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

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​KURISCHES HAFF, a lagoon of Germany, on the Baltic coast of East Prussia, stretching from Labiau to Memel, a distance of 60 m., has an area of nearly 680 sq. m. It is mostly shallow and only close to Memel attains a depth of 23 ft. It is thus unnavigable except for small coasting and fishing boats, and sea-going vessels proceed through the Memeler Tief (Memel Deep), which connects the Baltic with Memel and has a depth of 19 ft. and a breadth of 800 to 1900 ft. The Kurisches Haff is separated from the Baltic by a long spit, or tongue of land, the so-called Kurische Nehrung, 72 m. in length and with a breadth of 1 to 2 miles. The latter is fringed throughout its whole length by a chain of dunes, which rise in places to a height of nearly 200 ft. and threaten, unless checked, to be pressed farther inland and silt up the whole Haff.
See Berendt, Geologie des Kurischen Haffs (Königsberg, 1869); Sommer, Das Kurische Haff (Danzig, 1889); A. Bezzenberger, Die Kurische Nehrung und ihre Bewohner (Stuttgart, 1889); and Lindner, Die Preussische Wüste einst und jetzt, Bilder von der Kurischen Nehrung (Osterwieck, 1898).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Kurnool

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​KURNOOL, or Karnul, a town and district of British India, in the Madras presidency. The town is built on a rocky soil at the junction of the Hindri and Tungabhadra rivers 33 m. from a railway station. The old Hindu fort was levelled in 1865, with the exception of one of the gates, which was preserved as a specimen of ancient architecture. Cotton cloth and carpets are manufactured. Pop. (1901), 25,376, of whom half are Mussulmans.
The District of Kurnool has an area of 7578 sq. m., pop. (1901), 872,055, showing an increase of 6% in the decade. Two long mountain ranges, the Nallamalais and the Yellamalais, extend in parallel lines, north and south, through its centre. The principal heights of the Nallamalai range are Biranikonda (3149 ft.), Gundlabrahmeswaram (3055 ft.), and Durugapukonda (3086 ft.). The Yellamalai is a low range, generally flat-topped with scarped sides; the highest point is about 2000 ft. Several low ridges run parallel to the Nallamalais, broken here and there by gorges, through which mountain streams take their course. Several of these gaps were dammed across under native rule, to form tanks for purposes of irrigation. The principal rivers are the Tungabhadra and Kistna, which bound the district on the north. When in flood, the Tungabhadra averages 900 yards broad and 15 ft. deep. The Kistna here flows chiefly through uninhabited jungles, sometimes in long smooth reaches, with intervening shingly rapids. The Bhavanasi rises on the Nallamalais, and falls into the Kistna at Sungameswaram, a place of pilgrimage. During the 18th century Kurnool formed the jagir of a semi-independent Pathan Nawab, whose descendant was dispossessed by the British government for treason in 1838. The principal crops are millets, cotton, oil-seeds, and rice, with a little indigo and tobacco. Kurnool suffered very severely from the famine of 1876–1877, and to a slight extent in 1896–1897. It is the chief scene of the operations of the Madras Irrigation Company taken over by government in 1882. The canal, which starts from the Tungabhadra river near Kurnool town, was constructed at a total cost of two millions sterling, but has not been a financial success. A more successful work is the Cumbum tank, formed under native rule by damming a gorge of the Gundlakamma river. Apart from the weaving of coarse cotton cloth, the chief industrial establishments are cotton presses, indigo vats, and saltpetre refineries. The district is served by the Southern Mahratta railway.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mignons, Les

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​MIGNONS, LES. In a general sense the French word mignon means “favourite,” but the people of Paris used it in a special sense to designate the favourites of Henry III. of France, frivolous and fashionable young men, to whom public malignity attributed dissolute morals. According to the contemporary chronicler Pierre de l’Estoile, they made themselves “exceedingly odious, as much by their foolish and haughty demeanour, as by their effeminate and immodest dress, but above all by the immense gifts the king made to them.” The Guises appear to have stirred up the ill will of the Parisians against them. From 1576 the mignons were attacked by popular opinion, and historians accredited without proof the scandalous stories of the time. The best known of the mignons were the dukes of Toyeuse and of Epernon.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mihrab

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​MIHRAB, a term in Mahommedan architecture given to the niche which in a mosque indicates the direction of Mecca, towards which the Moslems turn when praying.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mikado

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​MIKADO (Japanese for “exalted gate”), the poetical title associated by foreign countries with the sovereign of Japan; the japanese title, corresponding to “emperor,” is tenno, the term kotei being used of his function in relation to external affairs. By the constitution of 1889, the emperor of Japan transferred a large part of his former powers as absolute monarch to the representatives of the people, but as head of the empire he appoints the ministers, declares war, makes peace and concludes treaties, acting generally as a constitutional sovereign but with all the personal authority attaching to his august position. The history of the mikados goes back to very early times, but from 1600 to 1868 the real power was in the hands of the shoguns, who nevertheless were in ceremonial theory always successively invested with their authority by the mikado. The revolution of 1867 restored the real power into the mikado’s hands. (See Japan: History; and Mutsu Hito.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Miklosich, Franz von

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​MIKLOSICH, FRANZ VON (1813–1891), Austrian philologist, was born at Luttenberg, Styria, on the 29th of November 1813. He graduated at the university at Gratz as a doctor of philosophy, and was for a time professor of philosophy there. In 1838 he went to Vienna, where he took the degree' of doctor of law. He devoted himself, however, to the study of Slavonic languages, abandoned the law, and obtained a post in the imperial library, where he remained from 1844 to 1862. In the former year he published a noteworthy review of Bopp’s Comparative Grammar, and this began a long series of works of immense erudition which completely revolutionized the study of Slavonic languages. In 1849 Miklosich was appointed to the newly created chair of Slavonic philology at the university of Vienna, and he occupied it until 1886. He became a member of the Academy of Vienna, which appointed him secretary of its historical and philosophical section, a member of the council of public instruction and of the upper house, and correspondent of the French Academy of Inscription. His numerous writings deal not only with the Slav languages, but with Rumanian, Albanian, Greek, and the language of the gypsies. Miklosich died on the 7th of March 1891.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mignot, Claudine Françoise

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​MIGNOT, CLAUDINE FRANÇOISE [commonly called Marie] (c. 1617–1711), French adventuress, was born near Grenoble, at Meylan. At the age of sixteen she attracted the notice of the secretary of Pierre des Portes d’Amblérieux, treasurer of the province of Dauphiny, and Amblérieux promised to promote their marriage. He married the girl himself, however, and left her his fortune. His will was disputed by his family, and Claudine went to Paris in 1653 to secure its fulfilment. She sought the protection of François de l’Hôpital, marshal of France, then a man of seventy-five. He married her within a week of their first meeting, and after seven years of marriage died leaving her part of his estate. By a third and morganatic marriage in 1672 with John Casimir, ex-king of Poland, a few weeks before his death, she received a third fortune. Immediately on her marriage with Amblérieux she had begun to educate herself, and her wealth and talents assured her a welcome in Paris. She retired in her old age to a Carmelite convent in the city, where she died on the 30th of November 1711.
Her history, very much modified, was the subject of a play by Bayard and Paul Duport, Marie Mignot (1829).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Miguel, Maria Evarist

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​MIGUEL, MARIA EVARIST (1802–1866), usually known as Dom Miguel, whose name is chiefly associated with his pretensions to the throne of Portugal, was the third son of King John VI. of Portugal, and of Carlota Joaquina, one of the Spanish Bourbons; he was born at Lisbon on the 26th of October 1802. In 1807 he accompanied his parents in their flight to Brazil, where he grew up an uneducated and fanatical debauchee; in 1821, on his return to Europe, it is said that he had not yet learned to read. In 1822 his father swore fidelity to the new Portuguese constitution which had been proclaimed in his absence; and this led Carlota Joaquina, who was an absolutist of the extremest Bourbon type, and hated her husband, to seek his dethronement in favour of Miguel her favourite son. The insurrections which ensued (see Portugal) resulted in her imprisonment and the exile of Miguel (1824), who spent a short time in Paris and afterwards lived in Vienna, where he came under the teaching of Metternich. On the sudden death of John VI. in May 1826, Pedro of Brazil, his eldest son, renounced the crown in favour of his daughter Maria da Gloria, on the understanding that she should become the wife of Miguel. The last named accordingly swore allegiance to Pedro, to Maria, and to the constitution which Pedro had introduced, and on this footing was appointed regent in July 1827. He arrived in Lisbon in February 1828, and, regardless of his promises, dissolved the new Cortes in March; having called together the old Cortes, with the support of the reactionary party of which his mother was the ruling spirit, he got himself proclaimed sole legitimate king of Portugal, in July. His private life was characterized by the wildest excesses, and he used his power to oppose all forms of liberalism.
The public opinion of Europe became more and more actively hostile to his reign, and after the occupation of Oporto by Dom Pedro in 1832, the destruction of Miguel’s fleet by Captain (afterwards Sir Charles) Napier off Cape St Vincent in 1833, and the victory of Saldanha at Santarem in 1834, Queen Christina of Spain recognized the legitimate sovereignty of Maria, and in this was followed by France and England. Dom Miguel capitulated at Evora on the 29th of May 1834, renouncing all pretensions to the Portuguese throne. He lived for some time at Rome, where he enjoyed papal recognition, but afterwards retired to Bronnbach, in Baden, where he died on the 14th of November 1866.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mikirs

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​MIKIRS, a hill tribe of India, occupying two or three detached tracts in Nowgong and Sibsagar districts of Eastern Bengal and Assam, known as the Mikir hills. In 1901 their total number was returned as 87,056. Mikir is the name given to them by the Assamese; they call themselves Arleeng, which means “man” in general. They have long settled down to agriculture, and are distinguished from the tribes around them by the absence of savagery. Their language, which has been studied by missionaries, seems to connect them with the Kuki-Chin stock on the Burmese frontier.
See Sir C. Lyall, The Mikirs (1908).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Hérold, Louis Joseph Ferdinand

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​HÉROLD, LOUIS JOSEPH FERDINAND (1791–1833), French musician, the son of François Joseph Hérold, an accomplished pianist, was born in Paris, on the 28th of January 1791. It was not till after his father’s death that Hérold in 1806 entered the Paris conservatoire, where he studied under Catal and Méhul. In 1812 he gained the grand prix de Rome with the cantata La Duchesse de la Vallière, and started for Italy, where he remained till 1815 and composed a symphony, a cantata and several pieces of chamber music. During his stay in Italy also Hérold for the first time ventured on the stage with the opera La Gioventù di Enrico V., first performed at Naples in 1815 with moderate success. During a short stay in Vienna he was much in the society of Salieri. Returning to Paris he was invited by Boieldieu to collaborate with him on an opera called Charles de France, performed in 1816, and soon followed by Hérold’s first French opera, Les Rosières (1817), which was received very favourably. Hérold produced numerous dramatic works for the next fifteen years in rapid succession. Only the names of some of the more important need here be mentioned:—La Clochette (1817), L’Auteur mort et vivant (1820), Marie (1826), and the ballets La Fille mal gardée (1828) and La Belle au bois dormant (1829). Hérold also wrote a vast quantity of pianoforte music, in spite of his time being much occupied by his duties as accompanist at the Italian opera in Paris. In 1831 he produced the romantic opera Zampa, and in the following year Le Pré aux clercs (first performance December 15, 1832), in which French esprit and French chivalry find their most perfect embodiment. These two operas secured immortality for the name of the composer, who died on the 18th of January 1833, of the lung disease from which he had suffered for many years, and the effects of which he had accelerated by incessant work. Hérold’s incomplete opera Ludovic was afterwards printed by J. F. F. Halévy.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Hébert, Edmond

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​HÉBERT, EDMOND (1812–1890), French geologist, was born at Villefargau, Yonne, on the 12th of June 1812. He was educated at the Collège de Meaux, Auxerre, and at the École Normale in Paris. In 1836 he became professor at Meaux, in 1838 demonstrator in chemistry and physics at the École Normale, and in 1841 sub-director of studies at that school and lecturer on geology. In 1857 the degree of D. ès Sc. was conferred upon him, and he was appointed professor of geology at the Sorbonne. There he was eminently successful as a teacher, and worked with great zeal in the field, adding much to the knowledge of the Jurassic and older strata. He devoted, however, special attention to the subdivisions of the Cretaceous and Tertiary formations in France, and to their correlation with the strata in England and in southern Europe. To him we owe the first definite arrangement of the Chalk into palaeontological zones (see Table in Geol. Mag., 1869, p. 200). During his later years he was regarded as the leading geologist in France. He was elected a member of the Institute in 1877, Commander of the Legion of Honour in 1885, and he was three times president of the Geological Society of France. He died in Paris on the 4th of April 1890.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Hòva

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​HÒVA, the name originally applied to the middle-class Malayo-Indonesian natives of Madagascar (q.v.), as distinct from the noble class Andrìana and the slave class Andèvo. Hòva has now come to mean the most numerous and powerful of the tribes which form the native population of Madagascar. The Hòva, who occupy the province of Imérina, the central plateau of the island, are of Malayo-Indonesian origin. The period at which the Hòva arrived in Madagascar is still a subject of dispute. Some think that the immigration took place in very early times, before Hinduism reached the Malay Archipelago, since no trace of Sanskrit is found in Malagasy. Others believe that the Hòva did not reach the island until the 12th or 13th century. At the French conquest of Madagascar (1895), the Hòva were the most powerful and, politically, the dominant people; but were far from having subjected the whole of the island to their rule. The Hòva are short and slim, with a complexion of a yellowish olive, many being fairer than the average of southern Europeans. Their hair is long, black and smooth but coarse. Their heads are round, with flat straight foreheads, flat faces, prominent cheekbones, small straight noses, fairly wide nostrils, and small black and slightly oblique eyes. The physical contrast to the negro is usually very obvious, but, especially among the lower classes, there is a tendency to thick lips, kinky hair and dark skin. In many of their customs, such as taboo, infanticide, marriage and funeral rites, they show their Indonesian origin. Most of them now profess Christianity.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Häusser, Ludwig

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​HÄUSSER, LUDWIG (1818–1867), German historian, was born at Kleeburg, in Alsace. Studying philology at Heidelberg in 1835, he was led by F. C. Schlosser to give it up for history, and after continuing his historical work at Jena and teaching in the gymnasium at Wertheim he made his mark by his Die teutschen Geschichtsschreiber vom Anfang des Frankenreichs bis auf die Hohenstaufen (1839). Next year appeared his Sage von Tell. After a short period of study in Paris on the French Revolution, he spent some time working in the archives of Baden and Bavaria, and published in 1845 Die Geschichte der rheinischen Pfalz, which won for him a professorship extraordinarius at Heidelberg. In 1850 he became professor ordinarius. Häusser also interested himself in politics while at Heidelberg, publishing in 1846 Schleswig-Holstein, Dänemark und Deutschland, and editing with Gervinus the Deutsche Zeitung. In 1848 he was elected to the lower legislative chamber of Baden, and in 1850 advocated the project of union with Prussia at the parliament held at Erfurt. Another timely work was his edition of Friedrich List’s Gesammelte Schriften (1850), accompanied with a life of the author. His greatest achievement, and the one on which his fame as an historian rests, is his Deutsche Geschichte vom Tode Friedrichs des Grossen bis zur Gründung des deutschen Bundes (Leipzig, 1854–1857, 4 vols.). This was the first work covering that period based on a scientific study of the archival sources. In 1859 he again took part in politics, resuming his place in the lower chamber, opposing in 1863 the project of Austria for the reform of the Confederation brought forward in the assembly of princes at Frankfort, in his book Die Reform des deutschen Bundestages, and becoming one of the leaders of the “little German” (kleindeutsche) party, which advocated the exclusion of Austria from Germany. In addition to various essays (in his Gesammelte Schriften, Berlin, 1869–1870, 2 vols.), Häusser’s lectures have been edited by W. Oncken in the Geschichte des Zeitalters der Reformation (1869, 2nd ed. 1880), and Geschichte der französischen Revolution (1869, 2nd ed. 1870). These lectures reveal all the charm of style and directness of presentation which made Häusser’s work as a professor so vital.
See W. Wattenbach, Lud. Häusser, ein Vortrag (Heidelberg, 1867).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Hébert, Jacques René

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​HÉBERT, JACQUES RENÉ (1757–1794), French Revolutionist, called “Père Duchesne,” from the newspaper he edited, was born at Alençon, on the 15th of November 1757, where his father, who kept a goldsmith’s shop, had held some municipal office. His family was ruined, however, by a lawsuit while he was still young, and Hébert came to Paris, where in his struggle against poverty he endured great hardships; the accusations of theft directed against him later by Camille Desmoulins were, however, without foundation. In 1790 he attracted attention by some pamphlets, and became a prominent member of the club of the Cordeliers in 1791. On the 10th of August 1792 he was a member of the revolutionary Commune of Paris, and became second substitute of the procureur of the Commune on the 2nd of December 1792. His violent attacks on the Girondists led to his arrest on the 24th of May 1793, but he was released owing to the threatening attitude of the mob. Henceforth very popular, Hébert organized with P. G. Chaumette (q.v.) the “worship of Reason,” in opposition to the theistic cult inaugurated by Robespierre, against whom he tried to excite a popular movement. The failure of this brought about the arrest of the Hébertists, or enragés, as his partisans were called. Hébert was guillotined on the 24th of March 1794. His wife, who had been a nun, was executed twenty days later. Hébert’s influence was mainly due to his articles in his journal Le Père Duchesne, which appeared from 1790 to 1794. These articles, while not lacking in a certain cleverness, were violent and abusive, and purposely couched in foul language in order to appeal to the mob.
See Louis Duval, “Hébert chez lui,” in La Révolution Française, revue d’histoire moderne et contemporaine, t. xii. and t. xiii.; D. Mater, J. R. Hébert, l’auteur du Père Duchesne avant la journée du 10 août 1792 (Bourges, Comm. Hist. du Cher, 1888); F. A. Aulard, Le Culte de la raison et de l’être suprême (Paris, 1892).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Héroet, Antoine

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​HÉROET, ANTOINE, surnamed La Maison-neuve (d. 1568), French poet, was born in Paris of a family connected with the famous chancellor, François Olivier. His poetry belongs to his early years, for after he had taken orders he ceased to write profane poetry, no doubt because he considered it out of keeping with his calling, in which he attained the dignity of bishop of Digue. His chief work is La Parfaicte Amye (Lyons, 1542) in which he developed the idea of a purely spiritual love, based chiefly on the reading of the Italian Neo-Platonists. The book aroused great controversy. La Borderie replied in L’Amye de cour with a description of a very much more human woman, and Charles Fontaine contributed a Contr’ amye de cour to the dispute. Héroet, in addition to some translations from the classics, wrote the Complainte d’une dame nouvellement surprise d’amour, an Épistre a François I$^{er}$, and some pieces included in the now very rare Opuscules d’amour par Héroet, La Borderie et autres divins poëtes (Lyons, 1547). Héroet belongs to the Lyonnese school of which Maurice Scève may be regarded as the leader. Clément Marot praises him, and Ronsard was careful to exempt him with one or two others from the scorn he poured on his immediate predecessors.
See H. F. Cary, The Early French Poets (1846).