1.
President of France
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The President of the French Republic, is the executive head of state of the French Fifth Republic. The powers, functions and duties of prior presidential offices, and their relation with the prime minister, the current President of France is François Hollande, who took office on 15 May 2012. Hollande has announced that he stand down in the upcoming 2017 French presidential election. President Chirac was first elected in 1995 and again in 2002, at that time, there was no limit on the number of terms, so Chirac could have run again, but chose not to. He was succeeded by Nicolas Sarkozy on 16 May 2007, following a further change, the Constitutional law on the Modernisation of the Institutions of the Fifth Republic,2008, a president cannot serve more than two consecutive terms. François Mitterrand and Jacques Chirac are the only Presidents to date who have served a two terms. In order to be admitted as a candidate, potential candidates must receive signed nominations from more than 500 elected officials. These officials must be from at least 30 départements or overseas collectivities, furthermore, each official may nominate only one candidate. There are exactly 45,543 elected officials, including 33,872 mayors, spending and financing of campaigns and political parties are highly regulated. There is a cap on spending, at approximately 20 million euros, if the candidate receives less than 5% of the vote, the government funds €8,000,000 to the party. Advertising on TV is forbidden but official time is given to candidates on public TV, an independent agency regulates election and party financing. After the president is elected, he or she goes through an investiture ceremony called a passation des pouvoirs. The French Fifth Republic is a semi-presidential system, unlike many other European presidents, the French President is quite powerful. The president holds the nations most senior office, and outranks all other politicians, the presidents greatest power is his/her ability to choose the prime minister. When the majority of the Assembly has opposite political views to that of the president, when the majority of the Assembly sides with them, the President can take a more active role and may, in effect, direct government policy. The prime minister is then the choice of the President. This device has been used in recent years by François Mitterrand, Jacques Chirac, since 2002, the mandate of the president and the Assembly are both 5 years and the two elections are close to each other. Therefore, the likelihood of a cohabitation is lower, among the powers of the government, The president promulgates laws
2.
Patrice de MacMahon, Duke of Magenta
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Marshal Marie Esme Patrice Maurice, Count de MacMahon, Duke of Magenta, was a French general and politician, with the distinction of Marshal of France. He served as Chief of State of France from 1873 to 1875 and as the president of the Third Republic. MacMahon won national renown and the presidency on the basis of his actions in the war against the Germans. MacMahon was a devout conservative Catholic, a traditionalist who despised socialism and he took very seriously his duty as the neutral guardian of the Constitution and rejected suggestions of a monarchist coup détat. He also refused to meet with Gambetta, the leader of the Republicans and he moved for a parliamentary system in which the assembly selected the ruling government of the Third Republic, but he also insisted on an upper chamber. He later dissolved the Chamber of Deputies, resulting in public outrage, MacMahon soon resigned and retired to private life. Patrice de MacMahon was born in Sully, in the département of Saône-et-Loire and he was the 16th of 17 children of a family already in the French nobility. His ancestors were part of the Dál gCais and were Lords of Corcu Baiscind in Ireland and they applied for French citizenship in 1749. Patrice de MacMahon was educated at the Lycée Louis-le-Grand and at the Academy of St-Cyr, before commencing regimental duty MacMahon undertook two years of specialized training for the general staff from 1825 to 1827. He was then appointed as a sous-lieutenant to the 4th Hussars and he subsequently served In Algeria as a junior officer with the 20th Regiment of Line Infantry. MacMahon served as aide-de-camp to General Achard, and participated in the occupation of Algiers in 1830 and he stayed in Algeria from 1834–1854, and was wounded during an assault on Constantine in 1837. In December 1841 he was placed in command of a battalion of chasseurs à pied, designated regimental commander of the 2nd Foreign Regiment of the Foreign Legion in 1843, he was promoted to Divisional General in 1852. In the Crimean War, MacMahon distinguished himself in the Battle of Malakoff at Sevastopol, during which he uttered the famous quotation now attributed to him, Jy suis. He was offered the top French Army post after the war but declined, MacMahon was appointed to the French Senate in 1856. MacMahon fought in the Second Italian War of Independence as commander of the Second Corps and he secured the French victory at Magenta and rose to the rank of Maréchal de France while in the field. He was later created Duke of Magenta by Napoléon III as a result, in the Franco-Prussian War MacMahon commanded the I and V French Corps on the Army of the Rhines Southern line. On 4 August 1870 the Prussian 3rd Army attacked the Southern line and they quickly moved on to capture the city of Wörth two days later. After less than a week of fighting, the entire Army of the Rhine Southern line could not withstand the Prussian attacks and retreated west, MacMahon led the 120,000 strong remnants of the Army of the Rhine, reformed as the Army of Châlons, with Napoléon III
3.
University of Paris
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The University of Paris, metonymically known as the Sorbonne, was a university in Paris, France. Emerging around 1150 as an associated with the cathedral school of Notre Dame de Paris. Vast numbers of popes, royalties, scientists and intellectuals were educated at the University of Paris, following the turbulence of the French Revolution, education was suspended in 1793 whereafter its faculties were partly reorganised by Napoleon as the University of France. In 1896, it was renamed again to the University of Paris, in 1970, following the May 1968 events, the university was divided into 13 autonomous universities. Others, like Panthéon-Sorbonne University, chose to be multidisciplinary, in 1150, the future University of Paris was a student-teacher corporation operating as an annex of the Notre-Dame cathedral school. The university had four faculties, Arts, Medicine, Law, the Faculty of Arts was the lowest in rank, but also the largest, as students had to graduate there in order to be admitted to one of the higher faculties. The students were divided into four nationes according to language or regional origin, France, Normandy, Picardy, the last came to be known as the Alemannian nation. Recruitment to each nation was wider than the names might imply, the faculty and nation system of the University of Paris became the model for all later medieval universities. Under the governance of the Church, students wore robes and shaved the tops of their heads in tonsure, students followed the rules and laws of the Church and were not subject to the kings laws or courts. This presented problems for the city of Paris, as students ran wild, students were often very young, entering the school at age 13 or 14 and staying for 6 to 12 years. Three schools were especially famous in Paris, the palatine or palace school, the school of Notre-Dame, the decline of royalty brought about the decline of the first. The other two were ancient but did not have much visibility in the early centuries, the glory of the palatine school doubtless eclipsed theirs, until it completely gave way to them. These two centres were much frequented and many of their masters were esteemed for their learning, the first renowned professor at the school of Ste-Geneviève was Hubold, who lived in the tenth century. Not content with the courses at Liège, he continued his studies at Paris, entered or allied himself with the chapter of Ste-Geneviève, and attracted many pupils via his teaching. Distinguished professors from the school of Notre-Dame in the century include Lambert, disciple of Fulbert of Chartres, Drogo of Paris, Manegold of Germany. Three other men who added prestige to the schools of Notre-Dame and Ste-Geneviève were William of Champeaux, Abélard, humanistic instruction comprised grammar, rhetoric, dialectics, arithmetic, geometry, music, and astronomy. To the higher instruction belonged dogmatic and moral theology, whose source was the Scriptures and it was completed by the study of Canon law. The School of Saint-Victor arose to rival those of Notre-Dame and Ste-Geneviève and it was founded by William of Champeaux when he withdrew to the Abbey of Saint-Victor
4.
French Third Republic
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It came to an end on 10 July 1940. Harsh reparations exacted by the Prussians after the war resulted in the loss of the French regions of Alsace and Lorraine, social upheaval, and the establishment of the Paris Commune. The early governments of the Third Republic considered re-establishing the monarchy, but confusion as to the nature of that monarchy, thus, the Third Republic, which was originally intended as a provisional government, instead became the permanent government of France. The French Constitutional Laws of 1875 defined the composition of the Third Republic and it consisted of a Chamber of Deputies and a Senate to form the legislative branch of government and a president to serve as head of state. The period from the start of World War I to the late 1930s featured sharply polarized politics, Adolphe Thiers called republicanism in the 1870s the form of government that divides France least, however, politics under the Third Republic were sharply polarized. On the left stood Reformist France, heir to the French Revolution, on the right stood conservative France, rooted in the peasantry, the Roman Catholic Church and the army. The Franco-Prussian War of 1870–1871 resulted in the defeat of France, after Napoleons capture by the Prussians at the Battle of Sedan, Parisian deputies led by Léon Gambetta established the Government of National Defence as a provisional government on 4 September 1870. The deputies then selected General Louis-Jules Trochu to serve as its president and this first government of the Third Republic ruled during the Siege of Paris. After the French surrender in January 1871, the provisional Government of National Defence disbanded, French territories occupied by Prussia at this time did not participate. The resulting conservative National Assembly elected Adolphe Thiers as head of a provisional government, due to the revolutionary and left-wing political climate that prevailed in the Parisian population, the right-wing government chose the royal palace of Versailles as its headquarters. The new government negotiated a settlement with the newly proclaimed German Empire. To prompt the Prussians to leave France, the government passed a variety of laws, such as the controversial Law of Maturities. The following repression of the communards would have consequences for the labor movement. The Orléanists supported a descendant of King Louis Philippe I, the cousin of Charles X who replaced him as the French monarch in 1830, his grandson Louis-Philippe, Comte de Paris. The Bonapartists were marginalized due to the defeat of Napoléon III and were unable to advance the candidacy of any member of his family, the Bonaparte family. Legitimists and Orléanists came to a compromise, eventually, whereby the childless Comte de Chambord would be recognised as king, consequently, in 1871 the throne was offered to the Comte de Chambord. Chambord believed the monarchy had to eliminate all traces of the Revolution in order to restore the unity between the monarchy and the nation, which the revolution had sundered apart. Compromise on this was if the nation were to be made whole again
5.
Carom billiards
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In its simplest form, the object of the game is to score points or counts by caroming ones own cue ball off both the opponents cue ball and the object ball on a single shot. The invention as well as the date of origin of carom billiards is somewhat obscure but is thought to be traceable to 18th-century France. There is an array of carom billiards disciplines. Some of the more prevalent today and historically are, straight rail, cushion caroms, balkline, three-cushion billiards, the word carom, which simply means any strike and rebound, was in use in reference to billiards by at least 1779, sometimes spelled carrom. It has been pegged variously as a shortening of the Spanish and Portuguese word carambola, or the French word carambole, which are used to describe the red object ball. Some etymologists have suggested that carambola, in turn, was derived from a yellow-to-orange, tropical Asian fruit also known in Portuguese as a carambola, also known as star fruit. But this may simply be folk etymology, as the fruit bears no resemblance to a billiard ball, in modern French, the word carambolage means successive collision, currently used mainly in reference to carom or cannon shots in billiards, and to multiple-vehicle car crashes). Cloth has been used to cover billiards tables since the 15th century, the predecessor company of the most famous maker of billiard cloth, Iwan Simonis, was formed in 1453. The green color of cloth was chosen to emulate the look of grass. Modern billiard balls are made from highly resilient plastics with a diameter of 61.5 millimetres. They are significantly larger and heavier than their pocket billiards counterparts, the three standard balls in most carom billiards games consist of a completely white cue ball, a second cue ball with typically a red or black dot on it, and a third, red ball. In some sets of balls, however, the cue ball is solid yellow. Both types of sets are permitted in tournament play. Billiard balls have been made many different materials throughout the history of the game, including clay, wood, ivory, plastics. The dominant material from 1627 until the early- to mid-20th century was ivory, the search for a substitute for ivory use was not for environmental concerns but based on economic motivation and fear of danger for elephant hunters. It was in part spurred on by a New York billiard table manufacturer who announced a prize of $10,000 for a substitute material. The first viable substitute was celluloid billiard balls, invented by John Wesley Hyatt in 1868, carom billiard cues have specialized refinements making them different from the typical pool cue with which many people are more familiar. Typical cues are 140–140 cm in length and 470–520 g in weight—lighter for straight rail, the specialization makes the cue significantly stiffer, which aids in handling the larger and heavier billiard balls as compared with pool cues
6.
Vanity Fair (UK magazine)
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The second Vanity Fair was a British weekly magazine published from 1868 to 1914. Subtitled A Weekly Show of Political, Social and Literary Wares, it was founded by Thomas Gibson Bowles, the first issue appeared in London on 7 November 1868. It offered its readership articles on fashion, current events, the theatre, books, social events, Thomas Allinson bought the magazine in 1911 from Frank Harris, by which time it was failing financially. He failed to revive it and the issue of Vanity Fair appeared on 5 February 1914, after which it was merged into Hearth. A full-page, colour lithograph of a celebrity or dignitary appeared in most issues. Subjects included artists, athletes, royalty, statesmen, scientists, authors, actors, soldiers, religious personalities, business people and scholars. More than two thousand of these images appeared, and they are considered the cultural legacy of the magazine
7.
Freemasonry
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The degrees of freemasonry retain the three grades of medieval craft guilds, those of Apprentice, Journeyman or fellow, and Master Mason. These are the degrees offered by Craft Freemasonry, members of these organisations are known as Freemasons or Masons. There are additional degrees, which vary with locality and jurisdiction, the basic, local organisational unit of Freemasonry is the Lodge. The Lodges are usually supervised and governed at the level by a Grand Lodge or Grand Orient. There is no international, worldwide Grand Lodge that supervises all of Freemasonry, each Grand Lodge is independent, modern Freemasonry broadly consists of two main recognition groups. Continental Freemasonry is now the term for the liberal jurisdictions who have removed some, or all. The Masonic Lodge is the organisational unit of Freemasonry. The Lodge meets regularly to conduct the formal business of any small organisation. In addition to business, the meeting may perform a ceremony to confer a Masonic degree or receive a lecture, at the conclusion of the meeting, the Lodge might adjourn for a formal dinner, or festive board, sometimes involving toasting and song. The bulk of Masonic ritual consists of degree ceremonies, candidates for Freemasonry are progressively initiated into Freemasonry, first in the degree of Entered Apprentice. Some time later, in a ceremony, they will be passed to the degree of Fellowcraft. In all of ceremonies, the candidate is entrusted with passwords, signs. Another ceremony is the installation of the Master and officers of the Lodge. In some jurisdictions Installed Master is valued as a separate rank, in other jurisdictions, the grade is not recognised, and no inner ceremony conveys new secrets during the installation of a new Master of the Lodge. Most Lodges have some sort of calendar, allowing Masons. Often coupled with events is the obligation placed on every Mason to contribute to charity. This occurs at both Lodge and Grand Lodge level, Masonic charities contribute to many fields from education to disaster relief. These private local Lodges form the backbone of Freemasonry, and a Freemason will necessarily have been initiated into one of these, there also exist specialist Lodges where Masons meet to celebrate anything from sport to Masonic research
8.
Legion of Honour
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The Legion of Honour, full name National Order of the Legion of Honour, is the highest French order of merit for military and civil merits, established 1802 by Napoléon Bonaparte. The order is divided into five degrees of increasing distinction, Chevalier, Officier, Commandeur, Grand Officier and Grand-Croix. The orders motto is Honneur et Patrie and its seat is the Palais de la Légion dHonneur next to the Musée dOrsay, in the French Revolution, all French orders of chivalry were abolished, and replaced with Weapons of Honour. The Légion however did use the organization of old French orders of chivalry, the badges of the legion also bear a resemblance to the Ordre de Saint-Louis, which also used a red ribbon. Napoleon originally created this to ensure political loyalty, the organization would be used as a facade to give political favours, gifts, and concessions. The Légion was loosely patterned after a Roman legion, with legionaries, officers, commanders, regional cohorts, the highest rank was not a grand cross but a Grand Aigle, a rank that wore all the insignia common to grand crosses. The members were paid, the highest of them extremely generously,5,000 francs to an officier,2,000 francs to a commandeur,1,000 francs to an officier,250 francs to a légionnaire. Napoleon famously declared, You call these baubles, well, it is with baubles that men are led, do you think that you would be able to make men fight by reasoning. That is good only for the scholar in his study, the soldier needs glory, distinctions, rewards. This has been quoted as It is with such baubles that men are led. The order was the first modern order of merit, under the monarchy, such orders were often limited to Roman Catholics, and all knights had to be noblemen. The military decorations were the perks of the officers, the Légion, however, was open to men of all ranks and professions—only merit or bravery counted. The new legionnaire had to be sworn in the Légion and it is noteworthy that all previous orders were crosses or shared a clear Christian background, whereas the Légion is a secular institution. The jewel of the Légion has five arms, in a decree issued on the 10 Pluviôse XIII, a grand decoration was instituted. This decoration, a cross on a sash and a silver star with an eagle, symbol of the Napoleonic Empire, became known as the Grand Aigle. After Napoleon crowned himself Emperor of the French in 1804 and established the Napoleonic nobility in 1808, the title was made hereditary after three generations of grantees. Napoleon had dispensed 15 golden collars of the legion among his family and this collar was abolished in 1815. The Légion dhonneur was prominent and visible in the French Empire, the Emperor always wore it and the fashion of the time allowed for decorations to be worn most of the time
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). . Encyclopædia Britannica. 11 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. p. 585.
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the 