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

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​ORTHEZ, a town of south-western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Basses-Pyrénées, 25 m. N.W. of Pau on the Southern railway to Bayonne. Pop. (1906) town 4159; commune 6254. It is finely situated on the right bank of the Gave de Pau which is crossed at this point by a bridge of the 14th century, having four arches and surmounted at its centre by a tower. Several old houses, and a church of the 12th, 14th and 15th centuries are of some interest, but the most remarkable building is the Tour de Moncade, a pentagonal tower of the 13th century, once the keep of a castle of the viscounts of Béarn, and now used as a meteorological observatory. A building of the 16th century is all that remains of the old Calvinist university (see below). The hôtel de ville is a modern building containing the library.
Orthez has a tribunal of first instance and is the seat of a subprefect. The spinning and weaving of cotton, especially of the fabric called toile de Béarn, flour-milling, the manufacture of paper and of leather, and the preparation of hams known as jambons de Bayonne and of other delicacies are among its industries. There are quarries of stone and marble in the neighbourhood, and the town has a thriving trade in leather, hams and lime.
At the end of the 12th century Orthez passed from the possession of the viscounts of Dax to that of the viscounts of Béarn, whose chief place of residence it became in the 13th century. Froissart records the splendour of the court of Orthez under Gaston Phoebus in the latter half of the 14th century. Jeanne d’Albret founded a Calvinist university in the town and Theodore Beza taught there for some time. An envoy sent in 1569 by Charles IX. to revive the Catholic faith had to stand a siege in Orthez which was eventually taken by assault by the Protestant captain, Gabriel, count of Montgomery. In 1684 Nicholas Foucault, intendant under Louis XIV., was more successful, as the inhabitants, ostensibly at least, renounced Protestantism, which is nevertheless still strong in the town. In 1814 the duke of Wellington defeated Marshal Soult on the hills to the north of Orthez.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Orsha

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​ORSHA (Polish Orsza), a town of Russia, in the government of Mogilev, 74 m. by rail W.S.W. of Smolensk on the Moscow-Warsaw railway, and on the Dnieper. Pop. (1897), 13,161. It is an important entrepôt for grain, seeds and timber. It is a very old town, mentioned in the annals under the name of Rsha in 1067. In the 13th century it was taken by the Lithuanians, who fortified it. In 1604 the Poles founded there a Jesuit college. The Russians besieged Orsha more than once in the 16th and 17th centuries, and finally annexed it in 1772.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Orris-Root

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​ORRIS-ROOT (apparently a corruption of “iris root”, the rhizomes or underground stems of three species of Iris, I. germanica, I. florentina and I. pallida, closely allied plants growing in subtropical and temperate latitudes, but principally identified with North Italy. The three plants are indiscriminately cultivated in the neighbourhood of Florence as an agricultural product under the name of “ghiaggiuolo.” The rhizomes are in August dug up and freed of the rootlets and brown outer bark; they are then dried and packed in casks for sale. In drying they acquire a delicate but distinct odour of violets. As it comes into the market, orris-root is in the form of contorted sticks and irregular knobby pieces up to 4 in. in length, of a compact chalky appearance. It is principally powdered for use in dentifrices and other scented dry preparations.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Orsini, Felice

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​ORSINI, FELICE (1819–1858), Italian revolutionist, was born at Meldola in Romagna. He was destined for an ecclesiastical career, but he soon abandoned that prospect, and became an ardent liberal, joining the Giovane Italia, a society founded by Giuseppe Mazzini. Implicated together with his father in revolutionary plots, he was arrested in 1844 and condemned to imprisonment for life. The new pope, Pius IX., however, set him free, and he led a company of young Romagnols in the first war of Italian independence (1848), distinguishing himself in the engagements at Treviso and Vicenza. He was elected member of the Roman Constituent Assembly in 1849, and after the fall of the republic he conspired against the papal autocracy once more in the interest of the Mazzinian party. Mazzini sent him on a secret mission to Hungary, but he was arrested in 1854 and imprisoned at Mantua, escaping a few months later. In 1857 he published an account of his prison experiences in English under the title of Austrian Dungeons in Italy, which led to a rupture between him and Mazzini. He then entered into negotiations with Ausonio Franchi, editor of the Ragione of Turin, which he proposed to make the organ of the pure republicans. But having become convinced that Napoleon III. was the chief obstacle to Italian independence and the principal cause of the anti-liberal reaction throughout Europe, he went to Paris in 1857 to conspire against him. On the evening of the 14th of January 1858, while the emperor and empress were on their way to the theatre, Orsini and his accomplices threw three bombs at the imperial carriage. The intended victims were unhurt, but several other persons were killed or wounded. Orsini himself was wounded, and at once arrested; on the 11th of February he wrote his famous letter to Napoleon, in which he exhorted him to take up the cause of Italian freedom. He addressed another letter to the youth of Italy, stigmatizing political assassination. He was condemned to death and executed on the 13th of March 1858, meeting his fate with great calmness and bravery. Of his accomplices Pieri also was executed, Rudio was condemned to death but obtained a commutation of sentence, and Gomez was condemned to hard labour for life. The importance of Orsini’s attempt lies in the fact that it terrified Napoleon, who came to believe that unless he took up the Italian cause other attempts would follow and that sooner or later he would be assassinated. This fear contributed not a little to the emperor’s subsequent Italian policy.
Bibliography.—Memoirs and Adventures of Felice Orsini written by himself (Edinburgh, 1857, 2nd ed., edited by Ausonio Franchi, Turin, 1858); Lettere edite e inedite di F. O. (Milan, 1861); Enrico Montazio, I contemporanei Italiani-Felice Orsini (Turin, 1862); La vérité sur Orsini, par un ancien proscrit (1879); Angelo Arboit, Tofin e la fuga di Felice Orsini (Cagliari, 1893).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Orta, Lake of

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ORTA, LAKE OF, in N. Italy, W. of Lake Maggiore. It has been so named since the 16th century, but was previously called the Lago di San Giulio, the patron of the region—Cusio is a merely poetical name. Its southern end is about 22 m. by rail N.W. of Novara on the main Turin-Milan line, while its north end is about 4 m. by rail S. of the Gravellona-Toce railway station, half-way between Ornavasso and Omegna. It has an area of about 6$^1$⁄$_4$ sq. m., it is about 8 m. in length, its greatest depth is 482 ft., and the surface is 951 ft. above sea-level, while its width varies from $^1$⁄$_2$ to 1$^1$⁄$_4$ m. Its scenery is characteristically Italian, while the large island of San Giulio (just W. of the village of Orta) has some very picturesque buildings, and takes its name from the local saint, who lived in the 4th century. The chief place is Orta, built on a peninsula projecting from the east shore of the lake, while Omegna is at its northern extremity. It is supposed that the lake is the remnant of a much larger sheet of water by which originally the waters of the Toce or Tosa flowed south towards Novara. As the glaciers retreated the waters flowing from them sank, and were gradually diverted into Lago Maggiore. This explains why no considerable stream feeds the lake of Orta, while at its north end the Nigoglia torrent flows out of it, but in about $^1$⁄$_2$ m. it falls into the Strona, which in turn soon joins the Toce or Tosa, a short distance before this river flows into Lago Maggiore.(W. A. B. C.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mende

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​MENDE, a town of south-eastern France, capital of the department of Lozère, 59 m. N.N.E. of Millau by rail. Pop. (1906), town 5246; commune 7007. Mende is picturesquely situated on the left bank of the Lot, and at the foot of the Mimat cliff, which rises 1000 ft. above the town, and terminates the Causse de Mende. The town is the seat of a bishopric. Its cathedral of St Peter was founded in the 14th century by Pope Urban V., a native of the district, but the two towers, respectively 280 and 210 ft. high, were added by Bishop François de la Rovère in the early part of the 16th century. Partly destroyed during the devastation of the town by the Protestants in 1579 and 1580, it was rebuilt in the 17th century, and in 1874 a statue of Urban V. was erected in front of it. A Renaissance tower of the ancient citadel now serves as the belfry of the church of the Penitents, and a 14th-century bridge crosses the Lot. The town is a convenient centre for visitors to the gorges of the Tarn. It is the seat of a prefect and a court of assizes, and has a tribunal of first instance and a chamber of commerce. The chief industry is the manufacture of serges and shalloons, known as Mende stuffs, exported to Spain, Italy and Germany.
Mende (Mimate) grew up around the hermitage, partly excavated in the side of the Mimat cliff, to which St Privat, bishop of Javols, retreated after the destruction of that town, and where he was subsequently slain by the Vandals, who had pursued him thither, about 408. In the 14th century the new town became the civil, as it had previously been the ecclesiastical, capital of the Gévaudan district.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mendoza, Antonio Hurtado de

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​MENDOZA, ANTONIO HURTADO DE (1593?–1644), Spanish dramatist, was born about the end of the 16th century in the province of Asturias, became page to the count de Saldana (son of the duke de Lerma), and was recognized as a rising poet by Cervantes in the Viaje del Parnaso (1614). He rose rapidly into favour under Philip IV., who appointed him private secretary, commissioned from him comedias palaciegas for the royal theatre at Aranjuez, and in 1623 conferred on him the orders of Santiago and Calatrava. Most of his contemporaries and rivals paid court to “el discreto de palacio,” and Mendoza seems to have lived on the friendliest terms with all his brother-dramatists except Ruiz de Alarcón. He is said to have been involved in the fall of Olivares, and died unexpectedly at Saragossa on the 19th of September 1644. Only one of his plays, Querer por sólo querer, was published with his consent; it is included in a volume (1623) containing his semi-official account of the performances at Aranjuez in 1622. The best edition of Mendoza’s plays and verses bears the title of Obras líricas y cómicas, divinas y humanas (1728). Much of his work does not rise above the level of graceful and accomplished verse; but that he had higher qualities is shown by El Marido hace mujer, a brilliant comedy of manners, which forms the chief source of Molière’s École des maris.
The Fiesta que se hizo en Aranjuez and Querer por sólo querer were translated into English by Sir Richard Fanshawe, afterwards ambassador at Madrid, in a posthumous volume published in 1671.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mendoza, Diego Hurtado de

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​MENDOZA, DIEGO HURTADO DE (1503–1575), Spanish novelist, poet, diplomatist and historian, a younger son of the count of Tendillas, governor of Granada, was born in that city in 1503. The celebrated marquis of Santillana was his great-grandfather. On leaving the university of Salamanca, Mendoza abandoned his intention of taking orders, served under Charles V. in Italy, and attended lectures at the universities of Bologna, Padua and Rome. In 1537 he was sent to England to arrange a marriage between Henry VIII. and the duchess of Milan, as well as a marriage between Prince Louis of Portugal and Mary Tudor. Despite the failure of his mission, he preserved the confidence of the emperor, and in 1539 was appointed ambassador at Venice; there he patronized the Aldi, procured copies of the Greek manuscripts belonging to Cardinal Bessarion, and acquired other rare codices from the monastery of Mount Athos. The first edition of Josephus was printed (1544) from the texts in Mendoza’s collection. He acted for some time as military governor of Siena, represented Spain diplomatically at the council of Trent, and in 1547 was nominated special plenipotentiary at Rome, where he remained till 1554. He was never a favourite with Philip II., and a quarrel with a courtier resulted in his banishment from court (June 1568). The remaining years of his life, which were spent at Granada, he devoted to the study of Arabic, to poetry, and to his history of the Moorish insurrection of 1568–1570. He died in 1575. His Guerra de Granada was published at Lisbon by Luis Tribaldos de Toledo in 1627; the delay was doubtless due to Mendoza’s severe criticism of contemporaries who survived him. In some passages the author deliberately imitates Sallust and Tacitus; his style is, on the whole, vivid and trenchant, his information is exact, and in critical insight he is not inferior to Mariana. The attribution to Mendoza of Lazarillo de Tormes is rejected by all competent scholars, but that he excelled in picaresque malice is proved by his indecorous verses written in the old Castilian metres and in the more elaborate measures imported from Italy. Mendoza is believed to be the author of the letters to Feliciano de Silva and to Captain Salazar, published by Antonio Paz y Melia in Sales Españolas (Madrid, 1900).
See A. Senán y Alonso, D. Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, apuntes biográfico-críticos (Granada, 1886); Calendar of Letters and Papers foreign and domestic, Henry VIII., vols. xii. and xiii.; C. Graux, Essai sur l’origine du fonds grec de l’Escurial (Paris, 1880); R. Foulché-Delbosc, “Étude sur la Guerra de Granada” in the Revue hispanique (Paris, 1894), vol. i.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mendicancy

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​MENDICANCY (from Lat. mendicus, in a condition of beggary, a word of unknown origin), a state or condition of being a beggar, the practice of obtaining a livelihood by asking alms. The word “mendicant,” also found in the French form “mendiant,” appears to have come into use through the begging friars.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mendip Hills

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MENDIP HILLS, a range in the north of Somersetshire, England. Using the name in its widest application, the eastern boundary of the range may be taken to be formed by the upper valleys of the rivers Frome and Brue, and the depression between them. The range extends from these north-westward with a major axis of about 23 m., while the outliers of Wavering Down and Bleadon Hill continue it towards the shore of the Bristol Channel. The range is generally about 6 m. in width, and its total area about 130 sq. m. Its south-western face descends to the low “moors” or marshes drained by the Axe and other streams, the small towns of Axbridge, Cheddar and Wells lying at the foot of the hills. Towards the north-east its limits are less clearly defined, for high ground, intersected by narrow vales, extends as far as the valley of the Avon. A depression, followed by the road between Radstock and Wells, strikes across the range about its centre; the principal elevations lie west of this, and to the area thus defined the name of the Mendips is sometimes restricted. The summit of the hills is a gently swelling plateau, which extends its extreme height in the north—1068 ft. The Mendips consist principally of Carboniferous Limestone. Fine cliffs and scars occur on the flanks of the plateau, as in the gorge of Cheddar, and there is a wonderful series of caverns, the result of water action. The surface of the plateau is often broken by deep holes (“swallets”) into which streams flow. Some of the caves, such as those as Cheddar, are easy of access, and attract many visitors owing to the beauty of the stalactitic formations; others, of greater extent and grandeur, have only been explored, or partly explored, with great difficulty. Some caves have yielded large quantities of animal remains (hyaenas, bears and others) together with traces of prehistoric human occupation. Among such Wookey Hole, where the river Axe issues from the foot of a cliff, may be mentioned. Lead was worked among the Mendips at a very early period. Some of the Roman workings, especially in the neighbourhood of Charterhouse-on-Mendip, have yielded pigs of lead inscribed with the names of emperors of the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D., together with an abundance of smaller objects.
See E. Baker and H. Balch, The Netherworld of Mendip (Clifton, 1907).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Kamenets Podolskiy

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​KAMENETS PODOLSKIY, or Podolian Kamenets (Polish Kamieniec), a town of S.W. Russia, chief town of the government of Podolia. It stands in 48° 40′ N. and 26° 30′ E., on a high, rocky bluff of the river Smotrich, a left-hand tributary of the Dniester, and near the Austrian frontier. Pop. (1863), 20,699; (1900) 39,113, of whom 50% were Jews and 30% Poles. Round the town lies a cluster of suburban villages, Polish Folwark, Russian Folwark, Zinkovtsui, Karvasarui, &c.; and on the opposite side of the river, accessible by a wooden bridge, stands the castle which long frowned defiance across the Dniester to Khotin in Bessarabia. Kamenets is the see of a Roman Catholic and a Greek Orthodox bishop. The Roman Catholic cathedral of St Peter and St Paul, built in 1361, is distinguished by a minaret, recalling the time when it was used as a mosque by the Turks (1672–1699). The Greek cathedral of John the Baptist dates from the 16th century, but up to 1798 belonged to the Basilian monastery. Other buildings are the Orthodox Greek monastery of the Trinity, and the Catholic Armenian church (founded in 1398), possessing a 14th-century missal and an image of the Virgin Mary that saw the Mongol invasion of 1239–1242. The town contains Orthodox Greek and Roman Catholic seminaries, Jewish colleges, and an archaeological museum for church antiquities, founded in 1890. Kamenets was laid waste by the Mongol leader Batu in 1240. In 1434 it was made the chief town of the province of Podolia. In the 15th and 16th centuries it suffered frequently from the invasions of Tatars, Moldavians and Turks; and in 1672 the hetman of the Cossacks, Doroshenko, assisted by Sultan Mahommed IV. of Turkey, made himself master of the place. Restored to Poland by the peace of Karlowitz (1699), it passed with Podolia to Russia in 1795. Here the Turks were defeated by the Poles in 1633, and here twenty years later peace was concluded between the same antagonists. The fortifications were demolished in 1813.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Kamrup

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​KAMRUP, a district of British India, in the Brahmaputra valley division of Eastern Bengal and Assam. The headquarters are at Gauhati. Area, 3858 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 589,187, showing a decrease of 7% in the decade. In the immediate neighbourhood of the Brahmaputra the land is low, and exposed to annual inundation. In this marshy tract reeds and canes flourish luxuriantly, and the only cultivation is that of rice. At a comparatively short distance from the river banks the ground begins to rise in undulating knolls towards the mountains of Bhutan on the north, and towards the Khasi hills on the south. The hills south of the Brahmaputra in some parts reach the height of 800 ft. The Brahmaputra, which divides the district into two nearly equal portions, is navigable by river steamers throughout the year, and receives several tributaries navigable by large native boats in the rainy season. The chief of these are the Manas, Chaul Khoya and Barnadi on the north, and the Kulsi and Dibru on the south bank. There is a government forest preserve in the district and also a plantation where seedlings of teak, sál, sissu, súm, and nahor are reared, and experiments are being made with the caoutchouc tree. The population is entirely rural, the only town with upwards of 5000 inhabitants being Gauhati (11,661). The temples of Hajo and Kamākhya attract many pilgrims from all quarters. The staple crop of the district is rice, of which there are three crops. The indigenous manufactures are confined to the weaving of silk and cotton cloths for home use, and to the making of brass cups and plates. The cultivation and manufacture of tea by European capital is not very prosperous. The chief exports are rice, oil-seeds, timber and cotton; the imports are fine rice, salt, piece goods, sugar, betel-nuts, coco-nuts and hardware. A section of the Assam-Bengal railway starts from Gauhati, and a branch of the Eastern Bengal railway has recently been opened to the opposite bank of the river. A metalled road runs due south from Gauhati to Shillong.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Kame

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​KAME (a form of Scandinavian comb, hill), in physical geography, a short ridge or bunched mound of gravel or sand, “tumultuously stratified,” occurring in connexion with glacial deposits, having been formed at the mouths of tunnels under the ice. When the ice-sheet melts, these features, formerly concealed by the glacier, are revealed. They are common in the glaciated portions of the lower Scottish valleys. By some authorities the term “kame,” or specifically “serpentine ​kame,” is taken as synonymous with “esker,” which however is preferably to be applied to the long mound deposited within the ice-tunnel, not to the bunched mound at its mouth.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Kamenz

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​KAMENZ, a town in the kingdom of Saxony, on the Black Elster, 21 m. N.E. of Dresden, on a branch line of railway from Bischofswerda. Pop. (1900), 9726. It has four Evangelical churches, among them a Wendish one, and a handsome new town-hall with a library. The hospital is dedicated to the memory of Lessing, who was born here. A colossal bust of the poet was placed opposite the Wendish church in 1863, and a monument was raised to him on a neighbouring hill in 1864. The industries of Kamenz include wool-spinning, and the manufacture of cloth, glass, crockery and stoneware. Built about 1200, Kamenz, was known by the name Dreikretcham until the 16th century. In 1318 it passed to the mark of Brandenburg; in 1319 to Bohemia; and in 1635, after suffering much in the Hussite and Thirty Years’ wars, it came into the possession of Saxony. In 1706 and 1842 it was almost entirely consumed by fire.
Kamenz is also the name of a village in Prussia, not far from Breslau; pop. 900. This is famous on account of its Cistercian monastery, founded in 1094. Of the house, which was closed in 1810, only a few buildings remain.