1.
Beaumarchais (radio show)
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Beaumarchais was a short-lived radio programme that aired from November to December 1996. There were six episodes and it was broadcast on BBC Radio 4. It starred Henry Goodman, David Caler, Ronald Pickup, Ann Beach, and Stephen Thorne
2.
Early modern France
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The Kingdom of France in the early modern period, from the Renaissance to the Revolution, was a monarchy ruled by the House of Bourbon. This corresponds to the so-called Ancien Régime, the territory of France during this period increased until it included essentially the extent of the modern country, and it also included the territories of the first French colonial empire overseas. In the mid 15th century, France was significantly smaller than it is today, in addition, certain provinces within France were ostensibly personal fiefdoms of noble families. The late 15th, 16th and 17th centuries would see France undergo a massive territorial expansion, France also embarked on exploration, colonisation, and mercantile exchanges with the Americas, India, the Indian Ocean, the Far East, and a few African trading posts. The administrative and legal system in France in this period is called the Ancien Régime. The Black Death had killed an estimated one-third of the population of France from its appearance in 1348, the concurrent Hundred Years War slowed recovery. It would be the early 16th century before the population recovered to mid-14th century levels and these demographic changes also led to a massive increase in urban populations, although on the whole France remained a profoundly rural country. Paris was one of the most populated cities in Europe, other major French cities include Lyon, Rouen, Bordeaux, Toulouse, and Marseille. These centuries saw several periods of epidemics and crop failures due to wars, between 1693 and 1694, France lost 6% of its population. In the extremely harsh winter of 1709, France lost 3. 5% of its population, in the past 300 years, no period has been so proportionally deadly for the French, both World Wars included. Linguistically, the differences in France were extreme, before the Renaissance, the language spoken in the north of France was a collection of different dialects called Oïl languages whereas the written and administrative language remained Latin. Nevertheless, in 1790, only half of the spoke or understood standard French. The southern half of the continued to speak Occitan languages, and other inhabitants spoke Breton, Catalan, Basque, Dutch. In the north of France, regional dialects of the various langues doïl continued to be spoken in rural communities, during the French revolution, the teaching of French was promoted in all the schools. The French used would be that of the system, which differed from the French spoken in the courts of France before the revolution. Like the orators during the French revolution, the pronunciation of every syllable would become the new language, France would not become a linguistically unified country until the end of the 19th century. The Peace of Etaples marks, for some, the beginning of the modern period in France. The invasion of Italy by Charles VIII in 1494 began 62 years of war with the Habsburgs, in 1445, the first steps were made towards fashioning a regular army out of the poorly disciplined mercenary bands that French kings traditionally relied on
3.
Polymath
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A polymath is a person whose expertise spans a significant number of different subject areas, such a person is known to draw on complex bodies of knowledge to solve specific problems. The term was first used in the 17th century, the related term, the term is often used to describe great thinkers of the Renaissance and the Enlightenment who excelled at several fields in science and the arts. In the Italian Renaissance, the idea of the polymath was expressed by Leon Battista Alberti and this term entered the lexicon during the twentieth century and has now been applied to great thinkers living before and after the Renaissance. Renaissance man was first recorded in written English in the early 20th century and it is now used to refer to great thinkers living before, during, or after the Renaissance. Leonardo da Vinci has often described as the archetype of the Renaissance man. These polymaths had an approach to education that reflected the ideals of the humanists of the time. A gentleman or courtier of that era was expected to speak several languages, play an instrument, write poetry. The idea of an education was essential to achieving polymath ability. At this time, universities did not specialize in specific areas but rather trained students in an array of science, philosophy. This universal education gave them a grounding from which they could continue into apprenticeship toward becoming a master of a specific field, aside from Renaissance man as mentioned above, similar terms in use are Homo Universalis and Uomo Universale, which translate to universal person or universal man. The related term generalist—contrasted with a used to describe a person with a general approach to knowledge. The term Universal Genius or Versatile Genius is also used, with Leonardo da Vinci as the prime example again. The term seems to be used especially when a person has made lasting contributions in at least one of the fields in which he was involved. When a person is described as having knowledge, they exhibit a vast scope of knowledge. This designation may be anachronistic, however, in the case of such as Eratosthenes whose reputation for having encyclopedic knowledge predates the existence of any encyclopedic object. One whose accomplishments are limited to athletics would not be considered a polymath in the sense of the word. An example is Howard Baker, who was called a sporting polymath by the Encyclopedia of British Football for winning high jump titles and playing cricket, football, many polymaths from across the centuries have their roots in medical applications. One of the well known polymaths, Leonardo da Vinci, was known for his immense interest in human anatomical structure
4.
Watchmaker
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A watchmaker is an artisan who makes and repairs watches. Since a majority of watches are now made, most modern watchmakers only repair watches. However, originally they were craftsmen who built watches, including all their parts. The term clockmaker refers to an equivalent occupation specializing in clocks, most practising professional watchmakers service current or recent production watches. Instead they obtain and fit factory spare parts applicable to the brand being serviced. The majority of modern watchmakers, particularly in Switzerland and Europe, work directly for the Watchmaking Industry and they also receive in-house brand training at the factory or service center where they are employed. However, some factory service centers have an approach allows them to use non-watchmakers who perform only one aspect of the repair process. If genuine watchmakers are employed in environments, they are usually employed to service the watch movement. One major Swiss watch brand now pre-qualifies independent watchmakers before they provide them with spare parts, the Omega brand has the same approach. However, the vast majority of modern, Swiss brands do not sell parts to independent watchmakers, irrespective of the watchmakers expertise, training or credentials. In modern times watchmakers undergo training courses such as the ones offered by the BHI, in Denmark the apprenticeship lasts 4 years, with 6 terms at the Danish School of Watchmaking in Ringsted. The education covers both clocks and watches, as a watchmaker in Denmark also is a clockmaker. In France, one can find 3 diplomas, the lowest is the fr, Certificat daptitude professionnelle en fr, Horlogerie, then the fr, and optionally, the fr, Diplôme des métiers dart/ DMA Horlogerie. William Paley and others used the watchmaker in his famous analogy to imply the existence of God, richard Dawkins later applied this analogy in his book The Blind Watchmaker, arguing that evolution is blind in that it cannot look forward. Alan Moore in his graphic novel Watchmen, uses the metaphor of the watchmaker as a part of the backstory of his heroic character Dr. Manhattan. In the NBC television series Heroes, the villain Sylar is a watchmaker by trade and his ability to know how watches work corresponds to his ability to gain new superpowers by examining the brains of people he has murdered. Vermont, Echo Point Books & Media, LLC
5.
Horticulture
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Horticulture is the branch of agriculture that deals with the art, science, technology, and business of growing plants. It includes the cultivation of plants, fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, herbs, sprouts, mushrooms, algae, flowers, seaweeds and non-food crops such as grass and ornamental trees. It also includes plant conservation, landscape restoration, landscape and garden design, construction, and maintenance, inside agriculture, horticulture contrasts with extensive field farming as well as animal husbandry. Horticulturists apply their knowledge, skills, and technologies used to grow intensively produced plants for food and non-food uses. Their work involves plant propagation and cultivation with the aim of improving plant growth, yields, quality, nutritional value, and resistance to insects, diseases and they work as gardeners, growers, therapists, designers, and technical advisors in the food and non-food sectors of horticulture. Horticulture even refers to the growing of plants in a field or garden, hortus is cognate with the native English word yard and also the borrowed word garden. Turf management includes all aspects of the production and maintenance of grass for sports. Floriculture includes the production and marketing of floral crops, landscape horticulture includes the production, marketing and maintenance of landscape plants. Olericulture includes the production and marketing of vegetables, pomology includes the production and marketing of pome fruits. Viticulture includes the production and marketing of grapes, oenology includes all aspects of wine and winemaking. Postharvest physiology involves maintaining the quality of and preventing the spoilage of plants, Horticulture has a very long history. The practice of horticulture can be retraced for many thousands of years, the cultivation of taro and yam in Papua New Guinea dates back to at least 6950–6440 cal BP. In the Pre-Columbian Amazon Rainforest, natives are believed to have used biochar to enhance productivity by smoldering plant waste. European settlers called it Terra Preta de Indio, in forest areas such horticulture is often carried out in swiddens. A characteristic of horticultural communities is that trees are often to be found planted around communities or specially retained from the natural ecosystem. Horticulture primarily differs from agriculture in two ways, first, it generally encompasses a smaller scale of cultivation, using small plots of mixed crops rather than large fields of single crops. Secondly, horticultural cultivations generally include a variety of crops. Agricultural cultivations however as a focus on one primary crop
6.
Louis XV of France
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Louis XV, known as Louis the Beloved, was a monarch of the House of Bourbon who ruled as King of France and Navarre from 1 September 1715 until his death. He succeeded his great-grandfather Louis XIV at the age of five, Cardinal Fleury was his chief minister from 1726 until the Cardinals death in 1743, at which time the young king took sole control of the kingdom. During his reign, Louis returned the Austrian Netherlands, territory won at the Battle of Fontenoy of 1745, Louis also ceded New France in North America to Spain and Great Britain at the conclusion of the Seven Years War in 1763. He incorporated the territories of Lorraine and Corsica into the kingdom of France and he was succeeded by his grandson Louis XVI in 1774. French culture and influence were at their height in the first half of the eighteenth century, however, many scholars believe that Louis XVs decisions damaged the power of France, weakened the treasury, discredited the absolute monarchy, and made it more vulnerable to distrust and destruction. Evidence for this view is provided by the French Revolution, which broke out 15 years after his death, norman Davies characterized Louis XVs reign as one of debilitating stagnation, characterized by lost wars, endless clashes between the Court and Parliament, and religious feuds. A few scholars defend Louis, arguing that his negative reputation was based on propaganda meant to justify the French Revolution. Jerome Blum described him as a perpetual adolescent called to do a mans job, Louis XV was born in the Palace of Versailles on 15 February 1710 during the reign of Louis XIV. His grandfather, Louis Le Grand Dauphin, had three sons with his wife Marie Anne Victoire of Bavaria, Louis, Duke of Burgundy, Philippe, Duke of Anjou, and Charles, Duke of Berry. Louis XV was the son of the Duke of Burgundy and his wife Marie Adélaïde of Savoy, the eldest daughter of Victor Amadeus II, Duke of Savoy. At birth, Louis XV received a title for younger sons of the French royal family. In April 1711, Louis Le Grand Dauphin suddenly died, making Louis XVs father, the Duke of Burgundy, at that time, Burgundy had two living sons, Louis, Duke of Brittany and his youngest son, the future Louis XV. A year later, Marie Adélaïde, Duchess of Burgundy, contracted smallpox and her husband, said to be heartbroken by her death, died the same week, also having contracted smallpox. Within a week of his death, it was clear that the two children had also been infected. The elder son was treated by bloodletting in an unsuccessful effort to save him. Fearing that the Dauphin would die, the Court had both the Dauphin and the Duke of Anjou baptised, the Dauphin died the same day,8 March 1712. His younger brother, the Duke of Anjou, was treated by his governess, Madame de Ventadour. The two year old Dauphin survived the smallpox, on 1 September 1715, Louis XIV died of gangrene, having reigned for 72 years
7.
American Revolutionary War
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From about 1765 the American Revolution had led to increasing philosophical and political differences between Great Britain and its American colonies. The war represented a culmination of these differences in armed conflict between Patriots and the authority which they increasingly resisted. This resistance became particularly widespread in the New England Colonies, especially in the Province of Massachusetts Bay. On December 16,1773, Massachusetts members of the Patriot group Sons of Liberty destroyed a shipment of tea in Boston Harbor in an event that became known as the Boston Tea Party. Named the Coercive Acts by Parliament, these became known as the Intolerable Acts in America. The Massachusetts colonists responded with the Suffolk Resolves, establishing a government that removed control of the province from the Crown outside of Boston. Twelve colonies formed a Continental Congress to coordinate their resistance, and established committees, British attempts to seize the munitions of Massachusetts colonists in April 1775 led to the first open combat between Crown forces and Massachusetts militia, the Battles of Lexington and Concord. Militia forces proceeded to besiege the British forces in Boston, forcing them to evacuate the city in March 1776, the Continental Congress appointed George Washington to take command of the militia. Concurrent to the Boston campaign, an American attempt to invade Quebec, on July 2,1776, the Continental Congress formally voted for independence, issuing its Declaration on July 4. Sir William Howe began a British counterattack, focussing on recapturing New York City, Howe outmaneuvered and defeated Washington, leaving American confidence at a low ebb. Washington captured a Hessian force at Trenton and drove the British out of New Jersey, in 1777 the British sent a new army under John Burgoyne to move south from Canada and to isolate the New England colonies. However, instead of assisting Burgoyne, Howe took his army on a campaign against the revolutionary capital of Philadelphia. Burgoyne outran his supplies, was surrounded and surrendered at Saratoga in October 1777, the British defeat in the Saratoga Campaign had drastic consequences. Giving up on the North, the British decided to salvage their former colonies in the South, British forces under Lieutenant-General Charles Cornwallis seized Georgia and South Carolina, capturing an American army at Charleston, South Carolina. British strategy depended upon an uprising of large numbers of armed Loyalists, in 1779 Spain joined the war as an ally of France under the Pacte de Famille, intending to capture Gibraltar and British colonies in the Caribbean. Britain declared war on the Dutch Republic in December 1780, in 1781, after the British and their allies had suffered two decisive defeats at Kings Mountain and Cowpens, Cornwallis retreated to Virginia, intending on evacuation. A decisive French naval victory in September deprived the British of an escape route, a joint Franco-American army led by Count Rochambeau and Washington, laid siege to the British forces at Yorktown. With no sign of relief and the situation untenable, Cornwallis surrendered in October 1781, Whigs in Britain had long opposed the pro-war Tory majority in Parliament, but the defeat at Yorktown gave the Whigs the upper hand
8.
Pierre Beaumarchais
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Pierre-Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais was a French polymath. At various times in his life, he was a watchmaker, inventor, playwright, musician, diplomat, spy, publisher, horticulturist, arms dealer, satirist, financier, and revolutionary. Born a provincial watchmakers son, Beaumarchais rose in French society and became influential in the court of Louis XV as an inventor, an early French supporter of American independence, Beaumarchais lobbied the French government on behalf of the American rebels during the American War of Independence. Beaumarchais oversaw covert aid from the French and Spanish governments to supply arms and he later struggled to recover money he had personally invested in the scheme. Beaumarchais was also a participant in the stages of the French Revolution. He is probably best known, however, for his theatrical works, Beaumarchais was born Pierre-Augustin Caron in the Rue Saint-Denis, Paris on 24 January 1732. He was the boy among the six surviving children of André-Charles Caron. The family had previously been Huguenots, but had converted to Roman Catholicism in the wake of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, the family was comfortably middle-class and Beaumarchais had a peaceful and happy childhood. As the only son, he was spoiled by his parents and he took an interest in music and played several instruments. Though born a Catholic, Beaumarchais retained a sympathy for Protestants, from the age of ten, Beaumarchais had some schooling at a country school where he learned some Latin. Two years later, Beaumarchais left school at twelve to work as an apprentice under his father and he may have used his own experiences during these years as the inspiration for the character of Cherubin when he wrote the Marriage of Figaro. He generally neglected his work, and at one point was evicted by his father, at the time, pocket watches were commonly unreliable for timekeeping and were worn more as fashion accessories. In response to this, Beaumarchais spent nearly a year researching improvements, in July 1753, at the age of twenty one, he invented an escapement for watches that allowed them to be made substantially more accurate and compact. The first man to take an interest in this new invention was Jean-André Lepaute, if there was a clock chiming in the wealthy homes of Paris, you can bet Lepaute built it himself. Lepaute had been a mentor to Beaumarchais after discovering the talent in a chance encounter. He encouraged him as he worked on the new invention, earned his trust and you can imagine Beaumarchais’ surprise when he read in the September issue of Le Mercure de France that M. Lepaute had just invented the most wonderful mechanism for a more portable clock. “C’est normal, ” said his father, “C’est comme ca. ”It’s normal for the class to step on those beneath them. Well, Beaumarchais did not want any of that life and he wrote a strongly worded letter to that same newspaper defending the invention as his own and urging the Royal Academy of Sciences to see the proof for themselves
9.
Rue Saint-Denis (Paris)
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Rue Saint-Denis is one of the oldest streets in Paris. Its route was first laid out in the 1st century by the Romans, from the Middle Ages to the present day, the street has become notorious as a place of prostitution. Its name derives from it being the route to Saint-Denis. The street extends as far as the 1st arrondissement and Rue de Rivoli to the south and as far as the 2nd arrondissement and it runs parallel to the boulevard de Sébastopol. During the French Revolution, it was known as the rue de Franciade, the street was one of the centres of the June Rebellion of 1832, immortalised in Victor Hugos novel Les Misérables, and which is referred to in the book as the Epic of the Rue Saint-Denis. The neighborhood around the rue Saint-Denis is now all made up of sex shops. The street also contains some shops, bars and restaurants, as well as the church of Saint-Leu-Saint-Gilles, a bank. The Frog and Rosbif Brew Pub is located here, one of only a small number of cask conditioned beer producers in France. N°92, Église Saint-Leu-Saint-Gilles n°142, House built in 1732 by Jacques-Richard Cochois for Claude Aubry, attached to it is the fontaine Greneta, rebuilt at the same time as the house, but whose original dates back to at least 1502. N°s 224-226, Maison des Dames de Saint-Chaumont, established in 1685 in a hôtel de Saint-Chaumond, the nuns had constructed 1734-1735 by Jacques Hardouin-Mansart de Sagonne a lodge which has been conserved, a building of exceptional quality decorated by Nicolas Pineau. It is the survivor of the many pious or charitable establishments built along rue Saint-Denis. Its simple entrance is next to boulevard de Sébastopol and a garden extends between the building and the street, in the corner of rue de Tracy could be found the covents chapel, built in 1782 by Pierre Convers in the ancient style but now lost. At the end of rue Saint-Denis, at the intersection of the grands Boulevards, Rue Saint-Denis is then extended from there out into what was medieval Pariss faubourg by the Rue du Faubourg-Saint-Denis Raid November 18th,2015
10.
Meaux
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Meaux is a commune in the Seine-et-Marne department in the Île-de-France region in the metropolitan area of Paris, France. It is located 41.1 km east-northeast from the center of Paris, Meaux is a subprefecture of the Seine-et-Marne department. In France, a subprefecture is the chef-lieu of an arrondissement and it is also the chef-lieu of two other smaller administrative land divisions, the cantons of Meaux-Nord and Meaux-Sud. Finally, since its creation in 2003, Meaux has been the center and the town of an agglomeration community. With a population of 51,398 inhabitants, Meaux is the second most populated city in the Seine-et-Marne department after Chelles, inhabitants of Meaux are called Meldois. Both names Meaux and Meldois originated with the Meldi, the Latin name of the original Gaulish tribe who occupied this area of the valley of the Marne river. Although during the Roman period the city was called Iantinum by the Romans, a meander of the Marne river divides the old city into the North Quarter and the South Quarter. The South Quarter of the old city includes the historic covered market. Centuries later, in 1806, during the Napoleonic era, was built the Canal de lOurcq, Meaux is nowadays mainly known for Brie de Meaux and the local variety of mustard. Following the official administrative French AOC there are two designations of Brie de Meaux, Brie de Meaux fermier and Brie de Meaux laitier, several festivals and concerts are celebrated in Meaux, venues for live music like the Music Festival Musikelles. Theres a local concert band in Meaux, LHarmonie du Pays de Meaux. It is constituted by three different ensembles, following different ages, Les Minimes, Les Juniors and LHarmonie de Meaux, the band is also one of the two official music academies of the town. The other one is the conservatory of the city, the show represents the history of Meaux all along the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, and also, more recently, during World War I. There is only one cinema in Meaux, The Majestic, a stage theatre. In modern days there are three theatres in the city. One is the Théâtre Gérard Philippe, a theatre, situated close to the covered market. In an eastern area of Meaux, the Beauval quarter, there is the stage theatre of the town, the Salle Champagne, located in the Espace Caravelle. Private theatre companies and community arts associations play in all three theatres, two museums can be found in Meaux, the Musée Bossuet and the Musée de la Grande Guerre du pays de Meaux
11.
Huguenots
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Huguenots are the ethnoreligious group of French Protestants who follow the Reformed tradition. It was used frequently to members of the French Reformed Church until the beginning of the 19th century. The term has its origin in 16th-century France, Huguenot numbers peaked near an estimated two million by 1562, concentrated mainly in the southern and western parts of France. As Huguenots gained influence and more openly displayed their faith, Catholic hostility grew, in spite of political concessions, a series of religious conflicts followed, known as the French Wars of Religion, fought intermittently from 1562 to 1598. The Huguenots were led by Jeanne dAlbret, her son, the future Henry IV, the wars ended with the Edict of Nantes, which granted the Huguenots substantial religious, political, and military autonomy. Huguenot rebellions in the 1620s prompted the abolishment of their political and they retained religious provisions of the Edict of Nantes until the rule of Louis XIV. Nevertheless, a minority of Huguenots remained and faced continued persecution under Louis XV. By the death of Louis XV in 1774, French Calvinism was almost completely wiped out, persecution of Protestants officially ended with the Edict of Versailles, signed by Louis XVI in 1787. Two years later, with the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of 1789 and they also spread to the Dutch Cape Colony in South Africa, the Dutch East Indies, the Caribbean, New Netherland, and several of the English colonies in North America. Small contingents of families went to Orthodox Russia and Catholic Quebec, a term used originally in derision, Huguenot has unclear origins. Geneva was John Calvins adopted home and the centre of the Calvinist movement, the label Huguenot was purportedly first applied in France to those conspirators involved in the Amboise plot of 1560, a foiled attempt to wrest power in France from the influential House of Guise. The move would have had the effect of fostering relations with the Swiss. Thus, Hugues plus Eidgenosse by way of Huisgenoten supposedly became Huguenot, a version of this complex hypothesis is promoted by O. I. A. Roche, who writes in his book, The Days of the Upright, A History of the Huguenots, that Huguenot is, a combination of a Dutch and a German word. Gallicised into Huguenot, often used deprecatingly, the word became, Some disagree with such double or triple non-French linguistic origins, arguing that for the word to have spread into common use in France, it must have originated in the French language. The Hugues hypothesis argues that the name was derived by association with Hugues Capet, king of France and he was regarded by the Gallicans and Protestants as a noble man who respected peoples dignity and lives. Janet Gray and other supporters of the hypothesis suggest that the name huguenote would be equivalent to little Hugos. It was in place in Tours that the prétendus réformés habitually gathered at night
12.
Roman Catholicism
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The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church or the Universal Church, is the largest Christian church, with more than 1.28 billion members worldwide. As one of the oldest religious institutions in the world, it has played a prominent role in the history, headed by the Bishop of Rome, known as the Pope, the churchs doctrines are summarised in the Nicene Creed and the Apostles Creed. Its central administration is located in Vatican City, enclaved within Rome, the Catholic Church is notable within Western Christianity for its sacred tradition and seven sacraments. It teaches that it is the one church founded by Jesus Christ, that its bishops are the successors of Christs apostles. The Catholic Church maintains that the doctrine on faith and morals that it declares as definitive is infallible. The Latin Church, the Eastern Catholic Churches, as well as such as mendicant orders and enclosed monastic orders. Among the sacraments, the one is the Eucharist, celebrated liturgically in the Mass. The church teaches that through consecration by a priest the sacrificial bread and wine become the body, the Catholic Church practises closed communion, with only baptised members in a state of grace ordinarily permitted to receive the Eucharist. The Virgin Mary is venerated in the Catholic Church as Queen of Heaven and is honoured in numerous Marian devotions. The Catholic Church has influenced Western philosophy, science, art and culture, Catholic spiritual teaching includes spreading the Gospel while Catholic social teaching emphasises support for the sick, the poor and the afflicted through the corporal and spiritual works of mercy. The Catholic Church is the largest non-government provider of education and medical services in the world, from the late 20th century, the Catholic Church has been criticised for its doctrines on sexuality, its refusal to ordain women and its handling of sexual abuse cases. Catholic was first used to describe the church in the early 2nd century, the first known use of the phrase the catholic church occurred in the letter from Saint Ignatius of Antioch to the Smyrnaeans, written about 110 AD. In the Catechetical Discourses of Saint Cyril of Jerusalem, the name Catholic Church was used to distinguish it from other groups that call themselves the church. The use of the adjective Roman to describe the Church as governed especially by the Bishop of Rome became more widespread after the Fall of the Western Roman Empire and into the Early Middle Ages. Catholic Church is the name used in the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The Catholic Church follows an episcopal polity, led by bishops who have received the sacrament of Holy Orders who are given formal jurisdictions of governance within the church. Ultimately leading the entire Catholic Church is the Bishop of Rome, commonly called the pope, in parallel to the diocesan structure are a variety of religious institutes that function autonomously, often subject only to the authority of the pope, though sometimes subject to the local bishop. Most religious institutes only have male or female members but some have both, additionally, lay members aid many liturgical functions during worship services
13.
Edict of Nantes
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In the edict, Henry aimed primarily to promote civil unity. The edict separated civil from religious unity, treated some Protestants for the first time as more than mere schismatics and heretics and it marked the end of the religious wars that had afflicted France during the second half of the 16th century. The later Edict of Fontainebleau, which revoked the Edict of Nantes in October 1685, was promulgated by Louis XIV and it drove an exodus of Protestants and increased the hostility of Protestant nations bordering France. The Edict aimed primarily to end the long-running, disruptive French Wars of Religion, Henry IV also had personal reasons for supporting the Edict. Toleration in France was a notion, and the religious settlement was dependent upon the continued support of the crown. Re-establishing royal authority in France required internal peace, based on limited toleration enforced by the crown, since royal troops could not be everywhere, Huguenots needed to be granted strictly circumscribed possibilities of self-defense. The Edict of Nantes that Henry signed comprised four basic texts, including a principal text made up of 92 articles, the Edict also included 56 particular articles dealing with Protestant rights and obligations. For example, the French state guaranteed protection of French Protestants travelling abroad from the Inquisition and this crucifies me, protested Pope Clement VIII, upon hearing of the Edict. The final two parts consisted of brevets which contained the military clauses and pastoral clauses and these two brevets were withdrawn in 1629 by Louis XIII, following a final religious civil war. Such an act of toleration was unusual in Western Europe, where standard practice forced subjects to follow the religion of their ruler — the application of the principle of cuius regio, eius religio. While it granted certain privileges to Huguenots, the edict upheld Catholicisms position as the religion of France. Protestants gained no exemption from paying the tithe and had to respect Catholic holidays, the authorities limited Protestant freedom of worship to specified geographic areas. The Edict dealt only with Protestant and Catholic coexistence, it made no mention of Jews, or of Muslims, the original Act which promulgated the Edict has disappeared. A copy of the first edict, sent for safekeeping to Protestant Geneva, the provincial parlements resisted in their turn, the most recalcitrant, the parlement of Rouen, did not unreservedly register the Edict until 1609. The location of the signing is mooted, the Edict itself states merely that it is given at Nantes, in the month of April, in the year of Our Lord one thousand five hundred and ninety-eight. By the late 19th century the Catholic tradition cited the signing in the Maison des Tourelles, home of prosperous Spanish trader André Ruiz, the subsidies had been reduced by degrees, as Henry gained more control of the nation. By the peace of Montpellier in 1622, concluding a Huguenot revolt in Languedoc, the brevets were entirely withdrawn in 1629, by Louis XIII, following the Siege of La Rochelle, in which Cardinal Richelieu blockaded the city for fourteen months. In October 1685, Louis XIV, the grandson of Henry IV, renounced the Edict and this act, commonly called the revocation of the Edict of Nantes, had very damaging results for France
14.
Civil and political rights
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Civil and political rights are a class of rights that protect individuals freedom from infringement by governments, social organizations, and private individuals. They ensure ones ability to participate in the civil and political life of the society, Civil and political rights form the original and main part of international human rights. They comprise the first portion of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights, the phrase civil rights is a translation of Latin ius civis. Roman citizens could be either free or servile, but they all had rights in law. After the Edict of Milan in 313, these included the freedom of religion. Roman legal doctrine was lost during the Middle Ages, but claims of rights could still be made based on religious doctrine. According to the leaders of Ketts Rebellion, all men may be made free. In the 17th century, English common law judge Sir Edward Coke revived the idea of rights based on citizenship by arguing that Englishmen had historically enjoyed such rights, the Parliament of England adopted the English Bill of Rights in 1689. The Virginia Declaration of Rights, by George Mason and James Madison, was adopted in 1776, the Virginia declaration is the direct ancestor and model for the U. S. Bill of Rights. The removal by legislation of a civil right constitutes a civil disability, in early 19th century Britain, the phrase civil rights most commonly referred to the issue of such legal discrimination against Catholics. In the House of Commons support for civil rights was divided, the Roman Catholic Relief Act 1829 restored their civil rights. In the 1860s, Americans adapted this usage to newly freed blacks, congress enacted civil rights acts in 1866,1871,1875,1957,1960,1964,1968, and 1991. Marshall notes that civil rights were among the first to be recognized and codified, followed later by political rights, in many countries, they are constitutional rights and are included in a bill of rights or similar document. They are also defined in human rights instruments, such as the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Civil and political rights need not be codified to be protected, although most democracies worldwide do have formal written guarantees of civil, Civil rights are considered to be natural rights. Thomas Jefferson wrote in his A Summary View of the Rights of British America that a free people their rights as derived from the laws of nature, the question of to whom civil and political rights apply is a subject of controversy. According to political scientist Salvador Santino F. Regilme Jr. Custom also plays a role, the United States Declaration of Independence states that people have unalienable rights including Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. It is considered by some that the purpose of government is the protection of life. Ideas of self-ownership and cognitive liberty affirm rights to choose the food one eats, the one takes
15.
Latin
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Latin is a classical language belonging to the Italic branch of the Indo-European languages. The Latin alphabet is derived from the Etruscan and Greek alphabets, Latin was originally spoken in Latium, in the Italian Peninsula. Through the power of the Roman Republic, it became the dominant language, Vulgar Latin developed into the Romance languages, such as Italian, Portuguese, Spanish, French, and Romanian. Latin, Italian and French have contributed many words to the English language, Latin and Ancient Greek roots are used in theology, biology, and medicine. By the late Roman Republic, Old Latin had been standardised into Classical Latin, Vulgar Latin was the colloquial form spoken during the same time and attested in inscriptions and the works of comic playwrights like Plautus and Terence. Late Latin is the language from the 3rd century. Later, Early Modern Latin and Modern Latin evolved, Latin was used as the language of international communication, scholarship, and science until well into the 18th century, when it began to be supplanted by vernaculars. Ecclesiastical Latin remains the language of the Holy See and the Roman Rite of the Catholic Church. Today, many students, scholars and members of the Catholic clergy speak Latin fluently and it is taught in primary, secondary and postsecondary educational institutions around the world. The language has been passed down through various forms, some inscriptions have been published in an internationally agreed, monumental, multivolume series, the Corpus Inscriptionum Latinarum. Authors and publishers vary, but the format is about the same, volumes detailing inscriptions with a critical apparatus stating the provenance, the reading and interpretation of these inscriptions is the subject matter of the field of epigraphy. The works of several hundred ancient authors who wrote in Latin have survived in whole or in part and they are in part the subject matter of the field of classics. The Cat in the Hat, and a book of fairy tales, additional resources include phrasebooks and resources for rendering everyday phrases and concepts into Latin, such as Meissners Latin Phrasebook. The Latin influence in English has been significant at all stages of its insular development. From the 16th to the 18th centuries, English writers cobbled together huge numbers of new words from Latin and Greek words, dubbed inkhorn terms, as if they had spilled from a pot of ink. Many of these words were used once by the author and then forgotten, many of the most common polysyllabic English words are of Latin origin through the medium of Old French. Romance words make respectively 59%, 20% and 14% of English, German and those figures can rise dramatically when only non-compound and non-derived words are included. Accordingly, Romance words make roughly 35% of the vocabulary of Dutch, Roman engineering had the same effect on scientific terminology as a whole
16.
Escapement
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An escapement is a device in mechanical watches and clocks that transfers energy to the timekeeping element and allows the number of its oscillations to be counted. The impulse action transfers energy to the timekeeping element to replace the energy lost to friction during its cycle. The escapement is driven by force from a spring or a suspended weight. Each swing of the pendulum or balance wheel releases a tooth of the escape wheel gear. This regular periodic advancement moves the hands forward at a steady rate. At the same time the tooth gives the timekeeping element a push, before another tooth catches on the escapements pallet, the sudden stopping of the escapements tooth is what generates the characteristic ticking sound heard in operating mechanical clocks and watches. Escapements are used elsewhere as well, manual typewriters used escapements to step the carriage as each letter was typed. The importance of the escapement in the history of technology is that it was the key invention that made the all-mechanical clock possible, oscillating timekeepers are used in every modern clock. The earliest liquid-driven escapement was described by the Greek engineer Philo of Byzantium in his technical treatise Pneumatics as part of a washstand, a counterweighted spoon, supplied by a water tank, tips over in a basin when full, releasing a spherical piece of pumice in the process. Once the spoon has emptied, it is pulled up again by the counterweight, remarkably, Philos comment that its construction is similar to that of clocks indicates that such escapement mechanisms were already integrated in ancient water clocks. In China, the Tang dynasty Buddhist monk Yi Xing along with government official Liang Lingzan made the escapement in 723 to the workings of an armillary sphere. Song dynasty horologists Zhang Sixun and Su Song duly applied escapement devices for their astronomical clock towers, according to historian Derek J. de Solla Price, the medieval Chinese escapement spread west and was the source for Western escapement technology. Hassan, a mercury escapement in a Spanish work for Alfonso X in 1277 can be traced back to earlier Arabic sources, knowledge of these mercury escapements may have spread through Europe with translations of Arabic and Spanish texts. However, none of these were true mechanical escapements, since they depended on the flow of liquid through an orifice to measure time. For example, in Su Songs clock, water flowed into a container on a pivot, the escapements role was to tip the container over each time it filled up, thus advancing the clocks wheels each time an equal quantity of water was measured out. The time between releases depended on the rate of flow, which decreased with water pressure as the level of water in the source container dropped. The development of mechanical clocks depended on the invention of an escapement which would allow a movement to be controlled by an oscillating weight. The Chinese one worked intermittently, the European, in discrete, both systems used gravity as the prime mover, but the action was very different
17.
Luxembourg Palace
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The Luxembourg Palace is located at 15 rue de Vaugirard in the 6th arrondissement of Paris. It was originally built to the designs of the French architect Salomon de Brosse to be the residence of the regent Marie de Medici. After the Revolution it was refashioned by Jean Chalgrin into a legislative building, since 1958 it has been the seat of the French Senate of the Fifth Republic. Immediately west of the palace on the rue de Vaugirard is the Petit Luxembourg, now the residence of the Senate President, and slightly further west, the Musée du Luxembourg, in the former orangery. On the south side of the palace, the formal Luxembourg Garden presents a 25-hectare green parterre of gravel and lawn populated with statues, after the death of Henry IV in 1610, his widow, Marie de Médicis, became regent to her son, Louis XIII. Marie de Médicis desired to make a similar to her native Florences Palazzo Pitti. Marie de Médicis bought the Hôtel de Luxembourg and its fairly extensive domain in 1612 and commissioned the new building, the suites of paintings she commissioned, in the subjects of which she expressed her requirements through her agents and advisers, are scattered among museums. Marie de Médicis installed her household in 1625, while work on interiors continued, the apartments in the right wing on the western side were reserved for the Queen and the matching suite to the east, for her son, Louis XIII, when he was visiting. The 24 Marie de Medici cycle canvases, a series commissioned from Peter Paul Rubens, were installed in the Galerie de Rubens on the floor of the western wing. A series of paintings executed for her Cabinet doré was identified by Anthony Blunt in 1967, Louis XIII commissioned further decorations for the Palace from Nicolas Poussin and Philippe de Champaigne. In 1642, Marie bequeathed the Luxembourg to her second and favourite son, Gaston, duc dOrléans, who called it the Palais dOrléans, but by popular will it was still known by its original name. Upon Gastons death, the passed to his widow, Marguerite de Lorraine, then to his elder daughter by his first marriage, Anne, duchesse de Montpensier. In 1660, Anne de Montpensier sold the Luxembourg to her younger half-sister, Élisabeth Marguerite dOrléans, duchesse de Guise who, in turn, gave it to her cousin, King Louis XIV, in 1694. In 1715, the became the residence of Marie Louise Elisabeth dOrleans. The widowed Duchess was notoriously promiscuous, having the reputation of a French Messalina, the Luxembourg palace and its gardens thus became stages where the radiantly beautiful princess acted out her ambitions, enthroned like a queen surrounded by her court. According to various songs which scurrilously evoked her amours the Lady of the Luxembourg hid several pregnancies. Her taste for strong liquors and her sheer gluttony also scandalised the court, on 21 May 1717, Madame de Berry received Peter the Great at the Luxembourg. On 28 February 1718, the Duchess of Berry threw a magnificent party for her visiting aunt, the entire palace and its gardens were elaborately illuminated
18.
Tuileries Palace
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The Tuileries Palace was a royal and imperial palace in Paris which stood on the right bank of the River Seine. It was the usual Parisian residence of most French monarchs, from Henry IV to Napoleon III, built in 1564, it was gradually extended until it closed off the western end of the Louvre courtyard and displayed an immense façade of 266 metres. After the accidental death of Henry II of France in 1559 and she sold the medieval Hôtel des Tournelles, where her husband had died, and began building the palace of Tuileries in 1564, using architect Philibert de lOrme. The name derives from the tile kilns or tuileries which had occupied the site. The palace was formed by a range of long, narrow buildings. During the reign of Henry IV, the building was enlarged to the south, so it joined the long gallery, the Grande Galerie. During the reign of Louis XIV major changes were made to the Tuileries Palace, from 1659 to 1661 it was extended to the north by the addition of the Théâtre des Tuileries. From 1664 to 1666 the architect Louis Le Vau and his assistant François dOrbay made other significant changes, a new grand staircase was installed in the entrance of the north wing of the palace, and lavishly decorated royal apartments were constructed in the south wing. The kings rooms were on the floor, facing toward the Louvre. At the same time, Louis gardener, André Le Nôtre, the Court moved into the Tuileries Palace in November 1667, but left in 1672, and soon thereafter went to the Palace of Versailles. The Tuileries Palace was virtually abandoned and used only as a theatre, the boy-king Louis XV was moved from Versailles to the Tuileries Palace on 1 January 1716, four months after ascending to the throne. He moved back to Versailles on 15 June 1722, three months before his coronation, both moves were made at the behest of the Regent, the duc dOrléans. The king also resided at the Tuileries for short periods during the 1740s, on 6 October 1789, during the French Revolution, Louis XVI and his family were forced to leave Versailles and brought to the Tuileries where they were kept under surveillance. For the next two years the palace remained the residence of the king. The Tuileries covered riding ring, the Salle du Manège, home to the royal equestrian academy, the royal family tried to escape after dark, on 20 June 1791, but were captured at Varennes and brought back to the Tuileries. The Paris National Guard defended the King, but the daughter of King Louis XVI claimed that many of the guard were already in favor of the revolution, in November 1792, the Armoire de fer incident took place at the Tuileries palace. This was the discovery of a place at the royal apartments. The incident created a scandal that served to discredit the King
19.
Palais-Royal
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The Palais-Royal, originally called the Palais-Cardinal, is a palace located in the 1st arrondissement of Paris. The screened entrance court faces the Place du Palais-Royal, opposite the Louvre, the larger inner courtyard, the Cour dHonneur, has since 1986 contained Daniel Burens site-specific art piece Les Deux Plateaux, known as Les Colonnes de Buren. In 1830 the Cour dHonneur was enclosed to the north by what was probably the most famous of Pariss covered arcades, demolished in the 1930s, its flanking rows of columns still stand between the Cour dHonneur and the popular Palais-Royal Gardens. Originally called the Palais-Cardinal, the palace was the residence of Cardinal Richelieu. The architect Jacques Lemercier began his design in 1629, construction commenced in 1633 and was completed in 1639, upon Richelieus death in 1642 the palace became the property of the King and acquired the new name Palais-Royal. After Louis XIII died the year, it became the home of the Queen Mother Anne of Austria and her young sons Louis XIV and Philippe, duc dAnjou. From 1649, the palace was the residence of the exiled Henrietta Maria and Henrietta Anne Stuart, wife, the two had escaped England in the midst of the English Civil War and were sheltered by Henrietta Marias nephew, King Louis XIV. Henrietta Anne was later married to Louis younger brother, Philippe de France, the following year the new duchesse dOrléans gave birth to a daughter, Marie Louise dOrléans, inside the palace. After their marriage, the became the main residence of the House of Orléans. The Duchess created the gardens of the palace, which were said to be among the most beautiful in Paris. Under the new couple, the Palais-Royal would become the social center of the capital. The court gatherings at the Palais-Royal were famed all around the capital as well as all of France and it was at these parties that the crème de la crème of French society came to see and be seen. Guests included the members of the royal family like the Queen Mother, Anne of Austria, the duchesse de Montpensier, the Princes de Condé. Philippes favourites were also frequent visitors, the palace was redecorated and new apartments were created for the maids and staff of the Duchess. After Henrietta Anne died in 1670 the Duke took a wife, the Princess Palatine. Saint-Cloud thus became the residence of her eldest son and the heir to the House of Orléans. For the convenience of the bride, new apartments were built and it was at this time that Philippe commissioned the gallery for his famous Orleans Collection of paintings, which was easily accessible to the public. The architect was Jules Hardouin-Mansart, and the cost of reconstruction was totaled to be 400,000 livres
20.
Jardin des plantes
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The Jardin des Plantes is the main botanical garden in France. It is one of seven departments of the Muséum national dhistoire naturelle and it is situated in the 5ème arrondissement, Paris, on the left bank of the river Seine and covers 28 hectares. The grounds of the Jardin des Plantes includes four galleries of the Muséum, the Grande Galerie de lÉvolution, the Mineralogy Museum, the Paleontology Museum and the Entomology Museum. In addition to the gardens there is also a zoo, Ménagerie du Jardin des plantes. The Jardin des Plantes maintains a school, which trains botanists, constructs demonstration gardens. About 4500 plants are arranged by family on a one hectare plot, three hectares are devoted to horticultural displays of decorative plants. An Alpine garden has 3000 species with world-wide representation, specialized buildings, such as a large Art Deco winter garden, and Mexican and Australian hothouses display regional plants, not native to France. The Rose Garden, created in 1990, has hundreds of species of roses, founded in 1626, the garden was not planted by Guy de La Brosse, Louis XIIIs physician, until 1635 as a medicinal herb garden. It was originally known as the Jardin du Roi, in 1640 it opened to the public. After a period of decline, Jean-Baptiste Colbert took administrative control of the gardens and it includes the 6,963 specimens of the herbarium collection of Joseph Tournefort, donated on his death to the Jardin du Roi. The Comte de Buffon became the curator in 1739 and he expanded the gardens greatly, adding a maze, the Labyrinth, in 1792 the Royal Menagerie was moved to the gardens from Versailles. List of botanical gardens in France Official site Paris Botanical Garden
21.
French Academy of Sciences
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The French Academy of Sciences is a learned society, founded in 1666 by Louis XIV at the suggestion of Jean-Baptiste Colbert, to encourage and protect the spirit of French scientific research. It was at the forefront of developments in Europe in the 17th and 18th centuries. Currently headed by Sébastien Candel, it is one of the five Academies of the Institut de France, the Academy of Sciences makes its origin to Colberts plan to create a general academy. He chose a group of scholars who met on 22 December 1666 in the Kings library. The first 30 years of the Academys existence were relatively informal, in contrast to its British counterpart, the Academy was founded as an organ of government. The Academy was expected to remain apolitical, and to avoid discussion of religious, on 20 January 1699, Louis XIV gave the Company its first rules. The Academy received the name of Royal Academy of Sciences and was installed in the Louvre in Paris, following this reform, the Academy began publishing a volume each year with information on all the work done by its members and obituaries for members who had died. This reform also codified the method by which members of the Academy could receive pensions for their work, on 8 August 1793, the National Convention abolished all the academies. Almost all the old members of the previously abolished Académie were formally re-elected, among the exceptions was Dominique, comte de Cassini, who refused to take his seat. In 1816, the again renamed Royal Academy of Sciences became autonomous, while forming part of the Institute of France, in the Second Republic, the name returned to Académie des sciences. During this period, the Academy was funded by and accountable to the Ministry of Public Instruction, the Academy came to control French patent laws in the course of the eighteenth century, acting as the liaison of artisans knowledge to the public domain. As a result, academicians dominated technological activities in France, the Academy proceedings were published under the name Comptes rendus de lAcadémie des sciences. The Comptes rendus is now a series with seven titles. The publications can be found on site of the French National Library, in 1818 the French Academy of Sciences launched a competition to explain the properties of light. The civil engineer Augustin-Jean Fresnel entered this competition by submitting a new theory of light. Siméon Denis Poisson, one of the members of the judging committee, being a supporter of the particle-theory of light, he looked for a way to disprove it. The Poisson spot is not easily observed in every-day situations, so it was natural for Poisson to interpret it as an absurd result. However, the head of the committee, Dominique-François-Jean Arago, and he molded a 2-mm metallic disk to a glass plate with wax
22.
Madame de Pompadour
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She took charge of the king’s schedule and was a valued aide and advisor, despite her frail health and many political enemies. She secured titles of nobility for herself and her relatives, and built a network of clients and she was particularly careful not to alienate the Queen, Marie Leszczyńska. On February 8,1756, the Marquise de Pompadour was named as the lady in waiting to the queen, a position considered the most prestigious at the court. She was a patron of architecture and decorative arts, such as porcelain. She was a patron of the philosophes of the Enlightenment, including Voltaire, Jeanne Antoinette Poisson, otherwise known as Reinette to her friends, was born on 29 December 1721 in Paris to François Poisson and his wife Madeleine de La Motte. It is suspected that her father was either the rich financier Pâris de Montmartel or the tax collector Le Normant de Tournehem. Her younger brother was Abel-François Poisson de Vandières, who became the Marquis de Marigny. Poisson was intelligent, beautiful and refined and she spent her early childhood at the Ursuline convent in Poissy where she received a good education. At the age of 9 in 1730 she returned to Paris under the care of her mother Madame Poisson, the fortune teller told her then that she would one day be the mistress of King Louis XV. From then on Madame Poisson thought, her daughter was destined for greatness and she must provide the means and opportunities to help her achieve it. So her mother took charge of her education at home by hiring tutors who taught her to recite entire plays by heart, play the clavichord, dance, sing, paint. She became an actress and singer, and also attended Pariss Club de lEntresol. On 15 December 1740, Tournehem made his nephew his sole heir, disinheriting all his nephews and nieces. These included the estate at Étiolles, a gift from her guardian. With her husband, she had two children, a boy who died a year after his birth in 1741 and Alexandrine-Jeanne, born 10 August 1744 and died June 1754. Contemporary opinion supported by artwork from the considered the young Mme dÉtiolles to be beautiful, with her small mouth. Her young husband was soon infatuated with her and she was celebrated in the world of Paris. She founded her own salon, at Étiolles, and was joined by many philosophes, as Jeanne Antoinette became known in society, King Louis XV came to hear of her
23.
Maurice Quentin de La Tour
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Maurice Quentin de La Tour was a French Rococo portraitist who worked primarily with pastels. Among his most famous subjects were Voltaire, Rousseau, Louis XV and Madame de Pompadour. He was born in Saint-Quentin, Aisne, the son of a musician, François de La Tour, a Laonnois. François de La Tour apparently was successively a trumpet-player for the regiment of the duc du Maine. He is popularly said to have disapproved of his son taking up the arts, according to François Marandet in 2002, an apprenticeship was arranged for La Tour with a painter named Dupouch from 12 October 1719, but it is not known when this contract was terminated. After travelling briefly to England in 1725, he returned to Paris in 1727 and his earliest known portrait, of which only an engraving by Langlois of 1731 is testament, was that of Voltaire. Nevertheless, the painter Joseph Ducreux claimed to be his only student, on 25 May 1737 La Tour was officially recognised by the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture, and soon attracted the attention of the French court. According to Jeffares, he had an apartment in the palais du Louvre in 1745, contemporary accounts describe Quentin de La Tours nature as lively, good-humoured, but eccentric. However, of a nervous disposition, and an exacting practitioner, he has also been accused of over-engineering his work. He was also advisor and benefactor to the Royal Academy of Painting and Sculpture in Paris, jean-François de La Tour, chevalier de lordre royal militaire de Saint-Louis, was the natural heir to his estate. Issue of regular 50 Francs French Banknotes during the years 1976 to 1992 with de La Tours portrait, mariette et autres notes inédites de cet amateur sur les arts et les artistes. III, 1854–56, pp. 66–78. de Goncourt, Edmond and Jules
24.
Coat of arms
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A coat of arms is an heraldic visual design on an escutcheon, surcoat, or tabard. The coat of arms on an escutcheon forms the central element of the heraldic achievement which in its whole consists of shield, supporters, crest. A coat of arms is traditionally unique to a person, family, state. The ancient Romans used similar insignia on their shields, but these identified military units rather than individuals, the first evidence of medieval coats of arms has been attributed to the 11th century Bayeux Tapestry in which some of the combatants carry shields painted with crosses. However, that heraldic interpretation remains controversial, coats of arms came into general use by feudal lords and knights in battle in the 12th century. By the 13th century, arms had spread beyond their initial battlefield use to become a flag or emblem for families in the social classes of Europe. Exactly who had a right to use arms, by law or social convention, in the German-speaking regions both the aristocracy and burghers used arms, while in most of the rest of Europe they were limited to the aristocracy. The use of spread to the clergy, to towns as civic identifiers. Flags developed from coats of arms, and the arts of vexillology, the coats of arms granted to commercial companies are a major source of the modern logo. Despite no widespread regulation, heraldry has remained consistent across Europe, some nations, like England and Scotland, still maintain the same heraldic authorities which have traditionally granted and regulated arms for centuries and continue to do so in the present day. In England, for example, the granting of arms is and has controlled by the College of Arms. Unlike seals and other emblems, heraldic achievements have a formal description called a blazon. Many societies exist that also aid in the design and registration of personal arms, in the heraldic traditions of England and Scotland, an individual, rather than a family, had a coat of arms. In those traditions coats of arms are legal property transmitted from father to son, wives, undifferenced arms are used only by one person at any given time. Other descendants of the bearer could bear the ancestral arms only with some difference. One such charge is the label, which in British usage is now always the mark of an apparent or an heir presumptive. Because of their importance in identification, particularly in seals on legal documents and this has been carried out by heralds and the study of coats of arms is therefore called heraldry. In time, the use of arms spread from military entities to educational institutes, the author Helen Stuart argues that some coats of arms were a form of corporate logo
25.
Harp
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The harp is a stringed musical instrument that has a number of individual strings running at an angle to its soundboard, which are plucked with the fingers. Harps have been known since antiquity in Asia, Africa and Europe, Harps vary globally in many ways. In terms of size, many smaller harps can be played on the lap, whereas larger harps are quite heavy, different harps may use strings of catgut or nylon, or of metal, or some combination. While all harps have a neck, resonator, and strings, frame harps have a pillar at their end to support the strings, while open harps, such as arch or bow harps. Modern harps also vary in techniques used to extend the range and chromaticity of the strings, the earliest harps and lyres were found in Sumer,3500 BC, and several harps were found in burial pits and royal tombs in Ur. The oldest depictions of harps without a forepillar can be adjacent to the Near East, in the wall paintings of ancient Egyptian tombs in the Nile Valley. These murals show an instrument that resembles the hunters bow. The chang flourished in Persia in many forms from its introduction, about 3000 BC, around 1900 BC arched harps in the Iraq–Iran region were replaced by angular harps with vertical or horizontal sound boxes. By the start of the Common Era, robust, vertical, angular harps, in the last century of the Sasanian period, angular harps were redesigned to make them as light as possible, while they became more elegant, they lost their structural rigidity. At the height of the Persian tradition of illustrated book production, such light harps were still frequently depicted, the works of the Tamil Sangam literature describe the harp and its variants, as early as 200 BC. Variants were described ranging from 14 to 17 strings, and the instrument used by wandering minstrels for accompaniment, another early South Asian harp was the ancient veena, unlike the modern instrument of the same name, the ancient veena was a harp vice the modern lute-type instrument. Some Samudragupta gold coins show of the mid-4th century AD show the king Samudragupta himself playing the instrument, the ancient veena survives today in Burma, in the form of the saung harp still played there. The harp was popular in ancient China and neighboring regions, though harps are largely extinct in East Asia in the modern day, the Chinese konghou harp is documented as early as the Spring and Autumn period, and became extinct during the Ming Dynasty. A similar harp, the gonghu was played in ancient Korea, Harps are essentially triangular in shape, and are made primarily of wood. Harp strings are made of gut or metal, the top end of each string is secured on the crossbar or neck of the instrument, where each will have a tuning peg or similar device to adjust the pitch of that string. It is the distance between the tuning peg and the soundboard, as well as the tension and weight of the string, the body is hollow and when a taut string is plucked, the body resonates, projecting sound. The longest side of the harp is called the column or pillar, though some earlier harps, such as a bow harp, on most harps, the sole purpose of the pillar is to hold up the neck against the great strain of the strings. On harps which have pedals, the pillar is a column and encloses the rods which adjust the pitch of strings
26.
Royal Military Academy (Belgium)
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The Royal Military Academy is the military university of Belgium. The school is responsible for the education of the officers of the four components of the Belgian defence, the school is located in Brussels in a building constructed by the architects Henri Maquet and Henri Van Dievoet. The courses are given in French, Dutch and English, admission to the University is only possible through public exams. First, candidates have to pass military test common to all Belgian military categories, after passing these, applying students have to compete with each other in public exams. These consist of mathematics and French & Dutch written language tests, the University can only accommodate a certain number of student each year. Applying students have to compete each other for these limited places. Since 2003, the Academy made some changes to its faculties to conform with the Bologna Process, both degrees are now taught within a 5-year span. After the first three years, students receive a Bachelor Degree, the Masters degree can be attained in succeeding the following 2 years. But in contrast to the common Bologna implementation, flexibility in attaining the degrees isnt greatly augmented, student can only fail for one year within all five. Student cannot take courses with them to the year, they have to pass the re-exams. Before 2003 most courses were fixed, however, students had a choice between optional courses. A lot of flexibility regarding course choices was added by implementing course modules, students can opt for certain modules which each hold specific and related courses. For example, Law module Psychology module Weapon systems module Management module Marine science module History module Communication & Information Systems module, the choice of course module is not always free, but is related with the chosen military speciality of the student and often mandatory. The majority of the courses remains fixed in the Bachelor years, in the Masters years, the student follow more modules than fixed courses. The grand majority of the students have the Belgian nationality, a lot of Luxemburgish officers receive their education in the University and have a long history in it. More recently the University received military students from Canada, the Congo, Morocco, Tunisia and Rwanda, thanks to cooperation, training. However, these student often belong to the elite of their home country. The foreign students have, in contrast to the Belgian students, jean Stas, chemistry Émile Janssens, history Oscar Michiels, military staffing The tradition of the royal princes to study at the academy is continuous
27.
Plantation
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A plantation is an area of land or water where one crop is specifically planted for widespread commercial sale. The crops grown include cotton, coffee, tea, cocoa, sugar cane, sisal, oil seeds, oil palms, rubber trees, protectionist policies and natural comparative advantage have sometimes contributed to determining where plantations were located. Among the earliest examples of plantations were the latifundia of the Roman Empire, Plantation agriculture grew rapidly with the increase in international trade and the development of a worldwide economy that followed the expansion of European colonial empires. Like every economic activity, it has changed over time, Industrial plantations are established to produce a high volume of wood in a short period of time. Plantations are grown by state forestry authorities and/or the paper and wood industries, christmas trees are often grown on plantations as well. In southern and southeastern Asia, teak plantations have replaced the natural forest. Industrial plantations are managed for the commercial production of forest products. Individual blocks are usually even-aged and often consist of just one or two species and these species can be exotic or indigenous. Forest genetic resources are the basis for genetic alteration, selected individuals grown in seed orchards are a good source for seeds to develop adequate planting material. Wood production on a plantation is generally higher than that of natural forests. In 2000, while plantations accounted for 5% of global forest, in the first year, the ground is prepared usually by the combination of burning, herbicide spraying, and/or cultivation and then saplings are planted by human crew or by machine. The saplings are usually obtained in bulk from industrial nurseries, which may specialize in breeding in order to produce fast growing disease-. In the first few years until the canopy closes, the saplings are looked after, after the canopy closes, with the tree crowns touching each other, the plantation is becoming dense and crowded, and tree growth is slowing due to competition. This stage is termed pole stage, when competition becomes too intense, it is time to thin out the section. There are several methods for thinning, but where topography permits, the most popular is row-thinning, many trees are removed, leaving regular clear lanes through the section so that the remaining trees have room to expand again. The removed trees are delimbed, forwarded to the forest road, loaded onto trucks, a typical pole stage plantation tree is 7–30 cm in diameter at breast height. Such trees are not suitable for timber, but are used as pulp for paper and particleboard. As the trees grow and become dense and crowded again, the process is repeated
28.
Saint-Domingue
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Saint-Domingue was a French colony on the Caribbean island of Hispaniola from 1659 to 1804. The French had established themselves on the portion of the islands of Hispaniola. In the Treaty of Ryswick of 1697, Spain formally recognized French control of Tortuga island, in 1791, the slaves and some free people of color of Saint-Domingue began waging a rebellion against French authority. The rebels became reconciled to French rule following the abolition of slavery in the colony in 1793, France controlled the entirety of Hispaniola from 1795 to 1802, when a renewed rebellion began. The last French troops withdrew from the portion of the island in late 1803, and the colony later declared its independence as Haiti, its indigenous name. Spain controlled the island of Hispaniola from the 1490s until the 17th century. The official name was La Española, meaning The Spanish and it was also called Santo Domingo or San Domingo, after Saint Dominic. Spain later ceded the western coast of the island to France, retaining the rest of the island, including the Guava Valley. The French called their portion of Hispaniola Saint-Domingue, the French equivalent of Santo Domingo, the Spanish colony on Hispaniola remained separate, and eventually became the Dominican Republic, the capital of which is still named Santo Domingo. By the early 17th century, the island and its neighbors, notably Tortuga. In 1606, the king of Spain ordered all inhabitants of Hispaniola to move close to Santo Domingo, rather than secure the island, however, this resulted in French, English and Dutch pirates establishing bases on the now-abandoned north and west coasts of the island. French buccaneers established a settlement on the island of Tortuga in 1625 before going to Grande Terre, at first they survived by pirating Spanish ships, eating wild cattle and hogs, and selling hides to traders of all nations. The settlement on Tortuga was officially established in 1659 under the commission of King Louis XIV, in 1665, French colonization of the islands Hispaniola and Tortuga entailed slavery-based plantation agricultural activity such as growing coffee and cattle farming. It was officially recognized by King Louis XIV, the economy of Saint-Domingue became focused on slave-based agricultural plantations. They followed the example of neighboring Caribbean colonies in coercive treatment of the slaves, more cattle, and slave agricultural holdings, coffee plantations and spice plantations were implemented, as well as fishing, cultivation of cocoa, coconuts and snuff. Saint-Domingue quickly came to overshadow the previous colony in both wealth and population, thus, the income and the taxes from slave-based sugar production became a major source of the French budget. Among the first buccaneers was Bertrand DOgeron, who played a big part in the settlement of Saint-Domingue and he encouraged the planting of tobacco, which turned a population of buccaneers and freebooters, who had not acquiesced to royal authority until 1660, into a sedentary population. But in 1670, shortly after Cap-Français had been established, the crisis of tobacco intervened, the first sugar windmill was built in 1685
29.
Louisiana (New Spain)
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Louisiana was the name of an administrative district of the Viceroyalty of New Spain from 1762 to 1802 that consisted of territory west of the Mississippi River basin, plus New Orleans. Spain acquired the territory from France, who had named it La Louisiane in honor of King Louis XIV in 1682 and it is sometimes known as Spanish Louisiana. The district was retroceded to France, under the terms of the Third Treaty of San Ildefonso, in 1802, King Charles IV of Spain published a royal bill on 15 October, effecting the transfer and outlining the conditions. However, Spain agreed to continue administering the colony until French officials arrived and formalized the transfer. The ceremony was conducted at the Cabildo in New Orleans on 30 November 1803, Spain was largely a benign absentee landlord administering it from Havana, Cuba, and contracting out governing to people from many nationalities as long as they swore allegiance to Spain. During the American War of Independence, the Spanish funneled their supplies to the American revolutionists through New Orleans, in keeping with being absentee landlords, Spanish efforts to turn Louisiana into a Spanish colony were usually fruitless. For instance, while Spanish officially was the language of government. Even official business conducted at the Cabildo often lapsed into French, when Alejandro OReilly re-established Spanish rule in 1769, he issued a decree on December 7,1769, which banned the trade of Native American slaves. Although there was no movement toward abolition of the African slave trade, Spanish rule introduced a new law called coartación, which allowed slaves to buy their freedom, and that of others. A group of maroons led by Jean Saint Malo resisted re-enslavement from their base in the swamps east of New Orleans between 1780 and 1784, on May 4,1795,57 slaves and three local white men were put on trial in Point Coupee. Spanish colonial officials divided Luisiana into Upper Louisiana and Lower Louisiana at 36°35 North, in 1764, French fur trading interests founded St. Louis in what was then known as the Illinois Country. The Spanish referred to St. Louis as the city of Illinois, in 1778, several ships embarked for Louisiana with hundreds of settlers. The ships made stops in Havana and Venezuela, where half the settlers disembarked, in the end, between 2,100 and 2,736 Canarians arrived in Louisiana and settled near New Orleans. They settled in Barataria and in what is today St. Bernard Parish, however, many settlers were relocated for various reasons. Barataria suffered hurricanes in 1779 and in 1780, it was abandoned, in 1782, a splinter group of the Canarian settlers in Saint Bernard emigrated to Valenzuela. In 1779, another ship with 500 people from Málaga, arrived in Spanish Louisiana and these colonists, led by Lt. Col. Francisco Bouligny, settled in New Iberia, where they intermarried with Cajun settlers. In 1782, during the American Revolutionary War and the Anglo-Spanish War, Bernardo de Gálvez recruited men from the Canarian settlements of Louisiana and Galveston to join his forces. They participated in three military campaigns, the Baton Rouge, the Mobile, and the Pensacola, which expelled the British from the Gulf Coast
30.
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
31.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe
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Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was a German writer and statesman. In addition, numerous literary and scientific fragments, more than 10,000 letters and he was an early participant in the Sturm und Drang literary movement. He also contributed to the planning of Weimars botanical park and the rebuilding of its Ducal Palace and his first major scientific work, the Metamorphosis of Plants, was published after he returned from a 1788 tour of Italy. During this period, Goethe published his novel, Wilhelm Meisters Apprenticeship, the verse epic Hermann and Dorothea, and, in 1808. Goethes comments and observations form the basis of several biographical works, Goethes father, Johann Caspar Goethe, lived with his family in a large house in Frankfurt, then an Imperial Free City of the Holy Roman Empire. Though he had studied law in Leipzig and had been appointed Imperial Councillor, Johann Caspar married Goethes mother, Catharina Elizabeth Textor at Frankfurt on 20 August 1748, when he was 38 and she was 17. All their children, with the exception of Johann Wolfgang and his sister, Cornelia Friederica Christiana and his father and private tutors gave Goethe lessons in all the common subjects of their time, especially languages. Goethe also received lessons in dancing, riding and fencing, Johann Caspar, feeling frustrated in his own ambitions, was determined that his children should have all those advantages that he had not. Although Goethes great passion was drawing, he became interested in literature, Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock. He also took pleasure in reading works on history and religion. He writes about this period, Goethe became also acquainted with Frankfurt actors, among early literary attempts, he was infatuated with Gretchen, who would later reappear in his Faust and the adventures with whom he would concisely describe in Dichtung und Wahrheit. He adored Caritas Meixner, a wealthy Worms traders daughter and friend of his sister, Goethe studied law at Leipzig University from 1765 to 1768. He detested learning age-old judicial rules by heart, preferring instead to attend the lessons of Christian Fürchtegott Gellert. In Leipzig, Goethe fell in love with Anna Katharina Schönkopf, in 1770, he anonymously released Annette, his first collection of poems. His uncritical admiration for many contemporary poets vanished as he became interested in Gotthold Ephraim Lessing, already at this time, Goethe wrote a good deal, but he threw away nearly all of these works, except for the comedy Die Mitschuldigen. The restaurant Auerbachs Keller and its legend of Fausts 1525 barrel ride impressed him so much that Auerbachs Keller became the real place in his closet drama Faust Part One. As his studies did not progress, Goethe was forced to return to Frankfurt at the close of August 1768, Goethe became severely ill in Frankfurt. During the year and a half that followed, because of several relapses, during convalescence, Goethe was nursed by his mother and sister
32.
Farce
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In theatre, a farce is a comedy that aims at entertaining the audience through situations that are highly exaggerated, extravagant, and thus improbable. Farce is also characterized by humor, the use of deliberate absurdity or nonsense. Farces have been written for the stage and film, furthermore, a farce is also often set in one particular location, where all events occur. M. C. P. C. David Croft & Jeremy Lloyd, Allo Allo, ken Friedman, Claptrap Andrew Norriss and Richard Fegen, Chance in a Million Miles Tredinnick, Laugh. Alan Ayckbourn, A Small Family Business Miles Tredinnick, It’s Now Or Never, tom Kempinski, Sex Please, Were Italian. Ray Cooney, Funny Money Robin Hawdon, Perfect Wedding Steven Moffat, Coupling Miles Tredinnick, La Farce de maître Pierre Pathelin The Liar Molière, Tartuffe Molière, The Miser Labiche, La Cagnotte and other plays. These plays are performed as comic relief during the long, serious Noh plays, following stage shows of Umer Shareef are extremely popular. Archer Chowder The Grim Adventures of Billy & Mandy The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack Scooby-Doo, IMDB list of film and television farces Farce films at Allmovie
33.
Eugenie (play)
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Eugénie is a play in five acts by Pierre Augustin Caron de Beaumarchais. It was first performed at the Comédie-Française on January 29,1767, the premier of Eugénie was delayed for some time by the illness of one of its stars, Préville, who was to play the role of The Baron. There was much buzz about the play before the opening, and its premier was well-attended, Beaumarchais and the cast spent the next two days revising the script, and the result was a greater success. Until the premiere of The Barber of Seville several years later, the plot was inspired by an actual incident which befell Beaumarchaiss sister. Eugénie and her aunt, Madame Murer, have come to London from their native Wales and they are accompanied by Eugénies father Baron Hartley, who believes theyre in town on business. In fact, Eugénie has secretly married The Earl of Clarendon and has come to him, they are staying in the Earls petite maison. Eugénie is dismayed that the Earl has gone out of town despite knowing about their plans to visit, Madame Murer—who is the only member of Eugénies family that knows about the wedding—tries to reassure Eugénie that noblemen like the Earl simply have busy schedules. Eugénie is even more concerned because she is pregnant, and still hasnt told her father about her marriage, due to the insistence of Madame Murer. The Baron has even started to prepare an arranged marriage for her to someone else—an old military man by the name of Cowerly, eventually the Earl arrives to visit Eugénie. His valet, Drink, prepares to him, but chides his master, Drink knows that the Earls marriage to Eugénie was not valid. Furthermore, the Earl is preparing to marry someone else very soon and he tells Drink to make sure to check any mail thats received at the house and withhold anything that looks like it might be from the Steward. When Eugénie and Madame Murer finally greet the Earl, Eugénie inquires as to why he has been so distant, the Baron comes in and after meeting the Earl, congratulates him about his upcoming wedding to Lady Winchester, daughter of the Duke of Winchester. Eugénie and Madame Murer are horrified at this news, and the flustered Earl quickly lies and assures everyone that the stories of him getting married are just a rumor going around. The ladies retire and the two men exit together, Eugénie worries over her brother and gives the news to her father. Soon afterward Captain Cowerly comes into the house, complaining that the servants were insisting that nobody was home, after being greeted, Cowerly inquires as to where Sir Charles is at. Gradually the conversation turns to Earl Clarendon, and Cowerly reveals the family is staying in the Earls petite maison, Eugénie becomes physically unwell at the news and is taken away by her aunt. Later, the Baron goes to comfort Eugénie, Eugénie decides she should not conceal the truth from her father anymore and admits to him that she has secretly married the Earl. The Baron is outraged by news, just when hes beginning to calm down, Madame Murer enters and scolds him for his behavior
34.
The Barber of Seville (play)
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The Barber of Seville or the Useless Precaution is a French play by Pierre Beaumarchais, with original music by Antoine-Laurent Baudron. It was initially conceived as an opera, and was rejected as such in 1772 by the Comédie-Italienne. The play as it is now known was written in 1773 and it is the first play in a trilogy of which the other constituents are The Marriage of Figaro and The Guilty Mother. Though the play was received at first, Beaumarchais worked some fast editing of the script. The plays title might be a pun on Tirso de Molinas earlier play El Burlador de Sevilla, mozart wrote a set of 12 variations, K.354, on one of Baudrons songs, Je suis Lindor. The story follows a traditional Commedia dellarte structure, with many characters based on famous stock characters. The plot involves a Spanish count, called simply The Count although Almaviva appears as an additional name, to ensure that she really loves him and not just his money, the Count disguises himself as a poor college student named Lindor, and attempts to woo her. His plans are foiled by Rosines guardian Doctor Bartholo, who keeps her locked up in his house and intends to marry her himself. The Counts luck changes, however, after a reunion with an ex-servant of his, Figaro. The story culminates in the marriage of the Count and Rosine, the Count, disguised as a poor university student, waits in hope of catching a glimpse of Rosine, whom he encountered in Madrid and has followed to Seville. To this point they have never spoken to each other, Figaro happens to come down the street, singing a song, he and the Count recognize each other. While the two men talk, Dr. Bartholo and Rosine come to a window of the house, Rosine pretends to drop a piece of sheet music from her window inadvertently. While the doctor is coming down the stairs to retrieve it, Rosine instructs the Count to pick up the sheet himself. He does, and finds a note from Rosine hidden inside it, Figaro advises the Count that Rosine is the ward of Dr. Bartholo, and adds that as he is the doctors barber and apothecary, he has frequent occasion to visit the house. He proposes a plan to smuggle the Count into the house by disguising him as a soldier in need of lodging. The two are interrupted when they overhear Dr. Bartholo making plans to secretly marry Rosine during the night, before he leaves to see his friend Bazile, afterwards, the Count sings to Rosine, introducing himself as a poor man named Lindor who is in love with her. From inside the house, Rosine sings a verse to the tune of Maître en droit, requiting his affections, Figaro and the Count go their separate ways, agreeing to meet again to put their plan in action. In Dr. Bartholos house, Rosine writes a note to Lindor, when Figaro drops in, she asks if he will deliver the note
35.
The Marriage of Figaro (play)
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The Marriage of Figaro is a comedy in five acts, written in 1778 by Pierre Beaumarchais. This play is the second in the Figaro trilogy, preceded by The Barber of Seville, in the first play, The Barber, the story begins with a simple love triangle in which a Spanish count has fallen in love with a girl called Rosine. He disguises himself to ensure that she love him back for his character. But this is all foiled when Rosines guardian, Doctor Bartholo, the Count runs into an ex-servant of his, Figaro, and pressures him into setting up a meeting between the Count and Rosine. He succeeds and the lovers are married to end the first part of the trilogy, the Marriage was written as a sequel to The Barber. In his preface to the play, Beaumarchais says that Louis François, the plays denunciation of aristocratic privilege has been characterised as foreshadowing the French Revolution. The revolutionary leader Georges Danton said that the killed off the nobility, in exile. The play formed the basis for an opera with a libretto by Lorenzo Da Ponte and music by Mozart, also called The Marriage of Figaro. In 1799, another based on the same play, La pazza giornata, ovvero Il matrimonio di Figaro, was produced in Venice with libretto by Gaetano Rossi. The Marriage of Figaro picks up three years following the end of The Barber of Seville as Figaro is engaged to be married to Suzanne, both characters are among the Counts staff in his dwelling. In the three years since Figaro helped forge the marriage of the Count and Rosine, the Count has already grown bored with his marriage and is taking notice of Suzanne. The Count looks to re-engage the act of primae noctis, in which he would consummate the marriage with the prior to Figaros honeymoon. The scholar and translator John Wood writes that the play was completed in more or less its existing form by 1778. It was accepted for production by the management of the Comédie Française in 1781, the censors still refused to license the play for public performance, but the king personally authorised its production. The author gave his share of the profits to charity, in France the play has held its place in the repertory, and leading companies have played it in the original language to audiences in Europe and America. In 1960 a Comédie Française production was filmed, under the direction of Jean Mayer, in the twentieth century the play continued to be staged in translation by foreign companies. In 1927 Constantin Stanislavski staged the work at the Moscow Art Theatre, in 1974 the British National Theatre company presented a version by John Wells, Beaumarchais comedy was adapted into One Mad Day. A screwball comedy in Three Acts by William James Royce, the play premiered at the Norton Clapp Theatre on 24 October 2008
36.
The Guilty Mother
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The Guilty Mother subtitled The Other Tartuffe is the third play of the Figaro trilogy by Pierre Beaumarchais, its predecessors were The Barber of Seville and The Marriage of Figaro. This was the authors last play, like the earlier plays of the trilogy it has been turned into operatic form, but it has not entered the general opera repertoire. In the preface to the first published edition of The Marriage of Figaro, the Tartuffe figure who insinuates himself into the household for his own enrichment is Bégearss. Beaumarchais completed the early in 1791. It was to have been staged by the Comédiens-Français, but the author fell out with the management over authors rights, instead the piece was premiered at the new Théâtre du Marais on 26 June 1792, and ran for fifteen performances across six weeks. Soon after this, Beaumarchais found it prudent for political reasons to go into voluntary exile, in his absence his friends arranged for the text of the play to be published, in the hope of preventing unauthorised editions by opportunistic publishers. They made some changes to comply with the orthodoxy of the French Revolution, most particularly they suppressed the Almavivas aristocratic titles Count. By 1796 Beaumarchais had returned to Paris and the play was presented at the Comédie-Française in 1797. The work thereafter fell out of the repertoire, but was revived successfully at the Comédie-Française in 1990. The characters, as described by Beaumarchaiss characterisations, are, Count Almaviva, Countess Almaviva, very melancholy, and with the piety of an angel. Chevalier Léon, their son, young man obsessed with freedom, Florestine, ward and daughter of Count Almaviva, a young person full of compassion. Bégearss, Irishman, a Major in the Spanish military, an old secretary to the Count when he was ambassador, a deep man. Figaro, servant and confidant of the Count, a man formed by worldly experience, Suzanne, maid and confidant of the Countess, wife of Figaro, excellent woman, devoted to her mistress and having left behind the illusions of youth. M. Fal, the Counts notary, a precise and honest man, guillaume, German valet to M. Begearss, a man too gentle for such a master. The action takes place twenty years after the play in the trilogy. The storys premise is that years ago, while the Count was away on a long business trip. When the Countess told Chérubin that what they did was wrong, as he lay dying, he wrote a final letter to the Countess, declaring his love and regrets, and making mention of all the things they had done. Soon after, to her dismay, the Countess discovered herself pregnant with Chérubins child, meanwhile, the Count has an illegitimate child of his own, a daughter named Florestine
37.
Marie Antoinette
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Marie Antoinette (/ˈmæriˌæntwəˈnɛt/, /ˌɑ̃ːntwə-/, /ˌɑ̃ːtwə-/, US /məˈriː-/, French, born Maria Antonia Josepha Johanna, was the last Queen of France and Navarre before the French Revolution. She was born an Archduchess of Austria, and was the fifteenth and second youngest child of Empress Maria Theresa and Francis I, in April 1770, upon her marriage to Louis-Auguste, heir apparent to the French throne, she became Dauphine of France. After eight years of marriage, Marie Antoinette gave birth to a daughter, Marie-Thérèse Charlotte, the Diamond Necklace affair damaged her reputation further. On 10 August 1792, the attack on the Tuileries forced the family to take refuge at the Assembly. On 21 September 1792, the monarchy was abolished, after a two-day trial begun on 14 October 1793, Marie Antoinette was convicted by the Revolutionary Tribunal of high treason, and executed by guillotine on Place de la Révolution on 16 October 1793. Maria Antonia was born on 2 November 1755, at the Hofburg Palace and she was the youngest daughter of Empress Maria Theresa, ruler of the Habsburg Empire, and her husband Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor. Her godparents were Joseph I and Mariana Victoria, King and Queen of Portugal, Archduke Joseph, shortly after her birth, she was placed under the care of the Governess of the Imperial children, Countess von Brandeis. Maria Antonia was raised with her older sister Maria Carolina. As to her relationship with her mother, it was difficult, despite the private tutoring she received, results of her schooling were less than satisfactory. At the age of ten she could not write correctly in German or in any language used at court, such as French. Under the teaching of Christoph Willibald Gluck, Maria Antonia developed into a good musician and she learned to play the harp, the harpsichord and the flute. During the familys gatherings in the evenings, she would sing and she also excelled at dancing, had an exquisite poise, and loved dolls. Following the Seven Years War and the Diplomatic Revolution of 1756, Empress Maria Theresa decided to end hostilities with her longtime enemy, on 14 May she met her husband at the edge of the forest of Compiègne. Upon her arrival in France, she adopted the French version of her name, a further ceremonial wedding took place on 16 May 1770 in the Palace of Versailles and, after the festivities, the day ended with the ritual bedding. The lack of consummation of the marriage plagued the reputation of both Louis-Auguste and Marie Antoinette for the seven years. The initial reaction to the marriage between Marie Antoinette and Louis-Auguste was mixed, on the one hand, the Dauphine was beautiful, personable and well-liked by the common people. Her first official appearance in Paris on 8 June 1773 was a resounding success, on the other hand, those opposed to the alliance with Austria, and others, for personal reasons, had a difficult relationship with Marie Antoinette. Madame du Barry, for example, was Louis XVs mistress and had political influence over him
38.
The Marriage of Figaro
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The Marriage of Figaro, K.492, is an opera buffa in four acts composed in 1786 by Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart, with an Italian libretto written by Lorenzo Da Ponte. It premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 1 May 1786, the operas libretto is based on a stage comedy by Pierre Beaumarchais, La folle journée, ou le Mariage de Figaro, which was first performed in 1784. It tells how the servants Figaro and Susanna succeed in getting married, foiling the efforts of their philandering employer Count Almaviva to seduce Susanna, the opera is a cornerstone of the repertoire and appears consistently among the top ten in the Operabase list of most frequently performed operas. Beaumarchaiss earlier play The Barber of Seville had already made a transition to opera in a version by Paisiello. Mozarts librettist managed to get approval for an operatic version which eventually achieved great success. The opera was the first of three collaborations between Mozart and Da Ponte, their collaborations were Don Giovanni and Così fan tutte. In particular, Da Ponte replaced Figaros climactic speech against inherited nobility with an angry aria against unfaithful wives. Contrary to the myth, the libretto was approved by the Emperor before any music was written by Mozart. The Imperial Italian opera company paid Mozart 450 florins for the work, Da Ponte was paid 200 florins. Figaro premiered at the Burgtheater in Vienna on 1 May 1786, Mozart himself directed the first two performances, conducting seated at the keyboard, the custom of the day. Later performances were conducted by Joseph Weigl, the first production was given eight further performances, all in 1786. The applause of the audience on the first night resulted in five numbers being encored and you will therefore cause some posters to this effect to be printed. The requested posters were printed up and posted in the Burgtheater in time for the performance on 24 May. The newspaper Wiener Realzeitung carried a review of the opera in its issue of 11 July 1786, did not really know on the first day where it stood. Apart from that, it is true that the first performance was none of the best, but now, after several performances, one would be subscribing either to the cabal or to tastelessness if one were to maintain that Herr Mozarts music is anything but a masterpiece of art. It contains so many beauties, and such a wealth of ideas, as can be only from the source of innate genius. – Mozart directed the orchestra, playing his fortepiano, the joy which this causes is so far removed from all sensuality that one cannot speak of it. Where could words be found that are worthy to describe such joy, Joseph Haydn appreciated the opera greatly, writing to a friend that he heard it in his dreams
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