OpenLLM-France/wikimedia huggingface dataset:
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Baker, Sir Richard

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​BAKER, SIR RICHARD (1568–1644/5), author of the Chronicle of the Kings of England and other works, was probably born at Sissinghurst in Kent, and entered Hart Hall, Oxford, as a commoner in 1584. He left the university without taking a degree, studied law in London and afterwards travelled in Europe. In 1593 he was chosen member of parliament for Arundel, in 1594 his university conferred upon him the degree of M.A., and in 1597 he was elected to parliament as the representative of East Grinstead. In 1603 he was knighted by King James I., in 1620 he acted as high sheriff at Oxfordshire where he owned some property, and soon afterwards he married Margaret, daughter of Sir George Mainwaring, of Ightfield, Shropshire. By making himself responsible for some debts of his wife’s family, he was reduced to great poverty, which led to the seizure of his Oxfordshire property in 1625. Quite penniless, he took refuge in the Fleet prison in 1635, and was still in confinement when he died on the 18th of February 1644 (1645). He was buried in the church of St Bride, Fleet Street, London.
During his imprisonment Baker spent his time mainly in writing. His chief work is the Chronicle of the Kings of England from the Time of the Romans’ Government unto the Death of King James (1643, and many subsequent editions). It was translated into Dutch in 1649, and was continued down to 1658 by Edward Phillips, a nephew of John Milton. For many years the Chronicle was extremely popular, but owing to numerous inaccuracies its historical value is very slight. Baker also wrote Cato Variegatus or Catoes Morall Distichs, Translated and Paraphrased by Sir Richard Baker, Knight (London, 1636); Meditations on the Lord’s Prayer (1637); Translation of New Epistles by Moonsieur D’Balzac (1638); Apologie for Laymen’s Writing in Divinity, with a Short Meditation upon the Fall of Lucifer (1641); Motives for Prayer upon the seaven dayes of ye weeke (1642); a translation of Malvezzi’s Discourses upon Cornelius Tacitus (1642), and Theatrum Redivivum, or The Theatre Vindicated, a reply to the Histrio-Mastix of William Prynne (1642). He also wrote Meditations upon several of the psalms of David, which have been collected and edited by A. B. Grosart (London, 1882).
See J. Granger, Biographical History of England to the Revolution (London, 1804); Biographia Britannica, corrected by A. Kippis (London, 1778–1793).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Baker, Henry

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​BAKER, HENRY (1698–1774), English naturalist, was born in London on the 8th of May 1698. After serving an apprenticeship with a bookseller, he devised a system of instructing the deaf and dumb, by the practice of which he made a considerable fortune. It brought him to the notice of Daniel Defoe, whose youngest daughter Sophia he married in 1729. A year before, under the name of Henry Stonecastle, he was associated with Defoe in starting the Universal Spectator and Weekly Journal. In 1740 he was elected fellow of the Society of Antiquaries and of the Royal Society. He contributed many memoirs to the Transactions of the latter society, and in 1744 received the Copley gold medal for microscopical observations on the crystallization of saline particles. He was one of the founders of the Society of Arts in 1754, and for some time acted as its secretary. He died in London on the 25th of November 1774. Among his publications were The Microscope made Easy (1743), Employment for the Microscope (1753), and several volumes of verse, original and translated, including The Universe, a Poem intended to restrain the Pride of Man (1727). His name is perpetuated by the Bakerian lecture of the Royal Society, for the foundation of which he left by will the sum of £100.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Baker, Sir Benjamin

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​BAKER, SIR BENJAMIN (1840–1907), English engineer, was born near Bath in 1840, and, after receiving his early training in a South Wales ironworks, became associated with Sir John Fowler in London. He took part in the construction of the Metropolitan railway (London), and in designing the cylindrical vessel in which Cleopatra’s Needle, now standing on the Thames Embankment, London, was brought over from Egypt to England in 1877–1878. By this time he had already made himself an authority on bridge-construction, and shortly afterwards he was engaged on the work which made his reputation with the general public—the design and erection of the Forth Bridge. On the completion of this undertaking in 1890 he was made K.C.M.G., and in the same year the Royal Society recognized his scientific attainments by electing him one of its fellows. Twelve years later at the formal opening of the Assuan dam, for which he was consulting-engineer, he was created K.C.B. Sir Benjamin Baker, who also had a large share in the introduction of the system widely adopted in London of constructing intra-urban railways in deep tubular tunnels built up of cast iron segments, obtained an extremely large professional practice, ranging over almost every branch of civil engineering, and was more or less directly concerned with most of the great engineering achievements of his day. He was also the author of many papers on engineering subjects. He died at Pangbourne, Berks, on the 19th of May 1907.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Brian

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​BRIAN (926–1014), king of Ireland, known as Brian Boru, Boroma, or Boroimhe (from boroma, an Irish word for tribute), was a son of a certain Kennedy or Cenneide (d. 951). He passed his youth in fighting against the Danes, who were constantly ravaging Munster, the northern part of which district was the home of Brian’s tribe, and won much fame in these encounters. In 976 his brother, Mathgamhain or Mahon, who had become king of Thomond about 951 and afterwards king of Munster, was murdered; Brian avenged this deed, became himself king of Munster in 978, and set out upon his career of conquest. He forced the tribes of Munster and then those of Leinster to own his sovereignty, defeated the Danes, who were established around Dublin, in Wicklow, and marched into Dublin, and after several reverses compelled Malachy (Maelsechlainn), the chief king of Ireland, who ruled in Meath, to bow before him in 1002. Connaught was his next objective. Here and also in Ulster he was successful, everywhere he received hostages and tribute, and he was generally recognized as the ardri, or chief king of Ireland. After a period of comparative quiet Brian was again at war with the Danes of Dublin, and on the 23rd of April 1014 his forces gained a great victory over them at Clontarf. After this battle, however, the old king was slain in his tent, and was buried at Armagh. Brian has enjoyed a great and not undeserved reputation. One of his charters is still preserved in Trinity College, Dublin.
See E. A. D’Alton, History of Ireland, vol. i. (1903).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Briare

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​BRIARE, a town of north-central France in the department of Loiret on the right bank of the Loire, 451/2 m. S.E. of Orléans on the railway to Nevers. Pop. (1906) 4613. Briare, the Brivodorum of the Romans, is situated at the extremity of the Canal of Briare, which unites the Loire and its lateral canal with the Loing and so with the Seine. The canal of Briare was constructed from 1605 to 1642 and is about 36 m. long. The industries include the manufacture of fine pottery, and of so-called porcelain buttons made of felspar and milk by a special process; its inventor, Bapterosses, has a bust in the town. The canal traffic is in wood, iron, coal, building materials, &c. A modern hospital and church, and the hôtel de ville installed in an old moated château, are the chief buildings. The lateral canal of the Loire crosses the Loire near Briare by a fine canal-bridge 720 yds. in length.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Brianza

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​BRIANZA, a district of Lombardy, Italy, forming the south part of the province of Como, between the two southern arms of the lake of that name. It is thickly populated and remarkable for its fertility; and being hilly is a favourite summer resort of the Milanese.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Briareus

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​BRIAREUS, or Aegaeon, in Greek mythology, one of the three hundred-armed, fifty-headed Hecatoncheires, brother of Cottus and Gyges (or Gyes). According to Homer (Iliad i. 403) he was called Aegaeon by men, and Briareus by the gods. He was the son of Poseidon (or Uranus) and Gaea. The legends regarding him and his brothers are various and somewhat contradictory. According to the most widely spread myth, Briareus and his brothers were called by Zeus to his assistance when the Titans were making war upon Olympus. The gigantic enemies were defeated and consigned to Tartarus, at the gates of which the three brothers were placed (Hesiod, Theog. 624, 639, 714). Other accounts make Briareus one of the assailants of Olympus, who, after his defeat, was buried under Mount Aetna (Callimachus, Hymn to Delos, 141). Homer mentions him as assisting Zeus when the other Olympian deities were plotting against the king of gods and men (Iliad i. 398). Another tradition makes him a giant of the sea, ruler of the fabulous Aegaea in Euboea, an enemy of Poseidon and the inventor of warships (Schol. on Apoll. Rhod. i. 1165). It would be difficult to determine exactly what natural phenomena are symbolized by the Hecatoncheires. They may represent the gigantic forces of nature which appear in earthquakes and other convulsions, or the multitudinous motion of the sea waves (Mayer, Die Giganten und Titanen, 1887).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bric à Brac

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​BRIC À BRAC (a French word, formed by a kind of onomatopoeia, meaning a heterogeneous collection of odds and ends; cf. de bric et de broc, corresponding to our “by hook or by crook”; or by reduplication from brack, refuse), objects of “virtu,” a collection of old furniture, china, plate and curiosities.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Briand, Aristide

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​BRIAND, ARISTIDE (1862–), French statesman, was born at Nantes, of a bourgeois family. He studied law, and while still young took to politics, associating himself with the most advanced movements, writing articles for the anarchist journal Le Peuple, and directing the Lanterne for some time. From this he passed to the Petite République, leaving it to found, with Jean Jaurès, L’Humanité. At the same time he was prominent in the movement for the formation of labour unions, and at the congress of working men at Nantes in 1894 he secured the adoption of the labour union idea against the adherents of Jules Guesde. From that time, Briand became one of the leaders of the French Socialist party. In 1902, after several unsuccessful attempts, he was elected deputy. He declared himself a strong partisan of the union of the Left in what is known as the Bloc, in order to check the reactionary deputies of the Right. From the beginning of his career in the chamber of deputies, Briand was occupied with the question of the separation of church and state. He was appointed reporter of the commission charged with the preparation of the law, and his masterly report at once marked him out as one of the coming leaders. He succeeded in carrying his project through with but slight modifications, and without dividing the parties upon whose support he relied. He was the principal author of the law of separation, but, not content with preparing it, he wished to apply it as well, especially as the existing Rouvier ​ministry allowed disturbances to occur during the taking of inventories of church property, a clause of the law for which Briand was not responsible. Consequently he accepted the portfolio of public instruction and worship in the Sarrien ministry (1906). So far as the chamber was concerned his success was complete. But the acceptance of a portfolio in a bourgeois ministry led to his exclusion from the Unified Socialist party (March 1906). As opposed to Jaurès, he contended that the Socialists should co-operate actively with the Radicals in all matters of reform, and not stand aloof to await the complete fulfilment of their ideals.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Briançon

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​BRIANÇON, a strongly fortified town in the department of Hautes-Alpes in S.E. France. It is built at a height of 4334 ft. on a plateau which dominates the junction of the Durance with the Guisane. The town itself is formed of very steep and narrow, though picturesque streets. As it lies at the foot of the descent from the Mont Genèvre Pass, giving access to Turin, a great number of fortifications have been constructed on the heights around Briançon, especially towards the east. The Fort Janus is no less than 4000 ft. above the town. The parish church, with its two towers, was built 1703–1726, and occupies a very conspicuous position. The Pont d’Asfeld, E. of the town, was built in 1734, and forms an arch of 131 ft. span, thrown at a height of 184 ft. across the Durance. The modern town extends in the plain at the S.W. foot of the plateau on which the old town is built and forms the suburb of Ste Catherine, with the railway station, and an important silk-weaving factory. Briançon is 511/2 m. by rail from Gap. The commune had a civil population in 1906 of 4883 (urban population 3130), while the permanent garrison was 2641—in all 7524 inhabitants.
Briançon was the Brigantium of the Romans and formed part of the kingdom of King Cottius. About 1040 it came into the hands of the counts of Albon (later dauphins of the Viennois) and thenceforth shared the fate of the Dauphiné. The Briançonnais included not merely the upper valley of the Durance (with those of its affluents, the Gyronde and the Guil), but also the valley of the Dora Riparia (Césanne, Oulx, Bardonnèche and Exilles), and that of the Chisone (Fénestrelles, Pérouse, Pragelas)—these glens all lying on the eastern slope of the chain of the Alps. But by the treaty of Utrecht (1713) all these valleys were handed over to Savoy in exchange for that of Barcelonnette, on the west slope of the Alps. In 1815 Briançon successfully withstood a siege of three months at the hands of the Allies, a feat which is commemorated by an inscription on one of its gates, Le passé répond de l’avenir.  (W. A. B. C.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Becerra, Gaspar

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​BECERRA, GASPAR (1520–1570), Spanish painter and sculptor, was born at Baéza in Andalusia. He studied at Rome, it is said under Michelangelo, and assisted Vasari in painting the hall of the Concelleria. He also contributed to the anatomical plates of Valverde. After his return to Spain he was extensively employed by Philip II., and decorated many of the rooms in the palace at Madrid with frescoes. He also painted altar-pieces for several of the churches, most of which have been destroyed. His fame as a sculptor almost surpassed that as a painter. His best work was a magnificent figure of the Virgin, which was destroyed during the French war. He became court painter at Madrid in 1563, and played a prominent part in the establishment of the fine arts in Spain.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Beck, Christian Daniel

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​BECK, CHRISTIAN DANIEL (1757–1832), German philologist, historian, theologian and antiquarian, one of the most learned men of his time, was born at Leipzig on the 22nd of January 1757. He studied at Leipzig University, where he was appointed (1785) professor of Greek and Latin literature. This post he resigned in 1819 in order to take up the professorship of history, but resumed it in 1825. He also had the management of the university library, was director of the institute for the deaf and dumb, and filled many educational and municipal offices. In 1784 he founded a philological society, which grew into a philological seminary, superintended by him until his death. In 1808 he was made a Hofrath by the king of Saxony, and in 1820 a knight of the civil order of merit. His philological lectures, in which grammar and criticism were subordinated to history, were largely attended by hearers from all parts of Germany. He died at Leipzig on the 13th of December 1832. He edited a number of classical authors: Pedo Albinovanus (1783), Pindar and the Scholia (1792–1795), Aristophanes (with others, 1794, &c.), ​Euripides (1778–1788), Apollonius Rhodius (1797), Demosthenes De Pace (1799), Plato (1813–1819), Cicero (1795–1807), Titus Calpurnius Siculus (1803). He translated Ferguson’s Fall of the Roman Republic and Goldsmith’s History of Greece, and added two volumes to Bauer’s Thucydides. He also wrote on theological and historical subjects, and edited philological and bibliographical journals. He possessed a large and valuable library of 24,000 volumes.
See Nobbe, Vita C. D. Beckii (1837); and G. Hermann, Opuscula, v. 312.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Beccaria-Bonesana, Cesare

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​BECCARIA-BONESANA, CESARE, Marchese de (1735–1794), Italian publicist, was born at Milan on the 15th of March 1735. He was educated in the Jesuit college at Parma, and showed at first a great aptitude for mathematics. The study of Montesquieu seems to have directed his attention towards economic questions; and his first publication (1762) was a tract on the derangement of the currency in the Milanese states, with a proposal for its remedy. Shortly after, in conjunction with his friends the Verris, he formed a literary society, and began to publish a small journal, in imitation of the Spectator, called Il Caffè. In 1764 he published his brief but justly celebrated treatise Dei Delitti e delle Pene (“On Crimes and Punishments”). The weighty reasonings of this work were expounded with all the additional force of a clear and animated style. It pointed out distinctly and temperately the grounds of the right of punishment, and from these principles deduced certain propositions as to the nature and amount of punishment which should be inflicted for any crime. The book had a surprising success. Within eighteen months it passed through six editions. It was translated into French by Morellet in 1766, and published with an anonymous commentary by Voltaire. An English translation appeared in 1768 and it was translated into several other languages. Many of the reforms in the penal codes of the principal European nations are traceable to Beccaria’s treatise. In November 1768 he was appointed to the chair of law and economy, which had been founded expressly for him at the Palatine college of Milan. His lectures on political economy, which are based on strict utilitarian principles, are in marked accordance with the theories of the English school of economists. They are published in the collection of Italian writers on political economy (Scrittori Classici Italiani di Economia politica., vols. xi. and xii.). In 1771 Beccaria was made a member of the supreme economic council; and in 1791 he was appointed one of the board for the reform of the judicial code. In this post his labours were of very great value. He died at Milan on the 28th of November 1794.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Beccaria, Giovanni Battista

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​BECCARIA, GIOVANNI BATTISTA (1716–1781), Italian physicist, was born at Mondovi on the 3rd of October 1716, and entered the religious order of the Pious Schools in 1732. He became professor of experimental physics, first at Palermo and then at Rome, and was appointed to a similar situation at Turin in 1748. He was afterwards made tutor to the young princes de Chablais and de Carignan, and continued to reside principally at Turin during the remainder of his life. In May 1755 he was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of London, and published several papers on electrical subjects in the Phil. Trans. He died at Turin on the 27th of May 1781. Beccaria did much, in the way both of experiment and exposition, to spread a knowledge of the electrical researches of Franklin and others. His principal work was the treatise Dell’ Elettricismo Naturale ed Artificiale (1753), which was translated into English in 1776.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Beccles

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​BECCLES, a market town and municipal borough, in the Lowestoft parliamentary division of Suffolk, England; on the right bank of the river Waveney, 109 m. N.E. from London by the Great Eastern railway. Pop. (1901) 6898. It has a pleasant, well-wooded site overlooking the flat lands bordering the Waveney. The church of St Michael, wholly Perpendicular, is a fine example of the style, having an ornate south porch of two storeys and a detached bell tower. There are a grammar school (1712), and boys’ school and free school on the foundation of Sir John Leman (1631). Rose Hall, in the vicinity, is a moated manor of brick, of the 16th century. Printing works, malting, brick and tile, and agricultural implement works are the chief industries. Beccles was incorporated in 1584. It is governed by a mayor, 4 aldermen and 12 councillors. Area, 2017 acres.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Beck, David

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​BECK (or Beek), DAVID (1621–1656), Dutch portrait-painter, was born at Arnheim in Guelderland. He was trained by Van Dyck, from whom he acquired the fine manner of pencilling and sweet style of colouring peculiar to that great master. He possessed likewise that freedom of hand and readiness, or rather rapidity of execution, for which Van Dyck was so remarkable, insomuch that when King Charles I. observed the expeditious manner of Beck’s painting, he exclaimed, “Faith! Beck, I believe you could paint riding post.” He was appointed portrait-painter and chamberlain to Queen Christina of Sweden, and he executed portraits of most of the sovereigns of Europe to adorn her gallery. His death at the Hague was suspected of being due to poisoning.