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Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de

(Encyclopedia)Buffon, Georges Louis Leclerc, comte de zhôrzh lwē ləklĕrkˈ kôNt də büfôNˈ [key], 1707–88, French naturalist and author. From 1739 he was keeper of the Jardin du Roi (later the Jardin des ...

Brétigny, Treaty of

(Encyclopedia)Brétigny, Treaty of brātēnyēˈ [key], 1360, concluded by England and France at Brétigny, a village near Chartres, France. It marked a low point in French fortunes in the Hundred Years War. After ...

Brookner, Anita

(Encyclopedia)Brookner, Anita, 1928–2016, English writer and art critic. After establishing an academic career at London's Courtauld Institute of Art and becoming the first woman appointed (1968) Slade Professor ...

Triolet, Elsa

(Encyclopedia)Triolet, Elsa (Elsa Blick) ĕlsäˈ trēôlĕˈ [key], c.1896–1970, Russian-French author, b. Moscow. In 1928 she married the French writer Louis Aragon. Her novels often combine a sweeping Russian ...

Scheldt

(Encyclopedia)Scheldt skĕlt [key], Du. Schelde, Fr. Escaut, river, c.270 mi (435 km) long, rising in N France and flowing generally NE across W Belgium and into the North Sea through the Western Scheldt (De Honte)...

Barrès, Maurice

(Encyclopedia)Barrès, Maurice môrēsˈ bärĕsˈ [key], 1862–1923, French novelist and nationalist politician. As an advocate of the supremacy of the individual self, he wrote the trilogy of novels Le Culte du ...

Cendrars, Blaise

(Encyclopedia)Cendrars, Blaise blĕz siNdrärˈ [key], 1887–1961, Swiss-born French writer whose real name was Frédéric Sauser. He was at various times an art critic, a journalist, and a film director, and he t...

Perrault, Charles

(Encyclopedia)Perrault, Charles shärl pĕrōˈ [key], 1628–1703, French poet. His collections of eight fairy tales, Histoires ou contes du temps passé [stories or tales of olden times] (1697) gave classic form ...

Aymé, Marcel

(Encyclopedia)Aymé, Marcel märsĕlˈ āmāˈ [key], 1902–67, French writer. Aymé's La Table aux crevés (1929), a story of peasant life, typifies the satirical tone of his works. La Jument verte (1933, tr. The...

Coustou

(Encyclopedia)Coustou ko͞osto͞oˈ [key], family of French sculptors. Nicolas Coustou, 1658–1733, studied with his uncle, Antoine Coysevox, with whom he later collaborated on the decorations at Marly and at Vers...