Cambridge.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bokhara (city)

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​BOKHARA (Bokhara-i-Sherif ), capital of the state of Bokhara, on the left bank of the Zarafshan, and on the irrigation canal of Shahri-rud, situated in a fertile plain. It is 8 m. from the Bokhara station of the Transcaspian railway, 162 m. by rail W. of Samarkand, in 39° 47′ N. lat. and 64° 27′ E. long. The city is surrounded by a stone wall 28 ft. high and 8 m. long, with semicircular towers and eleven gates of little value as a defence. The present city was begun in A.D. 830 on the site of an older city, was destroyed by Jenghiz Khan in 1220, and rebuilt subsequently. The water-supply is very unhealthy. The city has no less than 360 mosques. Nearly 10,000 pupils are said to receive their education in its 140 madrasas or theological colleges; primary schools are kept at most mosques. Some of these buildings exhibit very fine architecture. The most notable of the mosques is the Mir-Arab, built in the 16th century, with its beautiful lecture halls; the chief mosque of the emir is the Mejid-kalyan, or Kok-humbez, close by which stands a brick minaret, 203 ft. high, from the top of which state criminals used to be thrown until 1871. Of the numerous squares the Raghistan ​is the principal. It has on one side the citadel, erected on an artificially made eminence 45 ft. high, surrounded by a wall 1 m. long, and containing the palace of the emir, the houses of the chief functionaries, the prison and the water-cisterns. The houses are mostly one-storeyed, built of unburned bricks, and have flat roofs.
Bokhara has for ages been a centre of learning and religious life. The mysticism which took hold on Persia in the middle ages spread also to Bokhara, and later, when the Mongol invasions of the 13th century laid waste Samarkand and other Moslem cities, Bokhara, remaining independent, continued to be a chief seat of Islamitic learning. The madrasa libraries, some of which were very rich, have been scattered and lost, or confiscated by the emirs, or have perished in conflagrations. But there are still treasures of literature concealed in private libraries, and Afghan, Persian, Armenian and Turkish bibliophiles still repair to Bokhara to buy rare books. Bokhara is, in fact, the principal book-market of central Asia. The population is supposed by Russian travellers not to exceed 50,000 or 60,000, but is otherwise estimated at 75,000 to 100,000. Amongst them is a large and ancient colony of Jews. Bokhara is the most important trading town in central Asia. In the city bazaars are made or sold silk stuffs, metal (especially copper) wares, Kara-kul (i.e. astrakhan) lamb-skins and carpets.
New Bokhara, or Kagan, a Russian town near the railway station, 8 m. from Bokhara itself, is rapidly growing, on a territory ceded by the emir. Pop. 2000. (P. A. K.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bolbec

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​BOLBEC, a town of northern France, in the department of Seine-Inférieure, on the Bolbec, 19 m. E.N.E. of Havre by rail. Pop. (1906) 10,959. Bolbec is important for its cotton spinning and weaving, and carries on the dyeing and printing of the fabric, and the manufacture of sugar. There are a chamber of commerce and a board of trade-arbitration. The town was enthusiastic in the cause of the Reformed Religion in the 16th century, and still contains many Protestants. It was burned almost to the ground in 1765.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Committee

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​COMMITTEE (from committé, an Anglo-Fr. past participle of commettre, Lat. committere, to entrust; the modern Fr. equivalent comité is derived from the Eng.), a person or body of persons to whom something is “committed” or entrusted. The term is used of a person or persons to whom the charge of the body (“committee of the person”) or of the property and business affairs (“committee of the estate”) of a lunatic is committed by the court (see Insanity). In this sense the English usage is to pronounce the word commi-ttee. The more common meaning of “committee” (pronounced commítt-y) is that of a body of persons elected or appointed to consider and deal with certain matters of business, specially or generally referred to it.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Commonplace

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​COMMONPLACE, a translation of the Gr. κοινὸς τόπος, i.e. a passage or argument appropriate to several cases; a “common-place book” is a collection of such passages or quotations arranged for reference under general heads either alphabetically or on some method of classification. To such a book the name adversaria was given, which is an adaptation of the Latin adversaria scripta, notes written on one side, the side opposite (adversus), of a paper or book. From its original meaning the word came to be used as meaning something hackneyed, a platitude or truism, and so, as an adjective, equivalent to trivial or ordinary. It was first spelled as two words, then with a hyphen, and so still in the sense of a “common-place book.”