OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lecointe-Puyraveau, Michel Mathieu

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​LECOINTE-PUYRAVEAU, MICHEL MATHIEU (1764–1827), French politician, was born at Saint-Maixent (Deux-Sèvres) on the 13th of December 1764. Deputy for his department to the Legislative Assembly in 1792, and to the Convention in the same year, he voted for “the death of the tyrant.” His association with the Girondins nearly involved him in their fall, in spite of his vigorous republicanism. He took part in the revolution of Thermidor, but protested against the establishment of the Directory, and continually pressed for severer measures against the émigrés, and even their relations who had remained in France. He was secretary and then president of the Council of Five Hundred, and under the Consulate a member of the Tribunate. He took no part in public affairs under the Empire, but was lieutenant-general of police for south-east France during the Hundred Days. After Waterloo he took ship from Toulon, but the ship was driven back by a storm and he narrowly escaped massacre at Marseilles. After six weeks’ imprisonment in the Château d’If he returned to Paris, escaping, after the proscription of the regicides, to Brussels, where he died on the 15th of January 1827.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lectern

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​LECTERN (through O. Fr. leitrun, from Late Lat. lectrum, or lectrinum, legere, to read; the French equivalent is lutrin; Ital. leggio; Ger. Lesepult), in the furniture of certain Christian churches, a reading-desk, used more especially for the reading of the lessons and in the Anglican Church practically confined to that purpose. In the early Christian Church this was done from the ambo (q.v.), but in the 15th century, when the books were often of great size, it became necessary to provide a lectern to hold them. These were either in wood or metal, and many fine examples still exist; one at Detling in wood, in which there are shelves on all four sides to hold books, is perhaps the most elaborate. Brass lecterns, as in the colleges of Oxford and Cambridge, are common; in the usual type the book is supported on the outspread wings of an eagle or pelican, which is raised on a moulded stem, carried on three projecting ledges or feet with lions on them. In the example in Norwich cathedral, the pelican supporting the book stands on a rock enclosed with a rich cresting of Gothic tabernacle work; the central stem or pillar, on which this rests, is supported by miniature projecting buttresses, standing on a moulded base with lions on it.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lechler, Gotthard Victor

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​LECHLER, GOTTHARD VICTOR (1811–1888), German Lutheran theologian, was born on the 18th of April 1811 at Kloster Reichenbach in Württemberg. He studied at Tübingen under F. C. Baur, and became in 1858 pastor of the church of St Thomas, professor ordinarius of historical theology and superintendent of the Lutheran church of Leipzig. He died on the 26th of December 1888. A disciple of Neander, he belonged to the extreme right of the school of mediating theologians. He is important as the historian of early Christianity and of the pre-Reformation period. Although F. C. Baur was his teacher, he did not attach himself to the Tübingen school; in reply to the contention that there are traces of a sharp conflict between two parties, Paulinists and Petrinists, he says that “we find variety coupled with agreement, and unity with difference, between Paul and the earlier apostles; we recognize the one spirit in the many gifts.” His Das apostolische und das nachapostolische Zeitalter (1851), which developed out of a prize essay (1849), passed through three editions in Germany (3rd ed., 1885), and was translated into English (2 vols., 1886). The work which in his own opinion was his greatest, Johann von Wiclif und die Vorgeschichte der Reformation (2 vols., 1873), appeared in English with the title John Wiclif and his English Precursors (1878, new ed., 1884). An earlier work, Geschichte des engl. Deïsmus (1841), is still regarded as a valuable contribution to the study of religious thought in England.
Lechler’s other works include Geschichte der Presbyterial- und Synodal-verfassung (1854), Urkundenfunde zur Geschichte des christl. Altertums (1886), and biographies of Thomas Bradwardine (1862) and Robert Grosseteste (1867). He wrote part of the commentary on the Acts of the Apostles in J. P. Lange’s Bibelwerk. From 1882 he edited with F. W. Dibelius the Beiträge zur sächsischen Kirchengeschichte. Johannes Hus (1890) was published after his death.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lecouvreur, Adrienne

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​LECOUVREUR, ADRIENNE (1692–1730), French actress, was born on the 5th of April 1692, at Damery, Marne, the daughter of a hatter, Robert Couvreur. She had an unhappy childhood in Paris. She showed a natural talent for declamation and was instructed by La Grand, sociétaire of the Comédie Française, and with his help she obtained a provincial engagement. It was not until 1717, after a long apprenticeship, that she made her Paris début as Electre, in Crébillon’s tragedy of that name, and Angélique in Molière’s George Dandin. Her success was so great that she was immediately received into the Comédie Française, and for thirteen years she was the queen of tragedy there, attaining a popularity never before accorded an actress. She is said to have played no fewer than 1184 times in a hundred rôles, of which she created twenty-two. She owed her success largely to her courage in abandoning the stilted style of elocution of her predecessors for a naturalness of delivery and a touching simplicity of pathos that delighted and moved her public. In Baron, who returned to the stage at the age of sixty-seven, she had an able and powerful coadjutor in changing the stage traditions of generations. The jealousy she aroused was partly due to her social successes, which were many, in spite of the notorious freedom of her manner of life. She was on visiting and dining terms with half the court, and her salon was frequented by Voltaire and all the other notables and men of letters. She was the mistress of Maurice de Saxe from 1721, and sold her plate and jewels to supply him with funds for his ill-starred adventures as duke of Courland. By him she had a daughter, her third, who was grandmother of ​the father of George Sand. Adrienne Lecouvreur died on the 20th of March 1730. She was denied the last rites of the Church, and her remains were refused burial in consecrated ground. Voltaire, in a fine poem on her death, expressed his indignation at the barbarous treatment accorded to the woman whose “friend, admirer, lover” he was.
Her life formed the subject of the well-known tragedy (1849), by Eugène Scribe and Ernest Legouvé.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lecocq, Alexandre Charles

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​LECOCQ, ALEXANDRE CHARLES (1832– ), French musical composer, was born in Paris, on the 3rd of June 1832. He was admitted into the Conservatoire in 1849, being already an accomplished pianist. He studied under Bazin, Halévy and Benoist, winning the first prize for harmony in 1850, and the second prize for fugue in 1852. He first gained notice by dividing with Bizet the first prize for an operetta in a competition instituted by Offenbach. His operetta, Le Docteur miracle, was performed at the Bouffes Parisiens in 1857. After that he wrote constantly for theatres, but produced nothing worthy of mention until Fleur de thé (1868), which ran for more than a hundred nights. Les Cent vierges (1872) was favourably received also, but all his previous successes were cast into the shade by La Fille de Madame Angot (Paris, 1873; London, 1873), which was performed for 400 nights consecutively, and has since gained and retained enormous popularity. After 1873 Lecocq produced a large number of comic operas, though he never equalled his early triumph in La Fille de Madame Angot. Among the best of his pieces are Giroflé-Girofla (Paris and London, 1874); Les Prés Saint-Gervais (Paris and London, 1874); La Petite Mariée (Paris, 1875; London, 1876, revived as The Scarlet Feather, 1897); Le Petit Duc (Paris, 1878; London, as The Little Duke, 1878); La Petite Mademoiselle (Paris, 1879; London, 1880); Le Jour et la Nuit (Paris, 1881; London, as Manola, 1882); Le Cœur et la main (Paris, 1882; London, as Incognita, 1893); La Princesse des Canaries (Paris, 1883; London, as Pepita, 1888). In 1899 a ballet by Lecocq, entitled Le Cygne, was staged at the Opéra Comique, Paris; and in 1903 Yetta was produced at Brussels.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lech

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​LECH (Licus), a river of Germany in the kingdom of Bavaria, 177 m. long, with a drainage basin of 2550 sq. m. It rises in the Vorarlberg Alps, at an altitude of 6120 ft. It winds out of the gloomy limestone mountains, flows in a north-north-easterly direction, and enters the plains at Füssen (2580 ft.), where it forms rapids and a fall, then pursues a northerly course past Augsburg, where it receives the Wertach, and joins the Danube from the right just below Donauwörth (1330 ft.). It is not navigable, owing to its torrential character and the gravel beds which choke its channel. More than once great historic events have been decided upon its banks. On the Lechfeld, a stony waste some miles long, between the Lech and the Wertach, the emperor Otto I. defeated the Hungarians in August 955. Tilly, in attempting to defend the passage of the stream at Rain against the forces of Gustavus Adolphus, was fatally wounded, on the 5th of April 1632. The river was formerly the boundary between Bavaria and Swabia.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Lecco

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​LECCO, a town of Lombardy, in the province of Como, 32 m. by rail N. by E. of Milan, and reached by steamer from Como, 673 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) 10,352. It is situated near the southern extremity of the eastern branch of the Lake of Como, which is frequently distinguished as the Lake of Lecco. At Lecco begins the line (run by electricity) to Colico, whence there are branches to Chiavenna and Sondrio; and another line runs to Bergamo. To the south the Adda is crossed by a fine bridge originally constructed in 1335, and rebuilt in 1609 by Fuentes. Lecco, in spite of its antiquity, presents a modern appearance, almost the only old building being its castle, of which a part remains. Its schools are particularly good. Besides iron-works, there are copper-works, brass-foundries, olive-oil mills and a manufacture of wax candles; and silk-spinning, cotton-spinning and wood-carving. In the neighbourhood is the villa of Caleotto, the residence of Alessandro Manzoni, who in his Promessi Sposi has left a full description of the district. A statue has been erected to him.
In the 11th century Lecco, previously the seat of a marquisate, was presented to the bishops of Como by Otto II.; but in the 12th century it passed to the archbishops of Milan, and in 1127 it assisted the Milanese in the destruction of Como. During the 13th century it was struggling for its existence with the metropolitan city; and its fate seemed to be sealed when the Visconti drove its inhabitants across the lake to Valmadrera, and forbade them to raise their town from its ashes. But in a few years the people returned; Azzone Visconti made Lecco a strong fortress, and in 1335 united it with the Milanese territory by a bridge across the Adda. During the 15th and 16th centuries the citadel of Lecco was an object of endless contention. In 1647 the town with its territory was made a countship. Morone, Charles V.’s Italian chancellor, was born in Lecco.
See A. L. Apostolo, Lecco ed il suo territorio (Lecco, 1855).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Peter of Savoy

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​PETER OF SAVOY (c. 1203–1268), earl of Richmond, younger son of Thomas I. (Tommaso), count of Savoy, was born at Susa. After spending some years as an ecclesiastic he resigned his preferments, and in 1234 married his cousin Agnes, daughter and heiress of Aymon II., lord of Faucigny. Accepting an invitation from the English king, Henry III., who had married his niece, Eleanor of Provence, Peter came to England in 1240, and was created earl of Richmond, receiving also large estates and being appointed to several important offices. During several visits to the continent of Europe Peter had largely increased his possessions in Vaud and the neighbourhood, and returning to England in 1252 he became associated with Simon de Montfort, retaining at the same time the king’s friendship. Having been employed by Henry to negotiate with the pope and with Louis IX. of France, he supported Earl Simon in his efforts to impose restrictions upon the royal power; but, more moderate than many members of the baronial party, went over to Henry’s side in 1260, and was consequently removed from the council. In 1263 he left England, and when his nephew, Boniface, count of Savoy, died in the same year he assumed the title of count of Savoy. This was also claimed by another nephew, Thomas; but Peter compelled the inhabitants of Turin to submit to him and secured possession of the county. He died on the 16th or 17th of May 1268, leaving an only child, Beatrice (d 1310). Peter gave to the castle of Chillon its present form, and his name to the Savoy palace in London. He has been called le petit Charlemagne, and was greatly praised for his valour and his wisdom.
See L. Wurstemberger, Peter der Zweite, Graf von Savoyen (Zurich, 1858); F. Mugnier, Les Savoyards en Angleterre (Chambéry, 1890); and C. Bémont, Simon de Montfort (Paris, 1884).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Peter of Duisburg

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​PETER OF DUISBURG (d. c. 1326), German chronicler, was born at Duisburg, and became a priest-brother of the Teutonic Order. He wrote the Chronicon terrae Prussiae, dedicated to the grand-master, Werner of Orseln, which is one of the chief authorities for the history of the order in Prussia. There is a rhyming translation in German by Nicholas of Jeroschin, which, together with the original, is published in Bd. I. of the Scriptores rerum prussicarum (Leipzig, 1861).
See M. Toppen, Geschichte der preussischen Historiographie (Berlin, 1853), and W. Fuchs, Peter von Duisburg und das Chronicon olivense (Königsberg, 1884).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Peter of Courtenay

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​PETER OF COURTENAY (d. 1219), emperor of Romania (or Constantinople), was a son of Peter of Courtenay (d. 1183), and a grandson of the French king, Louis VI. Having, by a first marriage, obtained the counties of Nevers and Auxerre, he took ​for his second wife, Yolande (d. 1219), a sister of Baldwin and Henry of Flanders, who were afterwards the first and second emperors of the Latin Empire of Constantinople. Peter accompanied his cousin, King Philip Augustus, on the crusade of 1190, fought against the Albigenses, and was present at the battle of Bouvines in 1214. When his brother-in-law, the emperor Henry, died without sons in 1216, Peter was chosen as his successor, and with a small army set out from France to take possession of his throne. Consecrated emperor at Rome, in a church outside the walls, by Pope Honorius III. on the 9th of April 1217, he borrowed some ships from the Venetians, promising in return to conquer Durazzo for them; but he failed in this enterprise, and sought to make his way to Constantinople by land. On the journey he was seized by the despot of Epirus, Theodore Angelus, and, after an imprisonment of two years, died, probably by foul means. Peter thus never governed his empire, which, however, was ruled for a time by his wife, Yolande, who had succeeded in reaching Constantinople. Two of his sons, Robert and Baldwin, became in turn emperors of Constantinople.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Peter of Blois

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​PETER OF BLOIS [Petrus Blesensis] (c. 1135–c. 1205), French writer, the son of noble Breton parents, was born at Blois. He studied jurisprudence at Bologna and theology in Paris, and in 1167 he went to Sicily, where he became tutor to the young king William II., and keeper of the royal seal (sigilarius). But he made many enemies and soon asked permission to leave the country; his request was granted and about 1170 he returned to France. After spending some time teaching in Paris and serving Rotrou de Perche, archbishop of Rouen, as secretary, Peter entered the employ of Henry II. of England about 1173. He quickly became archdeacon of Bath and soon afterwards chancellor, or secretary, to Richard, archbishop of Canterbury, and to Richard’s successor, Baldwin, being sent on two occasions to Italy to plead the cause of these prelates before the pope. After the death of Henry II. in 1189, he was for a time secretary to his widow, Eleanor, in Normandy; he obtained the posts of dean of Wolverhampton and archdeacon of London, but he appears to have been very discontented in his later years. He died some time after March 1204.
Peter’s writings fall into four classes, letters, treatises, sermons and poems. His Epistolae, which were collected at the request of Henry II., are an important source for the history of the time; the are addressed to Henry II. and to various prelates and scholars, including Thomas Becket and John of Salisbury. His treatises include De Ierosolymitana peregrinatione acceleranda, an exhortation to take part in the third crusade, and Dialogus inter regem Henricum II. et abbatem Bonaevallensem; his extant sermons number 65 and his poems are unimportant. Peter’s works have been printed in several collections, including the Patrologia of J. P. Migne and the Historiae francorum scriptores of A. Duchesne. Of separate editions the best are those by Pierre de Goussainville (Paris, 1667) and J. A. Giles (Oxford, 1846–1847).
See the Histoire litteraire de la France, Tome xv.; W. Stubbs, Lectures on Medieval and Modern History (Oxford, 1886); Sir T. D. Hardy, Descriptive Catalogue of Materials relating to the History of Great Britain (1862–1867), and C. L. Kingsford in vol. xlv. of the Dictionary of National Biography (1896).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Peter of Maricourt

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​PETER OF MARICOURT (13th century), a French savant, to whom his disciple, Roger Bacon, pays the highest tribute in his opus tertium and other works. According to Bacon he was a recluse who devoted himself to the study of nature, was able to work metals, invented armour and assisted St Louis in one of his expeditions more than his whole army. According to Emile Charles (Roger Bacon sa vie, ses ouvrages, ses doctrines, 1861), Peter of Maricourt is the Pierre Pérégrin (or Pèlerin) de Maricourt (Méharicourt in Picardy), known also as Petrus Peregrinus of Picardy, one of whose letters, De magnete, is partly reproduced in Libri’s Hist. des sciences mathématiques en Italie (1838), ii. 70–71, 487–505.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Peter the Wild Boy

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​PETER THE WILD BOY (fl. 1725–1785), a Hanoverian imbecile of unknown parentage, who, having been found living wild in the woods near Hanover in 1725, was brought to England by order of George I, whose interest had been aroused in the unfortunate youth. An extraordinary amount of curiosity and speculation concerning Peter was excited in London, and the craze was the subject of a biting satire by Swift, and of another entitled The Most Wonderful Wonder that ever appeared to the Wonder of the British Nation, which has been attributed to Swift and Arbuthnot; Defoe also wrote on the subject, and Lord Monboddo in his Origin and Progress of Language presents the idiot Peter as an illustration of his theory of the evolution of the human species. He lived to an advanced age, was seen by Lord Monboddo in 1782, and died in 1785.
See Henry Wilson, The Book of Wonderful Characters (London, 1869).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Peterborough (Ontario)

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​PETERBOROUGH, a town and port of entry of Ontario, Canada, and capital of Peterborough county, situated 70 m. N.E. of Toronto, on the Otonabee river and the Grand Trunk and Canadian Pacific railways. Pop. (1901), 11,239. The five falls of the Otonabee at this point, with a total descent of 50 ft., furnish power for a large and increasing number of manufacturing establishments, whilst its canalization as part of the Trent canal gives communication with Lake Ontario and Georgian Bay. Peterborough has an electric railway, and contains important manufactories of electrical machinery and supplies, iron and steel bridges, agricultural implements and cordage, saw, flour and woollen mills.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Datolite

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​DATOLITE, a mineral species consisting of basic calcium and boron orthosilicate, Ca(BOH)SiO$_4$. It was first observed by J. Esmark in 1806, and named by him from δατεῖσθαι, “to divide,” and λίθος, “stone,” in allusion to the granular structure of the massive mineral. It usually occurs as well-developed glassy crystals bounded by numerous bright faces, many of which often have a more or less pentagonal outline. The crystals were for a long time considered to be orthorhombic, and indeed they approach closely to this system in habit, interfacial angles and optical orientation; humboldtite was the name given by A. Lévy in 1823 to monoclinic crystals supposed to be distinct from datolite, but the two were afterwards proved to be identical. The mineral also occurs as masses with a granular to compact texture; when compact the fractured surfaces have the appearance of porcelain. A fibrous variety with a botryoidal or globular surface is known as botryolite. Datolite is white or colourless, often with a greenish tinge; it is transparent or opaque. Hardness 5-51/2; specific gravity 3.0.
Datolite is a mineral of secondary origin, and in its mode of occurrence it resembles the zeolites, being found with them in the amygdaloidal cavities of basic igneous rocks such as basalt; it is also found in gneiss and serpentine, and in metalliferous veins and in beds of iron ore. At Arendal in Norway, the original locality for both the crystallized and botryoidal varieties, it is found in a bed of magnetite. In amygdaloidal basaltic rocks it is found at Bishopton in Renfrewshire and near Edinburgh; and as excellent crystallized specimens at several localities in the United States, e.g. at Westfield in Massachusetts, Bergen and Paterson in New Jersey, and in the copper-mining region of Lake Superior. At St Andreasberg in the Harz it occurs both in diabase and in the veins of silver ore. Fine specimens have recently been obtained from Tasmania.
Large crystals of datolite completely altered to chalcedony were formerly found with magnetite in the Haytor iron mine on Dartmoor in Devonshire; to these pseudomorphs the name haytorite has been applied.  (L. J. S.)