OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Amiot, Jean Joseph Marie

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​AMIOT, JEAN JOSEPH MARIE (1718–1793), French Jesuit missionary, was born at Toulon in February 1718. He entered the Society of Jesus in 1737 and was sent in 1750 as a missionary to China. He soon won the confidence of the emperor Kien-lung and spent the remainder of his life at Pekin, where he died on the 9th of October 1793. Amiot was eminently fitted to make good use of the advantages which his situation afforded, and his works did more than had ever been done before to make known to the Western world the thought and life of the Far East. His Dictionnaire tatare-mantchou-français (Paris, 1789) was a work of great value, the language having been previously quite unknown in Europe. His other writings are to be found chiefly in the Mémoires concernant l’histoire, les sciences et les arts de Chinois (15 vols., Paris, 1776–1791). The Vie de Confucius, the twelfth volume of that collection, is complete and accurate.
For full bibliography see De Backer and C. Sommervogel, Bibliothèque de la Cie. de Jésus, i. 294-303; for his works on Chinese music see F. J. Fétis, Biog. univers. des musiciens (Brussels, 1837–1844).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Amman, Johann Conrad

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​AMMAN, JOHANN CONRAD (1669–c. 1730), Swiss physician, was born at Schaffhausen in 1669. After graduating at Basel in 1687 he began to practise at Amsterdam, where he gained a great reputation. He was one of the earliest writers on the instruction of the deaf and dumb, and first called attention to his method in his Surdus loquens (Amsterdam, 1692), which was often reprinted, and was reproduced by John Wallis in the Philosophical Transactions (1698). His process consisted principally in exciting the attention of his pupils to the motions of his lips and larynx while he spoke, and then inducing them to imitate these movements, till he brought them to repeat distinctly letters, syllables and words. The edition of Caelius Aurelianus, which was undertaken by the Wetsteins in 1709, was superintended by Amman. He died about 1730 at Warmoud, near Leiden.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Amiel, Henri Frédéric

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​AMIEL, HENRI FRÉDÉRIC (1821–1881), Swiss philosopher and critic, was born at Geneva on the 27th of September 1821. He was descended from a Huguenot family driven to Switzerland by the revocation of the edict of Nantes. Losing his parents at an early age, he travelled widely, became intimate with the intellectual leaders of Europe and made a special study of German philosophy in Berlin. In 1849 he was appointed professor of aesthetics at the academy of Geneva, and in 1854 became professor of moral philosophy. These appointments, conferred by the democratic party, deprived him of the support of the aristocratic party; which comprised nearly all the culture of the city. This isolation inspired the one book by which Amiel lives, the Journal Intime, which, published after his death, obtained a European reputation. It was translated into English by Mrs Humphry Ward. Although second-rate as regards productive power, Amiel’s mind was of no inferior quality, and his journal gained a sympathy which the author had failed to obtain in his life. In addition to the Journal, he produced several volumes of poetry and wrote studies on Erasmus, Madame de Staël and other writers. He died in Geneva on the 11th of March 1881. His chief poetical works are Grains de mil, Il penseroso, Part du rêve, Les Etrangères, Charles le Téméraire, Romancero historique, Jour à jour.
See Life of Amiel by Mdlle Berthe Vadier (Paris, 1885); Paul Bourget, Nouveaux essais (Paris, 1885); E. Scherer, introd. to the Journal and in Études sur la litt. contemp. (vol. viii.).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Barbé-Marbois, François, Marquis de

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​BARBÉ-MARBOIS, FRANÇOIS, Marquis de (1745–1837), French politician, was born at Metz. He began his public career as intendant of San Domingo under the old régime. At the close of 1789 he returned to France, and then placed his services at the disposal of the revolutionary government. In 1791 he was sent to Regensburg to help de Noailles, the French ambassador, in the negotiations with the diet of the Empire concerning the ​possessions of German princes in Alsace and Lorraine. Suspected of treason, he was arrested on his return but set at liberty again. In 1795 he was elected to the Council of the Ancients, where the general moderation of his attitude, especially in his opposition to the exclusion of nobles and the relations of émigrés from public life, brought him under suspicion of being a royalist, though he pronounced a eulogy on Bonaparte for his success in Italy. At the coup d’état of the 18th Fructidor (September 4) 1797, he was arrested and transported to French Guiana. Transferred to Oléron in 1799, he owed his liberty to Napoleon, after the 18th Brumaire. In 1801 he became councillor of state and director of the public treasury, and in 1802 a senator. In 1803 he negotiated the treaty by which Louisiana was ceded to the United States, and was rewarded by the First Consul with a gift of 152,000 francs. In 1805 he was made grand officer of the legion of honour and a count, and in 1808 he became president of the cour des comptes. In return for these favours, he addressed Napoleon with servile compliments; yet in 1814 he helped to draw up the act of abdication of the emperor, and declared to the cour des comptes, with reference to the invasion of France by the allies, “united for the most beautiful of causes, it is long since we have been so free as we now are in the presence of the foreigner in arms.” In June 1814, Louis XVIII. named him peer of France and confirmed him in his office as president of the cour des comptes. Deprived of his positions by Napoleon during the Hundred Days he was appointed minister of justice in the ministry of the duc de Richelieu (August 1815). In this office he tried unsuccessfully to gain the confidence of the ultra-royalists, and withdrew at the end of nine months (May 10, 1816).
In 1830, when Louis Philippe assumed the reins of government, Barbé-Marbois went, as president of the cour des comptes, to compliment him and was confirmed in his position. It was the sixth government he had served and all with servility. He held his office until April 1834, and died on the 12th of February 1837. He published various works, of which may be mentioned: Réflexions sur la colonie de Saint-Domingue (1794), De la Guyane, &c. (1822), an Histoire de la Louisiane et la cession de cette colonie par la France aux États-Unis, &c. (1828), and the story of his transportation after the 18th Fructidor in Journal d’un déporté non jugé, 2 vols. (1834).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Barca

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​BARCA (mod. Merj), an ancient city founded in the territory of Cyrene in the middle of the 6th century B.C. Rising quickly to importance it became a rival of the older city, and gave its name to the western province of the latter’s territory. The name as a provincial designation is still in occasional use, but is now applied to all the province of Bengazi. Barca is said to have owed its origin to Greek refugees flying from the tyranny of Arcesilaus II. (see Cyrene), but it is certain that it was rather a Libyan than a Greek town at all times. A Persian force invited by the notorious Pheretima, mother of Arcesilaus III., in revenge for Barcan support of a rival faction, sacked it towards the close of the 6th century and deported a number of its inhabitants to Bactria. Under Ptolemaic rule it began to decline, like Cyrene, and its port Ptolemais (Tolmeita) took its place: but after the Arab conquest (A.D. 641) it became the chief place of the Cyrenaica for a time and a principal station on the Kairawan road. Though now a mere village, Merj is still the chief centre of administration inland, and has a fort and small garrison. No ruins of earlier period than the late Roman and early Arab seem to be visible on the site. The latter lies, like Cyrene, about ten miles from the coast on the crest of Jebel Akhdar, here sunk to a low downland. It owed its early prosperity to its easy access to the sea, and to the fact that natural conditions in Cyrenaica and the ​Sahara behind it, tend to divert trade to the west of the district—a fact which is exemplified by the final survival of Berenice (mod. Bengazi). Merj stands in a rich but ill-cultivated stretch of red soil.  (D. G. H.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Barcelona (Venezuela)

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​BARCELONA, a town and port of Venezuela, capital of the state of Bermudez, on the Neveri river, 3 m. from its mouth and 12 m. by rail from the port of Guanta, which has superseded the incommodious river port in the trade of this district. Pop. (est. 1904) 13,000. Built on the border of a low plain and having a mean annual temperature of 82° F., the town has the reputation of being unhealthy. There are salt works and important coal deposits in its vicinity, the latter at Naricual and Capiricual, 12 m. distant by rail. Though the adjacent country is fertile, its prosperity has greatly declined, and the exports of coffee, sugar, cacao and forest products are much less important than formerly. The town dates from 1637, when it was located at the foot of the Cerro Santo and was called Nueva Barcelona; it reached a state of much prosperity and commercial importance before the end of the century. The War of Independence, however, and the chronic political disorders that followed nearly ruined its industries and trade.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Barby

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​BARBY, a town of Germany, in the kingdom of Prussia, on the left bank of the Elbe, 82 m. S.W. of Berlin on the direct railway to Cassel. Pop. (1900) 5136. It has two evangelical churches and a seminary for school teachers, which is housed in the former castle of the lords of Barby. The industries are mainly agricultural, but there are sugar factories and breweries. Here from 1749 to 1809 was a settlement of the Herrnhut evangelical brotherhood.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Barcarole

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​BARCAROLE, or Barcarolle (Ital. barcaruola, a boat-song) properly a musical term for the songs sung by the Venetian gondoliers, and hence for an instrumental or vocal composition, generally in 6–8 time, written in imitation of their characteristic rhythm.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Barbon, Praise-God

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​BARBON (Barebone or Barebones), PRAISE-GOD (c. 1596–1679), English leather-seller and Fifth Monarchy man, was admitted freeman of the Leathersellers Company on the 20th of January 1623 and liveryman on the 13th of October 1634. About the same time he became minister to a congregation which assembled at his own house, “The Lock and Key,” in Fleet Street, where his preaching attracted large audiences. The exact nature of his religious opinions is not perfectly clear. He is styled by his enemies a Brownist and Anabaptist, i.e. probably Baptist, but he wrote two books in support of paedobaptism, and his congregation had separated from a larger one of Baptists on that point of controversy. Later he belonged to the sect of Fifth Monarchy men. He was the object of the abuse and ridicule of the opposite party, and his meetings were frequently disturbed by riots. On the 20th of December 1641 his house was stormed by a mob and he narrowly escaped with his life. Barbon, who was a man of substantial property, was summoned by Cromwell on the 6th of June 1653 as a member for London to the assembly of nominees called after him in derision Barebone’s Parliament. His name is occasionally mentioned, but he appears to have taken no part in the debates. In 1660 he showed great activity in endeavouring to prevent the Restoration. He published Needham’s book, News from Brussels in a Letter from a Near Attendant on His Majesty’s Person . . ., which retailed unfavourable anecdotes relating to Charles’s morals, and on the 9th of February he presented the petition to the Parliament, which proposed that all officials should abjure the Stuarts, and all publicly proposing the Restoration should be deemed guilty of high treason. His conduct drew upon him several royalist attacks. On the 31st of March he was obliged to sign an engagement to the council not to disturb the peace, and on the 26th of November 1661 he was arrested, together with John Wildman and James Harrington, and was imprisoned in the Tower till the 27th of July 1662, when he was released on bail. Barbon, who was married, was buried on the 5th of January 1680. He was the author of A Discourse tending to prove . . . Baptism . . . to be the ordinance of Jesus Christ. As also that the Baptism of Infants is warentable (1642), the preface of which shows a spirit of wide religious tolerance; and A Reply to the Frivolous and Impertinent answer of R. B. and E. B. to the Discourse of P. B. (1643).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Barbuda

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​BARBUDA, an island in the British West Indies. It lies 25 m. N. of Antigua, of which it is a dependency, in 17° 33′ N. and 61° 43′ W., and it has an area of 62 sq. m. Pop. (1901) 775. It is flat and densely wooded. On the western side there is a large lagoon, separated from the sea by a spit of sand. The part of the island under cultivation is very fertile, and the air is remarkable for its purity. Cattle and horses are bred and wild deer are still found. Salt and phosphates of lime are exported. The island was annexed by Great Britain in 1628 and was bestowed in 1680 upon the Codrington family who, for more than 200 years, held it as a kind of feudal fief.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Amphiprostyle

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​AMPHIPROSTYLE (from the Gr. ἀμφί, on both sides, and πρόστυλος, a portico), the term for a temple (q.v.) with a portico both in the front and in the rear.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Amphitrite

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​AMPHITRITE, in ancient Greek mythology, a sea-goddess, daughter of Nereus (or Oceanus) and wife of Poseidon. She was so entirely confined in her authority to the sea and the creatures in it, that she was never associated with her husband either for purposes of worship or in works of art, except when he was to be distinctly regarded as the god who controlled the sea. She was one of the Nereids, and distinguishable from the others only by her queenly attributes. It was said that Poseidon saw her first dancing at Naxos among the other Nereids, and carried her off (Schol. on Od. iii. 91). But in another version of the myth, she then fled from him to the farthest ends of the sea, where the dolphin of Poseidon found her, and was rewarded by being placed among the stars (Eratosthenes, Catast. 31). In works of art she is represented either enthroned beside him, or driving with him in a chariot drawn by sea-horses or other fabulous creatures of the deep, and attended by Tritons and Nereids. In poetry her name is often used for the sea.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Amphora

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​AMPHORA (a Latin word from Gr. ἀμφορεύς, derived from ἀμφὶ, on both sides, and φέρειν, to bear), a large big-bellied vessel used by the ancient Greeks and Romans for preserving wine, oil, honey, and fruits; and in later times as a cinerary urn. It was so named from usually having an ear or handle on each side of the neck (diōta). It was commonly made of earthenware, but sometimes of stone, glass or even more costly materials. Amphorae either rested on a foot, or ended in a point so that they had to be fixed in the ground. The older amphorae were oval-shaped, such as the vases filled with oil for prizes at the Panathenaic festival, having on one side a figure of Athena, on the other a representation of the contest; the latter were tall and slender, with voluted handles. The first class exhibits black figures on a reddish background, the second red figures on a black ground. The amphora was a standard measure of capacity among both Greeks and Romans, the Attic containing nearly nine gallons, and the Roman about six. In modern botany it is a technical term sometimes denoting the lower part of the capsule called pyxidium, attached to the flower stalk in the form of an urn.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ampthill

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​AMPTHILL, a market town in the northern parliamentary division of Bedfordshire, England, 44 m. N.N.W. of London by the Midland railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 2177. It lies on the southern slope of a low range of hills, in a well-wooded district. The church of St Andrew ranges in date from Early English to Perpendicular. It contains a monument to Richard Nicolls (1624–1672), who, under the patronage of the duke of York, brother to Charles II., to whom the king had granted the Dutch North American colony of New Netherland, received the submission of its chief town, New Amsterdam, in 1664, and became its first English governor, the town taking the name of New York. Nicolls perished in the action between the English and Dutch fleets at Solebay, and the ball which killed him is preserved on his tomb. Houghton Park, in the vicinity, contains the ruins of Houghton House, built by Mary, countess of Pembroke, in the time of James I. To this countess Sir Philip Sidney dedicated the Arcadia. Ampthill Park became in 1818 the seat of that Lord Holland in whose time Holland House, in Kensington, London, became famous as a resort of the most distinguished intellectual society. In the park a cross marks the site of Ampthill Castle, the residence of Catherine of Aragon while her divorce from Henry VIII. was pending. A commemorative inscription on the cross was written by Horace Walpole. Brewing, straw-plaiting and lace-making are carried on in Ampthill.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Amphitryon

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​AMPHITRYON, in Greek mythology, son of Alcaeus, king of Tiryns in Argolis. Having accidentally killed his uncle Electryon, king of Mycenae, he was driven out by another uncle, Sthenelus. He fled with Alcmene, Electryon’s daughter, to Thebes, where he was cleansed from the guilt of blood by Creon, his maternal uncle, king of Thebes. Alcmene, who had been betrothed to Amphitryon by her father, refused to marry him until he had avenged the death of her brothers, all of whom except one had fallen in battle against the Taphians. It was on his return from this expedition that Electryon had been killed. Amphitryon accordingly took the field against the Taphians, accompanied by Creon, who had agreed to assist him on condition that he slew the Teumessian fox which had been sent by Dionysus to ravage the country. The Taphians, however, remained invincible until Comaetho, the king’s daughter, out of love for Amphitryon cut off her father’s golden hair, the possession of which rendered him immortal. Having defeated the enemy, Amphitryon put Comaetho to death and handed over the kingdom of the Taphians to Cephalus. On his return to Thebes he married Alcmene, who gave birth to twin sons, Iphicles being the son of Amphitryon, Heracles of Zeus, who had visited her during Amphitryon’s absence. He fell in battle against the Minyans, against whom he had undertaken an expedition, accompanied by the youthful Heracles, to deliver Thebes from a disgraceful tribute. According to Euripides (Hercules Furens) he survived this expedition, and was slain by his son in his madness. Amphitryon was the title of a lost tragedy of Sophocles; the episode of Zeus and Alcmene forms the subject of comedies by Plautus and Molière. From Molière’s line “Le véritable Amphitryon est l’Amphitryon où l’on dîne” (Amphitryon, iii. 5), the name Amphitryon has come to be used in the sense of a generous entertainer, a good host.
Apollodorus ii. 4; Herodotus v. 59; Pausanias viii. 14, ix, 10, 11, 17; Hesiod, Shield, 1-56; Pindar, Pythia, ix. 81.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ampliative

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​AMPLIATIVE (from Lat. ampliare, to enlarge), an adjective used mainly in logic, meaning “extending” or “adding to that which is already known.” In Norman law an “ampliation” was a postponement of a sentence in order to obtain further evidence.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Amphisbaena

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​AMPHISBAENA (a Greek word, from ἀμφίς, both ways, and βαίνειν, to go), a serpent in ancient mythology, beginning or ending at both head and tail alike. Its fabled existence has been utilized by the poets, such as Milton, Pope and Tennyson. In modern zoology it is the name given to the main genus of a family of worm-shaped lizards, most of which inhabit the tropical parts of America, the West Indies and Africa. The commonest species in South America and the Antilles is the sooty or dusky A. fuliginosa. The body of the amphisbaena, from 18 to 20 in. long, is of nearly the same thickness throughout. The head is small, and there can scarcely be said to be a tail, the vent being close to the extremity of the body. The animal lives mostly underground, burrowing in soft earth, and feeds on ants and other small animals. From its appearance, and the ease with which it moves backwards, has arisen the popular belief that the amphisbaena has two heads, and that when the body is cut in two the parts seek each other out and reunite. From this has arisen another popular error, which attributes extraordinary curative properties to its flesh when dried and pulverized.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Amplitude

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​AMPLITUDE (from Lat. amplus, large), in astronomy, the angular distance of the rising or setting sun, or other heavenly body, from the east or west point of the horizon; used mostly by navigators in finding the variation of the compass by the setting sun. In algebra, if a be a real positive quantity and ω a root of unity, then a is the amplitude of the product aω. In elliptic integrals, the amplitude is the limit of integration when the integral is expressed in the form $\int _{0}^{\phi }{\sqrt {1-{\mbox{N}}^{2}\sin ^{2}\phi \,d\phi }}$. The hyperbolic or Gudermannian amplitude of the quantity x is tan$^{−1}$ (sinh x). In mechanics, the amplitude of a wave is the maximum ordinate. (See Wave.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Ampsanctus

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​AMPSANCTUS, or Amsanctus (mod. Sorgente Mefita), a small lake in the territory of the Hirpini, 10 m. S.E. of Aeclanum, close to the Via Appia. There are now two small pools which exhale carbonic acid gas and sulphuretted hydrogen. Close by was a temple of the goddess Mephitis, with a cave from which suffocating vapours rose, and for this reason the place was brought into connexion with the legends of the infernal regions. Virgil’s description (Aeneid, vii. 563) is not, however, very accurate.