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

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​AQUARIUS (the “Water-bearer” or “Cup-bearer”), in astronomy, the eleventh sign of the zodiac (q.v.), situated between Capricornus and Pisces. Its symbol is ♒︎, representing part of a stream of water, probably in allusion to the fact that when the sun is in this part of the heavens (January, February) the weather is rainy. It is also a constellation mentioned by Eudoxus (4th century B.C.) and Aratus (3rd century B.C.); Ptolemy catalogued forty-five stars, Tycho Brahe forty-one, Hevelius forty-seven. ζ Aquarii is a well-defined binary, having both components of the fourth magnitude; it is probably of long period.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Aquae Cutiliae

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​AQUAE CUTILIAE, a mineral spring in Italy, near the modern Cittaducale, 9 m. E. of Rieti. The lake near it was supposed by classical writers to be the central point of Italy, and was renowned for its floating islands, which, as in other cases, were formed from the partial petrification of plants by the mineral substances contained in the water. Considerable remains of baths may still be seen there they were apparently resorted to by both Vespasian and Titus in their last illnesses, for both died there.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Aquarii

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​AQUARII, a name given to the Christians who substituted water for wine in the Eucharist. They were not a sect, for we find the practice widely in vogue at an early time, even among the orthodox. In Greek they were called Hydroparastatae, or those who offer water. Theodosius, in his persecuting edict of 382, classes them as a special sect with the Manicheans, who also eschewed wine. See Eucharist.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Dame's Violet

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​DAME’S VIOLET, the English name for Hesperis matronalis, a herbaceous plant belonging to the natural order Cruciferae, and closely allied to the wallflower and stock. It has an erect stout leafy stem 2 to 3 ft. high, with irregularly toothed short-stalked leaves and white or lilac flowers, 3/4 in. across, which are scented in the evening (hence the name of the genus, from the Gr. ἕσπερος, evening). The slender pods are constricted between the seeds. The plant is a native of Europe and temperate Asia, and is found in Britain as an escape from gardens, in meadows and plantations.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Damietta

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​DAMIETTA, a town of Lower Egypt, on the eastern (Damietta or Phatnitic) branch of the Nile, about 12 m. above its mouth, and 125 m. N.N.E. of Cairo by rail. Pop. (1907) 29,354. The town is built on the east bank of the river between it and Lake Menzala. Though in general ill-built and partly ruinous, the town possesses some fine mosques, with lofty minarets, public baths and busy bazaars. Along the river-front are many substantial houses furnished with terraces, and with steps leading to the water. Their wooden lattices of saw-work are very graceful. After Cairo and Alexandria, Damietta was for centuries the largest town in Egypt, but the silting up of the entrance to the harbour, the rise of Port Said, and the remarkable development of Alexandria have robbed Damietta of its value as a port. It has still, however, a coasting trade with Syria and the Levant. Ships over 6 ft. draught cannot enter the river, but must anchor in the offing. Lake Menzala yields large supplies of fish, which are dried and salted, and these, with rice, furnish the chief articles of trade.
Damietta is a Levantine corruption of the Coptic name Tamiati, Arabic Dimyāt. The original town was 4 m. nearer the sea than the modern city, and first rose into importance on the decay of Pelusium. When it passed into the hands of the Saracens it became a place of great wealth and commerce, and, as the eastern bulwark of Egypt, was frequently attacked by the crusaders. The most remarkable of these sieges lasted eighteen months, from June 1218 to November 1219, and ended in the capture of the town, which was, however, held but for a brief period. In June 1249 Louis IX. of France occupied Damietta without opposition, but being defeated near Mansura in the February following, and compelled (6th April) to surrender himself prisoner, Damietta was restored to the Moslems as part of the ransom exacted. To prevent further attacks from the sea the Mameluke sultan Bibars blocked up the Phatnitic mouth of the Nile (about 1260), razed old Damietta to the ground, and transferred the inhabitants to the site of the modern town. It continued to be a place of commercial importance for a considerable period, until in fact Port Said gave the eastern part of the Delta a better port. Damietta gives its name to dimity, a kind of striped cloth, for which the place was at one time famous. Cotton and silk goods are still manufactured here.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Damaun

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​DAMAUN or Daman, a town of Portuguese India, capital of the settlement of Damaun, situated on the east side of the entrance of the Gulf of Cambay within the Bombay Presidency. The area of the settlement is 82 sq. m. Pop. (1900) 41,671. The settlement is divided into two parts, Damaun proper, and the larger pargana of Nagar Havili, the two being separated by a narrow strip of British territory. The soil is fertile, and rice, wheat and tobacco are the chief crops. The teak forests are valuable. Weaving is an industry less important than formerly; mats and baskets are manufactured, and deep-sea fishing is an ​important industry. The shipbuilding business at the town of Damaun is important. Early in the 19th century a large transit trade in opium between Karachi and China was carried on at Damaun, but it ceased in 1837, when the British prohibited it after their conquest of Sind. The settlement is administered as a unit, and has a municipal chamber.
Damaun town was sacked and burnt by the Portuguese in 1531. It was subsequently rebuilt, and in 1558 was again taken by the Portuguese, who made a permanent settlement and converted the mosque into a Christian church. From that time it has remained in their hands. The territory of Damaun proper was conquered by the Portuguese in 1559; that of Nagar Havili was ceded to them by the Mahrattas in 1780 in indemnification for piracy.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Damghan

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​DAMGHAN, a town of Persia in the province of Semnan va Damghan, 216 m. from Teheran on the high-road thence to Khorasan, at an elevation of 3770 ft. and in 36° 10′ N., 54° 20′ E. Pop. about 10,000. There are post and telegraph offices, and a great export trade is done in pistachios and almonds, the latter being of the kind called Kaghazi (“of paper”) with very thin shells, famous throughout the country. Damghan was an important city in the middle ages, but only a ruined mosque with a number of massive columns and some fine wood carvings and two minarets of the 11th century remain of that period. Near the city, a few miles south and south-west, are the remains of Hecatompylos, extending from Frat, 16 m. south of Damghan, to near Gúsheh, 20 m. west. Damghan was destroyed by the Afghans in 1723. On an eminence in the western part of the city are the ruins of a large square citadel with a small white-washed building, called Molūd Khaneh (the house of birth), in which Fath Ali Shah was born (1772).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Damiri

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​DAMIRI, the common name of Kamāl ud-Dīn Muhammad ibn Mūsā ud-Damīrī (1344–1405), Arabian writer on canon law and natural history, belonged to one of the two towns called Damīra near Damietta and spent his life in Egypt. Of the Shafi’ite school of law, he became professor of tradition in the Ruknīyya at Cairo, and also at the mosque el-Azhar; in connexion with this work he wrote a commentary on the Minhāj ut-Tālibin of Nawāwi (q.v.). He is, however, better known in the history of literature for his Life of Animals (Hayāt ul-Hayawān), which treats in alphabetic order of 931 animals mentioned in the Koran, the traditions and the poetical and proverbial literature of the Arabs. The work is a compilation from over 500 prose writers and nearly 200 poets. The correct spelling of the names of the animals is given with an explanation of their meanings. The use of the animals in medicine, their lawfulness or unlawfulness as food, their position in folk-lore are the main subjects treated, while occasionally long irrelevant sections on political history are introduced.
The work exists in three forms. The fullest has been published several times in Egypt; a mediate and a short recension exist in manuscript. Several editions have been made at various times of extracts, among them the poetical one by Suyūti (q.v.), which was translated into Latin by A. Ecchelensis (Paris, 1667). Bochartus in his Hierozoicon (1663) used Damīrī’s work. There is a translation of the whole into English by Lieutenant-Colonel Jayakar (Bombay, 1906–1908). (G. W. T.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Damiani, Pietro

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​DAMIANI, PIETRO (c. 1007–1072), one of the most celebrated ecclesiastics of the 11th century, was born at Ravenna, and after a youth spent in hardship and privation, gained some renown as a teacher. About 1035, however, he deserted his secular calling and entered the hermitage of Fonte Avellana, near Gubbio; and winning sound reputation through his piety and his preaching, he became the head of this establishment about 1043. A zealot for monastic and clerical reform, he introduced a more severe discipline, including the practice of flagellation, into the house, which, under his rule, quickly attained celebrity, and became a model for other foundations. Extending the area of his activities, he entered into communication with the emperor Henry III., addressed to Pope Leo IX. in 1049 a writing denouncing the vices of the clergy and entitled Liber Gomorrhianus; and soon became associated with Hildebrand in the work of reform. As a trusted counsellor of a succession of popes he was made cardinal bishop of Ostia, a position which he accepted with some reluctance; and presiding over a council at Milan in 1059, he courageously asserted the authority of Rome over this province, and won a signal victory for the principles which he advocated. He rendered valuable assistance to Pope Alexander II. in his struggle with the anti-pope, Honorius II.; and having served the papacy as legate to France and to Florence, he was allowed to resign his bishopric in 1067. After a period of retirement at Fonte Avellana, he proceeded in 1069 as papal legate to Germany, and persuaded the emperor Henry IV. to give up his intention of divorcing his wife Bertha. During his concluding years he was not altogether in accord with the political ideas of Hildebrand. He died at Faenza on the 22nd of February 1072. Damiani was a determined foe of simony, but his fiercest wrath was directed against the married clergy. He was an extremely vigorous controversialist, and his Latin abounds in denunciatory epithets. He was specially devoted to the Virgin Mary, and wrote an Officium Beatae Virginis, in addition to many letters, sermons, and other writings.
His works were collected by Cardinal Cajetan, and were published in four volumes at Rome (1606–1615), and then at Paris in 1642, at Venice in 1743, and there are other editions. See A. Vogel, Peter Damiani (Jena, 1856); A. Capecelatro, Storia di S. Pier Damiani e del suo tempo (Florence, 1862); F. Neukirch, Das Leben des Peter Damiani (Göttingen, 1875); L. Guerrier, De Petro Damiano (Orleans, 1881); W. von Giesebrecht, Geschichte der deutschen Kaiserzeit ​(Leipzig, 1885–1890); and Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie, Band iv. (Leipzig, 1898).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Damien, Father

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​DAMIEN, FATHER, the name in religion of Joseph de Veuster (1840–1889), Belgian missionary, was born at Tremeloo, near Louvain, on the 3rd of January 1840. He was educated for a business career, but in his eighteenth year entered the Church, joining the Society of the Sacred Heart of Jesus and Mary (also known as the Picpus Congregation), and taking Damien as his name in religion. In October 1863, while he was still in minor orders, he went out as a missionary to the Pacific Islands, taking the place of his brother, who had been prevented by an illness. He reached Honolulu in March 1864, and was ordained priest in Whitsuntide of that year. Struck with the sad condition of the lepers, whom it was the practice of the Hawaian government to deport to the island of Molokai, he conceived an earnest desire to mitigate their lot, and in 1873 volunteered to take spiritual charge of the settlement at Molokai. Here he remained for the rest of his life, with occasional visits to Honolulu, until he became stricken with leprosy in 1885. Besides attending to the spiritual needs of the lepers, he managed, by the labour of his own hands and by appeals to the Hawaian government, to improve materially the water-supply, the dwellings, and the victualling of the settlement. For five years he worked alone; subsequently other resident priests from time to time assisted him. He succumbed to leprosy on the 15th of April 1889. Some ill-considered imputations upon Father Damien by a Presbyterian minister produced a memorable tract by Robert Louis Stevenson (An Open Letter to the Rev. Dr Hyde, 1890).
See also lives by E. Clifford (1889) and Fr. Pamphile (1889). (J. M‘F.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Damiens, Robert François

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​DAMIENS, ROBERT FRANÇOIS (1715–1757), a Frenchman who attained notoriety by his attack on Louis XV. of France in 1757, was born in a village near Arras in 1715, and early enlisted in the army. After his discharge, he became a menial in the college of the Jesuits in Paris, and was dismissed from this as well as from other employments for misconduct, his conduct earning for him the name of Robert le Diable. During the disputes of Clement XI. with the parlement of Paris the mind of Damiens seems to have been excited by the ecclesiastical disorganization which followed the refusal of the clergy to grant the sacraments to the Jansenists and Convulsionnaires; and he appears to have thought that peace would be restored by the death of the king. He, however, asserted, perhaps with truth, that he only intended to frighten the king without wounding him severely. On the 5th of January 1757, as the king was entering his carriage, he rushed forward and stabbed him with a knife, inflicting only a slight wound. He made no attempt to escape, and was at once seized. He was condemned as a regicide, and sentenced to be torn in pieces by horses in the Place de Grève. Before being put to death he was barbarously tortured with red-hot pincers, and molten wax, lead, and boiling oil were poured into his wounds. After his death his house was razed to the ground, his brothers and sisters were ordered to change their names, and his father, wife, and daughter were banished from France.
See Pièces originales et procédures du procès fait à Robert François Damiens (Paris, 1757).
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bestuzhev-Ryumin, Mikhail Petrovich, Count

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​BESTUZHEV-RYUMIN, MIKHAIL PETROVICH, Count (1688–1760), Russian diplomatist, elder brother of the foregoing, was educated at Berlin, and was sent by Peter the Great to represent Russia at Copenhagen in 1705. In 1720 he was appointed resident at London at a time when the English court was greatly inflamed against Peter, who was regarded as a dangerous rival in the Baltic; and Bestuzhev was summarily dismissed for protesting against the lately-formed Anglo-Swedish alliance. On the conclusion of the peace of Nystad in 1721 he was sent as ambassador to the court of Stockholm. His first official act was the signing of a defensive alliance between Russia and Sweden for twelve years, in 1724. He was successively transferred to Warsaw (1726) and to Berlin (1730), but returned to Stockholm in 1732. How far Bestuzhev was concerned in the murder (June 28th, 1739) of the Swedish diplomatic agent Sinclair in Silesia on his journey home from Constantinople, it is difficult to say. It is certain that Bestuzhev sent information to his court of Sinclair’s mission, which was supposed to be hostile to Russia, and even supplied the portrait of the envoy for recognition. The Swedish authorities are unanimous in describing Bestuzhev as the arch-plotter in this miserable affair; yet, while the active agents were banished to Siberia, Bestuzhev was not even censured. The Sinclair murder led ultimately to the Swedish-Russian War of 1741, when Bestuzhev was transferred first to Hamburg and subsequently to Hanover, where he endeavoured to conclude an alliance between Great Britain and Russia. On his return to Russia in 1743, he was made grand marshal, and married Anna, the widow of Paul Yaguzhinsky, Peter the Great’s famous pupil. A few months later his wife was implicated in a bogus conspiracy got up by the French ambassador, the marquis de La Chétardie, to ruin the Bestuzhevs (see Bestuzhev-Ryumin, Alexius), and after a public whipping, had her tongue cut out and was banished to Siberia. Thither Bestuzhev had not the manhood to follow her, but went abroad, and subsequently resumed his diplomatic career. His last and most brilliant mission was to Versailles, shortly after the conclusion of the coalition against Frederick the Great, where he cut a great figure. He died at Paris on the 26th of February 1760.
See Robert Nisbet Bain, The Daughter of Peter the Great (London, 1899); Mikhail Sergyievich, History of Russia (Rus.), vols. xv.-xxii. (2nd ed., St Petersburg, 1897). (R. N. B.)
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Beth-Horon

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​BETH-HORON (“the place of the hollow way”), the name of two neighbouring villages, upper and lower Beth-horon, on the ascent from the coast plain of Palestine to the high tableland of Benjamin, which was until the 16th century the high road from Jerusalem to the sea. The two towns thus played a conspicuous part in Israelitish military history (see Josh. x. 10; 1 Sam. xiii. 18; 1 Kings ix. 17; 1 Macc. iii. 13-24, vii. 39 ff., ix. 50). Josephus (Bell. Jud. ii. 19) tells of the rout of a Roman army under Cestius Gallus in A.D. 66. The Talmud states that many rabbis were born in the place. It is now represented by Beit ʽUr-el-foka and Beit ʽUr-et-tahta.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bessèges

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​BESSÈGES, a town of south-eastern France, in the department of Gard, on the Cèze, 20 m. north of Alais by rail. Pop. (1906) 7662. The town is important for its coal-mines, blast-furnaces and iron-works.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Bestia

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​BESTIA, the name of a family in ancient Rome, of which the following were the most distinguished.
1. Lucius Calpurnius Bestia, Roman tribune of the people in 121 B.C., consul in 111. Having been appointed to the command of the operations against Jugurtha, he at first carried on the campaign energetically, but soon, having been heavily bribed, concluded a disgraceful peace. On his return to Rome he was brought to trial for his conduct and condemned, in spite of the efforts of Marcus Scaurus who, though formerly his legate and equally guilty, was one of the judges. He is probably identical with the Bestia who encouraged the Italians in their revolt, and went into exile (90) to avoid punishment under the law of Q. Varius, whereby those who had secretly or openly aided the Italian allies against Rome were to be brought to trial (Appian, Bell. Civ. i. 37; Val. Max. viii. 6. 4). Both Cicero and Sallust express a high opinion of Bestia’s abilities, but his love of money demoralized him. He is mentioned in a Carthaginian inscription as one of a board of three, perhaps an agricultural commission.
See Sallust, Jugurtha; Cicero, Brutus, xxxiv. 128; for the general history, A. H. J. Greenidge, Hist. of Rome, vol. i. (1904), pp. 346 foll.
2. Lucius Calpurnius Bestia, one of the Catilinarian conspirators, possibly a grandson of the above. He was tribune elect in 63, and it had been arranged that, after entering upon his office, he should publicly accuse Cicero of responsibility for the impending war. This was to be the signal for the outbreak of revolution. The conspiracy, however, was put down and Bestia had to content himself with delivering a violent attack upon the consul on the expiration of his office. This Bestia is probably not the Lucius Calpurnius Bestia, aedile, and a candidate for the praetorship in 57. He was accused of bribery during his candidature, and, in spite of Cicero’s defence, was condemned. In 43 he attached himself to the party of Antony, apparently in the hope of obtaining the consulship.
Sallust, Catiline, xvii. 43; Appian, Bell. Civ. ii. 3; Cicero, Ad Q. Fr. ii. 3, 6.
# 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Best, William Thomas

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​BEST, WILLIAM THOMAS (1826–1897), English organist, the son of a solicitor, was born at Carlisle on the 13th of August 1826. Having decided upon a musical career, he received his first instruction from the cathedral organist. He applied himself especially to Bach’s music, and became a player of great skill. His successive appointments were to Pembroke chapel, Liverpool, 1840; to a church for the blind, 1847, and the Liverpool Philharmonic Society, 1848. For a short time (1854–1855) he was in London at the Panopticon in Leicester Square, the church of St Martin-in-the-Fields, and Lincoln’s Inn chapel. In 1855 he returned to Liverpool as organist of St George’s Hall, where his performances rapidly became famous throughout England. Ill-health compelled him at last to retire in 1894. He was engaged as solo organist at all the Handel festivals at the Crystal Palace, and also as organist at the Albert Hall, where he inaugurated the great organ in 1871. He had been in the receipt of a civil list pension of £100 a year since 1880, and in 1890 went to Australia to give organ recitals in the town hall of Sydney. Best died at Liverpool on the 10th of May 1897.
His command over all the resources of his own instrument was masterly; his series of Saturday recitals at St George’s Hall, carried on for many years, included the whole field of organ music, and of music that could be arranged for the organ, ancient and modern; and his performances of Bach’s organ works were particularly fine. His own compositions for the organ, chiefly comprised in the publication entitled Organ Pieces for Church Use, have a strong and marked individuality. Best, unlike many soloists, was an all-round musician, and fully acquainted with every branch of the art. His bust, by Conrad Dressler, has been placed on the platform in front of the Liverpool organ, as a memorial of his long series of performances there.