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Loménie de Brienne, Étienne Charles

(Encyclopedia)Loménie de Brienne, Étienne Charles ātyĕnˈ shärl lōmānēˈ də brēĕnˈ [key], 1727–94, French statesman, cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church. He was archbishop of Toulouse (1763–88) an...

Belém

(Encyclopedia)Belém pəräˈ [key], city, capital of Pará state, N Brazil, on the Pará River. Belém, th...

Boyer, Jean Pierre

(Encyclopedia)Boyer, Jean Pierre zhäN pyĕr bwäyāˈ [key], 1776–1850, president of Haiti (1818–43). A free mulatto, he fought under Toussaint Louverture and then joined André Rigaud, also a mulatto, in the ...

Agassiz, Louis

(Encyclopedia)Agassiz, Louis (Jean Louis Rodolphe Agassiz) ăgˈəsē [key], 1807–73, Swiss-American zoologist and geologist, b. Môtiers-en-Vuly, Switzerland. He studied at the universities of Zürich, Erlangen ...

Stavisky Affair

(Encyclopedia)Stavisky Affair stävēskēˈ [key], financial and political scandal that shook France in 1934. Serge Alexandre Stavisky, a swindler associated with the municipal pawnshop of Bayonne, sold huge quanti...

Dessalines, Jean Jacques

(Encyclopedia)Dessalines, Jean Jacques zhäN zhäk dĕsälēnˈ [key], c.1758–1806, emperor of Haiti (1804–6), born a slave. A shrewd general, he served under Toussaint Louverture in the wars that liberated Hai...

Christophe, Henri

(Encyclopedia)Christophe, Henri äNrēˈ krēstôfˈ [key], 1767–1820, Haitian revolutionary leader. A freed black slave, he aided Toussaint Louverture in the liberation of Haiti and was army chief under Dessalin...

Josephine

(Encyclopedia)Josephine, 1763–1814, empress of the French (1804–9) as the consort of Napoleon I. Born Marie Josèphe Rose Tascher de la Pagerie in Martinique, she was married in 1779 to Alexandre de Beauharnais...

Anne of Austria

(Encyclopedia)Anne of Austria, 1601–66, queen of France, daughter of King Philip III of Spain. Married to the French king Louis XIII (1615), she was neglected by her husband and sought the society of the court in...

Racine, Jean

(Encyclopedia)Racine, Jean zhäN räsēnˈ [key], 1639–99, French dramatist. Racine is the prime exemplar of French classicism. The nobility of his Alexandrine verse, the simplicity of his diction, the psychologi...

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