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East India Company, French

(Encyclopedia)East India Company, French, 1664–1769, commercial enterprise planned by Jean Baptiste Colbert and chartered by King Louis XIV for the purpose of trading in the Eastern Hemisphere. It failed to found...

Charles II, French king

(Encyclopedia)Charles II, French king: see Charles II, emperor of the West. ...

Restoration, in French history

(Encyclopedia)Restoration, in French history, the period from 1814 to 1830. It began with the first abdication of Emperor Napoleon I and the return of the Bourbon king, Louis XVIII, but was interrupted (1815) by Na...

Robert I, French king

(Encyclopedia)Robert I, c.865–923, French king (922–23), son of Count Robert the Strong and younger brother of King Eudes. He inherited from Eudes the territory between the Seine and the Loire rivers. In 922, R...

Orléans, French royal family

(Encyclopedia)Orléans ôrlāäNˈ [key], family name of two branches of the French royal line. The house of Valois-Orléans was founded by Louis, duc d'Orléans (see separate article), whose assassination (1407) c...

Delavigne, Casimir

(Encyclopedia)Delavigne, Casimir käzēmērˈ dəlävēˈnyə [key], 1793–1843, French dramatist, poet, and satirist. His first publication, a verse diatribe against the Restoration, Les Messéniennes (1818), bro...

Taschereau, Sir Henri Elzéar

(Encyclopedia)Taschereau, Sir Henri Elzéar, 1836–1911, Canadian jurist, b. Quebec prov., nephew of Elzéar Alexandre Cardinal Taschereau. He was a judge of the Supreme Court of Canada (1878) and was later chief ...

Augier, Émile

(Encyclopedia)Augier, Émile (Guillaume Victor Émile Augier) gēyōmˈ vēktôrˈ āmēlˈ ōzhyāˈ [key], 1820–89, French dramatist. His plays, early examples of realism, satirize the social foibles of his tim...

Lully, Jean Baptiste

(Encyclopedia)Lully, Jean Baptiste zhäN bätēstˈ lülēˈ [key], 1632–87, French operatic composer, b. Florence, Italy. His name originally was Giovanni Battista Lulli. A self-taught violinist, he went to Fran...

Quinault, Philippe

(Encyclopedia)Quinault, Philippe fēlēpˈ kēnōˈ [key], 1635–88, French dramatist. His tragedies and comedies are affected and undistinguished, but he found an outlet for his talent in the 14 opera librettos w...