1.
Charles Le Brun
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Charles Le Brun was a French painter and art theorist. Declared by Louis XIV the greatest French artist of all time, he was a dominant figure in 17th-century French art, born in Paris, he attracted the notice of Chancellor Séguier, who placed him at the age of eleven in the studio of Simon Vouet. He was also a pupil of François Perrier, in Rome he remained four years in the receipt of a pension due to the liberality of the chancellor. There he worked under Poussin, adapting the latters theories of art, on his return to Paris in 1646, Le Brun found numerous patrons, of whom Superintendent Fouquet was the most important, for whom he painted a large portrait of Anne of Austria. Employed at Vaux-le-Vicomte, Le Brun ingratiated himself with Mazarin, then secretly pitting Colbert against Fouquet, Colbert also promptly recognized Le Bruns powers of organization, and attached him to his interests. Together they took control of the Academy of Painting and Sculpture, and the Academy of France at Rome, another project Le Brun worked on was Hôtel Lambert. The ceiling in the gallery of Hercules was painted by him, Le Brun started work on the project in 1650, shortly after his return from Italy. The decoration continued intermittently over twelve years or so, as it was interrupted by the renovation of Vaux le Vicomte. In 1660 they established the Gobelins, which at first was a school for the manufacture, not of tapestries only. He was the originator of Louis XIV Style and gave a direction to the national tendencies which endured centuries after his death, the King had declared him the greatest French artist of all time. From this date all that was done in the palaces was directed by Le Brun. In 1663, he director of the Académie royale de peinture et de sculpture. While he was working on The Battles, Le Bruns style became more personal as he moved away from the ancient masters that influenced him. Le Bruns decoration is not only a work of art, it is the monument of a reign. This contributed to the illness which on 22 February 1690 ended in his death in his private mansion, Le Brun primarily worked for King Louis XIV, for whom he executed large altarpieces and battle pieces. His most important paintings are at Versailles, besides his gigantic labours at Versailles and the Louvre, the number of his works for religious corporations and private patrons is enormous. Le Brun was also a fine portraitist and an excellent draughtsman, but he was not fond of portrait or landscape painting, what mattered was scholarly composition, whose ultimate goal was to nourish the spirit. For Le Brun, a painting represented a story one could read, nearly all his compositions have been reproduced by celebrated engravers
2.
Paris
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Paris is the capital and most populous city of France. It has an area of 105 square kilometres and a population of 2,229,621 in 2013 within its administrative limits, the agglomeration has grown well beyond the citys administrative limits. By the 17th century, Paris was one of Europes major centres of finance, commerce, fashion, science, and the arts, and it retains that position still today. The aire urbaine de Paris, a measure of area, spans most of the Île-de-France region and has a population of 12,405,426. It is therefore the second largest metropolitan area in the European Union after London, the Metropole of Grand Paris was created in 2016, combining the commune and its nearest suburbs into a single area for economic and environmental co-operation. Grand Paris covers 814 square kilometres and has a population of 7 million persons, the Paris Region had a GDP of €624 billion in 2012, accounting for 30.0 percent of the GDP of France and ranking it as one of the wealthiest regions in Europe. The city is also a rail, highway, and air-transport hub served by two international airports, Paris-Charles de Gaulle and Paris-Orly. Opened in 1900, the subway system, the Paris Métro. It is the second busiest metro system in Europe after Moscow Metro, notably, Paris Gare du Nord is the busiest railway station in the world outside of Japan, with 262 millions passengers in 2015. In 2015, Paris received 22.2 million visitors, making it one of the top tourist destinations. The association football club Paris Saint-Germain and the rugby union club Stade Français are based in Paris, the 80, 000-seat Stade de France, built for the 1998 FIFA World Cup, is located just north of Paris in the neighbouring commune of Saint-Denis. Paris hosts the annual French Open Grand Slam tennis tournament on the red clay of Roland Garros, Paris hosted the 1900 and 1924 Summer Olympics and is bidding to host the 2024 Summer Olympics. The name Paris is derived from its inhabitants, the Celtic Parisii tribe. Thus, though written the same, the name is not related to the Paris of Greek mythology. In the 1860s, the boulevards and streets of Paris were illuminated by 56,000 gas lamps, since the late 19th century, Paris has also been known as Panam in French slang. Inhabitants are known in English as Parisians and in French as Parisiens and they are also pejoratively called Parigots. The Parisii, a sub-tribe of the Celtic Senones, inhabited the Paris area from around the middle of the 3rd century BC. One of the areas major north-south trade routes crossed the Seine on the île de la Cité, this place of land and water trade routes gradually became a town
3.
Pignerol
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Pinerolo is a town and comune in Piedmont, northwestern Italy,50 kilometres southwest of Turin on the river Chisone. The Lemina torrent has its source at the boundary between Pinerolo and San Pietro Val di Lemina, the town of Pinerolo was one of the main crossroads in Italy, and was therefore one of the principal fortresses of the dukes of Savoy. Its military importance was the origin of the military school that still exists today. The fortress of Fenestrelle is nearby, later Pinerolo was ruled by the abbot nullius of Pinerolo who ran the abbey of Abbadia Alpina, even after the city had established itself as a municipality under the government of Thomas II of Savoy. From 1235, Amadeus IV of Savoy exercised over the town a kind of protectorate which became absolute in 1243, when French troops invaded Piedmont, Pinerolo was conquered and it remained under their control until 1574. With the treaty of Cherasco it again fell to France, the 2011 Tour de France featured a stage in the area. It is around Pinerolo that revolves the economy of the waldensian valleys, several industries have their base in this area, particularly mechanical, paper making, chemical and textile industries, and also absorb manpower from the nearby centres. Moreover, Pinerolo is the center of the surrounding mountain area. The agriculture and the breeding of the livestock are conducted with advanced techniques, the Man in the Iron Mask was imprisoned in Pinerolo starting from 1669. The venue Pinerolo Palaghiaccio hosted curling events at the 2006 Winter Olympics, the Uruguayan football team Peñarol takes its name from the Montevideo neighbourhood of Peñarol, which in turn takes its name from this town. Gap, France, since 1963 Traunstein, Germany, since 1986 San Francisco, Argentina, since 1996 Derventa, Bosnia and Herzegovina, since 2005 Diocese of Pinerolo
4.
France
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France, officially the French Republic, is a country with territory in western Europe and several overseas regions and territories. The European, or metropolitan, area of France extends from the Mediterranean Sea to the English Channel and the North Sea, Overseas France include French Guiana on the South American continent and several island territories in the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans. France spans 643,801 square kilometres and had a population of almost 67 million people as of January 2017. It is a unitary republic with the capital in Paris. Other major urban centres include Marseille, Lyon, Lille, Nice, Toulouse, during the Iron Age, what is now metropolitan France was inhabited by the Gauls, a Celtic people. The area was annexed in 51 BC by Rome, which held Gaul until 486, France emerged as a major European power in the Late Middle Ages, with its victory in the Hundred Years War strengthening state-building and political centralisation. During the Renaissance, French culture flourished and a colonial empire was established. The 16th century was dominated by civil wars between Catholics and Protestants. France became Europes dominant cultural, political, and military power under Louis XIV, in the 19th century Napoleon took power and established the First French Empire, whose subsequent Napoleonic Wars shaped the course of continental Europe. Following the collapse of the Empire, France endured a succession of governments culminating with the establishment of the French Third Republic in 1870. Following liberation in 1944, a Fourth Republic was established and later dissolved in the course of the Algerian War, the Fifth Republic, led by Charles de Gaulle, was formed in 1958 and remains to this day. Algeria and nearly all the colonies became independent in the 1960s with minimal controversy and typically retained close economic. France has long been a centre of art, science. It hosts Europes fourth-largest number of cultural UNESCO World Heritage Sites and receives around 83 million foreign tourists annually, France is a developed country with the worlds sixth-largest economy by nominal GDP and ninth-largest by purchasing power parity. In terms of household wealth, it ranks fourth in the world. France performs well in international rankings of education, health care, life expectancy, France remains a great power in the world, being one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council with the power to veto and an official nuclear-weapon state. It is a member state of the European Union and the Eurozone. It is also a member of the Group of 7, North Atlantic Treaty Organization, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, the World Trade Organization, originally applied to the whole Frankish Empire, the name France comes from the Latin Francia, or country of the Franks
5.
Superintendent of Finances
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The Superintendent of Finances was the name of the minister in charge of finances in France from 1561 to 1661. The position was abolished in 1661 with the downfall of Nicolas Fouquet, and a new position was created, together they were often referred to as Messieurs des finances. The four members of each board were divided by geographical circumscriptions, the double-board was assisted in its work by four contrôleurs généraux. Before 1523-24, the Kings Council had very little say on the day-to-day running of the double-boards. With the increased role of the Kings Council in financial matters, although there was no official Minister of Finances in this period, certain individuals exerted an equivalent administrative role. The position grew out of the positions of Intendants of Finances, at the time, three Intendants of Finances were named, and one of them would also participate in the Privy Counsel, thus the designation superintendent. In 1561, the fell to two individuals, Artus de Cossé-Brissac and the comte de Chaulnes. In 1567, Cossé was promoted to maréchal de France, he resigned his post in favor of René de Birague, in 1570, the position was assumed by the Conseil royal des finances. Henry III suppressed the Conseil royal des finances in 1574 and named a superintendent, Henry IV replaced the superintendent with a counsel. In this way, the position appeared intermittently, its tied to that of the Conseil des finances. On 5 September 1661, Nicolas Fouquet was arrested for financial misdealings, bernard Barbiche, Les Institutions de la monarchie française à lépoque moderne, Paris, PUF, collection Premier Cycle,1999. Daniel Dessert, Argent, pouvoir et société au grand siècle, Paris, arlette Jouanna, Philippe Hamon, Dominique Biloghi, Guy Le Thiec, Finances, La France de la Renaissance, Histoire et Dictionnaire, Paris, Laffont,2001
6.
Louis XIV of France
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Louis XIV, known as Louis the Great or the Sun King, was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France and Navarre from 1643 until his death in 1715. His reign of 72 years and 110 days is the longest of any monarch of a country in European history. In the age of absolutism in Europe, Louis XIVs France was a leader in the centralization of power. Louis began his rule of France in 1661, after the death of his chief minister. By these means he became one of the most powerful French monarchs, under his rule, the Edict of Nantes, which granted rights to Huguenots, was abolished. The revocation effectively forced Huguenots to emigrate or convert in a wave of dragonnades, which managed to virtually destroy the French Protestant minority. During Louis reign, France was the leading European power, and it fought three wars, the Franco-Dutch War, the War of the League of Augsburg. There were also two lesser conflicts, the War of Devolution and the War of the Reunions, warfare defined Louis XIVs foreign policies, and his personality shaped his approach. Impelled by a mix of commerce, revenge, and pique, in peacetime he concentrated on preparing for the next war. He taught his diplomats their job was to create tactical and strategic advantages for the French military, Louis XIV was born on 5 September 1638 in the Château de Saint-Germain-en-Laye, to Louis XIII and Anne of Austria. He was named Louis Dieudonné and bore the title of French heirs apparent. At the time of his birth, his parents had married for 23 years. His mother had experienced four stillbirths between 1619 and 1631, leading contemporaries thus regarded him as a divine gift and his birth a miracle of God. Sensing imminent death, Louis XIII decided to put his affairs in order in the spring of 1643, in defiance of custom, which would have made Queen Anne the sole Regent of France, the king decreed that a regency council would rule on his sons behalf. His lack of faith in Queen Annes political abilities was his primary rationale and he did, however, make the concession of appointing her head of the council. Louis relationship with his mother was uncommonly affectionate for the time, contemporaries and eyewitnesses claimed that the Queen would spend all her time with Louis. Both were greatly interested in food and theatre, and it is likely that Louis developed these interests through his close relationship with his mother. This long-lasting and loving relationship can be evidenced by excerpts in Louis journal entries, such as, but attachments formed later by shared qualities of the spirit are far more difficult to break than those formed merely by blood
7.
Noblesse de robe
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Under the Old Regime of France, the Nobles of the Robe or Nobles of the Gown were French aristocrats whose rank came from holding certain judicial or administrative posts. As a rule, the positions did not of themselves give the holder a title of nobility, such as baron, count, or duke, the offices were often hereditary, and by 1789, most had inherited their positions. The most influential of them were the 1,100 members of the 13 parlements, together with the older nobility, the Nobles of the Robe made up the Second Estate in pre-revolutionary France. Because these nobles, especially the judges, had studied at a university they were called Nobles of the Robe after the robes or gowns scholars wore. Originally given out as rewards for services to the king, the offices became venal and this practice became official with the edict of la Paulette, the Paulette being the tax paid by the holder to keep the office hereditary. As hereditary offices, they were passed from father to son creating a class consciousness. Nobles of the Robe were often considered by Nobles of the Sword to be of inferior rank because their status was not derived from military service and/or land ownership. The elite Nobles of the Robe, such as the members of the parlements, originally, the offices within the Nobles of the Robe were relatively accessible due to their venal nature. In the 17th century, the office of councillor in the Parlement sold for 100,000 livres, by the mid-18th century, its value was reduced to half, due to the proliferation of offices. However, after the 17th century the descendants of those who had earned the rank as a reward for services to the monarchy fought to limit access to the class. The Nobles of the Robe protested heavily when the monarchy, in desperate need of money, a common family strategy was to designate a second or third son to enter the church while the elder sons pursued a career in the robe or the military. Access to nobility through a judiciary office hence became practically barred in the 18th century, but there existed other offices for sale, a secrétaire-conseiller du roi acquired first-degree nobility immediately, and hereditary nobility after 20 years. The office was not cheap, but it was a sinecure, with no preconditions, real nobility looked down on it as a savonette à vilain. Antoine Crozat, having become wealthy, but a mere son of peasants. In some parts of France, the new baron or vicomte must be registered by the Estates, Nobles of the Robe played key roles in the French Enlightenment. The most famous, Montesquieu, was one of the earliest Enlightenment figures, during the French Revolution, the Nobles of the Robe lost their place when the parlements and lower courts were abolished in 1790
8.
Society of Jesus
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The Society of Jesus Latin, Societas Iesu, S. J. SJ or SI) is a religious congregation of the Catholic Church which originated in Spain. The society is engaged in evangelization and apostolic ministry in 112 nations on six continents, Jesuits work in education, intellectual research, and cultural pursuits. Jesuits also give retreats, minister in hospitals and parishes, and promote social justice, Ignatius of Loyola founded the society after being wounded in battle and experiencing a religious conversion. He composed the Spiritual Exercises to help others follow the teachings of Jesus Christ, ignatiuss plan of the orders organization was approved by Pope Paul III in 1540 by a bull containing the Formula of the Institute. Ignatius was a nobleman who had a background, and the members of the society were supposed to accept orders anywhere in the world. The Society participated in the Counter-Reformation and, later, in the implementation of the Second Vatican Council, the Society of Jesus is consecrated under the patronage of Madonna Della Strada, a title of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and it is led by a Superior General. The Society of Jesus on October 3,2016 announced that Superior General Adolfo Nicolás resignation was officially accepted, on October 14, the 36th General Congregation of the Society of Jesus elected Father Arturo Sosa as its thirty-first Superior General. The headquarters of the society, its General Curia, is in Rome, the historic curia of St. Ignatius is now part of the Collegio del Gesù attached to the Church of the Gesù, the Jesuit Mother Church. In 2013, Jorge Mario Bergoglio became the first Jesuit Pope, the Jesuits today form the largest single religious order of priests and brothers in the Catholic Church. As of 1 January 2015, Jesuits numbered 16,740,11,986 clerics regular,2,733 scholastics,1,268 brothers and 753 novices. In 2012, Mark Raper S. J. wrote, Our numbers have been in decline for the last 40 years—from over 30,000 in the 1960s to fewer than 18,000 today. The steep declines in Europe and North America and consistent decline in Latin America have not been offset by the significant increase in South Asia, the Society is divided into 83 Provinces with six Independent Regions and ten Dependent Regions. On 1 January 2007, members served in 112 nations on six continents with the largest number in India and their average age was 57.3 years,63.4 years for priests,29.9 years for scholastics, and 65.5 years for brothers. The current Superior General of the Jesuits is Arturo Sosa, the Society is characterized by its ministries in the fields of missionary work, human rights, social justice and, most notably, higher education. It operates colleges and universities in countries around the world and is particularly active in the Philippines. In the United States it maintains 28 colleges and universities and 58 high schools and he ensured that his formula was contained in two papal bulls signed by Pope Paul III in 1540 and by Pope Julius III in 1550. The formula expressed the nature, spirituality, community life and apostolate of the new religious order, the meeting is now commemorated in the Martyrium of Saint Denis, Montmartre
9.
Parlement
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A parlement was a provincial appellate court in the France of the Ancien Régime, i. e. before the French Revolution. In 1789,13 parlements existed, the most important of which was by far the Parlement of Paris, while the English word parliament derives from this French term, parlements were not legislative bodies. They consisted of a dozen or more judges, or about 1,100 judges nationwide. They were the court of appeal of the judicial system. Laws and edicts issued by the Crown were not official in their respective jurisdictions until the parlements gave their assent by publishing them, the members were aristocrats called nobles of the gown who had bought or inherited their offices, and were independent of the King. From 1770 to 1774 the Lord Chancellor, Maupeou, tried to abolish the Parlement of Paris in order to strengthen the Crown, however, when King Louis XV died in 1774, the parlements were reinstated. The parlements spearheaded the resistance to the absolutism and centralization of the Crown, but they worked primarily for the benefit of their own class. Alfred Cobban argues that the parlements were the obstacles to any reform before the Revolution. In November 1789, early in the French Revolution, all parlements were suspended, the political institutions of the Parlement in Ancien Régime France developed out of the Kings Council, and consequently enjoyed ancient, customary consultative and deliberative prerogatives. In the 13th century, the parlements acquired judicial functions, then the droit de remontrance against the king, the Paris parlements jurisdiction covered the entire kingdom as it was in the 14th century, but did not automatically advance in step with the Crowns ever expanding realm. The Parlement of Paris played a role in stimulating the nobility to resist the expansion of royal power by military force in the Fronde. In the end, the King won out and the nobility was humiliated, in such a case, the parlements powers were suspended for the duration of this royal session. King Louis XIV moved to centralize authority into his own hands, in 1665, he ordained that a Lit de justice could be held without the king having to appear in person. In 1667, he limited the number of remonstrances to only one, in 1671–1673, however, the parlements resisted the taxes occasioned by the Dutch War. In 1673, the king imposed additional restrictions that stripped the parlements of any influence upon new laws by ordaining that remonstrances could only be issued after registration of the edicts. After Louis death in 1715, all the restrictions were discontinued by the regent and these locations were provincial capitals of those provinces with strong historical traditions of independence before they were annexed to France. Nevertheless, the Parlement of Paris had the largest jurisdiction of all the parlements, covering the part of northern and central France. In some regions provincial States-General also continued to meet and legislate with a measure of self-governance, tenure on the court was generally bought from the royal authority, and such positions could be made hereditary by payment of a tax to the King called la Paulette
10.
Cardinal Mazarin
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Mazarin succeeded his mentor, Cardinal Richelieu. He was a collector of art and jewels, particularly diamonds. His personal library was the origin of the Bibliothèque Mazarine in Paris, some of these principles, such as the nation states sovereignty over its territory and domestic affairs and the legal equality among states, remain the basis of international law to this day. Giulio Raimondo Mazzarino was born in Pescina, then part of the Kingdom of Naples, giulio was the older brother of Michele Mazzarino, Master of the Sacred Palace under Pope Urban VIII, and later Archbishop of Aix-en-Provence and a cardinal. Contemporary John Bargrave suggested that his father Pietro Mazzarini had lost a significant amount of money during a transaction and was forced to flee to Rome. Regardless, Pietro was a notary who made use of his connections to the Colonna once he arrived in Rome and became chamberlain to the Constable Filippo I Colonna and he had a younger sister, Laura Margherita Mazzarini. Mazarin studied at the Jesuit College in Rome, though he declined to join their order, at seventeen he accompanied Girolamo Colonna, one of the sons of Filippo I Colonna, to the university of Alcalá de Henares in Spain, to serve as his chamberlain. His stay was brief, a notary who had advanced some cash to cover gaming debts urged the charming and personable young Mazarino to take his daughter as bride, with a substantial dowry. Later Mazarin frequented the University of Rome La Sapienza, gaining the title of Doctor in jurisprudence, Mazarin followed Filippo I Colonna as captain of infantry in his regiment during the war in Monferrato of 1628, over the succession to Mantua. During this war he gave proofs of much ability, and Pope Urban VIII entrusted him, in 1629. At the time Anna Colonna, daughter of Filippo I Colonna, was married to Urbans nephew Taddeo Barberini, and the Pope now made her brother, Girolamo Colonna, Archbishop of Albano and a new cardinal. The Cardinal was sent to Monferrat as papal legate, to treat of peace between France and Spain in the matter of Mantua, and insisted that Mazarin be attached to his legation as secretary. As papal vice-legate at Avignon, and nuncio extraordinary in France, under Habsburg pressure, Mazarin was sent back to Avignon, where he was dismissed by Urban VIII on 17 January 1636. Richelieu, who felt the weight of his years, though he was as assiduous in the Kings service as ever, detected in Mazarin a likely aide in carrying on government. He confided to the man several sensitive missions, in which Mazarin acquitted himself well, then presented him to the King. He attributed his winnings to the Queens presence, and in thanks, the Queen demurred, Mazarin pressed, and she accepted. Several days later, Mazarin quietly received a deal more than he had given. Thus he was affirmed in the favour of the King, the court and above all of Anne of Austria, who would soon be regent
11.
Jean-Baptiste Colbert
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Jean-Baptiste Colbert was a French politician who served as the Minister of Finances of France from 1665 to 1683 under the rule of King Louis XIV. His relentless hard work and thrift made him an esteemed minister and he achieved a reputation for his work of improving the state of French manufacturing and bringing the economy back from the brink of bankruptcy. Historians note that, despite Colberts efforts, France actually became increasingly impoverished because of the Kings excessive spending on wars, Colbert worked to create a favourable balance of trade and increase Frances colonial holdings. He also founded royal tapestry works at Gobelins and supported those at Beauvais, Colbert worked to develop the domestic economy by raising tariffs and by encouraging major public works projects. Colbert also worked to ensure that the French East India Company had access to markets, so that they could always obtain coffee, cotton, dyewoods, fur, pepper. In addition, Colbert founded the French merchant marine, Colbert issued more than 150 edicts to regulate the guilds. One such law had the intention of improving the quality of cloth, the edict declared that if the authorities found a merchants cloth unsatisfactory on three separate occasions, they were to tie him to a post with the cloth attached to him. Colberts father and grandfather operated as merchants in his birthplace of Reims and he claimed to have Scottish ancestry. A general belief exists that he spent his youth at a Jesuit college, working for a Parisian banker. Before the age of 20, Colbert had a post in the war office, Colbert spent some time as an inspector of troops, eventually becoming the personal secretary of Le Tellier. In 1647, through means, Colbert acquired the confiscated goods of an uncle. In 1648, he and his wife Marie Charron, received 40,000 crowns from an unknown source, in 1657, he purchased the Barony of Seignelay. Colbert was recommended to King Louis XIV by Mazarin, while Cardinal Mazarin was in exile, Louis trust in Colbert grew. In 1652 Colbert was asked to manage the affairs of the Cardinal while he was away and this new responsibility would detach Colbert from his other responsibility as commissaire des guerres. Although Colbert was not a supporter of Mazarin in principle, he would defend the cardinals interests with unflagging devotion. Colberts earliest recorded attempt at tax reform came in the form of a mémoire to Mazarin, showing that of the taxes paid by the people, the paper also contained an attack upon the Superintendent Fouquet. The postmaster of Paris, a spy of Fouquets, read the letter, in 1661, Mazarin died and Colbert made sure of the Kings favour by revealing the location of some of Mazarins hidden wealth. In short, Colbert acquired power in every department except that of war, a great financial and fiscal reform at once claimed all his energies
12.
Vaux-le-Vicomte
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The Château de Vaux-le-Vicomte is a baroque French château located in Maincy, near Melun,55 kilometres southeast of Paris in the Seine-et-Marne département of France. At Vaux-le-Vicomte, the architect Louis Le Vau, the landscape architect André le Nôtre, and their collaboration marked the beginning of the Louis XIV style combining architecture, interior design and landscape design. The gardens pronounced visual axis is an example of this style, Fouquet was an avid patron of the arts, attracting many artists with his generosity. When Fouquet became King Louis XIVs superintendent of finances in 1657, he commissioned Le Vau, Le Brun and Le Nôtre to renovate his estate, fouquet’s artistic and cultivated personality subsequently brought out the best in the three. To secure the necessary grounds for the plans for Vaux-le-Vicomte’s garden and castle. The displaced villagers were employed in the upkeep and maintenance of the gardens. It was said to have employed 18 thousand workers and cost as much as 16 million livres, the château and its patron became for a short time a focus for fine feasts, literature and arts. The poet Jean de La Fontaine and the playwright Molière were among the close to Fouquet. At the inauguration of Vaux-le-Vicomte, a Molière play was performed, along with an event organized by François Vatel. The celebration had been too impressive and the superintendents home too luxurious, Fouquets intentions were to flatter the king, part of Vaux-le-Vicomte was actually constructed specifically for the king, but Fouquets plan backfired. Jean-Baptiste Colbert led the king to believe that his ministers magnificence was funded by the misappropriation of public funds, Colbert, who then replaced Fouquet as superintendent of finances, arrested him. Later, Voltaire was to sum up the famous fête, On 17 August, at six in the evening Fouquet was the King of France, La Fontaine wrote describing the fête and shortly afterwards penned his Elégie aux nymphes de Vaux. After Fouquet was arrested and imprisoned for life and his wife exiled, the king seized, confiscated or purchased 120 tapestries, the statues and all the orange trees from Vaux-le-Vicomte. He then sent the team of artists to design what would be a larger project than Vaux-le-Vicomte. Madame Fouquet recovered her property 10 years later and retired there with her eldest son, in 1705, after the death of her husband and son, she decided to put Vaux-le-Vicomte up for sale. Marshal Claude Louis Hector de Villars became the new owner without first seeing the chateau, in 1764, the Marshals son sold the estate to the Duke of Praslin, whose descendants would maintain the property for over a century. In 1875, after thirty years of neglect, the estate was sold to Alfred Sommier in a public auction, the château was empty, some of the outbuildings had fallen into ruin and the famous gardens were totally overgrown. The huge task of restoration and refurbishment began under the direction of the architect Gabriel-Hippolyte Destailleur, when Sommier died in 1908, the château and the gardens had recovered their original appearance
13.
Palace of Versailles
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The Palace of Versailles, Château de Versailles, or simply Versailles, is a royal château in Versailles in the Île-de-France region of France. Versailles is therefore not only as a building, but as a symbol of the system of absolute monarchy of the Ancien Régime. First built by Louis XIII in 1623, as a lodge of brick and stone. The first phase of the expansion was designed and supervised by the architect Louis Le Vau and it culminated in the addition of three new wings of stone, which surrounded Louis XIIIs original building on the north, south, and west. After Le Vaus death in 1670, the work was taken over and completed by his assistant, charles Le Brun designed and supervised the elaborate interior decoration, and André Le Nôtre landscaped the extensive Gardens of Versailles. Le Brun and Le Nôtre collaborated on the fountains, and Le Brun supervised the design. During the second phase of expansion, two enormous wings north and south of the wings flanking the Cour Royale were added by the architect Jules Hardouin-Mansart. He also replaced Le Vaus large terrace, facing the garden on the west, with became the most famous room of the palace. The Royal Chapel of Versailles, located at the end of the north wing, was begun by Mansart in 1688. One of the most baffling aspects to the study of Versailles is the cost – how much Louis XIV, owing to the nature of the construction of Versailles and the evolution of the role of the palace, construction costs were essentially a private matter. Initially, Versailles was planned to be a residence for Louis XIV and was referred to as the kings house. Once Louis XIV embarked on his campaigns, expenses for Versailles became more of a matter for public record. To counter the costs of Versailles during the years of Louis XIVs personal reign. Accordingly, all materials that went into the construction and decoration of Versailles were manufactured in France, even the mirrors used in the decoration of the Hall of Mirrors were made in France. While Venice in the 17th century had the monopoly on the manufacture of mirrors, to meet the demands for decorating and furnishing Versailles, Colbert nationalised the tapestry factory owned by the Gobelin family, to become the Manufacture royale des Gobelins. In 1667, the name of the enterprise was changed to the Manufacture royale des Meubles de la Couronne, the Comptes meticulously list the expenditures on the silver furniture – disbursements to artists, final payments, delivery – as well as descriptions and weight of items purchased. Entries for 1681 and 1682 concerning the silver used in the salon de Mercure serve as an example. 5 In anticipation, For the silver balustrade for the bedroom,90,000 livres II
14.
Louis Le Vau
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Louis Le Vau was a French Classical architect who worked for Louis XIV of France. He was born and died in Paris and he was responsible, with André Le Nôtre and Charles Le Brun, for the redesign of the château of Vaux-le-Vicomte. His later works included the Palace of Versailles and his collaboration with Claude Perrault on the Palais du Louvre, sulpice, and Hôtel Lambert, on the Île Saint-Louis, Paris. La peinture à Versailles, XVIIe siècle, Louis Le Vau, Mazarins Collège, Colberts Revenge. La Collection de portraits de lAcadémie royale de Peinture et de Sculpture, Peintures entrées sous le règne de Louis XIV (1648–1715, université de Paris IV,1994, pp. 164–166. Portraits des premiers architectes de Versailles, Revue des Arts, March 1955, françois dOrbay, Architecte de Louis XIV. Media related to Louis Le Vau at Wikimedia Commons
15.
Jean de La Fontaine
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Jean de La Fontaine was a famous French fabulist and one of the most widely read French poets of the 17th century. He is known above all for his Fables, which provided a model for subsequent fabulists across Europe and numerous versions in France. After a long period of royal suspicion, he was at last admitted to the French Academy, evidence of this is found in the many pictures and statues of the writer, as well as later depictions on medals, coins and postage stamps. La Fontaine was born at Château-Thierry in France and his father was Charles de La Fontaine, maître des eaux et forêts — a kind of deputy-ranger — of the Duchy of Château-Thierry, his mother was Françoise Pidoux. Both sides of his family were of the highest provincial middle class, though they were not noble and he then apparently studied law, and is said to have been admitted as avocat/lawyer. He was, however, settled in life, or at least might have been so, somewhat early. In 1647 his father resigned his rangership in his favor, and arranged a marriage for him with Marie Héricart, a girl of fourteen, who brought him 20,000 livres, and expectations. She seems to have been beautiful and intelligent, but the two did not get along well together. There appears to be no ground for the vague scandal as to her conduct. One son was born to them in 1653, and was educated, even in the earlier years of his marriage, La Fontaine seems to have been much in Paris, but it was not until about 1656 that he became a regular visitor to the capital. The duties of his office, which were only occasional, were compatible with this non-residence and it was not until he was past thirty that his literary career began. The reading of Malherbe, it is said, first awoke poetical fancies in him and his first serious work was a translation or adaptation of the Eunuchus of Terence. At this time the patron of French writing was the Superintendent Fouquet, to whom La Fontaine was introduced by Jacques Jannart, a connection of his wifes. Few people who paid their court to Fouquet went away empty-handed and he also began a medley of prose and poetry, entitled Le Songe de Vaux, on Fouquets famous country house. In the same year he wrote a ballad, Les Rieurs du Beau-Richard, Fouquet fell out of favour with the king and was arrested. La Fontaine, like most of Fouquets literary protégés, showed some fidelity to him by writing the elegy Pleurez, just at this time his affairs did not look promising. He found, however, a new protector in the duke and still more in the Duchess of Bouillon, his superiors at Château-Thierry. He was then forty-three years old, and his previous printed productions had been comparatively trivial and it was about this time that the quartet of the Rue du Vieux Colombier, so famous in French literary history, was formed
16.
Pierre Corneille
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Pierre Corneille was a French tragedian. He is generally considered one of the three great seventeenth-century French dramatists, along with Molière and Jean Racine and he continued to write well-received tragedies for nearly forty years. Corneille was born in Rouen, Normandy, France, to Marthe Le Pesant and Pierre Corneille and his younger brother, Thomas Corneille, also became a noted playwright. He was given a rigorous Jesuit education at the Collège de Bourbon where acting on the stage was part of the training, at 18 he began to study law but his practical legal endeavors were largely unsuccessful. Corneille’s father secured two magisterial posts for him with the Rouen department of Forests and Rivers, during his time with the department, he wrote his first play. It is unknown exactly when he wrote it, but the play, the actors approved of the work and made it part of their repertoire. The play was a success in Paris and Corneille began writing plays on a regular basis and he moved to Paris in the same year and soon became one of the leading playwrights of the French stage. His early comedies, starting with Mélite, depart from the French farce tradition by reflecting the elevated language, Corneille describes his variety of comedy as une peinture de la conversation des honnêtes gens. His first true tragedy is Médée, produced in 1635, the year 1634 brought more attention to Corneille. He was selected to write verses for the Cardinal Richelieu’s visit to Rouen, the Cardinal took notice of Corneille and selected him to be among Les Cinq Auteurs. The others were Guillaume Colletet, Boisrobert, Jean Rotrou, the five were selected to realize Richelieus vision of a new kind of drama that emphasized virtue. Richelieu would present ideas, which the writers would express in dramatic form, however, the Cardinals demands were too restrictive for Corneille, who attempted to innovate outside the boundaries defined by Richelieu. This led to contention between playwright and employer, after his initial contract ended, Corneille left Les Cinq Auteurs and returned to Rouen. In the years following this break with Richelieu, Corneille produced what is considered his finest play. Le Cid is based on the play Mocedades del Cid by Guillem de Castro, both plays were based on the legend of Rodrigo Díaz de Vivar, a military figure in Medieval Spain. The original 1637 edition of the play was subtitled a tragicomedy, even though Le Cid was an enormous popular success, it was the subject of a heated argument over the norms of dramatic practice, known as the Querelle du Cid or The Quarrel of Le Cid. Cardinal Richelieus Académie française acknowledged the success, but determined that it was defective, in part because it did not respect the classical unities of time, place. The newly formed Académie was a body that asserted state control over cultural activity, although it usually dealt with efforts to standardize the French language, Richelieu himself ordered an analysis of Le Cid
17.
Paul Scarron
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Paul Scarron was a French poet, dramatist, and novelist, born in Paris. His precise birthdate is unknown, but he was baptized on 4 July 1610, Scarron was the first husband of Françoise dAubigné, who later became Madame de Maintenon and secretly married King Louis XIV of France. Scarron was the child of Paul Scarron, a noble of the robe and member of the Parlement of Paris. Paul became an abbé when he was nineteen and he lived in Le Mans from 1632 to 1640, and in 1635 traveled to Rome with his patron, Charles de Beaumanoir, the bishop of Le Mans. Finding a patron in Marie de Hautefort, maîtresse-en-titre of Louis XIII, he became a figure in literary. One source attributed Scarrons deformities to rheumatism contracted from spending time in a swamp. According to this story, Scarron, while residing at Le Mans, another story has Scarron falling into an ice-water bath during the Carnival season. It seems more likely, seeing the connection with water, that he was crippled by polio, whatever the cause, Scarron began to suffer from miserable deformity and pain. His upper body became permanently twisted and his legs were paralyzed and he began to take copious amounts of opium to relieve his pain. Adding to his misfortunes, he involved in a series of lawsuits with his stepmother over his fathers property. He was also obliged to support his sisters financially, Scarron returned to Paris in 1640. In 1643, he published Recueil de quelques vers burlesques, at Le Mans he had conceived the idea of his Roman comique, the first part of which was printed in 1651. In 1645, his comedy Jodelet, ou le maître valet -- the actor who played the role was also called Jodelet. Jodelet was the first of many French comedies about a servant who takes on the role of master, Scarron became employed by the bookseller Quinet and called his works his marquisat de Quinet. He had also a pension from Nicolas Fouquet, and one from the queen, Scarron had initially dedicated Typhon to Mazarin, who was not impressed with the work, Scarron then changed it to a burlesque on Mazarin. In 1651 he expressed his allegiance to the Fronde by writing a violent anti-Mazarin pamphlet, in his early years, Scarron was something of a libertine. In 1649 a penniless lady of good family, Céleste Palaiseau, kept his house in the Rue dEnfer, in 1652, he married the impoverished but beautiful Françoise dAubigné, afterwards famous as Madame de Maintenon, second wife of Louis XIV. He died in Paris on 6 October 1660, passant, ne fais ici de bruit Garde bien que tu ne léveilles, Car voici la première nuit Que le pauvre Scarron sommeille
18.
Nantes
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Nantes is a city in western France, located on the Loire River,50 km from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth largest in France, with almost 300,000 inhabitants within its limits. Together with Saint-Nazaire, a located on the Loire estuary. Nantes is the seat of the Loire-Atlantique département and of the Pays de la Loire région. Historically and culturally, Nantes belongs to Brittany, a former duchy, the fact that it is not part of the modern administrative Brittany région is subject to debate. Nantes appeared during the Antiquity as a port on the Loire and it became the seat of a bishopric at the end of the Roman era, before being conquered by the Breton people in 851. Nantes was the residence of the dukes of Brittany in the 15th century. The French Revolution was a period of turmoil resulted in an economic decline. Nantes managed to develop a strong industry after 1850, chiefly in ship building, however, deindustrialisation in the second half of the 20th century pushed the city to reorient its economy towards services. In 2012, the Globalization and World Cities Research Network ranked Nantes as a Gamma- world city and it is the fourth highest ranking city in France after Paris, Lyon and Marseilles. The Gamma- category gathers other large cities such as Algiers, Orlando, Porto, Turin, Nantes has often been praised for its quality of life and it was awarded the European Green Capital Award in 2013. The settlement is mentioned in Ptolemys Geography as Κονδηούινϰον and Κονδιούινϰον, during the Gallo-Roman period, this name was latinised and adapted as Condevincum, Condevicnum, Condivicnum, Condivincum, etc. Condevincum seems to be related to the Gaulish word condate meaning confluence, at the end of the Roman period, Condevincum became known as Portus Namnetum and civitas Namnetum. This phenomenon can be observed on most of the ancient cities of France throughout the 4th century, for instance, Lutecia became Paris, city of the Parisii, Darioritum became Vannes, city of the Veneti. Portus Namnetum evolved in Nanetiæ and Namnetis in the 5th century, the name of the Namnetes people could either come from the Gaulish root *nant-, from the pre-Celtic root *nanto or from the other tribe name Amnites, which could mean men of the river. The name Nantes is pronounced and the city inhabitants are called Nantais, in Gallo, the romance dialect traditionally spoken in the region around Nantes, the city is called Naunnt or Nantt, according to the various spelling systems. The Gallo pronunciation is the same as the French one, although northern speakers pronounce it with a long, in Breton language, Nantes is known as Naoned or An Naoned. The latter, meaning the Nantes, is common and reflects the fact that articles are more frequent in Breton toponyms than in French ones
19.
Brittany
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Brittany is a cultural region in the north-west of France. Brittany has also referred to as Less, Lesser or Little Britain. It is bordered by the English Channel to the north, the Celtic Sea and the Atlantic Ocean to the west, and its land area is 34,023 km². Since reorganisation in 1956, the administrative region of Brittany comprises only four of the five Breton departments. The remaining area of old Brittany, the Loire-Atlantique department around Nantes, at the 2010 census, the population of historic Brittany was estimated to be 4,475,295. Of these, 71% lived in the region of Brittany, while 29% lived in the Loire-Atlantique department, in 2012, the largest metropolitan areas were Nantes, Rennes, and Brest. Brittany is the homeland of the Breton people and is recognised by the Celtic League as one of the six Celtic nations. A nationalist movement seeks greater autonomy within the French Republic, the word Brittany, along with its French, Breton and Gallo equivalents Bretagne, Breizh and Bertaèyn, derive from the Latin Britannia, which means Britons land. This word had been used by the Romans since the 1st century to refer to Great Britain and this word derives from a Greek word, Πρεττανικη or Βρεττανίαι, used by Pytheas, an explorer from Massalia who visited the British Islands around 320 BC. This term probably comes from a Gallic word, aremorica, which close to the sea. Another name, Letauia, was used until the 12th century and it possibly means wide and flat or to expand and it gave the Welsh name for Brittany, Llydaw. Later, authors like Geoffrey of Monmouth used the terms Britannia minor, breton-speaking people may pronounce the word Breizh in two different ways, according to their region of origin. Breton can be divided into two dialects, the KLT and the dialect of Vannes. KLT speakers pronounce it and would write it Breiz, while the Vannetais speakers pronounce it, the official spelling is a compromise between both variants, with a z and an h together. In 1941, efforts to unify the dialects led to the creation of the so-called Breton zh, on its side, Gallo language has never had a widely accepted writing system and several ones coexist. For instance, the name of the region in that language can be written Bertaèyn in ELG script, or Bertègn in MOGA, Brittany has been inhabited by humans since the Lower Paleolithic. This population was scarce and very similar to the other Neanderthals found in the whole of Western Europe and their only original feature was a distinct culture, called Colombanian. One of the oldest hearths in the world has found in Plouhinec
20.
Charles de Batz-Castelmore d'Artagnan
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Charles Ogier de Batz de Castelmore, Comte dArtagnan served Louis XIV as captain of the Musketeers of the Guard and died at the Siege of Maastricht in the Franco-Dutch War. A fictionalized account of his life by Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras formed the basis for the dArtagnan Romances of Alexandre Dumas, the heavily fictionalized version of dArtagnan featured in Dumas works and their subsequent screen adaptations is now far more widely known than the real historical figure. DArtagnan was born near Lupiac in south-western France and his father, Bertrand de Batz, was the son of a newly ennobled merchant, Arnaud de Batz, who purchased the castle of Castelmore. Charles de Batz went to Paris in the 1630s, using the name of his mother, daughter of an illustrious family, d’Artagnan joined the guards in the mid-1630s and served under Captain des Essarts. The regiment saw action in the early 1640s, taking part in sieges at Arras, Aire-sur-la-Lys, la Bassée and Bapaume in 1640-41 and Collioure. Whether or not d’Artagnan was personally involved is unclear, but it is likely he took part in some, if not all, while in the Musketeers, dArtagnan sought the protection of the influential Cardinal Mazarin, Frances principal minister since 1643. In 1646, the Musketeers company was dissolved, but dArtagnan continued to serve his protector Mazarin, DArtagnan had a career in espionage for Cardinal Mazarin, in the years after the first Fronde. Due to dArtagnans faithful service during this period, Louis XIV entrusted him with many secret and he followed Mazarin during his exile in 1651 in the face of the hostility of the aristocracy. In 1652 dArtagnan was promoted to lieutenant in the Gardes Françaises, in 1658, he became a second lieutenant in the newly reformed Musketeers. This was a promotion, as the Musketeers were far more prestigious than the Gardes-Françaises, DArtagnan was famous for his connection with the arrest of Nicolas Fouquet. Fouquet was Louis XIVs finance commissioner and aspired to take the place of Mazarin as the Kings advisor, Fouquet was also a lover of grand architecture and employed the greatest architects and artisans in the building of his Chateau Vaux-le-Vicomte. He celebrated the completion with a most extravagant feast, at which every guest was given a horse, to prevent his escape by bribery, dArtagnan was assigned to guard him for four years until Fouquet was sentenced to life imprisonment. In 1667, dArtagnan was promoted to captain-lieutenant of the Musketeers, as befitted his rank and position, he could be identified by his striking burgundy, white and black livery—the colours of the commanding officer of the Musketeers. Another of dArtagnans assignments was the governorship of Lille, which was won in battle by France in 1667, DArtagnan was an unpopular governor and longed to return to battle. He found his chance when Louis XIV went to war with the Dutch Republic in the Franco-Dutch War, after being recalled to service, dArtagnan was subsequently killed in battle on 25 June 1673, when a musket ball tore into his throat at the Siege of Maastricht. The French historian Odile Bordaz believes that he was buried in Saint Peter and Paul Church in Wolder, the real dArtagnans life was used as the basis for Gatien de Courtilz de Sandras novel Les mémoires de M. dArtagnan. Alexandre Dumas in turn used Sandras novel as the source for his dArtagnan Romances. DArtagnan is initially portrayed by Dumas as a youth, and tries to engage the Comte de Rochefort
21.
Cardinal Richelieu
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Cardinal Armand Jean du Plessis, Duke of Richelieu and Fronsac, commonly referred to as Cardinal Richelieu, was a French clergyman, nobleman, and statesman. He was consecrated as a bishop in 1607 and was appointed Foreign Secretary in 1616, Richelieu soon rose in both the Catholic Church and the French government, becoming a cardinal in 1622, and King Louis XIIIs chief minister in 1624. He remained in office until his death in 1642, he was succeeded by Cardinal Mazarin, Cardinal de Richelieu was often known by the title of the kings Chief Minister or First Minister. He sought to consolidate power and crush domestic factions. By restraining the power of the nobility, he transformed France into a strong and his chief foreign policy objective was to check the power of the Austro-Spanish Habsburg dynasty, and to ensure French dominance in the Thirty Years War that engulfed Europe. Although he was a cardinal, he did not hesitate to make alliances with Protestant rulers in attempting to achieve his goals. While a powerful figure, events like the Day of the Dupes show that in fact he very much depended on the kings confidence to keep this power. As alumnus of the University of Paris and headmaster of the Collège de Sorbonne, Richelieu was also famous for his patronage of the arts, most notably, he founded the Académie Française, the learned society responsible for matters pertaining to the French language. Richelieu is also known by the sobriquet lÉminence rouge, from the red shade of a cardinals clerical dress and this in part allowed the colony to eventually develop into the heartland of Francophone culture in North America. He is also a character in The Three Musketeers by Alexandre Dumas. Born in Paris, Armand du Plessis was the fourth of five children, at the age of nine, young Richelieu was sent to the College of Navarre in Paris to study philosophy. Thereafter, he began to train for a military career and his private life seems to have been typical of a young officer of the era, in 1605, aged twenty, he was treated by Théodore de Mayerne for gonorrhea. King Henry III had rewarded Richelieus father for his participation in the Wars of Religion by granting his family the bishopric of Luçon. The family appropriated most of the revenues of the bishopric for private use, they were, however, challenged by clergymen, to protect the important source of revenue, Richelieus mother proposed to make her second son, Alphonse, the bishop of Luçon. Alphonse, who had no desire to become a bishop, became instead a Carthusian monk, thus, it became necessary that the younger Richelieu join the clergy. He had strong interests, and threw himself into studying for his new post. In 1606 King Henry IV nominated Richelieu to become Bishop of Luçon, as Richelieu had not yet reached the canonical minimum age, it was necessary that he journey to Rome for a special dispensation from the Pope. This secured, Richelieu was consecrated bishop in April 1607, soon after he returned to his diocese in 1608, Richelieu was heralded as a reformer
22.
Estates General (France)
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In France under the Old Regime, the Estates General or States-General was a legislative and consultative assembly of the different classes of French subjects. It had an assembly for each of the three estates, which were called and dismissed by the king. The Estates-General met intermittently until 1614 and only afterwards, but was not definitively dissolved until after the French Revolution. The letters summoning the assembly of 1302 are published by M. Georges Picot in his collection of Documents inédits pour servir à lhistoire de France, during the same reign they were subsequently assembled several times to give him aid by granting subsidies. Over time subsidies came to be the most frequent motive for their convocation, in one sense, the composition and powers of the Estates-General always remained the same. They always included representatives of the First Estate, Second Estate, and Third Estate and their composition, however, as well as their effective powers, varied greatly at different times. In their primitive form in the 14th and the first half of the 15th centuries, the lay lords and the ecclesiastical lords who made up the Estates-General were not elected by their peers, but directly chosen and summoned by the king. In the order of the clergy, however, since certain ecclesiastical bodies and it was only the representation of the Third Estate which was furnished by election. Originally, moreover, the latter was not called upon as a whole to seek representation in the estates and it was only the bonnes villes, the privileged towns, which were called upon. They were represented by elected procureurs, who were frequently the municipal officials of the town, the country districts, the plat pays, were not represented. Even within the bonnes villes, the franchise was quite narrow and it was during the last thirty years of the 15th century that the Estates-General became an entirely elective body and really representative of the whole nation as divided into three parts. This came about through various causes, the letters of summons to the Estates-General of 1484 invited the ecclesiastics, nobles, and Third Estate to meet at the chief town of their bailliage or sénéchaussé and elect deputies. An intermediate form had been employed in 1468 when the prelates and lords had still been summoned personally, at the estates of 1484 there seems to have been universal and direct suffrage for all the three orders. Thus a system of indirect election arose for the Third Estate which became confirmed, the effective powers of the Estates-General likewise varied over time. In the 14th century they were considerable, the king could not, in theory, levy general taxation. The privileged towns had generally the right of taxing themselves, to collect general taxes, the king required consent of the lay and ecclesiastical lords, and of the towns. This amounted to needing authorization from the Estates-General, which only granted these subsidies temporarily for fairly short periods, as a result, they were summoned frequently and their power over the Crown became considerable. In the second half of the 14th century, however, certain taxes, levied throughout the Crowns domain
23.
Jean Loret
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Jean Loret was a French writer and poet known for publishing the weekly news of Parisian society from 1650 until 1665 in verse in what he called a gazette burlesque. He is sometimes referred to as the father of journalism as a result of his topical writings, the verses, which were in the forms of letters to Marie dOrléans Longueville, were assembled and published in three volumes as La Muse historique. The first volume is believed to contain the earliest written reference to the tales of Mother Goose and he was the subject of a portrait by famed engraver Robert Nanteuil whose subjects were the figures of Louis XIVs court. Lorets patron was Nicolas Fouquet and when Fouquet was arrested, Loret was one of members of French society who came to his defence. After his death, several other writers continued the tradition of gazette burlesque until nearly the end of the century, den Danske Mercurius, a Danish newspaper inspired by Loret Works by or about Jean Loret at Internet Archive
24.
Pinerolo
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Pinerolo is a town and comune in Piedmont, northwestern Italy,50 kilometres southwest of Turin on the river Chisone. The Lemina torrent has its source at the boundary between Pinerolo and San Pietro Val di Lemina, the town of Pinerolo was one of the main crossroads in Italy, and was therefore one of the principal fortresses of the dukes of Savoy. Its military importance was the origin of the military school that still exists today. The fortress of Fenestrelle is nearby, later Pinerolo was ruled by the abbot nullius of Pinerolo who ran the abbey of Abbadia Alpina, even after the city had established itself as a municipality under the government of Thomas II of Savoy. From 1235, Amadeus IV of Savoy exercised over the town a kind of protectorate which became absolute in 1243, when French troops invaded Piedmont, Pinerolo was conquered and it remained under their control until 1574. With the treaty of Cherasco it again fell to France, the 2011 Tour de France featured a stage in the area. It is around Pinerolo that revolves the economy of the waldensian valleys, several industries have their base in this area, particularly mechanical, paper making, chemical and textile industries, and also absorb manpower from the nearby centres. Moreover, Pinerolo is the center of the surrounding mountain area. The agriculture and the breeding of the livestock are conducted with advanced techniques, the Man in the Iron Mask was imprisoned in Pinerolo starting from 1669. The venue Pinerolo Palaghiaccio hosted curling events at the 2006 Winter Olympics, the Uruguayan football team Peñarol takes its name from the Montevideo neighbourhood of Peñarol, which in turn takes its name from this town. Gap, France, since 1963 Traunstein, Germany, since 1986 San Francisco, Argentina, since 1996 Derventa, Bosnia and Herzegovina, since 2005 Diocese of Pinerolo
25.
Eustache Dauger
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Recent research suggests that his name might have been Eustache Dauger, but this still has not been completely proven. He was held in the custody of the jailer, Bénigne Dauvergne de Saint-Mars. He died on 19 November 1703 under the name Marchioly, during the reign of Louis XIV of France. Dumas also presented a review of the theories about the prisoner extant in his time in the chapter Lhomme au masque de fer in the sixth volume of his Crimes Célèbres. What little is known about the historical Man in the Iron Mask is based mainly on correspondence between Saint-Mars and his superiors in Paris and these documents have been searched for in vain for more than a century and were thought to have been lost. They were discovered only in 2015, among the 100 million or so documents of the Minutier central des notaires and they show that some of the 800 documents in the possession of the jailer Saint-Mars were analysed after his death. These documents confirm the reputed avarice of Saint-Mars, who appears to have diverted the funds paid by the king Louis XIV for the prisoner. Among other things, for the first time we have a description of an occupied by the masked prisoner, which was miserable. In his letter, Louvois informed Saint-Mars that a prisoner named Eustache Dauger was due to arrive in the month or so. Louvois instructed Saint-Mars to prepare a cell with multiple doors, one closing upon the other, Saint-Mars himself was to see Dauger only once a day in order to provide food and whatever else he needed. Dauger was arrested by Captain Alexandre de Vauroy, garrison commander of Dunkirk, and taken to Pignerol, the first rumours of the prisoners identity began to circulate at this point. According to many versions of the legend, the prisoner wore the mask at all times. The prison at Pignerol, like the others at which Dauger was later held, was used for men who were considered an embarrassment to the state, Fouquets cell was above that of Lauzun. Dauger was not always isolated from the other prisoners, wealthy and important ones usually had manservants, Fouquet for instance was served by a man called La Rivière. These servants, however, would become as much prisoners as their masters, since La Rivière was often ill, Saint-Mars applied for permission for Dauger to act as servant for Fouquet. It is an important point that the man in the served as a valet. After Fouquets death in 1680, Saint-Mars discovered a hole between Fouquet and Lauzuns cells. He was sure that they had communicated through this hole without detection by him or his guards, Louvois instructed Saint-Mars to move Lauzun to Fouquets cell and to tell him that Dauger and La Rivière had been released
26.
Man in the Iron Mask
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Recent research suggests that his name might have been Eustache Dauger, but this still has not been completely proven. He was held in the custody of the jailer, Bénigne Dauvergne de Saint-Mars. He died on 19 November 1703 under the name Marchioly, during the reign of Louis XIV of France. Dumas also presented a review of the theories about the prisoner extant in his time in the chapter Lhomme au masque de fer in the sixth volume of his Crimes Célèbres. What little is known about the historical Man in the Iron Mask is based mainly on correspondence between Saint-Mars and his superiors in Paris and these documents have been searched for in vain for more than a century and were thought to have been lost. They were discovered only in 2015, among the 100 million or so documents of the Minutier central des notaires and they show that some of the 800 documents in the possession of the jailer Saint-Mars were analysed after his death. These documents confirm the reputed avarice of Saint-Mars, who appears to have diverted the funds paid by the king Louis XIV for the prisoner. Among other things, for the first time we have a description of an occupied by the masked prisoner, which was miserable. In his letter, Louvois informed Saint-Mars that a prisoner named Eustache Dauger was due to arrive in the month or so. Louvois instructed Saint-Mars to prepare a cell with multiple doors, one closing upon the other, Saint-Mars himself was to see Dauger only once a day in order to provide food and whatever else he needed. Dauger was arrested by Captain Alexandre de Vauroy, garrison commander of Dunkirk, and taken to Pignerol, the first rumours of the prisoners identity began to circulate at this point. According to many versions of the legend, the prisoner wore the mask at all times. The prison at Pignerol, like the others at which Dauger was later held, was used for men who were considered an embarrassment to the state, Fouquets cell was above that of Lauzun. Dauger was not always isolated from the other prisoners, wealthy and important ones usually had manservants, Fouquet for instance was served by a man called La Rivière. These servants, however, would become as much prisoners as their masters, since La Rivière was often ill, Saint-Mars applied for permission for Dauger to act as servant for Fouquet. It is an important point that the man in the served as a valet. After Fouquets death in 1680, Saint-Mars discovered a hole between Fouquet and Lauzuns cells. He was sure that they had communicated through this hole without detection by him or his guards, Louvois instructed Saint-Mars to move Lauzun to Fouquets cell and to tell him that Dauger and La Rivière had been released
27.
Temple du Marais
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It was originally built as a Catholic convent by the Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary, whose sisters were commonly called the Visitandines. The church was closed in the French Revolution and later given to a Protestant congregation which continues its ministry to the present. The closest métro station is Bastille The Order of the Visitation of Holy Mary was founded in 1610 by Saint Francis de Sales and it started a convent in Paris in 1619 which built the current church and the crest of the order still surmounts the rose window above the entrance. The building was designed by François Mansart in 1632, in the Baroque style, the churchs benefactor, Noël Brûlart de Sillery, an admirer of the Pantheon in Rome, desired a centralized plan. The buildings construction was overseen by the master mason contractor Michel Villedo, Saint Vincent de Paul served as the spiritual director of the convent for twenty-eight years. The church crypt, finished in 1665, was the mausoleum of Nicolas Fouquet, Superintendent of Finances for Louis XIV. The church is home to the tomb of Henri, Marquis de Sévigné. In 1790 during the French Revolution the convent was seized, its furniture sold, in 1792 the sisters were expelled and the Society of Friends of the Law, led by the courtesan Theroigne de Mericourt, used the chapel for meetings. In 1796 the buildings were sold and all were demolished apart from the chapel during the creation of the Rue Castex in 1805. The Revolution left its mark on the chapel in the form of a Phrygian cap above a door, after the Revolution the sisters reconstituted their convent as the Monastère de la Visitation at 68 avenue Denfert-Rochereau were it continues to the present day. The remains of the patron of the convent, Noël Brûlart de Sillery, the church was home to the famed city planner Georges-Eugène Haussmann and architect Victor Baltard during their student days at Collège Henri IV. While Baltard was a Lutheran he went with his more radical Protestant peers to the doctrinally stricter Calvinist church, in 1830 the church held the state funeral for Benjamin Constant. The building was damaged in May,1871 by fierce fighting at a barricade directly in front of the church during the Paris Commune, restoration work was undertaken in 1874 by Marcellin Varcollier and the statues on the pediment of charity and religion were carved by Ernest-Eugène Hiolle. The churchs organ was built by Joseph Merklin in 1895 with additional work by Haerpfer in 1960, elisée Lacheret became the pastor of the church in 1902 moving from the more theologically liberal lOratoire to the more evangelical Temple du Marais. As president of the permanent commission of the Reformed Church he played an important role during the debate led to the Laïcité policy that separated church from state in France in 1905. A plaque in the church commemorates his role in assuring the free practice of religion as well as in organizing the Eglises Réformées Evangéliques, the evangelical wing of the Reformed church. During the World Wars the church crypt was used as a shelter from bombardment, there are French services at 10, 30am on Sundays, an African community service at 1, 00pm, a Japanese service at 4, 00pm, and an Arabic service at 6, 00pm. The congregation also holds many activities throughout the week including prayer, the church is open to tourists on Saturday afternoons from 3, 30-5, 30pm and volunteers provide tours
28.
Identical twin
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Twins are two offspring produced by the same pregnancy. Twins can be either monozygotic, meaning that they develop from one zygote, in fraternal twins, each twin is fertilized by its own sperm cell. In contrast, a fetus that develops alone in the womb is called a singleton, the human twin birth rate in the United States rose 76% from 1980 through 2009, from 18.9 to 33.3 per 1,000 births. In Central Africa there are 18–30 twin sets per 1,000 live births, in Latin America, South Asia, and Southeast Asia, the lowest rates are found, only 6 to 9 twin sets per 1,000 live births. North America and Europe have intermediate rates of 9 to 16 twin sets per 1,000 live births, Multiple pregnancies are much less likely to carry to full term than single births, with twin pregnancies lasting on average 37 weeks, three weeks less than full term. Women who have a history of fraternal twins have a higher chance of producing fraternal twins themselves. There is no genetic link for identical twinning. Other factors that increase the odds of having fraternal twins include maternal age, fertility drugs and other fertility treatments, nutrition, the vast majority of twins are either dizygotic or monozygotic. Less common variants are discussed further down the article, the rates for singletons vary slightly by country. For example, the sex ratio of birth in the US is 1.05 males/female, while it is 1.07 males/female in Italy. However, males are more susceptible than females to die in utero. Zygosity is the degree of identity in the genome of twins, dizygotic or fraternal twins usually occur when two fertilized eggs are implanted in the uterus wall at the same time. When two eggs are fertilized by two different sperm cells, fraternal twins result. The two eggs, or ova, form two zygotes, hence the terms dizygotic and biovular. Fraternal twins are, essentially, two siblings who happen to be born at the same time, since they arise from two separate eggs fertilized by two separate sperm, just like ordinary siblings. This is the most common type of twin, dizygotic twins, like any other siblings, have an extremely small chance of having the same chromosome profile. Even if they happen to have the same profile, they will always have different genetic material on each chromosome. Like any other siblings, dizygotic twins may look similar, particularly given that they are the same age, however, dizygotic twins may also look very different from each other
29.
Alexandre Dumas
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Alexandre Dumas, also known as Alexandre Dumas, père, was a French writer. His works have translated into nearly 100 languages, and he is one of the most widely read French authors. His novels have been adapted since the twentieth century for nearly 200 films. Dumas last novel, The Knight of Sainte-Hermine, unfinished at his death, was completed by a scholar and published in 2005 and it was published in English in 2008 as The Last Cavalier. Prolific in several genres, Dumas began his career by writing plays and he also wrote numerous magazine articles and travel books, his published works totalled 100,000 pages. In the 1840s, Dumas founded the Théâtre Historique in Paris and his father, General Thomas-Alexandre Davy de la Pailleterie, was born in the French colony of Saint-Domingue to a French nobleman and an enslaved African woman. At age 14 Thomas-Alexandre was taken by his father to France, Dumas fathers aristocratic rank helped young Alexandre acquire work with Louis-Philippe, Duke of Orléans. He later began working as a writer, finding early success, decades later, in the election of Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte in 1851, Dumas fell from favour and left France for Belgium, where he stayed for several years. Upon leaving Belgium, Dumas moved to Russia for a few years before going to Italy, in 1861, he founded and published the newspaper LIndipendente, which supported the Italian unification effort. In 1864, he returned to Paris, though married, in the tradition of Frenchmen of higher social class, Dumas had numerous affairs. In his lifetime, he was known to have at least four illegitimate or natural children and he acknowledged and assisted his son, Alexandre Dumas, to become a successful novelist and playwright. They are known as Alexandre Dumas père and Alexandre Dumas fils, among his affairs, in 1866, Dumas had one with Adah Isaacs Menken, an American actress then less than half his age and at the height of her career. The English playwright Watts Phillips, who knew Dumas in his life, described him as the most generous. He also was the most delightfully amusing and egotistical creature on the face of the earth and his tongue was like a windmill – once set in motion, you never knew when he would stop, especially if the theme was himself. Dumas Davy de la Pailleterie was born in 1802 in Villers-Cotterêts in the department of Aisne, in Picardy and he had two older sisters, Marie-Alexandrine and Louise-Alexandrine. Their parents were Marie-Louise Élisabeth Labouret, the daughter of an innkeeper, at the time of Alexandres birth, his father was impoverished. It is not known whether she was born in Saint-Domingue or in Africa, brought as a boy to France by his father and legally freed there, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas Davy was educated in a military school and joined the army as a young man. As an adult, Thomas-Alexandre used his mothers name, Dumas, as his surname after a break with his father, Dumas was promoted to general by the age of 31, the first soldier of Afro-Antilles origin to reach that rank in the French army
30.
Aramis
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The Aramis was an experimental personal rapid transit system developed in France for deployment in the Paris area. Aramis included the feature of non-mechanical platooning that allowed the small cars to run as virtual trains in areas of higher transit density. This would allow the system to high throughput in busy areas, with the trains breaking up into individual cars. In spite of development, the platooning system was never made to work properly. The project was shut down in November 1987, its place taken by the conventional Véhicule Automatique Léger system developed through the same period. Phase 0 of Aramis began in 1969, during Phase 0, the patent was processed, a test site was determined, and the Aramis development committee was created. During Phase 1, more test sites were researched, variable-reluctance motor was developed, during Phase 2a, Aramis was simplified for economic reasons. Phase 3A started in 1978, and during phase 3A tests of the main components were run. Phase 3B was the phase for Aramis, it started in 1982. During the report for phase 3B, Aramis looked like it was in shape, however. Technical development was conducted by Engins Matra company, which then became Matra Transport, the project was financed by the French agency DATAR. The project met with failures, for both social and technological reasons. In Bruno Latours book on the subject, Aramis, or the Love of Technology, the original intention for Aramis was to be an ideal urban transportation system based on private cars in constant motion and the elimination of unnecessary transfers. This new form of transportation was intended to be as secure, the proposed system had custom-designed motors, sensors, controls, digital electronics, software and a major installation in southern Paris. The demonstration of the technology in 1970 was a success, what set Aramis apart from other personal rapid transit projects were non-material couplings. Non-material couplings were linking elements that would allow each vehicle to be self-contained, unlike trains, individual Aramis were not physically attached. Social concerns made the development of Aramis difficult, the safety of passengers was at risk because of the lack of security in private cars. Point-to-point travel for passengers, a feature of Personal Rapid Transit, was removed from the specifications around 1973 because of the extra cost of the turnouts
31.
James Whale
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James Whale was an English film director, theatre director and actor. He is best remembered for his four classic films, Frankenstein, The Old Dark House, The Invisible Man. Whale also directed films in genres, including what is considered the definitive film version of the musical Show Boat. He became increasingly disenchanted with his association with horror, but many of his films have fallen into obscurity. Whale was born into a family in Dudley, in the Black Country area of the English West Midlands. He discovered his talent early on and studied art. With the outbreak of World War I, he enlisted in the British Army and he was captured by the Germans and during his time as a prisoner of war he realized he was interested in drama. Following his release at the end of the war he became an actor, set designer and his success directing the 1928 play Journeys End led to his move to the US, first to direct the play on Broadway and then to Hollywood to direct films. He lived in Hollywood for the rest of his life, most of time with his longtime companion. At the height of his career as a director, Whale directed The Road Back, studio interference, possibly spurred by political pressure from Nazi Germany, led to the films being altered from Whales vision and The Road Back was a critical and commercial failure. A run of similar box-office disappointments followed and, while he would make one final film in 1950. He continued to direct for the stage and also rediscovered his love for painting and his investments made him wealthy and he lived a comfortable retirement until suffering strokes in 1956 that robbed him of his vigor and left him in pain. He committed suicide on 29 May 1957 by drowning himself in his swimming pool, Whale was openly gay throughout his career, something that was very unusual in the 1920s and 1930s. However, his associates dismissed the notions that his sexuality informed his work or that it cost him his career, Whale was born in Dudley, England, the sixth of the seven children of William, a blast furnaceman, and Sarah, a nurse. He attended Kates Hill Board School, followed by Bayliss Charity School and his attendance stopped in his teenage years because the cost would have been prohibitive and his labor was needed to help support the family. He discovered he had artistic ability and earned additional money lettering signs. Whale used his income to pay for evening classes at the Dudley School of Arts and Crafts. World War I broke out in 1914, although Whale had little interest in the politics behind the war, he realized that conscription was inevitable so he enlisted in the Army
32.
The Man in the Iron Mask (1939 film)
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The film is notable for being Peter Cushings screen debut. It was also notable for being the source of several subsequent remakes, the film was directed by James Whale and stars Louis Hayward as royal twins, Joan Bennett as Princess Maria Theresa, Warren William as dArtagnan, and Joseph Schildkraut as Nicolas Fouquet. In 1638, King Louis XIII of France is delighted when his wife bears him a son, Louis, however, a few minutes later, a second son is born. Fouquet, a mere cardinals messenger at the time, finds out about the twin, twenty years later, he is the Minister of Finance under Louis XIV. The king is hated by the commoners for levying oppressive taxes, Fouquet sends soldiers to force dArtagnan and his people to pay the taxes, though the old king had exempted him and his village from them. They are driven off, but return in greater numbers and, with great difficulty, capture dArtagnan. Louis is about to order their executions when Colbert tells him about Philippes uncanny resemblance to him, as Louis is aware of an assassination attempt to take place that day, he makes Philippe impersonate him in exchange for his friends lives. Philippe not only survives the ambush, he shows mercy to his would-be killers and is cheered by the people, Princess Maria Theresa, whom Louis is to wed to seal an alliance with Spain, finds this new Louis much more attractive than the real one. However, when she discovers that Louis is having an affair with Mademoiselle de la Valliere, when the truth is discovered, Louis has Philippe imprisoned with an iron mask placed on his head, hoping that Philippes beard will grow inside the mask and eventually suffocate him. Philippe is rescued by the musketeers, who break into the sleeping Louiss chamber, the musketeers drag him away and lock him in the Bastille, where the jailers mistake him for Phillippe, and whip him. When Louis manages to get a message to Fouquet, he is freed, the coach is waylaid by the musketeers, who all die heroically, but Fouquet and the real Louis XIV are also killed when the driverless coach plunges off a cliff. The mortally wounded dArtagnan survives long enough to exclaim God Save the King, at Philippes wedding, and then falls dead. James Whale was signed as director in September 1938, Douglas Fairbanks, Jr. whose father had starred as DArtagnan in the 1929 epic version The Iron Mask, was originally announced as male star and met with director James Whale. However producer Edward Small insisted on Louis Hayward, who had just made The Duke of West Point for him, frank S. Nugent called the film a moderately entertaining costume piece with an overfondness for pageantry and stiff heroics. He criticized the casting of Marion Martin as outright absurd and called her performance artless, variety called the film a highly entertaining adventure with excellent direction. Harrisons Reports declared it good entertainment with a charming romance. Film Daily called it a vivid picturization of Alexandre Dumas novel with Haywards best screen work to date, Louis Hayward can give a modern effete touch when that is needed in the double role he has, but he cant compete with his rapier or his acrobatics. The first film adaptation of Dumas novel to allow for the triumph of the good twin over the evil twin was Douglas Fairbanks 1929 version of the tale
33.
Joseph Schildkraut
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Joseph Schildkraut was an Austrian-American stage and film actor. Schildkraut was born in Vienna, Austria, the son of Erna, the younger Schildkraut moved to the United States in the early 1900s. He appeared in many Broadway productions, among the plays that he starred in was a notable production of Peer Gynt. In 1921, Schildkraut played the role in the first American stage production of Ferenc Molnárs Liliom. He then began working in silent movies, although he did return to the stage occasionally and he had early success in film as the Chevalier de Vaudrey in D. W. Griffiths Orphans of the Storm with Lillian Gish. Later, he was featured in Cecil B, deMilles epic 1927 film The King of Kings, as Judas Iscariot. Schildrauts father Rudolf also appeared in the film, Joseph Schildkraut also played a Viennese-accented, non-singing Gaylord Ravenal in the 1929 part-talkie film version of Edna Ferbers Show Boat. Schildkraut received an Academy Award for Best Supporting Actor for his role as Alfred Dreyfus in The Life of Emile Zola, Schildkraut is perhaps best remembered today for playing the role of Otto Frank in both the original stage production and film version of The Diary of Anne Frank. Schildkraut also hosted and starred in Joseph Schildkraut Presents, a series on the DuMont Television Network from October 1953 to January 1954. In 1961, during the 3rd season of The Twilight Zone, he made his first appearance on episode 9 and he later played an elderly man in The Trade-Ins in season 3, episode 31 of the same show. In 1963, he was nominated for a Best Actor Emmy Award for his performance in a guest starring role on NBCs Sam Benedict legal drama which starred Edmond OBrien and his first marriage was to actress Elise Bartlett in 1923, they divorced in 1931. He married Mary McKay in 1932, she died in 1961, in 1963, Schildkraut married Leonora Rogers, who survived him. Schildkraut died at his home in New York City of a heart attack and he is interred in the Hollywood Forever Cemetery. List of German-speaking Academy Award winners and nominees Joseph Schildkraut, My Father and I, as told to Leo Lania, Joseph Schildkraut at the Internet Movie Database Joseph Schildkraut at the Internet Broadway Database Photographs and literature Joseph Schildkraut at Find a Grave
34.
Patrick McGoohan
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Patrick Joseph McGoohan was an American-born Irish actor, writer and director who was brought up in Ireland and England. He began his career in Great Britain in the 1950s, and his career defining roles were in the British 1960s television series Danger Man, and the surreal psychological drama The Prisoner, which he co-created. McGoohan was born in Astoria, Queens, New York City, the son of Rose and Thomas McGoohan and he was brought up as a Roman Catholic. Shortly after he was born, McGoohans parents moved back to Mullaghmore, County Leitrim, Ireland, McGoohan attended St Vincents School and De La Salle College in Sheffield. During World War II, he was evacuated to Loughborough, Leicestershire, there he attended Ratcliffe College, where he excelled in mathematics and boxing. When one of the actors became ill, McGoohan was substituted for him, in 1955, McGoohan starred in a West End production of a play called Serious Charge in the role of a priest accused of being homosexual. Orson Welles was so impressed by McGoohans stage presence that he cast him as Starbuck in his York theatre production of Moby Dick—Rehearsed. Welles said in 1969 that he believed McGoohan would now be, I think and he was tremendous as Starbuck. and with all the required attributes, looks, intensity, unquestionable acting ability and a twinkle in his eye. His first film appearance was a role in The Dam Busters. He delivered the line – Sorry, old boy, its secret – you cant go in, which was cut from some prints of the movie. While working as a stand-in during screen tests, McGoohan was signed to a contract with the Rank Organisation, after a few films and some clashes with the management, the contract was dissolved. Free of the contract, he did some TV work, winning a BAFTA in 1960 and his favourite part for the stage was the lead in Ibsens Brand, for which he received an award. It appeared in a BBC television production in August 1959, soon, production executive Lew Grade approached McGoohan about a TV series in which he would play a spy named John Drake. The series debuted in 1960 as Danger Man, a half-hour programme geared toward an American audience and it did fairly well, but not as well as hoped. Production lasted only one year and 39 episodes, McGoohan was one of several actors considered for the role of James Bond in Dr. No. While McGoohan, a Catholic, turned down the role on moral grounds and he was later considered for the same role in Live and Let Die, but turned it down again. Before that happened, McGoohan spent some time working for Disney on The Three Lives of Thomasina, after he had also turned down the role of Simon Templar in The Saint, Lew Grade asked him if he would like to give John Drake another try. This time, McGoohan had even more say about the series, Danger Man was resurrected in 1964 as a one-hour programme
35.
Imprimatur
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An imprimatur is, in the proper sense, a declaration authorizing publication of a book. The term is applied loosely to any mark of approval or endorsement. An imprimatur is not an endorsement by the bishop of the contents of a book, not even of the opinions expressed in it. No implication is contained therein that those who have granted the nihil obstat or imprimatur agree with the contents, the person empowered to issue the imprimatur is the local ordinary of the author or of the place of publication. If he refuses to grant an imprimatur for a work that has received a nihil obstat from the censor. This enables the author, if he wishes, to make changes so as to overcome the difficulty in granting approval. If further examination shows that a work is not free of doctrinal or moral error and this happened three times in the 1980s, when the Holy See judged that complaints made to it about religion textbooks for schools were well founded and ordered the bishop to revoke his approval. The imprimatur granted for a publication is not valid for later editions of the work or for translations into another language. For these, new imprimaturs are required, rhoades was the first bishop to grant an imprimatur to an iPhone application. English laws of 1586,1637 and 1662 required a licence for printing books. This law finally expired in 1695, haskama, approval, הַסְכָּמָה is a rabbinic approval of a religious book concerning Judaism. It is written by a prominent rabbi in his own name, digital imprimatur is a hypothetical system of internet censorship. Imprimatur is also the name of a 2002 thriller novel by Rita Monaldi and Francesco Sorti, in painting, the distinct term imprimatura is used of an underlying coat of paint. In the Doctor Who Doctor Who Virgin New Adventures book series, the Rassilonian Imprimatur is the equivalent of a university degree, given to Time Lords upon the conclusion of their education
36.
Peter Greenaway
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Peter Greenaway, CBE is a British film director, screenwriter, and artist. His films are noted for the influence of Renaissance and Baroque painting. Common traits in his film are the composition and illumination. Greenaway was born in Newport, Monmouthshire, Wales, to a teacher mother, greenaways family left South Wales when he was three years old and settled in Chingford, Essex, England. He attended Forest School in northeast London, at an early age Greenaway decided on becoming a painter. He became interested in European cinema, focusing first on the films of Ingmar Bergman, in 1962, Greenaway began studies at Walthamstow College of Art, where a fellow student was musician Ian Dury. Greenaway trained as a muralist for three years, he made his first film, Death of Sentiment, a churchyard furniture essay filmed in four large London cemeteries, in 1965, he joined the Central Office of Information, working there fifteen years as a film editor and director. In that time he created a filmography of experimental films, starting with Train, footage of the last steam trains at Waterloo station, tree, is a homage to the embattled tree growing in concrete outside the Royal Festival Hall on the South Bank in London. By the 1970s he was confident and ambitious and made Vertical Features Remake, the former is an examination of various arithmetical editing structures, and the latter is a journey through the maps of a fictitious country. Greenaways most familiar musical collaborator during this period is composer Michael Nyman, in 1989, he collaborated with artist Tom Phillips on a television serial A TV Dante, dramatising the first few cantos of Dantes Inferno. In the 1990s, he presented Prosperos Books, the controversial The Baby of Mâcon, The Pillow Book, in 1995, Louis Andriessen completed the sixth libretto, Rosa – A Horse Drama. He is currently professor of cinema studies at the European Graduate School in Saas-Fee and he also contributed to Visions of Europe, a short film collection by different European Union directors, his British entry is The European Showerbath. Nightwatching and Rembrandts JAccuse two films on Rembrandt which were released in 2007 and 2008 respectively, nightwatching is the first feature in the series Dutch Masters, with the next project titled as Goltzius and the Pelican Company. This was later reprised at the Optronica festival, London, on 12 October 2007, he created the multimedia installation Peopling the Palaces at Venaria Reale at the Royal Palace of Venaria that animates the Palace with 100 videoprojectors. On 3 May 2016, he received a Honoris Causa doctorate from the University of San Martín, in 2006, Greenaway began a series of digital video installations, Nine Classical Paintings Revisited, with his exploration of Rembrandts Night Watch in the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam. The performance consisted of superimposing digital imagery and projections onto the painting with music from the composer Marco Robino, Greenaway exhibited his digital exploration of The Wedding at Cana by Paolo Veronese as part of the 2009 Venice Biennial. The 50-minute presentation, set to a soundtrack, incorporates images of faces from the painting along with animated diagrams revealing compositional relations among the figures. These images are projected onto and around the replica of the painting that now stands at the original site, picassos Guernica, Seurats Grande Jatte, works by Jackson Pollock and Claude Monet, Velázquezs Las Meninas and Michelangelos The Last Judgment are possible series subjects
37.
Public domain
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The term public domain has two senses of meaning. Anything published is out in the domain in the sense that it is available to the public. Once published, news and information in books is in the public domain, in the sense of intellectual property, works in the public domain are those whose exclusive intellectual property rights have expired, have been forfeited, or are inapplicable. Examples for works not covered by copyright which are therefore in the domain, are the formulae of Newtonian physics, cooking recipes. Examples for works actively dedicated into public domain by their authors are reference implementations of algorithms, NIHs ImageJ. The term is not normally applied to situations where the creator of a work retains residual rights, as rights are country-based and vary, a work may be subject to rights in one country and be in the public domain in another. Some rights depend on registrations on a basis, and the absence of registration in a particular country, if required. Although the term public domain did not come into use until the mid-18th century, the Romans had a large proprietary rights system where they defined many things that cannot be privately owned as res nullius, res communes, res publicae and res universitatis. The term res nullius was defined as not yet appropriated. The term res communes was defined as things that could be enjoyed by mankind, such as air, sunlight. The term res publicae referred to things that were shared by all citizens, when the first early copyright law was first established in Britain with the Statute of Anne in 1710, public domain did not appear. However, similar concepts were developed by British and French jurists in the eighteenth century, instead of public domain they used terms such as publici juris or propriété publique to describe works that were not covered by copyright law. The phrase fall in the domain can be traced to mid-nineteenth century France to describe the end of copyright term. In this historical context Paul Torremans describes copyright as a coral reef of private right jutting up from the ocean of the public domain. Because copyright law is different from country to country, Pamela Samuelson has described the public domain as being different sizes at different times in different countries. According to James Boyle this definition underlines common usage of the public domain and equates the public domain to public property. However, the usage of the public domain can be more granular. Such a definition regards work in copyright as private property subject to fair use rights, the materials that compose our cultural heritage must be free for all living to use no less than matter necessary for biological survival
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm, Hugh, ed. (1911). "Fouquet, Nicolas". Encyclopædia Britannica. 10 (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press. pp. 750–751.
