OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bailey, Philip James

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​BAILEY, PHILIP JAMES (1816–1902), English poet, author of Festus, was born at Nottingham on the 22nd of April 1816. His father, who himself published both prose and verse, owned and edited from 1845 to 1852 the Nottingham Mercury, one of the chief journals in his native town. Philip James Bailey received a local education until his sixteenth year, when he matriculated at Glasgow University. He did not, however, take his degree, but moved in 1835 to London and entered Lincoln’s Inn. Without making serious practice of the law he settled at Basford, and for three years was occupied with the composition of Festus, which appeared anonymously in 1839. Its success, both in England and America, was immediate. It passed through a dozen editions in the country of its birth, and nearly three times as many in the United States; and when in 1889 its author was able to publish a “Jubilee Edition,” he could feel that it was one of the few poems of its time which was known to both the older and the younger generations. Its author is known almost exclusively by his one voluminous poem, for though Bailey published other verses he is essentially a man of one book. Festus has undergone many changes and incorporations, but it remains a singular example of a piece of work virtually completed in youth, and never supplanted or reinforced by later achievements of its author. It is a vast pageant of theology and philosophy, comprising in some twelve divisions an attempt to represent the relation of God to man and of man to God, to emphasize the benignity of Providence, to preach the immortality of the soul, and to postulate “a gospel of faith and reason combined.” It contains fine lines and dignified thought, but its ambitious theme, and a certain incoherency in the manner in which it is worked out, prevent it from being easily readable by any but the most sympathetic student. Bailey died on the 6th of September 1902.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bailey

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​BAILEY (said to be a corruption of Ballium by some, and derived by others from the Fr. baille, a corruption of bataille, because there the soldiers were drilled in battle array), the open space between the inner and outer lines of a fortification. Sometimes there were more than one, as the Inner and Outer Bailey; there are in England the Old Bailey at London and at York, and the Upper and Nether Baileys at Colchester.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Baiburt

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​BAIBURT, a town of Asiatic Turkey, on the direct carriage road from Trebizond to Erzerum, situated on both banks of the Churuk river, which here traverses an open cultivated plateau (altitude, 5100 ft.), before turning east. It is the chief place of a kaza under Erzerum; the bazaar is poor, and there is no special industry in the town. The houses run up the hillsides on both banks of the river to a considerable height. On an isolated mass of rock, on the left bank, is the old castle, with extensive walls partly ruined, built originally by the Armenians and restored by the Seljuks. The principal gate with some Arabic inscriptions stands at the S.W. corner. There are remains of a vaulted chamber, a Christian church, a mosque and two covered staircases to the river. A fine view is seen from the summit over the plain and the Pontic ranges to the north. The population numbers 10,000, mostly Turkish with some Armenians. The place was occupied by the Russians under General Paskevich during their invasion of 1829, and was the farthest point westward then reached by them. (F. R. M.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bailey, Gamaliel

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​BAILEY, GAMALIEL (1807–1859), American journalist, was born at Mount Holly, New Jersey, on the 3rd of December 1807. He graduated at the Jefferson Medical College in Philadelphia in 1827. After editing for a short time a religious journal, the Methodist Protestant, at Baltimore, he removed in 1831 to Cincinnati, Ohio, where at first he devoted himself almost exclusively to the practice of medicine. He was also a lecturer on physiology at the Lane Theological Seminary, and at the time of the Lane Seminary debates (February 1834) between the pro-slavery and the anti-slavery students, and the subsequent withdrawal of the latter, he became an ardent abolitionist. In 1836 he joined James G. Birney in the editorial control of the Philanthropist; in the following year he succeeded Birney as editor, and conducted the paper in spite of threats and acts of violence—the printing-office being thrice wrecked by a mob—until 1847. From 1843 also he edited a daily paper, the Herald. In 1847 he assumed control of the new abolitional organ, the National Era, at Washington, D.C. Here also his paper was the object of attack by pro-slavery mobs, at one time in 1848 the editor and printers being besieged in their office for three days. This paper had a considerable circulation, and in it, in 1851–1852, Mrs. H. B. Stowe’s Uncle Tom’s Cabin was first published. Bailey died at sea in the course of a trip to Europe on the 5th of June 1859.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cannon-ball Tree

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​CANNON-BALL TREE (Couroupita guianensis), a native of tropical South America (French Guiana), which bears large spherical woody fruits, containing numerous seeds, as in the allied genus Bertholletia (Brazil nut).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Canoness

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​CANONESS (Fr. chanoinesse, Ger. Kanonissin, Lat. canonica or canonica virgo), a female beneficiary of a religious college. In the 8th century chapters of canons were instituted in the Frankish empire, and in imitation of these certain women took common vows of obedience and chastity, though not of poverty. Like nuns they had common table and dormitory, and recited the breviary, but generally the rule was not so strict as in the case of nuns. The canonesses often taught girls, and were also employed in embroidering ecclesiastical vestments and transcribing liturgical books. A distinction was drawn between regular and secular canonesses, the latter being of noble family and not practising any austerity. Some of their abbesses were notable feudal princesses. In Germany several foundations of this kind (e.g. Gandersheim, Herford and Quedlinburg), which were practically secular institutions before the Reformation, adopted the Protestant faith, and still exist, requiring of their members the simple conditions of celibacy and obedience to their superior during membership. These institutions (Stifter) are now practically almshouses for the unmarried daughters of noble families. In some cases the right of presentation belongs to the head of the family, sometimes admission is gained by purchase; but in modern times a certain number of prebends have been created for the daughters of deserving officials. The organization of the Stift is collegiate, the head bearing the ancient titles of abbess, prioress or provostess (Pröbstin), and the canonesses (Stiftsdamen) meet periodically in Konvent for the discussion of the affairs of the community. The ladies are not bound to residence. In many of these Stifter quaint pre-Reformation customs and ceremonies still survive; thus, at the convent of St John the Baptist at Schleswig, on the day of the patron saint, the room in which the Konvent is held is draped in black and a realistic life-size wax head of St John on a charger is placed in the centre of the table round which the canonesses sit.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cannon

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​CANNON (a word common to Romance languages, from the Lat. canna, a reed, tube, with the addition of the augmentative termination -on, -one), a gun or piece of ordnance. The word, first found about 1400 (there is an indenture of Henry IV. 1407 referring to “canones, seu instrumenta Anglicè gunnes vocata”), is commonly applied to any form of firearm which is fired from a carriage or fixed mounting, in contradistinction to “small-arms,” which are fired without a rest or support of any kind. An exception must be made, however, in the case of machine guns (q.v.), and the word as used in modern times may be defined as follows: “a piece of ordnance mounted upon a fixed or movable carriage and firing a projectile of greater calibre than 11/2 in.” In French, however, canon is the term applied to the barrel of small arms, and also, as an alternative to mitrailleuse or mitrailleur, to machine guns, as well as to ordnance properly so-called. The Hotchkiss machine gun used in several navies is officially called “revolving cannon.” For details see Artillery, Ordnance, Machine Guns, &c. Amongst the many derived senses of the word may be mentioned “cannon curls,” in which the hair is arranged in horizontal tubular curls one above the other. For “cannon” in billiards see Billiards.
In the 16th and 17th centuries the “cannon” in England was distinctively a large piece, smaller natures of ordnance being called by various special names such as culverin, saker, falcon, demi-cannon, &c. We hear of Cromwell taking with him to Ireland (1649) “two cannon of eight inches, two cannon of seven, two demi-cannon, two twenty-four pounders,” &c.
Sir James Turner, a distinguished professional soldier contemporary with Cromwell, says: “The cannon or battering ordnance is divided by the English into Cannon Royal, Whole Cannon and Demi-Cannon. The first is likewise called the Double Cannon, she weighs 8000 pound of metal and shoots a bullet of 60, 62 or 63 pound weight. The Whole Cannon weighs 7000 pound of metal and shoots a bullet of 38, 39 or 40 pound. ​The Demi-Cannon weighs about 6000 pound and shoots a bullet of 28 or 30 pound. . . . These three several guns are called cannons of eight, cannons of seven and cannons of six.” The generic sense of “cannon,” in which the word is now exclusively used, is found along with the special sense above mentioned as early as 1474. A warrant of that year issued by Edward IV. of England to Richard Copcote orders him to provide “bumbardos, canones, culverynes . . . et alias canones quoscumque, ac pulveres, sulfer . . . pro eisdem canonibus necessarias.” “Artillery” and “ordnance,” however, were the more usual terms up to the time of Louis XIV. (c. 1670), about which time heavy ordnance began to be classified according to the weight of its shot, and the special sense of “cannon” disappears.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cano, Alonzo

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​CANO, ALONZO (1601–1667), Spanish painter, architect and sculptor, was born at Granada. He has left in Spain a very great number of specimens of his genius, which display the boldness of his design, the facility of his pencil, the purity of his flesh-tints and his knowledge of chiaroscuro. He learned architecture from his father, Miguel Cano, painting from Pacheco and sculpture from Juan Martinez Montañes. As a statuary, his most famous works are the Madonna and Child in the church of Nebrissa, and the colossal figures of San Pedro and San Pablo. As an architect he indulged in too profuse ornamentation, and gave way too much to the fancies of his day. Philip IV. made him royal architect and king’s painter, and gave him the church preferment of a canon. His more important pictures are at Madrid. He was notorious for his ungovernable temper; and it is said that once he risked his life by committing the then capital offence of dashing to pieces the statue of a saint, when in a rage with the purchaser who grudged the price he demanded. His known passionateness also (according to another story) caused him to be suspected, and even tortured, for the murder of his wife, though all other circumstances pointed to his servant as the culprit.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cano, Melchior

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​CANO, MELCHIOR (1325–1560), Spanish theologian, born at Tarançon, in New Castile, joined the Dominican order at an early age at Salamanca, where in 1546 he succeeded to the theological chair in that university. A man of deep learning and originality, proud and a victim to the odium theologicum, he could brook no rivalry. The only one who at that time could compare with him was the gentle Bartolomeo de Caranza, also a Dominican and afterwards archbishop of Toledo. At the university the schools were divided between the partisans of the two professors; but Cano pursued his rival with relentless virulence, and took part in the condemnation for heresy of his brother-friar. The new society of the Jesuits, as being the forerunners of Antichrist, also met with his violent opposition; and he was not grateful to them when, after attending the council of Trent in 1545, he was sent, by their influence, in 1552, as bishop of the far-off see of the Canaries. His personal influence with Philip II. soon procured his recall, and he was made provincial of his order in Castile. In 1556 he wrote his famous Consultatio theologica, in which he advised the king to resist the temporal encroachments of the papacy and, as absolute monarch, to defend his rights by bringing about a radical change in the administration of ecclesiastical revenues, thus making Spain less dependent on Rome. With this in his mind Paul IV. styled him “a son of perdition.” The reputation of Cano, however, rests on a posthumous work, De Locis theologicis (Salamanca, 1562), which stands to-day unrivalled in its own line. In this, a genuine work of the Renaissance, Cano endeavours to free dogmatic theology from the vain subtleties of the schools and, by clearing away the puerilities of the later scholastic theologians, to bring religion back to first principles; and, by giving rules, method, co-ordination and system, to build up a scientific treatment of theology. He died at Toledo on the 30th of September 1560. (E. Tn.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Cannstatt

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​CANNSTATT, or Kannstatt, a town of Germany in the kingdom of Württemberg, pleasantly situated in a fertile valley on both banks of the Neckar, 2½ m. from Stuttgart, with which it has been incorporated since 1904. Pop. (1905) 26,497. It is a railway centre, has two Evangelical and a Roman Catholic church, two bridges across the Neckar, handsome streets in the modern quarter of the town and fine promenades and gardens. There is a good deal of business in the town. Railway plant, automobiles and machinery are manufactured; spinning and weaving are carried on; and there are chemical works and a brewery here. Fruit and vines are largely cultivated in the neighbourhood. A large population is temporarily attracted to Cannstatt by the fame of its mineral springs, which are valuable for diseases of the throat and weaknesses of the nervous system. These springs were known to the Romans. Besides the usual bathing establishments there are several medical institutions for the treatment of disease. Near the town are the palaces of Rosenstein and Wilhelma; the latter, built (1842–1851) for King William of Württemberg in the Moorish style, is surrounded by beautiful gardens. In the neighbourhood also are immense caves in the limestone where numerous bones of mammoths and other extinct animals have been found. On the Rotenberg, where formerly stood the ancestral castle of the house of Württemberg, is the mausoleum of King William and his wife.
Cannstatt (Condistat) is mentioned early in the 8th century as the place where a great court was held by Charlemagne for the trial of the rebellious dukes of the Alamanni and the Bavarians. From the emperor Louis the Bavarian it received the same rights and privileges as were enjoyed by the town of Esslingen, and until the middle of the 14th century it was the capital of the county of Württemberg. Cannstatt was the scene of a victory gained by the French over the Austrians on the 21st of July 1796.
See Veiel, Der Kurort Kannstatt und seine Mineralquellen (Cannstatt, 1875).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Brentwood

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​BRENTWOOD, a market town in the mid or Chelmsford parliamentary division of Essex, England; 18 m. E.N.E. of London by the Great Eastern railway (Brentwood and Worley station). Pop. of urban district (1901) 4932. The neighbouring country is pleasantly undulating and well wooded. The church of St Thomas the Martyr, with several chapels, is modern. The old assize house, an Elizabethan structure, remains. A free grammar school was founded in 1557. The county asylum is in the vicinity. There are breweries and brick works. To the south lies the fine upland of Worley Common, with large barracks. Adjoining Brentwood to the north-east is Shenfield, with the church of St Mary the Virgin, Early English and later. Brentwood was formerly an important posting station on the main road to the eastern counties, which follows the line of the railway to Colchester. The name (Burntwood) is supposed to record an original settlement made in a clearing of the forest. The district is largely residential.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Breteuil, Louis Charles Auguste le Tonnelier, Baron de

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​BRETEUIL, LOUIS CHARLES AUGUSTE LE TONNELIER, Baron de (1730–1807), French diplomatist, was born at the château of Azay-le-Féron (Indre) on the 7th of March 1730. He was only twenty-eight when he was appointed by Louis XV. ambassador to the elector of Cologne, and two years later he was sent to St Petersburg. He arranged to be temporarily absent from his post at the time of the palace revolution by which Catherine II. was placed on the throne. In 1769 he was sent to Stockholm, and subsequently represented his government at Vienna, Naples, and again at Vienna until 1783, when he was recalled to become minister of the king’s household. In this capacity he introduced considerable reforms in prison administration. A close friend of Marie Antoinette, he presently came into collision with Calonne, who demanded his dismissal in 1787. His influence with the king and queen, especially with the latter, remained unshaken, and on Necker’s dismissal on the 11th of July 1789, Breteuil succeeded him as chief minister. The fall of the Bastille three days later put an end to the new ministry, and Breteuil made his way to Switzerland with the first party of émigrés. At Soleure, in November 1790, he received from Louis XVI. exclusive powers to negotiate with the European courts, and in his efforts to check the ill-advised diplomacy of the émigré princes, he soon brought himself into opposition with his old rival Calonne, who held a chief place in their councils. ​After the failure of the flight to Varennes, in the arrangement of which he had a share, Breteuil received instructions from Louis XVI., designed to restore amicable relations with the princes. His distrust of the king’s brothers and his defence of Louis XVI.’s prerogative were to some extent justified, but his intransigeant attitude towards these princes emphasized the dissensions of the royal family in the eyes of foreign sovereigns, who looked on the comte de Provence as the natural representative of his brother and found a pretext for non-interference on Louis’s behalf in the contradictory statements of the negotiators. Breteuil himself was the object of violent attacks from the party of the princes, who asserted that he persisted in exercising powers which had been revoked by Louis XVI. After the execution of Marie Antoinette he retired into private life near Hamburg, only returning to France in 1802. He died in Paris on the 2nd of November 1807.
See the memoirs of Bertrand de Molleville (2 vols., Paris, 1816) and of the marquis de Bouillé (2 vols., Paris, 1884); and E. Daudet, Coblentz, 1789–1793 (1889), forming part of his Hist. de l’émigration.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bressant, Jean Baptiste Prosper

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​BRESSANT, JEAN BAPTISTE PROSPER (1815–1886), French actor, was born at Chalon-sur-Saône on the 23rd of October 1815, and began his stage career at the Variétés in Paris in 1833. In 1838 he went to the French theatre at St Petersburg, where for eight years he played important parts with ever-increasing reputation. His success was confirmed at the Gymnase when he returned to Paris in 1846, and he made his début at the Comédie Française as a full-fledged sociétaire in 1854. From playing the ardent young lover, he turned to leading rôles both in modern plays and in the classical répertoire. His Richelieu in Mlle de Belle-Isle, his Octave in Alfred de Musset’s Les Caprices de Marianne, and his appearance in de Musset’s Il faut qu'une porte soit ouverte ou fermée and Un caprice were followed by Tartuffe, Le Misanthrope and Don Juan. Bressant retired in 1875, and died on the 23rd of January 1886. During his professorship at the Conservatoire, Mounet-Sully was one of his pupils.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bresse

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​BRESSE, a district of eastern France embracing portions of the departments of Ain, Saône-et-Loire and Jura. The Bresse extends from the Dombes on the south to the river Doubs on the north, and from the Saône eastwards to the Jura, measuring some 60 m. in the former, and 20 m. in the latter direction. It is a plain varying from 600 to 800 ft. above the sea, with few eminences and a slight inclination westwards. Heaths and coppice alternate with pastures and arable land; pools and marshes are numerous, especially in the north. Its chief rivers are the Veyle, the Reyssouze and the Seille, all tributaries of the Saône. The soil is a gravelly clay but moderately fertile, and cattle-raising is largely carried on. The region is, however, more especially celebrated for its table poultry. The inhabitants preserve a distinctive but almost obsolete costume, with a curious head-dress. The Bresse proper, called the Bresse Bressane, comprises the northern portion of the department of Ain. The greater part of the district belonged in the middle ages to the lords of Bâgé, from whom it passed in 1272 to the house of Savoy. It was not till the first half of the 15th century that the province, with Bourg as its capital, was founded as such. In 1601 it was ceded to France by the treaty of Lyons, after which it formed (together with the province of Bugey) first a separate government and afterwards part of the government of Burgundy.