1.
Alexander Kucharsky
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Alexander Kucharsky also Alexandre Kucharsky, was a Polish portrait painter who spent his adult life in France. He himself used the spelling Kucharsky, but Kucharski is also often used, in the past, in France, the name has been given as Couaski. As a boy, he was a page to King Stanisław II Augustus and he trained first as an artist in Warsaw, in the studio of the famous painter Marcello Bacciarelli. With a bursary from King Stanisław Augustus, he travelled to Paris to work under Joseph-Marie Vien and Carle van Loo at the Académie Royale. The king of Poland wanted Kucharsky to train as a historical painter, from 1776 to 1778, Kucharsky was in the service of the Princes de Condé. Kucharsky liked to paint half-length portraits in pastels or in oils and his clients were mostly from the French and Polish aristocracy. The latter had increased in numbers in France as a result of the alliance between King Louis XV and Marie Leszczyńska, after the departure from the French court of Élisabeth-Louise Vigée-Le Brun in 1789, Kucharsky became painter to Queen Marie-Antoinette. Kucharskys best-known work today includes his portraits of the doomed French royal family, especially the future King Louis XVII, the final portrait, painted in 1793 of Marie Antoinette, was sold at auction by Piasa on 21 May 2003 and is attributed to Kucharsky. When signing his work, the artist used the spelling Kucharsky, throughout the years of the French Revolution, Kucharskys allegiance remained with the ancien régime. In retirement he lived near Paris at Sainte-Périne, living on a pension granted by Louis XVIII of France, list of Poles Media related to Alexander Kucharsky at Wikimedia Commons Alexander Kucharski at artnet. com Alexandre Kucharski at pere-lachaise. bleublog. ch
2.
Montauban
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Montauban is a commune in the Tarn-et-Garonne department in the Occitanie region in southern France. It is the capital of the department and lies 50 kilometres north of Toulouse, Montauban is the most populated town in Tarn-et-Garonne, and the sixth most populated of Languedoc Roussillon Midi Pyrenees behind Toulouse, Montpellier, Nîmes, Perpignan and Béziers. In 2013, there were 57,921 inhabitants, called “Montalbanais”, the town has been classified “Ville d’art et d’histoire” since 2015. The town, built mainly of a brick, stands on the right bank of the Tarn River at its confluence with the Tescou. Montauban is the second oldest of the bastides of southern France and its foundation dates from 1144 when Count Alphonse Jourdain of Toulouse, granted it a liberal charter. The inhabitants were chiefly from Montauriol, a village which had grown up around the neighbouring monastery of St Théodard. In 1360, under the Treaty of Brétigny, it was ceded to the English, in 1560 the bishops and magistrates embraced Protestantism, expelled the monks, and demolished the cathedral. Ten years later it became one of the four Huguenot strongholds under the Peace of Saint-Germain and it was the headquarters of the Huguenot rebellion of 1621, and successfully withstood an 86-day siege by Louis XIII. It did not submit to royal authority until after the fall of La Rochelle in 1629, the Protestants again suffered persecution after the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685. In the 17th century, the King of France revoked “l’Édit de Nantes”, Montauban was considered as an intellectual city. Because Montauban was a Protestant town, it started to resist and hold its position against the royal power, to scare off the King’s opponents and speed up the end of the siege,400 cannonballs were fired, but Montauban resisted and the royal army was vanquished. Saint Jacques church is marked by the cannonballs, and every year in September, the city celebrates “les 400 coups”. During World War II, Leonardo da Vincis Mona Lisa was briefly hidden in a secret vault behind a cellar at Montauban. Montauban’s climate is temperate and oceanic, temperatures are rather mild in winter and hot in summer. The town experienced severe droughts in 2003,2006,2012 and 2015, on August 31,2015, the Tarn-et-Garonne area was particularly struck by a wave of violent storms. These storms, accompanied by very important winds, created a tornado, Montauban was particularly affected, with winds measured between 130 and 150 kilometers per hour in the city center. This bridge is known as Pont Vieux, King Philip the Fair of France officially launched the building of the bridge in 1303 while on a tour to Toulouse. The project took 30 years to complete, and the bridge was inaugurated in 1335, the main architects were Étienne de Ferrières and Mathieu de Verdun
3.
Guyenne
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Guyenne or Guienne was an old French province which corresponded roughly to the Aquitania Secunda of the Romans and the archdiocese of Bordeaux. The name Guyenne comes from Aguyenne, a deformation of Aquitania. In the 12th century, it formed with the Gascony the duchy of Aquitaine which passed under the dominion of the kings of England by the marriage of Eleanor of Aquitaine to Henry II. In the 13th century, through the conquests of Philip II, Louis VIII and Louis IX and it is at this point that Guyenne became distinct from Aquitaine. It then comprised the Bordelais, the Bazadais, part of Périgord, Limousin, Quercy and Rouergue, still united with Gascony, it formed a duchy extending from the Charentes to the Pyrenees. At the treaty of Brétigny, King Edward III of England acquired the sovereignty of the duchy of Guyenne, together with Aunis, Saintonge, Angoumois. The victories of Bertrand du Guesclin and Gaston III, Count of Foix, in 1451, it was conquered and finally united to the French crown by Charles VII. In 1469, Louis XI gave it in exchange for Champagne and Brie to his brother Charles, Duke of Berry, after death in 1472. Guyenne then formed a government which from the 17th century onwards was united with Gascony, the government of Guyenne and Gascony, with its capital at Bordeaux, lasted till the end of the Ancien Régime. Under the French Revolution, the formed from Guyenne proper were those of Gironde, Lot-et-Garonne, Dordogne, Lot, Aveyron
4.
Kingdom of France
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The Kingdom of France was a medieval and early modern monarchy in Western Europe. It was one of the most powerful states in Europe and a great power since the Late Middle Ages and it was also an early colonial power, with possessions around the world. France originated as West Francia, the half of the Carolingian Empire. A branch of the Carolingian dynasty continued to rule until 987, the territory remained known as Francia and its ruler as rex Francorum well into the High Middle Ages. The first king calling himself Roi de France was Philip II, France continued to be ruled by the Capetians and their cadet lines—the Valois and Bourbon—until the monarchy was overthrown in 1792 during the French Revolution. France in the Middle Ages was a de-centralised, feudal monarchy, in Brittany and Catalonia the authority of the French king was barely felt. Lorraine and Provence were states of the Holy Roman Empire and not yet a part of France, during the Late Middle Ages, the Kings of England laid claim to the French throne, resulting in a series of conflicts known as the Hundred Years War. Subsequently, France sought to extend its influence into Italy, but was defeated by Spain in the ensuing Italian Wars, religiously France became divided between the Catholic majority and a Protestant minority, the Huguenots, which led to a series of civil wars, the Wars of Religion. France laid claim to large stretches of North America, known collectively as New France, Wars with Great Britain led to the loss of much of this territory by 1763. French intervention in the American Revolutionary War helped secure the independence of the new United States of America, the Kingdom of France adopted a written constitution in 1791, but the Kingdom was abolished a year later and replaced with the First French Republic. The monarchy was restored by the great powers in 1814. During the later years of the elderly Charlemagnes rule, the Vikings made advances along the northern and western perimeters of the Kingdom of the Franks, after Charlemagnes death in 814 his heirs were incapable of maintaining political unity and the empire began to crumble. The Treaty of Verdun of 843 divided the Carolingian Empire into three parts, with Charles the Bald ruling over West Francia, the nucleus of what would develop into the kingdom of France. Viking advances were allowed to increase, and their dreaded longboats were sailing up the Loire and Seine rivers and other waterways, wreaking havoc. During the reign of Charles the Simple, Normans under Rollo from Norway, were settled in an area on either side of the River Seine, downstream from Paris, that was to become Normandy. With its offshoots, the houses of Valois and Bourbon, it was to rule France for more than 800 years. Henry II inherited the Duchy of Normandy and the County of Anjou, and married Frances newly divorced ex-queen, Eleanor of Aquitaine, after the French victory at the Battle of Bouvines in 1214, the English monarchs maintained power only in southwestern Duchy of Guyenne. The death of Charles IV of France in 1328 without male heirs ended the main Capetian line, under Salic law the crown could not pass through a woman, so the throne passed to Philip VI, son of Charles of Valois
5.
Place de la Concorde
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The Place de la Concorde is one of the major public squares in Paris, France. Measuring 8.64 hectares in area, it is the largest square in the French capital and it is located in the citys eighth arrondissement, at the eastern end of the Champs-Élysées. The place was designed by Ange-Jacques Gabriel in 1755 as a moat-skirted octagon between the Champs-Elysées to the west and the Tuileries Garden to the east, decorated with statues and fountains, the area was named Place Louis XV to honor the king at that time. At the north end, two magnificent identical stone buildings were constructed, separated by the rue Royale, these structures remain among the best examples of Louis Quinze style architecture. Initially, the building served as the French Naval Ministry. Shortly after its construction, the building became the opulent home of the Duc dAumont. It was later purchased by the Comte de Crillon, whose family resided there until 1907, the famous luxury Hôtel de Crillon, which currently occupies the building, took its name from its previous owners. During the French Revolution the statue of Louis XV of France was torn down, the new revolutionary government erected the guillotine in the square, and it was here that King Louis XVI was executed on 21 January 1793. In 1795, under the Directory, the square was renamed Place de la Concorde as a gesture of reconciliation after the turmoil of the French Revolution. After the Bourbon Restoration of 1814, the name was changed back to Place Louis XV, after the July Revolution of 1830 the name was returned to Place de la Concorde and has remained that way since. To the west of the Place is the famous Champs-Élysées, to the east of the Place are the Tuileries Gardens. The Galerie nationale du Jeu de Paume and the Musée de lOrangerie, the eastern one houses the French Naval Ministry, and the western one is the Hôtel de Crillon. The Rue Royale leads to the de la Madeleine. The center of the Place is occupied by a giant Egyptian obelisk decorated with hieroglyphics exalting the reign of the pharaoh Ramesses II and it is one of two the Egyptian government gave to the French in the 19th century. The other one stayed in Egypt, too difficult and heavy to move to France with the technology at that time, in the 1990s, President François Mitterrand gave the second obelisk back to the Egyptians. The obelisk once marked the entrance to the Luxor Temple, the self-declared Khedive of Egypt, Muhammad Ali Pasha, offered the 3, 300-year-old Luxor Obelisk to France in 1829. It arrived in Paris on 21 December 1833, three years later, on 25 October 1836, King Louis Philippe had it placed in the center of Place de la Concorde. The obelisk, a granite column, rises 23 metres high, including the base
6.
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
7.
French First Republic
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In the history of France, the First Republic, officially the French Republic, was founded on 21 September 1792 during the French Revolution. The First Republic lasted until the declaration of the First Empire in 1804 under Napoleon, under the Legislative Assembly, which was in power before the proclamation of the First Republic, France was engaged in war with Prussia and Austria. The foreign threat exacerbated Frances political turmoil amid the French Revolution and deepened the passion, in the violence of 10 August 1792, citizens stormed the Tuileries Palace, killing six hundred of the Kings Swiss guards and insisting on the removal of the king. A renewed fear of action prompted further violence, and in the first week of September 1792, mobs of Parisians broke into the citys prisons. This included nobles, clergymen, and political prisoners, but also numerous common criminals, such as prostitutes and petty thieves, many murdered in their cells—raped, stabbed and this became known as the September Massacres. The resulting Convention was founded with the purpose of abolishing the monarchy. The Conventions first act, on 10 August 1792, was to establish the French First Republic, the King, by then a private citizen bearing his family name of Capet, was subsequently put on trial for crimes of high treason starting in December 1792. On 16 January 1793 he was convicted, and on 21 January, throughout the winter of 1792 and spring of 1793, Paris was plagued by food riots and mass hunger. The new Convention did little to remedy the problem until late spring of 1793, despite growing discontent with the National Convention as a ruling body, in June the Convention drafted the Constitution of 1793, which was ratified by popular vote in early August. The Committees laws and policies took the revolution to unprecedented heights, after the arrest and execution of Robespierre in July 1794, the Jacobin club was closed, and the surviving Girondins were reinstated. A year later, the National Convention adopted the Constitution of the Year III and they reestablished freedom of worship, began releasing large numbers of prisoners, and most importantly, initiated elections for a new legislative body. On 3 November 1795, the Directory was established, the period known as the French Consulate began with the coup of 18 Brumaire in 1799. Members of the Directory itself planned the coup, indicating clearly the failing power of the Directory, Napoleon Bonaparte was a co-conspirator in the coup, and became head of the government as the First Consul. He would later proclaim himself Emperor of the French, ending the First French Republic and ushering in the French First Empire
8.
Activism
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Activism consists of efforts to promote, impede, or direct social, political, economic, and/or environmental reform or stasis with the desire to make improvements in society. One can also express activism through different forms of art, daily acts of protest such as not buying clothes from a certain clothing company because they exploit workers is another form of activism. One view holds that acknowledging privileges and oppressions on a daily basis ranks as a form of activism, research has begun to explore how activist groups use social media to facilitate civic engagement and collective action. The Online Etymology Dictionary records the English words activism and activist from 1920, Activists can function in roles as public officials, as in judicial activism. Arthur Schlesinger, Jr. introduced the term judicial activism in a January 1946 Fortune magazine article titled The Supreme Court,1947, some activists try to persuade people to change their behavior directly, rather than to persuade governments to change or not to change laws. Other activists try to persuade people to remain the same, in an effort to counter change, the cooperative movement seeks to build new institutions which conform to cooperative principles, and generally does not lobby or protest politically. Activism is not always an action by Activists, every year more than 100 environmental activists are killed, in 2014116 environmental activists were assassinated, in 2015185 activists were killed around this planet. Since the 1990s, the Internet has been a tool used by activists for mobilization and communication of causes, specific platforms like MoveOn. org, founded in 1998, allow individuals to establish petitions and movements for social change. Protesters in Seattle in 1999 used email to organize protests against the WTO Ministerial Conference, throughout the 2000s, protesters continued to use social media platforms to generate interest. The power of Internet Activism came into a lens with the Arab Spring protests. They use different means to political persecution, such as Tor Browser. The activism industry consists of organizations and individuals engaged in activism, Activism is often done full-time, as part of an organizations core business. Many organizations in the industry are either non profit organizations or non-governmental organizations. Most activist organizations do not manufacture goods, the term activism industry has often been used to refer to outsourced fundraising operations. However, activist organizations engage in activities as well. Lobbying, or the influencing of decisions made by government, is another activist tactic, many groups, including law firms, have designated staff assigned specifically for lobbying purposes. In the United States, lobbying is regulated by the federal government, many government systems encourage public support of non-profit organizations by granting various forms of tax relief for donations to charitable organizations. Governments may attempt to deny these benefits to activists by restricting the political activity of tax-exempt organizations, randy Shaw, The Activists Handbook, A Primer for the 1990s and Beyond
9.
Feminism
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Feminism is a range of political movements, ideologies, and social movements that share a common goal, to define and advance political, economic, personal, and social rights for women. This includes seeking to establish opportunities for women in education. Feminists have also worked to promote autonomy and integrity, and to protect women and girls from rape, sexual harassment. Numerous feminist movements and ideologies have developed over the years and represent different viewpoints, some forms of feminism have been criticized for taking into account only white, middle class, and educated perspectives. This criticism led to the creation of specific or multicultural forms of feminism, including black feminism. Charles Fourier, a Utopian Socialist and French philosopher, is credited with having coined the word féminisme in 1837, depending on the historical moment, culture and country, feminists around the world have had different causes and goals. Most western feminist historians assert that all working to obtain womens rights should be considered feminist movements. Other historians assert that the term should be limited to the modern feminist movement and those historians use the label protofeminist to describe earlier movements. The history of the modern western feminist movements is divided into three waves, each wave dealt with different aspects of the same feminist issues. The first wave comprised womens suffrage movements of the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, the second wave was associated with the ideas and actions of the womens liberation movement beginning in the 1960s. The second wave campaigned for legal and social equality for women, the third wave is a continuation of, and a reaction to, the perceived failures of second-wave feminism, beginning in the 1990s. First-wave feminism was a period of activity during the 19th century, in the UK and US, it focused on the promotion of equal contract, marriage, parenting, and property rights for women. This was followed by Australia granting female suffrage in 1902, in 1928 this was extended to all women over 21. In the U. S. notable leaders of this movement included Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, anthony, who each campaigned for the abolition of slavery prior to championing womens right to vote. These women were influenced by the Quaker theology of spiritual equality, in the United States, first-wave feminism is considered to have ended with the passage of the Nineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution, granting women the right to vote in all states. During the late Qing period and reform movements such as the Hundred Days Reform, Chinese feminists called for womens liberation from traditional roles, later, the Chinese Communist Party created projects aimed at integrating women into the workforce, and claimed that the revolution had successfully achieved womens liberation. According to Nawar al-Hassan Golley, Arab feminism was closely connected with Arab nationalism, in 1899, Qasim Amin, considered the father of Arab feminism, wrote The Liberation of Women, which argued for legal and social reforms for women. He drew links between womens position in Egyptian society and nationalism, leading to the development of Cairo University, in 1923 Hoda Shaarawi founded the Egyptian Feminist Union, became its president and a symbol of the Arab womens rights movement
10.
Abolitionism
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Abolitionism is a movement to end slavery, whether formal or informal. In Western Europe and the Americas, abolitionism is a movement to end the African and Indian slave trade. An abolitionist movement only started in the late 18th century, however, soon after his death in 1785, they joined with William Wilberforce and others in forming the Clapham Sect. Massachusetts ratified a constitution that declared all men equal, freedom suits challenging slavery based on this principle brought an end to slavery in the state, Vermont, which existed as an unrecognized state from 1777 to 1791, abolished adult slavery in 1777. In other states, such as Virginia, similar declarations of rights were interpreted by the courts as not applicable to Africans, during the following decades, the abolitionist movement grew in northern states, and Congress regulated the expansion of slavery in new states admitted to the union. France abolished slavery within the French Kingdom in 1315, Haiti achieved independence from France in 1804 and brought an end to slavery in its territory. The northern states in the U. S. all abolished slavery by 1804, the United Kingdom and the United States outlawed the international slave trade in 1807, after which Britain led efforts to block slave ships. In Eastern Europe, groups organized to abolish the enslavement of the Roma in Wallachia and Moldavia and it was declared illegal in 1948 under the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The last country to abolish slavery was Mauritania, where it was officially abolished by presidential decree in 1981. In 1315, Louis X, king of France, published a decree proclaiming that France signifies freedom and this prompted subsequent governments to circumscribe slavery in the overseas colonies. Some cases of African slaves freed by setting foot on the French soil were recorded such as example of a Norman slave merchant who tried to sell slaves in Bordeaux in 1571. He was arrested and his slaves were freed according to a declaration of the Parlement of Guyenne which stated that slavery was intolerable in France, born into slavery in Saint Domingue, Thomas-Alexandre Dumas became free when his father brought him to France in 1776. As in other New World colonies, the French relied on the Atlantic slave trade for labour for their sugar plantations in their Caribbean colonies. In addition, French colonists in Louisiane in North America held slaves, particularly in the South around New Orleans, Louis XIVs Code Noir regulated the slave trade and institution in the colonies. It gave unparalleled rights to slaves and it includes the right to marry, gather publicly, or take Sundays off. Although the Code Noir authorized and codified cruel corporal punishment against slaves under certain conditions and it also forced the owners to instruct them in the Catholic faith, implying that Africans were human beings endowed with a soul, a fact that was not seen as evident until then. It resulted in a far higher percentage of blacks being free in 1830 and they were on average exceptionally literate, with a significant number of them owning businesses, properties, and even slaves. Other free people of colour, such as Julien Raimond, spoke out against slavery, during the Age of Enlightenment, many philosophers wrote pamphlets against slavery and its moral and economical justifications, including Montesquieu in The Spirit of the Laws or in the Encyclopédie
11.
Playwright
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A playwright, also known as a dramatist, is a person who writes plays. The term is not a variant spelling of playwrite, but something quite distinct, hence the prefix and the suffix combine to indicate someone who has wrought words, themes, and other elements into a dramatic form - someone who crafts plays. The homophone with write is in this case entirely coincidental, the term playwright appears to have been coined by Ben Jonson in his Epigram 49, To Playwright, as an insult, to suggest a mere tradesman fashioning works for the theatre. Jonson described himself as a poet, not a playwright, since plays during that time were written in meter and this view was held as late as the early 19th century. The term playwright later lost this negative connotation, the earliest playwrights in Western literature with surviving works are the Ancient Greeks. These early plays were written for annual Athenian competitions among playwrights held around the 5th century BC, such notables as Aeschylus, Sophocles, Euripides, and Aristophanes established forms still relied on by their modern counterparts. For the ancient Greeks, playwriting involved poïesis, the act of making and this is the source of the English word poet. In the 4th century BCE, Aristotle wrote his Poetics, the first play-writing manual, in this famous text, Aristotle established the principle of action or praxis as the basis for all drama. He then included a hierarchy of elements for the beginning with plot, character, thought, diction, music. The ends of drama were plot, character, and thought, the means of drama were language and music, since the myths, upon which Greek tragedy were based, were widely known, plot had to do with the arrangement and selection of existing material. Character was equated with choice as rather than psychology, so that character was determined by action, in tragedy, the notion of ethical choice determined the character of the individual. Thought had more to do and the imitation of an action that is serious, thus, he developed his notion of hamartia, or tragic flaw, an error in judgment by the main character or protagonist. It provides the basis for the play, a term still held as the sine qua non of dramaturgy. The Poetics, while very brief and highly condensed, is studied today. Perhaps the most Aristotelian of contemporary playwrights is David Mamet, who embraces the idea of character as agent of the action, and emphasizes causality in the structure of his plays. His recently revived, Speed-the-Plow, is quintessentially Aristotelian, in that it observes the unities and builds its plot through a causal stream of discoveries and reversals. The Italian Renaissance brought about a stricter interpretation of Aristotle, as this long-lost work came to light in the late 15th century. The neoclassical ideal, which was to reach its apogee in France during the 17th century, dwelled upon the unities, of action, place, and time
12.
Capital punishment
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Capital punishment, also known as the death penalty, is a government sanctioned practice whereby a person is put to death by the state as a punishment for a crime. The sentence that someone be punished in such a manner is referred to as a death sentence, etymologically, the term capital in this context alluded to execution by beheading. Fifty-six countries retain capital punishment,103 countries have abolished it de jure for all crimes, six have abolished it for ordinary crimes. Capital punishment is a matter of controversy in various countries and states. In the European Union, Article 2 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union prohibits the use of capital punishment, also, the Council of Europe, which has 47 member states, prohibits the use of the death penalty by its members. The United Nations General Assembly has adopted, in 2007,2008,2010,2012 and 2014, non-binding resolutions calling for a moratorium on executions. Although most nations have abolished capital punishment, over 60% of the population live in countries where executions take place, such as China, India. Execution of criminals and political opponents has been used by nearly all societies—both to punish crime, in most countries that practise capital punishment it is reserved for murder, terrorism, war crimes, espionage, treason, defection or as part of military justice. In many countries use the death penalty, drug trafficking is also a capital offence. In China, human trafficking and serious cases of corruption are punished by the death penalty, in militaries around the world courts-martial have imposed death sentences for offences such as cowardice, desertion, insubordination, and mutiny. The use of formal execution extends to the beginning of recorded history, most historical records and various primitive tribal practices indicate that the death penalty was a part of their justice system. Communal punishment for wrongdoing generally included compensation by the wrongdoer, corporal punishment, shunning, banishment, usually, compensation and shunning were enough as a form of justice. The response to crime committed by neighbouring tribes or communities included a formal apology, a blood feud or vendetta occurs when arbitration between families or tribes fails or an arbitration system is non-existent. This form of justice was common before the emergence of a system based on state or organized religion. It may result from crime, land disputes or a code of honour, acts of retaliation underscore the ability of the social collective to defend itself and demonstrate to enemies that injury to property, rights, or the person will not go unpunished. However, in practice, it is difficult to distinguish between a war of vendetta and one of conquest. Elaborations of tribal arbitration of feuds included peace settlements often done in a religious context, compensation was based on the principle of substitution which might include material compensation, exchange of brides or grooms, or payment of the blood debt. Settlement rules could allow for animal blood to replace human blood, the person offered for execution did not have to be an original perpetrator of the crime because the system was based on tribes, not individuals
13.
Guillotine
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A guillotine is an apparatus designed for efficiently carrying out executions by beheading. The device consists of a tall, upright frame in which a weighted and angled blade is raised to the top, the condemned person is secured with stocks at the bottom of the frame, positioning the neck directly below the blade. The blade is released, to fall swiftly and forcefully decapitating the victim with a single pass so that the head falls into a basket below. The name dates from period, but similar devices had been used elsewhere in Europe over several centuries. The guillotine continued to be used long after the revolution and remained Frances standard method of execution until the abolition of capital punishment in 1981. The last person to be executed in France was Hamida Djandoubi, the use of beheading machines in Europe long predates such use in the French revolution in 1792. An early example of the principle is found in the High History of the Holy Grail, although the device is imaginary, its function is clear. The text says, Within these three openings are the set for them. And behold what I would do to them if their three heads were therein, even thus will I cut off their heads when they shall set them into those three openings thinking to adore the hallows that are beyond. The Halifax Gibbet was a structure of two wooden uprights, capped by a horizontal beam, of a total height of 4.5 metres. The blade was an axe head weighing 3.5 kg, attached to the bottom of a wooden block that slid up. This device was mounted on a square platform 1.25 metres high. It is not known when the Halifax Gibbet was first used, the first recorded execution in Halifax dates from 1280, the machine remained in use until Oliver Cromwell forbade capital punishment for petty theft. It was used for the last time, for the execution of two criminals on a day, on 30 April 1650. Holinsheds Chronicles of 1577 included a picture of The execution of Murcod Ballagh near to Merton in Ireland 1307 showing a similar execution machine, the Maiden was constructed in 1564 for the Provost and Magistrates of Edinburgh, and was in use from April 1565 to 1710. One of those executed was James Douglas, 4th Earl of Morton, in 1581, Schmidt recommended using an angled blade as opposed to a round one. On 10 October 1789, physician Joseph-Ignace Guillotin proposed to the National Assembly that capital punishment always take the form of decapitation by means of a simple mechanism, sensing the growing discontent, Louis XVI banned the use of the breaking wheel. A committee was formed under Antoine Louis, physician to the King, Guillotin was also on the committee
14.
Reign of Terror
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The Reign of Terror or The Terror, is the label given by some historians to a period of violence during the French Revolution. Different historians place the date at either 5 September 1793 or June 1793 or March 1793 or September 1792 or July 1789. Between June 1793 and the end of July 1794, there were 16,594 official death sentences in France, but the total number of deaths in France in 1793–96 in only the civil war in the Vendée is estimated at 250,000 counter-revolutionaries and 200,000 republicans. During 1794, revolutionary France was beset with conspiracies by internal, within France, the revolution was opposed by the French nobility, which had lost its inherited privileges. The Catholic Church opposed the revolution, which had turned the clergy into employees of the state, in addition, the French First Republic was engaged in a series of wars with neighboring powers, and parts of France were engaging in civil war against the loyalist regime. The latter were grouped in the parliamentary faction called the Mountain. Through the Revolutionary Tribunal, the Terrors leaders exercised broad powers, the Reign was a manifestation of the strong strain on centralized power. Many historians have debated the reasons the French Revolution took such a turn during the Reign of Terror of 1793–94. The public was frustrated that the equality and anti-poverty measures that the revolution originally promised were not materializing. Jacques Rouxs Manifesto of the Enraged on 25 June 1793, describes the extent to which, four years into the revolution, the foundation of the Terror is centered on the April 1793 creation of the Committee of Public Safety and its militant Jacobin delegates. Those in power believed the Committee of Public Safety was an unfortunate, according to Mathiez, they touched only with trepidation and reluctance the regime established by the Constituent Assembly so as not to interfere with the early accomplishments of the revolution. Similar to Mathiez, Richard Cobb introduced competing circumstances of revolt, counter-revolutionary rebellions taking place in Lyon, Brittany, Vendée, Nantes, and Marseille were threatening the revolution with royalist ideas. Cobb writes, the revolutionaries themselves, living as if in combat… were easily persuaded that only terror, Terror was used in these rebellions both to execute inciters and to provide a very visible example to those who might be considering rebellion. Cobb agrees with Mathiez that the Terror was simply a response to circumstances, at the same time, Cobb rejects Mathiezs Marxist interpretation that elites controlled the Reign of Terror to the significant benefit of the bourgeoisie. Instead, Cobb argues that social struggles between the classes were seldom the reason for actions and sentiments. Widespread terror and a consequent rise in executions came after external and internal threats were vastly reduced, with the backing of the national guard, they persuaded the convention to arrest 29 Girondist leaders, including Jacques Pierre Brissot. On 13 July the assassination of Jean-Paul Marat – a Jacobin leader, georges Danton, the leader of the August 1792 uprising against the king, was removed from the committee. The Jacobins identified themselves with the movement and the sans-culottes
15.
Girondins
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The Girondins were members of a loosely knit political faction during the French Revolution. From 1791 to 1793, the Girondins were active within the Legislative Assembly and they were part of the Jacobin movement, though not every Girondin was a member of the Jacobin Club. The Girondins campaigned for the end of the monarchy, but then resisted the spiraling momentum of the Revolution and they came into conflict with The Mountain, a radical faction within the Jacobin Club. This conflict eventually led to the fall of the Girondins and their mass execution, Girondin leader Jacques-Pierre Brissot proposed an ambitious military plan to spread the Revolution internationally, thus the Girondins were the war party in 1792–93. Other prominent Girondins included Jean Marie Roland and his wife Madame Roland and they had an ally in the English-born, sometime American activist Thomas Paine. Brissot and Madame Roland were executed and Jean Roland committed suicide when he learned what had transpired, Paine was arrested and imprisoned but narrowly escaped execution. The famous painting Death of Marat depicts the killing of the radical journalist Jean-Paul Marat by the Girondin sympathizer Charlotte Corday. The collective name Girondins is used to describe a a loosely knit group of French deputies who contested the Montagnards for control of the National Convention and they were never an official organization or political party. Other names were employed at the time too, but Girondins ultimately became the term favored by historians, the term became standard with Alphonse de Lamartines History of the Girondists in 1847. Twelve deputies represented the département of the Gironde, and there were six who sat for this département in both the Legislative Assembly of 1791-92 and the National Convention of 1792-95. Five were lawyers, Pierre Victurnien Vergniaud, Marguerite Élie Guadet, Armand Gensonné, Jean Antoine Laffargue de Grangeneuve, the other, Jean François Ducos, was a tradesman. Madame Roland, whose salon became their gathering place, had a influence on the spirit. The group was identified by its enemies at the start of the National Convention, Brissotins and Girondins were terms of opprobrium used by their enemies in a separate faction of the Jacobin Club, who freely denounced them as enemies of democracy. In the Legislative Assembly, the Girondins represented the principle of democratic revolution within France and they supported an aggressive foreign policy and constituted the war party in the period 1792-93, when revolutionary France initiated a long series of revolutionary wars with other European powers. Brissot proposed a military plan to spread the Revolution internationally. The Girondins also called for war against Austria, arguing it would rally patriots around the Revolution, liberate oppressed peoples from despotism, in all of this activity, there was no apparent line of cleavage between La Gironde and The Mountain. Montagnards and Girondins alike were opposed to the monarchy, both were democrats as well as republicans, both were prepared to appeal to force in order to realise their ideals. Despite being accused of wanting to weaken the government, the Girondins desired as little as the Montagnards to break up the unity of France
16.
Code Noir
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The Code Noir was a decree originally passed by Frances King Louis XIV in 1685. The code has been described by Tyler Stovall as one of the most extensive official documents on race, slavery, central to these goals was control of the slave trade. The Code aimed to provide a framework for slavery, to establish protocols governing the conditions of colonial inhabitants. Religious morals also governed the crafting of the Code Noir, it was in part a result of the influence of the influx of Catholic leaders arriving in Martinique between 1673 and 1685. The Code Noir was one of the many laws inspired by Jean-Baptiste Colbert, after Colberts 1683 death, his son, the Marquis de Seignelay, completed the document. It was ratified by Louis XIV and adopted by the Saint-Domingue sovereign council in 1687 after it was rejected by the parliament and it then was applied in the West Indies in 1687, Guyana in 1704, Réunion in 1723, and Louisiana in 1724. The second version of the code was passed by Louis XV at age 13 in 1724, in Canada, slavery received legal foundation from the king from 1689-1709. The Code Noir was not intended for or applied in New Frances Canadian colony, in Canada, there never was legislation regulating slavery, no doubt because of the small number of slaves. Nevertheless, the intendant Raudot issued an ordinance in 1709 that legalized slavery, see Virtual Museum of New France At this time in the Caribbean, Jews were mostly active in the Dutch colonies, so their presence was seen as an unwelcome Dutch influence in French colonial life. Furthermore, the majority of the population in French colonies were slaves, plantation owners largely governed their land and holdings in absentia, with subordinate workers dictating the day-to-day running of the plantations. Because of their enormous population, in addition to the conditions facing slaves. Despite some well-intentioned provisions, the Code Noir was never effectively or strictly enforced, in particular regarding protection for slaves and limitations on corporal punishment. If the man who engaged in relations with a slave was the master of the slave concubine. For another month their hamstring would be cut and they would be branded again, the Assassin Adéwalé, formerly an escaped slave turned pirate, aids local Maroons in freeing the slaves of Saint-Domingue. It is mentioned during the story and also has its own database entry in the game which provides background on the Code Noir. History of slavery in Louisiana Slavery in the British and French Caribbean Slavery in Canada Slavery in Haiti Slave codes Slave rebellions Black Codes Slave Trade Acts Le code noir ou Edit du roy, paris, Chez Claude Girard, dans la GrandSalle, vis-à-vis la GrandeChambre. Édit du Roi, Touchant la Police des Isles de lAmérique Française, Le Code noir The Code Noir, trans. John Garrigus Tyler Stovall, Race and the Making of the Nation, in Michael A. Gomez, ed. Diasporic Africa, A Reader
17.
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
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Slavery
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A slave is unable to withdraw unilaterally from such an arrangement and works without remuneration. Many scholars now use the chattel slavery to refer to this specific sense of legalised. In a broader sense, however, the word slavery may also refer to any situation in which an individual is de facto forced to work against his or her will. Scholars also use the generic terms such as unfree labour or forced labour. However – and especially under slavery in broader senses of the word – slaves may have some rights and/or protections, Slavery began to exist before written history, in many cultures. A person could become a slave from the time of their birth, capture, while slavery was institutionally recognized by most societies, it has now been outlawed in all recognized countries, the last being Mauritania in 2007. Nevertheless, there are still more slaves today than at any point in history. The most common form of the trade is now commonly referred to as human trafficking. Chattel slavery is still practiced by the Islamic State of Iraq. An older interpretation connected it to the Greek verb skyleúo to strip a slain enemy, there is a dispute among historians about whether terms such as unfree labourer or enslaved person, rather than slave, should be used when describing the victims of slavery. Chattel slavery, also called traditional slavery, is so named because people are treated as the chattel of the owner and are bought, although it dominated many societies in the past, this form of slavery has been formally abolished and is very rare today. Even when it can be said to survive, it is not upheld by the system of any internationally recognized government. Indenture, otherwise known as bonded labour or debt bondage is a form of labour under which a person pledges himself or herself against a loan. The services required to repay the debt, and their duration, debt bondage can be passed on from generation to generation, with children required to pay off their parents debt. It is the most widespread form of slavery today, debt bondage is most prevalent in South Asia. This may also include institutions not commonly classified as slavery, such as serfdom, conscription, Human trafficking primarily involves women and children forced into prostitution. And is the fastest growing form of forced labour, with Thailand, Cambodia, India, Brazil, in 2007, Human Rights Watch estimated that 200,000 to 300,000 children served as soldiers in current conflicts. A forced marriage may be regarded as a form of slavery by one or more of the involved in the marriage
19.
French colonial empire
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The French colonial empire constituted the overseas colonies, protectorates and mandate territories that came under French rule from the 16th century onward. The second empire came to an end after the loss of bitter wars in Vietnam and Algeria, competing with Spain, Portugal, the United Provinces, and later Britain, France began to establish colonies in North America, the Caribbean, and India in the 17th century. A series of wars with Great Britain and other European major powers during the 18th century, France rebuilt a new empire mostly after 1850, concentrating chiefly in Africa, as well as Indochina and the South Pacific. Republicans, at first hostile to empire, only became supportive when Germany started to build her own colonial empire and it also provided manpower in the World Wars. It became a mission to lift the world up to French standards by bringing Christianity. In 1884 the leading proponent of colonialism, Jules Ferry declared, The higher races have a right over the lower races, full citizenship rights – assimilation – were offered, although in reality assimilation was always receding the colonial populations treated like subjects not citizens. At its apex, it was one of the largest empires in history, including metropolitan France, the total amount of land under French sovereignty reached 11,500,000 km2 in 1920, with a population of 110 million people in 1939. In World War II, Charles de Gaulle and the Free French used the colonies as bases from which they fought to liberate France. However, after 1945 anti-colonial movements began to challenge European authority, the French constitution of October 27,1946, established the French Union which endured until 1958. Newer remnants of the empire were integrated into France as overseas departments. These now total altogether 119,394 km², which amounts to only 1% of the pre-1939 French colonial empires area, by the 1970s, says Robert Aldrich, the last vestiges of empire held little interest for the French. He argues, Except for the decolonization of Algeria, however. During the 16th century, the French colonization of the Americas began, the story of Frances colonial empire truly began on 27 July 1605, with the foundation of Port Royal in the colony of Acadia in North America, in what is now Nova Scotia, Canada. A few years later, in 1608, Samuel De Champlain founded Quebec, which was to become the capital of the enormous, New France had a rather small population, which resulted from more emphasis being placed on the fur trade rather than agricultural settlements. Due to this emphasis, the French relied heavily on creating friendly contacts with the local First Nations community and these became the most enduring alliances between the French and the First Nation community. The French were, however, under pressure from religious orders to them to Catholicism. Through alliances with various Native American tribes, the French were able to exert a loose control over much of the North American continent, areas of French settlement were generally limited to the St. Lawrence River Valley. Prior to the establishment of the 1663 Sovereign Council, the territories of New France were developed as mercantile colonies
20.
Negro
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Negro is a term traditionally used to denote persons considered to be of Negroid heritage. It has various equivalents in other languages, around 1442, the Portuguese first arrived in Southern Africa while trying to find a sea route to India. The term negro, literally meaning black, was used by the Spanish, Negro denotes black in Spanish and Portuguese, derived from the Latin word Niger, meaning black, which itself is probably from a Proto-Indo-European root *nekw-, to be dark, akin to *nokw-, night. Negro was also used of the peoples of West Africa in old maps labelled Negroland, from the 18th century to the late 1960s, negro was considered to be the proper English-language term for people of black African origin. According to Oxford Dictionaries, use of the word now seems out of date or even offensive in both British and US English, a specifically female form of the word, negress, was occasionally used. However, like Jewess, it has all but completely fallen from use, Negroid has traditionally been used within physical anthropology to denote one of the three purported races of humankind, alongside Caucasoid and Mongoloid. The suffix -oid means similar to, Negroid as a noun was used to designate a wider or more generalized category than Negro, as an adjective, it qualified a noun as in, for example, negroid features. Negro superseded colored as the most polite word for African Americans at a time when black was considered more offensive, du Bois and Dr. Carter G. Woodson used it in the titles of their non-fiction books, The Negro and The Mis-Education of the Negro respectively. Negro was accepted as normal, both as exonym and endonym, until the late 1960s, after the later African-American Civil Rights Movement. One well-known example is the identification by Martin Luther King, Jr. of his own race as Negro in his famous I Have a Dream speech of 1963, malcolm X preferred Black to Negro, but also started using the term Afro-American after leaving the Nation of Islam. Since the late 1960s, various terms have been more widespread in popular usage. These include black, Black African, Afro-American and African American, the word Negro fell out of favor by the early 1970s. However, many older African Americans initially found the term black more offensive than Negro, the United States Census Bureau included Negro on the 2010 Census, alongside Black and African-American, because some older black Americans still self-identify with the term. The U. S. Census now uses the grouping Black, African-American, Negro is used in efforts to include older African Americans who more closely associate with the term. The constitution of Liberia limits Liberian nationality to Negro people, people of other racial origins, even if they have lived for many years in Liberia, are thus precluded from becoming citizens of the Republic. In Spanish, negro is most commonly used for the color black, in Spain, Mexico and almost all of Latin America, negro means black person. As in English, this Spanish word is used figuratively and negatively, to mean irregular or undesirable. In Venezuela the word negro is similarly used, despite its large West African slave-descended population percentage, in certain parts of Latin America, the usage of negro to directly address black people can be colloquial
21.
Quercy
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Quercy comprised the present-day department of Lot, the northern half of the department of Tarn-et-Garonne, and a few communities in the departments of Dordogne, Corrèze, and Aveyron. The traditional capital of Quercy is Cahors, now prefecture of Lot, the largest town of Quercy is Montauban, prefecture of Tarn-et-Garonne. Also distinct from the rest of the region is the Quercy Blanc lying between Cahors and the boundary of Lot, characterised by its white limestone buildings. Like Périgord, the area is noted for its cuisine, more particularly the duck dishes, confit de canard and magret de canard, Quercy has a land area of 6,987 km². At the 1999 census there were 275,984 inhabitants on the territory of the province of Quercy. However, if Montauban is not included inside Quercy, then the population of Quercy in 1999 was 224,129 inhabitants. The province gave its name to cadurcum, a variety of light linen, under the Romans Quercy was part of Aquitania prima, and Christianity was introduced during the 4th century. Early in the 6th century it fell under the authority of the Franks, at the end of the 10th century its rulers were the powerful counts of Toulouse. During the wars between England and France in the reign of Henry II, the English placed garrisons in the county, and by the 1259 Treaty of Paris lower Quercy was ceded to England. The monarchs of both England and France confirmed and added to the privileges of the towns and the district, in 1360, by the Treaty of Bretigny, the whole county passed to England, but in 1440 the English were finally expelled. In the 16th century Quercy was a stronghold of the Protestants, the civil wars of the reign of Louis XIII largely took place around Montauban. net Quest-ce que le Quercy. Atlas historique du Quercy Portail régional du Quercy Le portail du tourisme en Quercy La Maison du Patrimoine et de l’Environnement Midi-Quercy
22.
Departments of France
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In the administrative divisions of France, the department is one of the three levels of government below the national level, between the administrative regions and the commune. There are 96 departments in metropolitan France and 5 overseas departments, each department is administered by an elected body called a departmental council. From 1800 to April 2015, they were called general councils, the departments were created in 1791 as a rational replacement of Ancien Régime provinces with a view to strengthen national unity, the title department is used to mean a part of a larger whole. Almost all of them were named after geographical features rather than after historical or cultural territories which could have their own loyalties. The earliest known suggestion of it is from 1764 in the writings of dArgenson and they have inspired similar divisions in many countries, some of them former French colonies. Most French departments are assigned a number, the Official Geographical Code. Some overseas departments have a three-digit number, the number is used, for example, in the postal code, and was until recently used for all vehicle registration plates. For example, inhabitants of Loiret might refer to their department as the 45 and this reform project has since been abandoned. The first French territorial departments were proposed in 1665 by Marc-René dArgenson to serve as administrative areas purely for the Ponts et Chaussées infrastructure administration, before the French Revolution, France gained territory gradually through the annexation of a mosaic of independent entities. By the close of the Ancien Régime, it was organised into provinces, during the period of the Revolution, these were dissolved, partly in order to weaken old loyalties. Their boundaries served two purposes, Boundaries were chosen to break up Frances historical regions in an attempt to erase cultural differences, Boundaries were set so that every settlement in the country was within a days ride of the capital of the department. This was a security measure, intended to keep the national territory under close control. This measure was directly inspired by the Great Terror, during which the government had lost control of rural areas far from any centre of government. The old nomenclature was carefully avoided in naming the new departments, most were named after an areas principal river or other physical features. Even Paris was in the department of Seine, the number of departments, initially 83, was increased to 130 by 1809 with the territorial gains of the Republic and of the First French Empire. Following Napoleons defeats in 1814-1815, the Congress of Vienna returned France to its pre-war size, in 1860, France acquired the County of Nice and Savoy, which led to the creation of three new departments. Two were added from the new Savoyard territory, while the department of Alpes-Maritimes was created from Nice, the 89 departments were given numbers based on their alphabetical order. The department of Bas-Rhin and parts of Meurthe, Moselle, Vosges and Haut-Rhin were ceded to the German Empire in 1871, following Frances defeat in the Franco-Prussian War
23.
Tarn-et-Garonne
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Tarn-et-Garonne is a department in the southwest of France. It is traversed by the Rivers Tarn and Garonne, from which it takes its name and this area was originally part of the former provinces of Quercy and Languedoc. The department was created in 1808 by Napoléon Bonaparte, with territory being taken from the departments of Lot, Haute-Garonne, Lot-et-Garonne, Gers and Aveyron. The department is mostly rural with fertile land in the broad river valley. The departmental prefecture is Montauban, and some of the large communes include Castelsarrasin, Molières, Caussade, Valence-dAgen. Quercy was part of Aquitania prima under the Romans, and Christianity was introduced during the 4th century, early in the 6th century the area fell under the authority of the Franks, and in the 7th century became part of the autonomous Duchy of Aquitaine. At the end of the 10th century its rulers were the counts of Toulouse. The kings of both England and France around this time tried to curry favour by adding to the privileges of the towns, in 1360, the Treaty of Brétigny was signed and the whole of Quercy passed to England. However, in the 1440s the English were finally expelled by the newly created army of Charles VII of France, in the 16th century Quercy was a stronghold of the Protestants, and the scene of fierce religious conflicts. The civil wars of the reign of Louis XIII largely took place around Montauban, before the departments formation in the nineteenth century, the northern half formed part of the old province of Quercy and the southern half, part of Languedoc. The department was created on 4 November 1808 during the First French Empire by a decision of Napoleon and he was impressed by their loyalty and granted their request. The department was formed out of territories that had previously been part of neighbouring areas, more than half of the territory was taken from the Department of Lot, over one-third was taken from Haute-Garonne, and the rest from the departments of Lot-et-Garonne, Gers, and Aveyron. The first Prefect was Félix Le Peletier dAunay, who was installed in his post on 31 December 1808, tarn-et-Garonne constitutes part of the Occitanie region in southern France. It borders on the departments of Lot to the north, Aveyron to the northeast, Tarn to the east, Haute-Garonne to the south, the capital of the department is Montauban which lies about 50 km north of Toulouse. Montauban is situated on the bank of the river Tarn at its confluence with the river Tescou. The second largest commune in the department is Castelsarrasin which stands near the confluence of the Tarn, Montauban is connected to the Garonne via the 11 km Canal de Montech. In the northeast of the department is higher land in the form of limestone known as the Causses. The highest point in the department, at 510 m, is the Pech Maurel, the economy of the department depends mainly on agriculture but there is also some industry, and it benefits from its proximity to Toulouse
24.
Jean-Jacques Lefranc, Marquis de Pompignan
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His library of some 25,000 volumes was sold after his death by his son, and became founding collections for no less than three learned institution in Toulouse. He built a chateau at Pompignan, and over a period of thirty-five years created one of the earliest and most extensive parcs à fabriques. The chateau stands in good order today, and although the park and its follies have been neglected, in May 2011 the decision was taken to route the planned Bordeaux-Toulouse TGV and high-speed freight rail lines through the center of the Lefrancs landscape park. The Lefranc family were originally landlords of the Château de Cayx, successive Lefrancs had served since 1640 as hereditary presidents of the regional Cours des Aides, which was located in Cahors. It still stands today at 10 rue Armand Cambon. At the same time, lands were purchased at Pompignan to provide a convenient rural retreat, Jean-Jacques father, Jacques Lefranc, was the third of the name to become president of the Cour des Aides, and he was to be followed by his eldest son and grandson. The family retained the seat at Cayx, and the beautifully sited old chateau was where Jean-Jacques and his brother were reared, the most skillful masters at the Capital, where he found himself among the disciples of the celebrated Pere Poré. The student made rapid progress, and was not slow in showing proof of a talent as rare as it was precocious, after successfully completing his classical studies, he remained in Paris to attend the School of Law. Voltaire, fifteen years older than Lefranc, attended school from 1704 to 1711. His reputation was made by Poésies sacrées et philosophiques, later mocked by Voltaire, Lefrancs odes on profane subjects hardly reach the same level of quality, with the exception of his ode on the death of JB Rousseau, which achieved considerable renown. His marriage with a wealthy widow enabled him to devote fully to literature, and also funded his campaign for a seat in the Académie française. However, on his induction into the Academie in 1760, he made an ill-considered speech violently attacking the Encyclopaedists. Jean-François de la Harpe, who is severe enough on Lefranc in his correspondence, does his abilities full justice in his Cours littéraire, with those of other 18th-century poets his works may be studied in the Petits poètes français of Prosper Poitevin. His Œuvres complètes were published in 1781, selections in 1800,1813,1822 and these included ruined temples, a gothic bridge, pleasure houses, and an extensive hydraulic and reservoir system which managed a lake and fishpond, streams, fountains and the water for the house. Jean-Jaques younger brother, Jean Georges Lefranc de Pompignan, rose through the hierarchy to become Archbishop of Vienne and a favourite of the king, whose eulogy he delivered
25.
Pompignan, Tarn-et-Garonne
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Pompignan is a commune in the Tarn-et-Garonne department in the Occitanie region in southern France. The Chateau de Pompignan, a mid-18th century neoclassical building, sits on a terrace above the village, today the chateau, in private hands, houses a very large collection of keyboard instruments, and serves as a venue for concerts and musical events. It is also available for rental as an event venue, as of January 2011, a decision to route the proposed new TGV line from Bordeaux to Toulouse at the edge of the village and through the grounds of the chateau is being publicly debated. Some of the villages along the line have formed an association. On 28 September 2010 a directive was issued by minister Jean-Louis Borloo, however, the proposals advocated by USV, essentially running the tracks close to the existing A62 motorway, merit study in more depth before a decision can be made. Communes of the Tarn-et-Garonne department Mairie, INSEE
26.
Autobiography
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An autobiography is a self-written account of the life of a person. The word autobiography was first used deprecatingly by William Taylor in 1797 in the English periodical The Monthly Review, when he suggested the word as a hybrid, however, its next recorded use was in its present sense, by Robert Southey in 1809. Despite only being named early in the century, first-person autobiographical writing originates in antiquity. Autobiography thus takes stock of the life from the moment of composition. While biographers generally rely on a variety of documents and viewpoints. The memoir form is associated with autobiography but it tends, as Pascal claims, to focus less on the self. See also, List of autobiographies and Category, Autobiographies for examples, in a classic essay on American autobiography James M. Autobiographical works are by nature subjective. The inability—or unwillingness—of the author to accurately recall memories has in certain cases resulted in misleading or incorrect information, some sociologists and psychologists have noted that autobiography offers the author the ability to recreate history. Spiritual autobiography is an account of a struggle or journey towards God, followed by conversion a religious conversion. The author re-frames his or her life as a demonstration of divine intention through encounters with the Divine, the spiritual autobiography works as an endorsement of his or her religion. A memoir is slightly different in character from an autobiography, while an autobiography typically focuses on the life and times of the writer, a memoir has a narrower, more intimate focus on his or her own memories, feelings and emotions. Memoirs have often written by politicians or military leaders as a way to record. One early example is that of Julius Caesars Commentarii de Bello Gallico, in the work, Caesar describes the battles that took place during the nine years that he spent fighting local armies in the Gallic Wars. His second memoir, Commentarii de Bello Civili is an account of the events took place between 49 and 48 BC in the civil war against Gnaeus Pompeius and the Senate. Leonor López de Córdoba wrote what is supposed to be the first autobiography in Spanish, the English Civil War provoked a number of examples of this genre, including works by Sir Edmund Ludlow and Sir John Reresby. French examples from the period include the memoirs of Cardinal de Retz. Daniel Defoes Moll Flanders is an early example, charles Dickens David Copperfield is another such classic, and J. D. Salingers The Catcher in the Rye is a well-known modern example of fictional autobiography. Charlotte Brontës Jane Eyre is yet another example of fictional autobiography, the term may also apply to works of fiction purporting to be autobiographies of real characters, e. g. Robert Nyes Memoirs of Lord Byron
27.
French Revolution
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Through the Revolutionary Wars, it unleashed a wave of global conflicts that extended from the Caribbean to the Middle East. Historians widely regard the Revolution as one of the most important events in human history, the causes of the French Revolution are complex and are still debated among historians. Following the Seven Years War and the American Revolutionary War, the French government was deeply in debt, Years of bad harvests leading up to the Revolution also inflamed popular resentment of the privileges enjoyed by the clergy and the aristocracy. Demands for change were formulated in terms of Enlightenment ideals and contributed to the convocation of the Estates-General in May 1789, a central event of the first stage, in August 1789, was the abolition of feudalism and the old rules and privileges left over from the Ancien Régime. The next few years featured political struggles between various liberal assemblies and right-wing supporters of the intent on thwarting major reforms. The Republic was proclaimed in September 1792 after the French victory at Valmy, in a momentous event that led to international condemnation, Louis XVI was executed in January 1793. External threats closely shaped the course of the Revolution, internally, popular agitation radicalised the Revolution significantly, culminating in the rise of Maximilien Robespierre and the Jacobins. Large numbers of civilians were executed by revolutionary tribunals during the Terror, after the Thermidorian Reaction, an executive council known as the Directory assumed control of the French state in 1795. The rule of the Directory was characterised by suspended elections, debt repudiations, financial instability, persecutions against the Catholic clergy, dogged by charges of corruption, the Directory collapsed in a coup led by Napoleon Bonaparte in 1799. The modern era has unfolded in the shadow of the French Revolution, almost all future revolutionary movements looked back to the Revolution as their predecessor. The values and institutions of the Revolution dominate French politics to this day, the French Revolution differed from other revolutions in being not merely national, for it aimed at benefiting all humanity. Globally, the Revolution accelerated the rise of republics and democracies and it became the focal point for the development of all modern political ideologies, leading to the spread of liberalism, radicalism, nationalism, socialism, feminism, and secularism, among many others. The Revolution also witnessed the birth of total war by organising the resources of France, historians have pointed to many events and factors within the Ancien Régime that led to the Revolution. Over the course of the 18th century, there emerged what the philosopher Jürgen Habermas called the idea of the sphere in France. A perfect example would be the Palace of Versailles which was meant to overwhelm the senses of the visitor and convince one of the greatness of the French state and Louis XIV. Starting in the early 18th century saw the appearance of the sphere which was critical in that both sides were active. In France, the emergence of the public sphere outside of the control of the saw the shift from Versailles to Paris as the cultural capital of France. In the 1750s, during the querelle des bouffons over the question of the quality of Italian vs, in 1782, Louis-Sébastien Mercier wrote, The word court no longer inspires awe amongst us as in the time of Louis XIV
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Philosophy
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Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems concerning matters such as existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. The term was coined by Pythagoras. Philosophical methods include questioning, critical discussion, rational argument and systematic presentation, classic philosophical questions include, Is it possible to know anything and to prove it. However, philosophers might also pose more practical and concrete questions such as, is it better to be just or unjust. Historically, philosophy encompassed any body of knowledge, from the time of Ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle to the 19th century, natural philosophy encompassed astronomy, medicine and physics. For example, Newtons 1687 Mathematical Principles of Natural Philosophy later became classified as a book of physics, in the 19th century, the growth of modern research universities led academic philosophy and other disciplines to professionalize and specialize. In the modern era, some investigations that were part of philosophy became separate academic disciplines, including psychology, sociology. Other investigations closely related to art, science, politics, or other pursuits remained part of philosophy, for example, is beauty objective or subjective. Are there many scientific methods or just one, is political utopia a hopeful dream or hopeless fantasy. Major sub-fields of academic philosophy include metaphysics, epistemology, ethics, aesthetics, political philosophy, logic, philosophy of science, since the 20th century, professional philosophers contribute to society primarily as professors, researchers and writers. Traditionally, the term referred to any body of knowledge. In this sense, philosophy is related to religion, mathematics, natural science, education. This division is not obsolete but has changed, Natural philosophy has split into the various natural sciences, especially astronomy, physics, chemistry, biology and cosmology. Moral philosophy has birthed the social sciences, but still includes value theory, metaphysical philosophy has birthed formal sciences such as logic, mathematics and philosophy of science, but still includes epistemology, cosmology and others. Many philosophical debates that began in ancient times are still debated today, colin McGinn and others claim that no philosophical progress has occurred during that interval. Chalmers and others, by contrast, see progress in philosophy similar to that in science, in one general sense, philosophy is associated with wisdom, intellectual culture and a search for knowledge. In that sense, all cultures and literate societies ask philosophical questions such as how are we to live, a broad and impartial conception of philosophy then, finds a reasoned inquiry into such matters as reality, morality and life in all world civilizations. Socrates was an influential philosopher, who insisted that he possessed no wisdom but was a pursuer of wisdom
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Salon (gathering)
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These gatherings often consciously followed Horaces definition of the aims of poetry, either to please or to educate. Salons, commonly associated with French literary and philosophical movements of the 17th and 18th centuries, were carried on until as recently as the 1940s in urban settings, the salon was an Italian invention of the 16th century which flourished in France throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. The salon continued to flourish in Italy throughout the 19th century, one important place for the exchange of ideas was the salon. The word salon first appeared in France in 1664, Literary gatherings before this were often referred to by using the name of the room in which they occurred, like cabinet, réduit, ruelle and alcôve. Before the end of the 17th century, these gatherings were held in the bedroom. This practice may be contrasted with the formalities of Louis XIVs petit lever. She established the rules of etiquette of the salon which resembled the earlier codes of Italian chivalry, the historiography of the salons is far from straightforward. The salons have been studied in depth by a mixture of feminist, Marxist, each of these methodologies focus on different aspects of the salons, and thus have varying analyses of the salons’ importance in terms of French history and the Enlightenment as a whole. Major historiographical debates focus on the relationship between the salons and the sphere, as well as the role of women within the salons. Breaking down the salons into historical periods is complicated due to the various historiographical debates that surround them, most studies stretch from the early 16th century up until around the end of the 18th century. Goodman is typical in ending her study at the French Revolution where, she writes, Steven Kale is relatively alone in his recent attempts to extend the period of the salon up until Revolution of 1848. This world did not disappear in 1789, as recently as the 1940s, salons hosted by Gertrude Stein gained notoriety for including Pablo Picasso and other twentieth-century luminaries like Alice B. The content and form of the salon to some extent defines the character, contemporary literature about the salons is dominated by idealistic notions of politesse, civilité and honnêteté, but whether the salons lived up to these standards is matter of debate. Older texts on the salons tend to paint a picture of the salons. Today, however, this view is considered an adequate analysis of the salon. Dena Goodman claims that rather than being leisure based or schools of civilité salons were instead at the heart of the philosophic community. In short, Goodman argues, the 17th and 18th century saw the emergence of the academic, Enlightenment salons, politeness, argues Goodman, took second-place to academic discussion. The period in which salons were dominant has been labeled the age of conversation, the topics of conversation within the salons - that is, what was and was not polite to talk about - are thus vital when trying to determine the form of the salons
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Nicolas Chamfort
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Sébastien-Roch Nicolas, also known as Chamfort, was a French writer, best known for his witty epigrams and aphorisms. He was secretary to Louis XVIs sister, and of the Jacobin club, Chamfort was born Sébastien-Roch Nicolas, Clermont-Ferrand, Puy-de-Dôme on 6 April 1741, according to a baptismal certificate from Saint-Genès parish in Clermont-Ferrand, to a grocer named Nicolas. On 22 June, a birth certificate gives him the name « Sébastien Roch » from «unknown parents ». A journey to Paris resulted in the boy obtaining a bursary at the Collège des Grassins and he worked hard, although one of his most contemptuous epigrams reads, Ce que jai appris je ne le sais plus, le peu que je sais encore, je lai deviné. When the principal of the College promised Chamfort a benefice, he replied that he could not accept because he preferred honour to honours, about this time he assumed the name of Chamfort. For some time he subsisted by teaching and hack writing, van Eyck, invited Chamfort to accompany him to Germany in 1761. On his return to Paris, Chamfort produced a comedy, La Jeune Indienne, following it with a series of epistles in verse, essays. However, his reputation was not established until 1769, when the Académie française awarded him a prize for his Eloge on Molière. Until then, he lived from hand to mouth, mainly on the hospitality of people who gave him board, Madame Helvétius entertained him at Sèvres for some years. In 1770, another comedy, Le Marchand de Smyrne, brought him notice, and he seemed on the road to fame and fortune. A generous friend gave him a pension of 1200 livres, charged on the Mercure de France. Thus assisted, he was able to go to the baths of Contrexéville and to some time in the country. In 1775, while taking the waters at Barges, he met the duchesse de Grammont, sister of Choiseul, in 1776, his tragedy, Mustapha et Zeangir, was played at Fontainebleau before Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette. Subsequently, the king gave him a pension of 1200 livres and his cousin. Disliking the constraints of court life, he became increasingly discontented, there, comparing the authors of old with his contemporaries, he uttered the famous mot that proclaims the superiority of the dead over the living as companions, and there too he fell in love. The lady, attached to the household of the duchesse du Maine, was 48 years old, but also clever, amusing, and they soon moved to Vaucouleurs, where she died within six months. Chamfort lived in Holland for a time with M. de Narbonne and he was a member of the Masonic lodge Les Neuf Sœurs. In 1784, through the influence of Calonne, he became secretary to the sister, Madame Élisabeth
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Jacques Pierre Brissot
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Jacques Pierre Brissot, who assumed the name of de Warville, was a leading member of the Girondist movement during the French Revolution. Some sources give his name as Jean Pierre Brissot, Brissot was born at Chartres, where his father was an innkeeper. He received an education and worked as a law clerk, first in Chartres then in Paris and he later moved to London because he wanted to pursue a literary career. He published many literary articles throughout his time in London, while there, he Brissot founded two periodicals that later did not do well and failed. He married Félicité Dupont, who translated English works, including Oliver Goldsmith and they lived in London, and had three children. In the preface of Théorie des lois criminelles, Brissot explains that he submitted an outline of the book to Voltaire, Théorie des lois criminelles was a plea for penal reform. Brissot became known as a writer and was engaged on the Mercure de France, soon after his return to Paris, Brissot was placed in the Bastille in 1784 on the charge of having published a pornographic pamphlet Passe-temps de Toinette against the queen. Brissot had an out with Catholicism, and wrote about his disagreements with the churchs hierarchal system. In1791, Brissot along with Marquis de Condorcet, Thomas Paine, as an agent of the society, he paid a visit to the United States in 1788, and subsequently published in 1791 his Nouveau Voyage dans les États-Unis de lAmérique septentrionale. Brissot believed that American ideals could help improve French government and he was elected a Foreign Honorary Member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in 1789. At one point, he was interested in uprooting his family to America, Thomas Jefferson, ambassador in Paris at the time was familiar enough with him to note, Warville is returned charmed with our country. He is going to carry his wife and children to settle there, however, such an emigration never happened. The rising ferment of revolution sucked him back into schemes for progress through political journalism that would make him a household name. From the outbreak of the Revolution in 1789, Brissot became one of its most vocal supporters and he edited the Patriote français from 1789 to 1793 and took a prominent part in politics. Famous for his speeches at the Jacobin Club, he was elected a member of the municipality of Paris, then of the Legislative Assembly, at the National Convention, Brissot represented Eure-et-Loir. Shortly thereafter, Brissot began to align himself with the more conservative Girondins, the Girondins, or Brissotins as they were often called, were a group of loosely affiliated individuals, many of whom came from Gironde, rather than an organized party with a clear ideology. This group was first led by Brissot, following the arrest of King Louis XVI on charges of high treason and crimes against the State, there was much division over what the fate of the king should be. While many argued to end the life and send him to the guillotine, Brissot
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Marquis de Condorcet
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Unlike many of his contemporaries, he advocated a liberal economy, free and equal public instruction, constitutionalism, and equal rights for women and people of all races. His ideas and writings were said to embody the ideals of the Age of Enlightenment and rationalism and he died a mysterious death in prison after a period of flight from French Revolutionary authorities. Condorcet was born in Ribemont, and descended from the ancient family of Caritat, fatherless at a young age, he was raised by his devoutly religious mother. He was educated at the Jesuit College in Reims and at the Collège de Navarre in Paris, where he showed his intellectual ability. When he was sixteen, his analytical abilities gained the praise of Jean le Rond dAlembert and Alexis Clairaut, soon, from 1765 to 1774, he focused on science. In 1765, he published his first work on mathematics entitled Essai sur le calcul intégral and he would go on to publish more papers, and on 25 February 1769, he was elected to the Académie royale des Sciences. In 1772, he published another paper on integral calculus, soon after, he met Jacques Turgot, a French economist, and the two became friends. Turgot was to be an administrator under King Louis XV in 1772, Condorcet worked with Leonhard Euler and Benjamin Franklin. In 1774, Condorcet was appointed general of the Paris mint by Turgot. From this point on, Condorcet shifted his focus from the purely mathematical to philosophy, in the following years, he took up the defense of human rights in general, and of womens and Blacks rights in particular. He supported the ideals embodied by the newly formed United States, in 1776, Turgot was dismissed as Controller General. Consequently, Condorcet submitted his resignation as Inspector General of the Monnaie, but the request was refused, Condorcet later wrote Vie de M. Turgot, a biography which spoke fondly of Turgot and advocated Turgots economic theories. In 1785, Condorcet wrote an essay on the application of analysis of the probability of decisions made on a majority vote, the paper also outlines a generic Condorcet method, designed to simulate pair-wise elections between all candidates in an election. He disagreed strongly with the method of aggregating preferences put forth by Jean-Charles de Borda. Condorcet was one of the first to apply mathematics in the social sciences. In 1781, Condorcet wrote a pamphlet, Reflections on Negro Slavery, in 1786, Condorcet worked on ideas for the differential and integral calculus, giving a new treatment of infinitesimals – a work which was never printed. In 1789, he published Vie de Voltaire, which agreed with Voltaire in his opposition to the Church, in 1791, Condorcet along with Sophie de Grouchy, Thomas Paine, Etienne Dumont, Jacques-Pierre Brissot, and Achilles Duchastellet published a brief journal titled Le Républicain. Its main goal being the promotion of republicanism and the rejection of establishing a constitutional monarchy, the theme being that any sort of monarchy is a threat to freedom no matter who is leading, which emphasized that liberty is freedom from domination
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Madame de Montesson
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Charlotte-Jeanne Béraud de La Haye de Riou was a mistress to Louis Philippe dOrléans, Duke of Orléans, and ultimately, his wife, however, Louis XV would not allow her to become the Duchess. She wrote and acted in several plays and she is known simply as Madame de Montesson. Charlotte-Jeanne Béraud de La Haye de Riou was born in Paris of an old Breton family, on 11 October 1757, she married the seventy-year-old widower Jean Baptiste, Marquis of Montesson, who died in 1769. Her beauty and intelligence attracted the attention of the widowed Louis Philippe dOrléans, the fat, after her marriage to the Duke of Orléans, a member of the royal family and a Prince du Sang, her low rank did not allow her the title of Duchess of Orléans. For her husbands amusement and her own, she set up a theater and wrote several plays. She was arrested on 20 April 1793 during the Terror, and she was released on 28 September 1794 (after the fall of Maximilien Robespierre, befriended Joséphine de Beauharnais, and was a prominent figure at the beginning of the empire. The best edition of her works appeared under the title of Œuvres anonymes in 1782-1785, capon and R Yves-Plessis, Les Théâtres clandestins du xviii siècle. This article incorporates text from a now in the public domain, Chisholm, Hugh, ed. Montesson, Charlotte Jeanne Béraud de la Haye de Riou
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Freemasonry
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The degrees of freemasonry retain the three grades of medieval craft guilds, those of Apprentice, Journeyman or fellow, and Master Mason. These are the degrees offered by Craft Freemasonry, members of these organisations are known as Freemasons or Masons. There are additional degrees, which vary with locality and jurisdiction, the basic, local organisational unit of Freemasonry is the Lodge. The Lodges are usually supervised and governed at the level by a Grand Lodge or Grand Orient. There is no international, worldwide Grand Lodge that supervises all of Freemasonry, each Grand Lodge is independent, modern Freemasonry broadly consists of two main recognition groups. Continental Freemasonry is now the term for the liberal jurisdictions who have removed some, or all. The Masonic Lodge is the organisational unit of Freemasonry. The Lodge meets regularly to conduct the formal business of any small organisation. In addition to business, the meeting may perform a ceremony to confer a Masonic degree or receive a lecture, at the conclusion of the meeting, the Lodge might adjourn for a formal dinner, or festive board, sometimes involving toasting and song. The bulk of Masonic ritual consists of degree ceremonies, candidates for Freemasonry are progressively initiated into Freemasonry, first in the degree of Entered Apprentice. Some time later, in a ceremony, they will be passed to the degree of Fellowcraft. In all of ceremonies, the candidate is entrusted with passwords, signs. Another ceremony is the installation of the Master and officers of the Lodge. In some jurisdictions Installed Master is valued as a separate rank, in other jurisdictions, the grade is not recognised, and no inner ceremony conveys new secrets during the installation of a new Master of the Lodge. Most Lodges have some sort of calendar, allowing Masons. Often coupled with events is the obligation placed on every Mason to contribute to charity. This occurs at both Lodge and Grand Lodge level, Masonic charities contribute to many fields from education to disaster relief. These private local Lodges form the backbone of Freemasonry, and a Freemason will necessarily have been initiated into one of these, there also exist specialist Lodges where Masons meet to celebrate anything from sport to Masonic research
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Human rights
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Human rights are moral principles or norms, which describe certain standards of human behaviour, and are regularly protected as legal rights in municipal and international law. They are applicable everywhere and at time in the sense of being universal. They require empathy and the rule of law and impose an obligation on persons to respect the rights of others. They should not be taken away except as a result of due process based on circumstances, for example, human rights may include freedom from unlawful imprisonment, torture. The doctrine of human rights has been influential within international law. Actions by states and non-governmental organizations form a basis of public policy worldwide, the idea of human rights suggests that if the public discourse of peacetime global society can be said to have a common moral language, it is that of human rights. The strong claims made by the doctrine of human rights continue to provoke considerable skepticism and debates about the content, nature, ancient peoples did not have the same modern-day conception of universal human rights. Whereas recognition of the inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the family is the foundation of freedom. All human beings are free and equal in dignity and rights. According to Jack Donnelly, in the ancient world, traditional societies typically have had elaborate systems of duties, conceptions of justice, political legitimacy, and human flourishing that sought to realize human dignity, flourishing, or well-being entirely independent of human rights. These institutions and practices are alternative to, rather than different formulations of, one theory is that human rights were developed during the early Modern period, alongside the European secularization of Judeo-Christian ethics. The most commonly held view is that the concept of human rights evolved in the West, for example, McIntyre argues there is no word for right in any language before 1400. One of the oldest records of rights is the statute of Kalisz, giving privileges to the Jewish minority in the Kingdom of Poland such as protection from discrimination. Samuel Moyn suggests that the concept of rights is intertwined with the modern sense of citizenship. The earliest conceptualization of human rights is credited to ideas about natural rights emanating from natural law, in particular, the issue of universal rights was introduced by the examination of extending rights to indigenous peoples by Spanish clerics, such as Francisco de Vitoria and Bartolomé de Las Casas. In Britain in 1689, the English Bill of Rights and the Scottish Claim of Right each made illegal a range of oppressive governmental actions, additionally, the Virginia Declaration of Rights of 1776 encoded into law a number of fundamental civil rights and civil freedoms. These were followed by developments in philosophy of human rights by philosophers such as Thomas Paine, John Stuart Mill, hegel during the 18th and 19th centuries. Although the term had been used by at least one author as early as 1742, in the 19th century, human rights became a central concern over the issue of slavery
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Society of the Friends of Truth
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The Society of the Friends of Truth, also known as the Social Club, was a French revolutionary organization founded in 1790. It was a mixture of revolutionary political club, the Masonic Lodge, and it also published an influential revolutionary newspaper, the Mouth of Iron. The Society of the Friends of Truth was established by Nicholas Bonneville and Claude Fauchet, the original purpose of the club was to become a clearing-house for correspondence between and among scholars from all over Europe. In the spirit of its founders, the club wished to cultivate a public mandate under which its activities would be governed, thus, its newsletter, Mouth of Iron, solicited letters from readers to comment on political affairs and to issue denunciations of counter-revolutionary plots. The club was launched in the month of October 1790. The Social Club also advocated steps toward a more equitable distribution of wealth, always with an eye to Rousseaus ideals, the meetings were described in detail in the Mouth of Iron, which published the proceedings of the Fauchet lectures and discussions and the mail that arrived following them. This publication is important for understanding the genesis of ideas during the French Revolution. The Social Club was also the first revolutionary group to identify itself clearly as a cosmopolitan organization and it made appeals to scholars worldwide, and it produced a polyglot edition of the 1791 Constitution for distribution globally. Its goal was to create a republic led by scholars. About one-hundred-thirty persons were members and attended meetings regularly, the meetings were public because the club wanted to show the widest possible audience what discourse in the atmosphere of a literary or philosophical salon might accomplish. Spectators were invited to ask questions, and a resolution was passed at the end of each session, in 1791, the membership of the Social Club openly declared themselves republicans. It then became a place for the Girondists, who rivaled the Jacobins for primacy of republican ideology. The clubs political orientation was liberal, and it promoted the ideal of a society composed of small and medium producers, craftsmen, farmers, merchants. Olympe de Gouges, the author of the Declaration of the Rights of Woman, was a member of the club, while the members did proclaim themselves supporters of republican ideals publicly, their embrace of feminists ideals was regarded as much more treasonous. From 1791 on, the clubs operated a publishing business. It became a center for the dissemination of literature, including numerous newspapers, political pamphlets, theatrical works, poetry, posters. After the fall of the Girondins, the club dissolved, Fauchet was arrested and executed on 31 October 1793. Bonneville, the printer, resumed activity after 9 Thermidor and his press tried to resurrect the Social Club, but it never regained its previous audience
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Sophie de Condorcet
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Sophie de Condorcet, best known as Madame de Condorcet, was a prominent salon hostess from 1789 to the Reign of Terror, and again from 1799 until her death in 1822. She was the wife, then widow, of the mathematician and philosopher Nicolas de Condorcet, as a hostess, Madame de Condorcet was popular for her kind heart, beauty, and indifference to a persons class or social origins. Unlike that of her fellow-Girondist hostess Madame Roland, Madame de Condorcets salons always included other women, de Condorcet was also a writer and a translator in her own right, highly educated for her day, completely fluent in English and Italian. She produced influential translations of Thomas Paine and Adam Smith, in 1786 Sophie de Grouchy married the famous mathematician and philosopher Marie-Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat, Marquis de Condorcet. Then 21 or 22, she was a beauty, he was 42 and Inspector-General of the Mint. Although there was an age difference, the two shared many intellectual interests, and had a strong and happy marriage. This salon played an important role in the rise of the Girondin movement that stressed the rights of women, Sophie de Condorcet allowed the Cercle Social — an association with the goal of equal political and legal rights for women — to meet at her house. Its members included womens rights advocate Olympe de Gouges who had published the Declaration of the Rights of Woman, claire Tomalins The Life and Death of Mary Wollstonecraft mentions their sad history. The Marquis de Condorcet denounced the new Jacobin constitution which had no safeguards of the kind envisaged by him and the Girondins, along with his friends, she encouraged de Condorcet to continue to write while in hiding. During this period, 1793–1794, he composed his most famous work— Esquisse dun Tableau Historique des Progrès de lEsprit Humain and he also wrote Avis dun Proscrit à sa Fille for his young daughter. While the Marquis was in hiding, his wife filed for divorce, the Marquis, hearing of a coming raid, lost his nerve and fled his friends roof, believing that his presence had been detected. He approached the home of the Suards hoping they would shelter him. Suard, with whom Condorcet had once been in love and had exchanged letters with for years, wrote afterwards in a very sentimental tone of her guilt. He was discovered afterwards in a tavern at the edge of the city. The suspicious peasants there handed him over to the authorities, although he might have died of hardship, an embolism, or other natural causes, most historians today believe that he poisoned himself, possibly with the help of his sister-in-laws lover Cabinis. According to Tomalin, Sophie de Condorcet was not informed about his death several months later. Madame de Condorcet had his last works published posthumously, starting with the Sketch or Equisse in 1795, Sophie de Condorcet was rendered penniless by her husbands proscription and his death which came before their divorce. Her financial circumstances compelled to not only herself and her then four-year-old daughter Eliza
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau
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Jean-Jacques Rousseau was a Francophone Genevan philosopher, writer, and composer of the 18th century. His political philosophy influenced the Enlightenment in France and across Europe, as well as aspects of the French Revolution, Rousseaus novel Emile, or On Education is a treatise on the education of the whole person for citizenship. His sentimental novel Julie, or the New Heloise was of importance to the development of pre-romanticism and romanticism in fiction and his Discourse on Inequality and The Social Contract are cornerstones in modern political and social thought. During the period of the French Revolution, Rousseau was the most popular of the philosophes among members of the Jacobin Club and he was interred as a national hero in the Panthéon in Paris, in 1794,16 years after his death. Rousseau was born in Geneva, which was at the time a city-state, since 1536, Geneva had been a Huguenot republic and the seat of Calvinism. Rousseau was proud that his family, of the order, had voting rights in the city. Throughout his life, he signed his books Jean-Jacques Rousseau. Geneva, in theory, was governed democratically by its male voting citizens, the citizens were a minority of the population when compared to the immigrants, referred to as inhabitants, whose descendants were called natives and continued to lack suffrage. There was much debate within Geneva, extending down to the tradespeople. Much discussion was over the idea of the sovereignty of the people, in 1707, a democratic reformer named Pierre Fatio protested this situation, saying a sovereign that never performs an act of sovereignty is an imaginary being. He was shot by order of the Little Council, Jean-Jacques Rousseaus father, Isaac, was not in the city at this time, but Jean-Jacquess grandfather supported Fatio and was penalized for it. The trade of watchmaking had become a tradition by the time of Rousseaus father. Isaac followed his grandfather, father and brothers into the business, Isaac, notwithstanding his artisan status, was well educated and a lover of music. A Genevan watchmaker, Rousseau wrote, is a man who can be introduced anywhere, in 1699, Isaac ran into political difficulty by entering a quarrel with visiting English officers, who in response drew their swords and threatened him. After local officials stepped in, it was Isaac who was punished, Rousseaus mother, Suzanne Bernard Rousseau, was from an upper-class family. She was raised by her uncle Samuel Bernard, a Calvinist preacher and he cared for Suzanne after her father Jacques died in his early thirties. In 1695, Suzanne had to answer charges that she had attended a street theater disguised as a peasant woman so she could gaze upon M. Vincent Sarrasin, after a hearing, she was ordered by the Genevan Consistory to never interact with him again. She married Rousseaus father at the age of 31, isaacs sister had married Suzannes brother eight years earlier, after she had become pregnant and they had been chastised by the Consistory
listen); 7 May 1748 – 3 November 1793), born Marie Gouze, was a French playwright and political activist whose feminist and abolitionist writings reached a large audience.
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French Wikisource has original text related to this article: Olympe de Gouges
