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

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​MIQUELETS (Miqueletes or Migueletes) were irregular local troops in Catalonia who derived their name, it is said, from Miguel or Miquelot de Prats, a Catalan mercenary captain in the service of Cesare Borgia. They enjoyed a certain prominence in the minor wars of Spain during the 17th and 18th centuries, and in peace seem to have plundered travellers. In the War of the Spanish Succession (q.v.) the Miquelets continued the struggle against the French claimant until long after the peace. During the Peninsular War they were exceedingly successful in harassing the French invaders in the mountains of Catalonia. Sometimes they even attempted operations in large bodies, as in the operations round Gerona in 1808 and 1809. They were maintained by the several parishes, not by the central or the provincial governments, and as they had to turn out for duty on sound of the village alarm-bell (somaten) they are frequently called somatenes.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mirabeau, André Boniface Louis Riqueti, Vicomte de

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​MIRABEAU, ANDRÉ BONIFACE LOUIS RIQUETI, Vicomte de (1754–1792), brother of the orator Mirabeau, was one of the reactionary leaders at the opening of the French Revolution. Sent to the army in Malta in 1776 he spent part of his two years there in prison for insulting a religious procession. During the War of American Independence he was in several sea-fights with the English, and was at the taking of Yorktown in 1781. In the following year he had two narrow escapes from drowning. In 1789, with his debts paid up by his father, he was elected by the noblesse of Limoges a deputy to the States General. He was a violent Conservative and opposed everything that threatened the old régime. His drunkenness produced a corpulency which brought him the nickname Mirabeau Tonneau (“Barrel Mirabeau”); but he was not lacking in some of that insight which marked his brother. He shared fully in the eccentric family pride; and boasted of his brother’s genius even when bitterly opposing him. He emigrated about 1790, and raised a legion which was to bear his name; but his insolence alienated the German princes, and his command was taken from him. He died in August 1792—of apoplexy or from a duel—in Freiburg im Breisgau. He wrote some verse as well as various pamphlets.
See Joseph Sarrazin, Mirabeau Tonneau, ein Condottiere aus der Revolutionszeit (Leipzig, 1893); and La Révolution française, vols. xxi. and xxiv.; Eugène Berger, Le Vicomte de Mirabeau (Mirabeau Tonneau), 1754–1792 (1904); and for a list of contemporary pamphlets, &c., M. Tourneux, Bibliographie de la ville de Paris . . ., vol. iv. (1906).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Mira de Amescua, Antonio

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​MIRA, DE AMESCUA, ANTONIO (1578?–1636?), Spanish dramatist, was born at Guadix (Granada) about 1578. He is said, but doubtfully, to have been the illegitimate son of one Juana Perez; he took orders, obtained a canonry at Guadix, and settled at Madrid early in the 17th century. He is mentioned as a prominent dramatist in Rojas Villandrando’s Loa (1603), which was written several years before it was published. In 1610, being then arch-dean of Guadix, he accompanied the count de Lemos to Naples, and on his return to Spain was appointed (1619) chaplain to the cardinal Infante Ferdinand of Austria; he is referred to as still alive in Montalbán’s Para todos (1632), and he collaborated with Montalbán and Calderon in Polifemo y Circe, printed in 1634. The date of his death is not known. Mira de Amescua’s plays are dispersed in various printed collections, and the absence of a satisfactory edition has prevented his due recognition. He has an evenness of execution which indicates an artistic conscience uncommon in Spanish playwrights; he resisted the temptation to write too much, and he unites a virile dignity of expression to impressive conception of character.
Two of his plays—La Adversa fortuna de Don Bernado de Cabrera ​and El ejemplo mayor de la desdicha—are respectively the sources of Rotrou’s Don Bernardo de la Cabrère and Belisaire; Moreto’s Caer para levantar is simply a recast of Mira’s El Esclavo del demonio, a celebrated drama which clearly influenced Calderón when composing La Devoción de la cruz; and there is manifestly a close relation between Mira’s La Rueda de la fortuna on the one hand and Corneille’s Héraclius and Calderón’s En esta vida todo es verdad y todo es mentira. A few of Mira de Amescua’s plays are reprinted in the Biblioteca de autores españoles, vol. xlv.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Miot de Mélito, André François, Comte

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​MIOT DE MÉLITO, ANDRÉ FRANÇOIS, Comte (1762–1841), French statesman and scholar, was born at Versailles (Seine-et-Oise) on the 9th of February 1762. He was a high official in the war office before the Revolution, and under the Republic he eventually became secretary-general for foreign affairs. That he was not denounced under the Terror was due to the fact that he was indispensable in his department. In 1795 he was sent as French envoy to Florence; then to Rome, and on ​his return to Florence received orders to proceed to Corsica, which, after its evacuation by the British, was in a state of anarchy. In Corsica he allied himself with Joseph Bonaparte, and after pacifying the island returned to Italy. Recalled by their Dectory in 1798 because of his refusal to foment insurrection in Italy, he Spent some time in retirement, but he was in the diplomatic service in Holland at the revolution of 18. Brumaire (Nov. 9, 1799). Under the consulate he was secretary-general at the ministry of war, and a member of the council of state, and was sent on a second mission (1801–1802) for the pacification of Corsica. In 1806 he joined Joseph Bonaparte in Naples as minister of the interior, afterwards following him to Spain as Comptroller of the household, but he returned to France in the retreat of 1813. Next year he was created comte de Mélito, and during the Hundred Days he served as Commissary extraordinary with the XII. Army division. He took no part in politics after Waterloo, where his son-in-law, General J. B. Jamin, was killed, and his own son mortally wounded. He visited Joseph Bonaparte in America in 1825, and then spent some years in Germany with his daughter, whose second husband, General von Fleischmann, represented the king of Württemberg in Paris in 1831. He was admitted in 1835 to the French Academy on the merits of his translations of Herodotus (Paris, 1822) and Diodorus (Paris, 1835–1838). He died in Paris on the 5th of January 1841.
Miot de Mélito had kept a diary which, arranged for publication by his son-in-law, General von Fleischmann, covers the years from 1788 to 1815, and is of interest for the history of the Bonaparte family and of Joseph’s dominion in Spain. Published in France in 1858, it was translated into English by Mrs C. Hoey and J. Lillie (2 vols., 1881); and also into German (Stuttgart, 1866–1867). See Albert Gaudin, Les Arrêtés Miot (Ajaccio, 1896).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Miraj

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​MIRAJ, a native state of India, in the Deccan division of Bombay, forming part of the southern Mahratta Jagirs. Since 1820 it has been subdivided between a senior and a junior branch. The territory of both is widely scattered among other native states and British districts. Area of the senior branch, 339 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 81,467; revenue £23,000; tribute £800. Area of the junior branch, 211 sq. m.; pop. (1901), 35,806; revenue £27,000, tribute £400. The chiefs are Brahmans of the Patwardhan family. The town of Miraj, at which the chief of the senior branch resides, is situated near the river Kistna; it is a junction of the Southern Mahratta railway for the branch to Kolhapur. Pop. (1901), 18,425. The chief of the junior branch has his residence at Bhudgaon (pop. 3591).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Sunstone

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​SUNSTONE, a felspar exhibiting in certain directions a brilliant spangled appearance, which has led to its use as an ornamental stone. The effect appears to be due to reflections from enclosures of red haematite, in the form of minute scales, which are hexagonal, rhombic or irregular in shape, and are disposed parallel to the principal cleavage-plane. These enclosures give the stone an appearance something like that of aventurine (q.v.), whence sunstone is known also as “ aventurine-felspar.” It is not common, the best-known locality being Tvedestrand, near Arendal, in south Norway, where masses of the sunstone occur embedded in a vein of quartz running through gneiss. It is found also near Lake Baikal, in Siberia, and at several localities in the United States, notably at Middletown, Delaware county, Pennsylvania, and at Statesville in North Carolina. The felspar which usually displays the aventurine appearance is oligoclase (q.v.), but the effect is sometimes seen also in orthoclase (q.v.): hence two kinds of sunstone are distinguished as “ oligoclase sunstone ” and “ orthoclase sunstone.” The latter has been found near Crownpoint and at several other localities in the state of New York, as also at Glen Riddle in Delaware county, Pennsylvania, and at Amelia Court House, Amelia county, Virginia.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Superannuation

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​SUPERANNUATION (formed on the basis of “annual,” “annuity,” from the Late Lat. superannatus, one that has lived beyond the year, super, above, and annus, year, Fr. suranner, to grow very old), properly a disqualification or relief from office or service on account of old age, infirmity, or of passing the limit of age fixed for service, hence the pension or allowance granted in respect of service at the expiry of the term or the retirement (see Pension). Educationally the term is specifically used of the removal of a backward pupil, who would otherwise remain in a class or form below that which his age demands.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Supply

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​SUPPLY (through Fr. from Lat. supplere, to fill up), provision: more particularly the money granted by a legislature to carry on the work of government. In the United Kingdom the granting of supply is the exclusive right of the House of Commons, and is carried out by two committees of the House, one of supply and the other of ways and means (see PARLIA-MENT). In the United States supply originates in the House of Representatives (see UNITED STATES! Appropriation). In Scotland commissioners of supply were officers appointed to assess and collect the land tax offered as supply to the sovereign. Under the Lands Valuation (Scotland) Act 1854 all owners of property of a certain value were qualified as commissioners of supply. Their duties were also enlarged to comprise the general administration of the country, but by the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1889 all their powers and duties were transferred to and vested in the county council. They still meet annually, but transact only formal business.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Supercargo

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​SUPERCARGO, a term in maritime law (adapted from the Span. sobrecargo, one over or in charge of a cargo) for a person employed on board a vessel by the owners of the cargo to manage their trade, sell the merchandise at the ports to which the vessel is sailing, and buy and receive goods for shipment home wards. He has control of the cargo unless expressly or impliedly limited by his contract or agreement. He differs from a factor, who has a fixed place of residence at a port or trading place, by sailing from port to port with the vessel to which he is attached.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Supererogation

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​SUPEREROGATION (Late Lat. supererogatio, payment beyond what is due or asked, from super, beyond, erogare, to pay out, expend, ex, out, rogare, to ask), the performance of more than is asked for, the action of doing more than duty requires. In the theology of the Roman Church, “works of supererogation” are those which are performed beyond what is required by God, thus forming a reserve store of works of merit which can be drawn upon for the dispensation of those whose works fall short of the standard required.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Saltburn by the Sea

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​SALTBURN BY THE SEA, a seaside resort in the Cleveland parliamentary division of the North Riding of Yorkshire, England, 21 m. E. of Middlesbrough by a branch of the North Eastern railway. Pop. of urban district (1901) 2578. A firm sandy beach extends westward to Redcar and the mouth of the Tees, while eastward towards Whitby the cliffs become very fine, Boulby Cliff (666 ft.) being the highest sea cliff in England. Several fishing villages occur along this coast, of which none is more picturesque than Staithes, lying in a steep gully in the cliff. There are brine baths supplied from wells near Middlesbrough, a pier, gardens and promenades. Inland the county is hilly and picturesque, though in part defaced by the Cleveland iron mines.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Salter, John William

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​SALTER, JOHN WILLIAM (1820–1869), English naturalist and palaeontologist, was born on the 15th of December 1820. He was apprenticed in 1835 to James de Carle Sowerby, and was engaged in drawing and engraving the plates for Sowerby's Mineral Conchology, the Supplement to his English Botany, and other Natural History works. In 1842 he was employed for a short time by Sedgwick in arranging the fossils in the Woodwardian Museum at Cambridge, and he accompanied the professor on several geological expeditions (1842–1845) into Wales. In 1846 he was appointed on the staff of the Geological Survey and worked under Edward Forbes until 1854; he was then appointed palaeontologist to the survey and gave his chief attention to the palaeozoic fossils, spending much time in Wales and the border counties. He contributed the palaeontological portion to A. C. Ramsay's Memoir on the Geology of North Wales (1866), assisted Murchison in his work on Siluria (1854 and later editions), and Sedgwick by preparing A Catalogue of the Collection of Cambrian and Silurian Fossils contained in the Geological Museum of the University of Cambridge (1873). Salter prepared several of the Decades of the Geological Survey and became the leading authority on Trilobites, contributing to the Palaeontographical Society four parts of A Monograph of British Trilobites (1864-1867). He resigned his post on the Geological Survey in 1863, and died on the 2nd of August 1869.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Saltillo

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​SALTILLO, a city and the capital of the state of Coahuila, Mexico, about 615 m. by rail N. by W. of the city of Mexico. Pop. (1900) 23,996. Saltillo is on the Mexican National railway and another railway connects it with the important mining and industrial town of Torreon, on the Mexican Central. The city is on the great central plateau of Mexico, about 5200 ft. above sea-level. It has a cool and healthy climate, and is a resort in summer for the people of the tropical coast districts, and in winter for invalids from the north. The city is laid out in regular squares, with shady streets and plazas. The residences are of the Spanish colonial type, with heavy walls and large rooms to insure coolness during the heat of the day. Among its public institutions are a national college, an athenaeum, the Madero Institute with a good library, some fine churches, and the charitable institutions common to all Mexican cities. Saltillo is an active commercial and manufacturing town, and an important railway centre. Its manufactures include cotton and woollen fabrics, knitted goods and flour. The woollen “zarapes” or “ponchos” of Saltillo are among the finest produced in Mexico. There are undeveloped coal deposits in the vicinity.
Saltillo was founded in 1586 as an outpost against the Apache Indians. It became an incorporated city in 1827. In 1824 the capital of the state of Coahuila and Texas was at Saltillo. A partisan controversy removed the seat of government to Monclova in 1833, but it was returned to Saltillo in 1835. The battle of Buena Vista was fought near Saltillo on the 22nd–23rd of February 1847. After leaving San Luis Potosi, President Juarez established his capital at Saltillo for a brief period.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Salta (city)

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​SALTA, a city of Argentina, capital of a province of the same name, and see of a bishopric, on a small tributary (the Arias) of the Pasage, or Juramento, 976 m. by rail N.N.W. of Buenos Aires. Pop. (1904, estimated) 18,000. Salta is built on an open plain 3560 ft. above the sea, nearly enclosed with mountains. The climate is warm and changeable, malarial in summer. The city is laid out regularly, with broad, paved streets and several parks. Some of the more important public buildings face on the plaza mayor. There are no manufactures of importance. Salta was once largely interested in the Bolivian trade, and is still a chief distributing centre for the settlements of the Andean plateau. Near the city is the battlefield where General Belgrano won the first victory from the Spanish forces (1812) in the War of Independence. There is a large mestizo element in the population, and the Spanish element still retains many of the characteristics of its colonial ancestors. In Salta Spanish is still spoken with the long-drawn intonations and melodious “ll” of southern Spain.
Salta was founded in 1582 by Governor Abreu under the title of San Clemente de Nueva Sevilla, but the site was changed two years later and the new settlement was called San Felipe de Lerma. In the 17th century the name Salta came into vogue.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Salta (game)

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​SALTA (Italian for “Jump!”), a table-game for two introduced at the end of the 19th century, founded on the more ancient game of Halma. It is played on a board containing 100 squares, coloured alternately black and white. Each player has a set of 15 pieces, one set being green, the other pink. These are placed upon the black squares of the first three rows nearest the player, and are classified in these rows as stars, moons and suns. The pawns move forward one square at a time, except when a pawn is situated in front of a hostile piece with an unoccupied space on the further side, in which case the hostile pawn must be jumped, as at draughts, but without removing the jumped pawn from the board. The object of the game is to get one’s pieces on the exact squares corresponding to their own on the enemy’s side, the stars in the star-line, the moons in the moon-line, &c. Salta tournaments have taken place in which chess masters of repute participated.
See Salta, by Schubert (Leipzig, 1900).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Salto

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​SALTO, a town and river port of Uruguay and capital of a department of the same name, on the Uruguay river 60 m. above Paysandú. Pop. (1900, estimate) 12,000. It has railway connexion with Montevideo via Paysandú and Rio Negro (394 m.), and with Santa Rosa, on the Brazilian frontier (113 m.). It is also connected with Montevideo and Buenos Aires by river steamers, Salto being at the head of high water navigation for large vessels. There are reefs and rocks in the river between Paysandú and Salto that make navigation dangerous except at high water. Above Salto the river is obstructed by reefs all the way up to the Brazilian frontier, about 95 m., and is navigable for light-draft vessels only at high water. Farther up, the river is freely navigable to Santo Tomé (Argentina)—a distance of about 170 m. Travellers wishing to ascend the river above Salto usually cross to Concordia, Entre Rios, and go up by railway to Ceibo, near Monte Caseros, from which point small Steamers ascend to Uruguayana, Itaqui, and other river ports. The streets of Salto are well paved and lighted with electricity, and there are some good public buildings. The town has two meat-curing establishments (saladeros) and is the shipping port for north-western Uruguay and, to some extent, for western Rio Grande do Sul (Brazil). Behind Salto lies a rich, undulating grazing country, whose large herds supply its chief exports.
The department of Salto—area, 4866 sq. m., pop. (1900) 40,589, (1907, estimate) 53,154—is an undulating, well-watered region occupying the north-west angle of Uruguay. Its industries are almost exclusively pastoral. About one-third of its population are foreigners, chiefly Brazilians.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Saltykov, Michael Evgrafovich

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​SALTYKOV (STCHEDRIN), MICHAEL EVGRAFOVICH (1826–1889), Russian satirist, was born on his father's estate in the province of Tula, 15th (27th) January 1826. His early education was completely neglected, and his youth, owing to the severity and the domestic quarrels of his parents, was full of the most melancholy experiences. Left entirely to himself, he developed a love for reading; but the only book in his father's house was the Bible, which he studied with deep attention. At ten years of age he entered the Moscow Institute for the sons of the nobility, and subsequently the Lyceum at St Petersburg, where Prince Lobánov Rostofski, afterwards minister for foreign aliairs, was one of his schoolfellows. While there he published poetry, and translations of some of the works of Byron and Heine; and on leaving the Lyceum he obtained employment as a clerk in the Ministry of War. In 1884 he published Zaputennoye Dyelo (“ A Complicated Affair ”), which, in view of the revolutionary movements at that time in France and Germany, was the cause of his banishment to Vyatka, where he spent eight years as a minor government official. This experience enabled him to study the life and habits of civil servants in the interior, and to give a clever picture of Russian provincial officials in his Gubernskie Otcherki (“ Provincial Sketches ”). On his return to St Petersburg as he was quickly promoted to administrative posts of considerable importance. After making a report on the condition of the Russian police, he was appointed deputy governor, first of Ryazan and then of Tver. His predilection for literary work induced him to leave the government service, but pecuniary difficulties soon compelled him to re-enter it, and in 1864 he was appointed president of the local boards of taxation successively at Penza, Tula and Ryazan. In 1868 he finally quitted the civil service. Subsequently he wrote his principal works, namely, Poshekhonskaya Starina (“ The Old Times of Poshekhona ”), which possesses a certain autobiographical interest; Istoria odnavo Goroda (“ The History of a Town ”); A Satirical History of Russia; Messieurs et Mesdames Pompadours; and Messieurs Golovloff. At one time, after the death of the poet Nekrasov, he acted as editor of a leading Russian magazine, the Contemporary. He died in St Petersburg on the 30th of April (12th May) 1889. (G. D.)