OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Slodtz, René Michel

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​SLODTZ, RENÉ MICHEL or MICHEL ANGE (1705–1764), French sculptor, was born at Paris. He passed seventeen years at Rome, where he was chosen to execute a statue of St Bruno, one of the best modern works of the class in St Peter’s. He was also the sculptor of the tomb of Marquis Capponi in St John of the Florentines. Other works of his are to be seen at the church of St Louis of France and at Santa Maria della Scala. After his return to France in 1747, Slodtz, in conjunction with his brothers, Antoine Sebastien and Paul, produced many decorative works in the churches of Paris, and, though much has been destroyed, his most considerable achievement—the tomb of Languet de Gergy in St Sulpice (commissioned in 1750)—still exists. Slodtz was, like his brothers, a member of the Academy of Painting and Sculpture, and many particulars of his life are preserved in a memoir written by Cochin, and also in a letter from the same to the Gazette litteraire, which was reproduced by Castilhon in the Nécrologe of 1766.
Slodtz’s father, Sebastien (1655–1726), was also a sculptor, born at Antwerp; he became a pupil of Girardon and worked mostly under him at Versailles and the Tuileries. His chief works were "Hannibal" in the Tuileries garden, a statue of St Ambrose in the Palais des Invalides, and a bas-relief "Saint Louis sending missionaries to India."
See C. N. Cochin, Mém. inéd. (Paris, 1881); Barbet de Jouy, Sculpture moderne du Louvre (Paris, 1856); Duissieux, Artistes français à l’étranger (Paris, 1852).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sleigh

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​ SLEIGH, Sled or Sledge (Dan. slaede, Dutch slede, akin to “slide”), a vehicle on runners instead of wheels, for travelling over snow or ice. Various forms are used according as the object is utility or sport. The sleighs used in Coasting are referred to in the article under that heading; but for ordinary means of conveyance horse-drawn sleighs are employed as carriages in countries such as Russia, Scandinavia, and North America, where the roads are snow-bound in the cold season; and in the Arctic regions dogs are harnessed to them.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Slidell, John

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​ SLIDELL, JOHN (1793-1871), American political leader and diplomatist, was born in New York City in 1793. He graduated from Columbia College in 1810, engaged in business for a short time, then studied law, and became one of the leaders of the
bar at New Orleans, Louisiana, where he settled permanently in 1825. He was a member of the national House of Representatives as a state's rights Democrat from 1843 to 1845, when he resigned and was sent by President Polk on a secret mission to Mexico, with power to adjust the difficulties growing out of the annexation of Texas to the United States, and to acquire by purchase both New Mexico (including the present Arizona,) and Upper California. He was not, however, received by the Mexican government. From 1853 to 1861 he was a representative of Louisiana in the United States Senate, and was an influential working member of important committees, though he seldom took part in debate. During this period he was intimately associated with James Buchanan, and is supposed to have had an important part in bringing about Buchanan's nomination for the presidency in 1856. When Louisiana seceded in 1861, Slidell withdrew from the Senate, and late in 1861 was sent by the Confederate Government as commissioner to France. With James M. Mason (q.v.), the Confederate commissioner to England, he was taken from the British steamer “Trent” by Captain Charles Wilkes of the United States navy, and was imprisoned at Fort Warren in Boston harbour. In January 1862, at the demand of England, the Confederate commissioners were released, and Slidell proceeded to France. His mission there was to secure the recognition of the Confederate States; in this he was unsuccessful, but he was able to keep France sympathetic, and to help to secure supplies for the Confederate army and navy. After the war he remained abroad, settling in England, and his daughter married a French nobleman. He died in London on the 29th of July 1871.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sliven

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​ SLIVEN, Slivno or formerly Selimnia (Turk. Islimye), a town of Bulgaria, in Eastern Rumelia, at the southern foot of the Balkan Mountains, 105 m. E.N.E. of Philippopolis and near the southern entrance of the defile known as the Iron Gate. Pop. (1906), 25,049. There are numerous mosques in the town, but the greater part of the Turkish population emigrated after the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78. Sliven contains the government factory, founded in 1834, for the manufacture of military clothing; it is the chief centre in Bulgaria for the rough and fine homespuns known as aba and shayak, and its wine is locally celebrated. Extensive mulberry orchards have been planted in connexion with the silk industry.
Sliven, the Stlifanos of the Byzantine writers, owed its former strategic importance to its position on one of the trans-Balkan highways to Adrianople and the south. In the middle ages it was a subject of dispute between Byzantium and Bulgaria. After its capture by the Turks (1388) it was one of the voinik towns which remained exempt from taxes and were allowed to elect their own voivode; but these privileges were lost in the 16th century. In 1829 Sliven was occupied by the Russian army under Rudiger and Gorchakov.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sling

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​ SLING (from M. Eng. slingen, to fling, throw with a jerk, Icel. slyngva, cf. Ger. schlingen, to twist), an implement for casting missiles, also from its resemblance in form to the implement, a hanging loop used as a support for a wounded limb, a chain with hooks used for raising or lowering heavy goods or objects, &c. The sling as a weapon is probably the earliest form of device known to mankind by which an increase of force and range was given to the arm of a thrower of missiles. Sling stones from the stone age have been frequently found (see Arms and Armour). The form of the weapon is of two kinds; the sling proper consists of a small strap or socket of leather or hide to which two cords are attached; the slinger holds the two ends in one hand, whirls the socket and missile rapidly round the head and, loosing one cord sharply, despatches the missile; the other type is the staff sling, in which the sling itself is attached to a short staff, held in both hands. This was used for heavier missiles especially in siege operations during the middle ages. There are many references to slings and to slingers in the Bible; the left-handed slingers of Benjamin were famous (Judges xx. 16). The Assyrian monuments show the sling of the ordinary type and slingers were used in the ancient Egyptian army, but not before the 8th century B.C. The sling (Gr. σφενδόνη), Lat. funda) is not mentioned in Homer; Herodotus (vii. 158) speaks of the slingers in the army offered by Gelon to serve against the Persians; it seems to have been a weapon chiefly used by barbarian troops. The Acarnanians, however, were expert slingers (Thuc. ii. 81), and so also were the Achaeans, who later invented the sling which discharged a shaft with an iron bolt head (Livy xlii. 65, from Polybius). In the Roman army by the time of the Punic Wars the slingers (funditores) were auxiliaries from Greece, Syria and Africa. The Balearic islanders, who were in Hannibal's army, were always famous as slingers. In medieval times the sling was much used in the Prankish army, especially in defending trenches, while the staff-sling was used against fortifications ​ in the 14th century. They were used down to the 16th and 17th centuries to throw grenades.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sleidanus, Johannes

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​SLEIDANUS, JOHANNES (1506-1556), German historian, the annalist of the Reformation, was born at Schleiden near Aix-la-Chapelle. He studied ancient languages and literatures at Liége and Cologne, and law and jurisprudence at Paris and Orleans. Whilst among the humanists of Liége, he had adopted Protestant opinions, and entering the service of Cardinal du Bellay, was employed in the futile negotiations of the French court to make an alliance with the German Protestants against the emperor Charles V. In 1542 he settled at Strassburg. Sleidanus had been accustomed to copy all papers bearing upon the Reformation to which he had access, and Martin Bucer, who had seen his collection, proposed to Philip of Hesse to appoint him historian of the Reformation, giving him a salary and access to all necessary documents. After some delay the heads of the league of Schmalkalden agreed to the proposal, and Sleidanus began his great work, finishing the first volume in 1545. In that year he was recalled to diplomacy, and went to England in a French embassy to Henry VIII. While there he collected materials for his history. On his return he represented Strassburg at the diets of Frankfort and Worms, and went on to Marburg to explore the archives of Philip of Hesse. The war of the league of Schmalkalden interfered with this work, and also prevented the payment of Sleidanus, who in his difficulties applied to England for aid, and at Cranmer's intercession received a yearly pension from Edward VI., which, however, was not long continued. In 1551 Sleidanus went to the council of Trent as representative from Strassburg, charged also with full powers to act for the imperial cities of Esslingen, Ravensburg, Reutlingen, Biberach and Lindau. He was afterwards appointed professor of law in Strassburg, and finished his great task in 1554, though lack of money and other misfortunes compelled him to delay printing. Sleidanus died in poverty at Strassburg in October 1556. The book appeared in the preceding year — Commentariorum de statu religionis el reipublicae, Carolo V. Caesare, libri XXVI.; it was translated into English by John Daws in 1560 and by G. Bohum in 1689. It was so impartial that it pleased no one, not even Melanchthon. It remains the most valuable contemporary history of the times of the Reformation, and contains the largest collection of important documents.
See H. Baumgarten, Über Sleidanus Leben und Briefwechsel (1878), and Sleidans Briefwechsel (1881); and A. Hasenclever, Sleidan-Studien (Bonn, 1905).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/November

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​NOVEMBER (Lat. novem, nine), the ninth month of the old Roman year, which began with March. By the Julian arrangement, according to which the year began with the 1st of January, November became the eleventh month and had thirty days assigned to it. The 11th of November was held to mark the ​beginning of winter; the sacred banquet called epulum Jovis took place on the 13th. It is said that the senate desired to rename the month in honour of Tiberius—his birthday occurring on the 16th, but the emperor declined, saying, “What will you do, Conscript Fathers, if you have thirteen Caesars?” The Anglo-Saxon names for November were Windmonath, “windmonth” and Blodmonath “blood month.” In the calendar of the first French republic November reappeared partly as Brumaire and partly as Frimaire. The principal November festivals in the calendar of the Roman Church are: All Saints Day on the 1st, All Souls’ on the 2nd, St Martin’s on the 11th, the Presentation of the Virgin on the 21st, St Cecilia’s on the 22nd, St Catherine’s on the 25th and St Andrew’s on the 30th. St Hubert commemorated on the 3rd. In the English calendar All Saints’ and St Andrew’s are the only feasts retained.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Novelda

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​NOVELDA, a town of E. Spain, in the province of Alicante; on the right bank of the river Vinalopó, and on the railway from Madrid to Alicante. Pop. (1900) 11,388. The country around is flat and fertile, producing much wine, dates, oranges, oil, saffron and aniseed. In the town there are tanneries, and manufactures of alcohol, chocolate and soap. The women make fine lace. In the neighbouring village of Salinetas de Elda there are warm sulphur and saline baths.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Novi Ligure

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​NOVI LIGURE, a town of Piedmont, Italy, in the province of Alessandria, from which it is 14 m. S.E. by rail, situated among wooded hills, 646 ft. above sea-level. Pop. (1901) 17,868. It was the scene of a victory by the Austrians and Russians under ​Suvorov over the French in 1799. It is now an important railway junction, the main lines from Turin and Milan to Genoa converging here. Cotton, silk, coal briquettes, &c., are also manufactured here.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Novibazar

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​NOVIBAZAR, Novi-Bazar, or Novipazar (ancient Rassia, Rascia, or Rashka, Turkish Yenipazar, i.e. “New Market”), a sanjak of European Turkey, in the vilayet of Kossovo. Pop. (1905) about 170,000. Novibazar is a mountainous region, watered by the Lim, which flows north into Bosnia, and by several small tributaries of the Servian Ibar. About three-fourths of the inhabitants are Christian Serbs, and the remainder are chiefly Moslem Albanians, with a few gipsies, Turkish officials and about 3000 Austro-Hungarian soldiers. The local trade is mainly agricultural. The sanjak is of great strategic importance, for it is the N.W. part of the Turkish empire, on the direct route between Bosnia and Salonica, and forms a wedge of Turkish territory between Servia and Montenegro. The union of these powers, combined with the annexation of Novibazar, would have impeded the extension of Austrian influence towards Salonica. But by the treaty of Berlin (1878) Austria-Hungary was empowered to garrison the towns of Byelopolye, Priyepolye, Plevlye and other strategic points within the sanjak, although the entire civil administration remained in Turkish hands. This decision was enforced in 1879. The chief approaches from Servia and Montenegro have also been strongly fortified by the Turks.
Novibazar, the capital of the sanjak, is a town of about 12,000 inhabitants, on the site of the ancient Servian city of Rassia. Near it there are Roman baths, and the old church of St Peter and St. Paul, the metropolitan church of the bishopric of Rassia, in which Stephen Nemanya, king of Servia, passed from the Roman to the Greek Church in 1143.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Novelli, Ermete

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​NOVELLI, ERMETE (1851–), Italian actor and playwright, was born in Lucca on the 5th of March 1851, the son of a prompter. He made his first appearance in 1866, and played character and leading comedy parts in the best companies between 1871 and 1884. By 1885 he had his own company, and made a great success in Paris in 1898 and 1902. He established in Rome in 1900 a new theatre, the Casa di Goldoni, on the lines of the Comédie Française. He dramatized Gaboriau’s Monsieur Lecoq, and alone or in collaboration wrote several comedies and many monologues.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Noverre, Jean Georges

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​NOVERRE, JEAN GEORGES (1727–1810), French dancer and ballet master, was born in Paris on the 29th of March 1727. He first performed at Fontainebleau in 1743, and in 1747 composed his first ballet for the Opéra Comique. In 1748 he was invited by Prince Henry of Prussia to Berlin, but a year later he returned to Paris, where he mounted the ballets of Glück and Piccini. In 1755 he was invited by Garrick to London, where he remained two years. Between 1758 and 1760 he produced several ballets at Lyons, and published his Lettres sur la danse et les ballets. From this period may be dated the revolution in the art of the ballet for which Noverre was responsible. (See Pantomime and Ballet.) He was next engaged by the duke of Württemburg, and afterwards by the empress Maria Theresa, until, in 1775, he was appointed, at the request of Queen Marie Antoinette, maître des ballets of the Paris Opera. This post he retained until the Revolution reduced him to poverty. He died at St Germain on the 19th of November 1810.
Noverre’s friends included Voltaire, Frederick the Great and David Garrick (who called him “the Shakespeare of the dance”). The ballets of which he was most proud were his La Toilette de Vénus, Les Jalousies du sérail, L’Amour corsaire and Le Jaloux sans rival. Besides the letters, Noverre wrote Observations sur la construction d’une nouvelle salle de l’Opéra (1781); Lettres sur Garrick écrites à Voltaire (1801); and Lettre à un artiste sur les fêtes publiques (1801).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Novello, Vincent

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​NOVELLO, VINCENT (1781–1861), English musician, son of an Italian who married an English wife, was born in London on the 6th of September 1781. As a boy, he was a chorister at the Sardinian chapel in Duke Street, Lincoln’s Inn Fields, where he learnt the organ; and from 1796 to 1822 he became in succession organist of the Sardinian, Spanish (in Manchester Square) and Portuguese (in South Street, Grosvenor Square) chapels, and from 1840 to 1843 of St Mary’s chapel, Moorfields. He was an original member of the Philharmonic Society, of the Classical Harmonists and of the Choral Harmonists, officiating frequently as conductor. In 1849 he went to live at Nice, where he died on the 9th of August 1861. He composed an immense quantity of sacred music, much of which is still deservedly popular; but his great work lay in the introduction to England of unknown compositions by the great masters. The Masses of Haydn and Mozart were absolutely unknown in England until he edited them, as were also the works of Palestrina, the treasures of the Fitzwilliam Museum, and innumerable great compositions, now well known to every one. His first work, a collection of Sacred Music, as performed at the Royal Portuguese Chapel, which appeared in 1811, has the additional interest of giving a date to the practical founding of the publishing firm with which his name is associated, as Novello issued it from his own house; and he did the same with succeeding works, till his son Joseph Alfred Novello (1810–1896), who had started as a bass singer, became a regular music publisher in 1829. It was the latter who really created the business, and who has the credit of introducing cheap music, and departing from the method of publishing by subscription. From 1841 Henry Littleton assisted him, becoming a partner in 1861, when the firm became Novello & Co., and, on J. A. Novello’s retirement in 1866, sole proprietor. Having incorporated the firm of Ewer & Co. in 1867, the title was changed to Novello, Ewer & Co., and still later back to Novello & Co., and, on Henry Littleton’s death in 1888, his two sons carried on the business.
Vincent Novello had several children besides his son Joseph Alfred. Four of his daughters (of whom the youngest, Mary, married Charles Cowden Clarke) were gifted singers; but the most famous was Clara Novello (1818–1908), whose beautiful high soprano and pure style made her one of the greatest vocalists, alike in opera, oratorio and on the concert stage, from 1833 onwards. In 1843 she married Count Gigliucci, but after a few years returned to her profession, and only retired in 1860. Charles Lamb wrote a poem (To Clara N.) in her praise.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Provincetown

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​PROVINCETOWN, a township at the N. end of Cape Cod, in Barnstable county, Massachusetts, U.S.A. Pop. (1890), 4642; (1900), 4247; (1910 U.S. census) 4369. Area about 9½ sq. ni. The township is served by the New York, New Haven & Hartford railway, and by a steamship line to Boston. The harbour, which is important as a harbour of refuge, is protected on the east by land, and the Federal government has strengthened this protection by dikes and groins and other sand-catching devices; it has five lighthouses. There is a magnificent beach stretching 30 m. from Provincetown village to Eastham. The village is a summer resort. Through many generations the inhabitants have gained their living chiefly from the sea; the township's fisheries, however, have greatly decreased in importance (the invested capital diminishing 67.1% in 1885–1895). The prosperity it retains is not a little due to Portuguese from the Cape Verde Islands and the Azores, and to British Americans. Provincetown village was long second only to Gloucester in the cod fisheries, which low prices and the introduction of larger vessels and correspondingly costlier fittings have greatly ​handicapped. Whaling retains a remnant of its old importance, and there are also mackerel and shore fisheries, oil-works, cold storage establishments for preserving fish for food and bait, and canning works for herring. The first settlement here was made about 1680; it became a “ district ” or precinct of Truro in 1714, and was established as a township with its present name in 1727. Provincetown harbour was possibly visited by Gaspar Cortereal in 1501; Gosnold explored it and its vicinity in 1602, and John Smith was here in 1614. It was in this harbour that the “ Mayflower ” compact (see Massachusetts) was drawn up and signed by the Pilgrims before they proceeded to Plymouth, in 1620; here John Carver was chosen the first governor of Plymouth Colony, and Provincetown was the first landing place (on Saturday the 11th [o.s.] of November) of the Pilgrims in the New World. A memorial of the “ compact,” of polished Acton granite, 6 ft. high, with two bronze tablets, was erected before the town-hall by the Old Colony Commission, and on High Pole Hill on the 20th of August 1907 the cornerstone of a second memorial (completed in 1909, dedicated Aug. 5, 1910), a granite tower, 252 ft. high, was laid, addresses being delivered by President Roosevelt, James Bryce and H. C. Lodge. In Provincetown harbour, on the 1st of January 1862, James M. Mason and John Slidell, the envoys of the Confederate States to Great Britain and France respectively, who had been taken by a Federal vessel from the British ship “ Trent,” were restored by the Federal authorities to H.B.M.S. “ Rinaldo,” after their detention in Fort Warren in Boston harbour.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Prow

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​PROW, the fore-part of a ship, the stem and its surrounding parts, hence used like “ keel,” by metonymy, of the ship itself. It was in old naval parlance applied to the battery of guns placed in the fore gun-deck. The Fr. proue and cognate forms (Ital. prua, Port. and Span. proa, of which the English is an adaptation) represent Lat. prora, itself adapted from Gr. πρῷρα, formed from πρό, before, in front. From this word must be distinguished an obsolete “prow,” brave, valiant, now only surviving in “prowess,” and representing O. Fr. prou, mod. preux, from the first part of Lat. prodesse, to be profitable; the same source gives “proud.”