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Périer, Casimir Pierre

(Encyclopedia)Périer, Casimir Pierre käzēmērˈ pyĕr pĕryāˈ [key], 1777–1832, French statesman. He was a member of a wealthy bourgeois family. His father, Claude Périer, a manufacturer and financier of Gr...

undine

(Encyclopedia)undine əndēnˈ, ŭnˈdēn [key], in folklore, female water sprite who could acquire a soul by marrying a human being. If, however, her lover proved unfaithful, she had to return to the sea. The lege...

Bollandists

(Encyclopedia)Bollandists bŏlˈəndĭsts [key], group of Jesuits in Belgium, named for their early leader, Jean Bolland, a Flemish Jesuit of the 17th cent. They were charged by the Holy See with compiling an autho...

Auenbrugger, Leopold

(Encyclopedia)Auenbrugger, Leopold lāˈōpôlt ouˈənbro͝ogər [key], 1722–1809, Viennese physician. His findings on the use of percussion in diagnosing chest diseases were published in 1761 (tr. On Percussion...

Herrings, Battle of the

(Encyclopedia)Herrings, Battle of the, 1429, episode in the siege of Orléans by the English in the Hundred Years War. The French, under Jean, comte de Dunois, attacked a supply train commanded by Sir John Fastolf....

Simon, Antoine

(Encyclopedia)Simon, Antoine äNtwänˈ sēmôNˈ [key], 1736–94, French revolutionary, often called “the shoemaker,” a member of the Commune of Paris. He and his wife guarded the dauphin, Louis XVII, in pris...

Guadet, Marguerite Élie

(Encyclopedia)Guadet, Marguerite Élie märgərētˈ ālēˈ güädāˈ [key], 1758–94, French revolutionary. A leader of the Girondists, he was outlawed (1793) for his attacks on Maximilien Robespierre and Jean ...

Roncesvalles

(Encyclopedia)Roncesvalles rōnˌthāsväˈlyās [key], Fr. Roncevaux, mountain pass (alt. 3,468 ft/1,057 m), in the Pyrenees, between Pamplona (Spain) and Saint-Jean-Pied-de-Port (France). Tradition has made it th...

Jakobson, Roman

(Encyclopedia)Jakobson, Roman rəmänˈ yäkˈôbsən [key], 1896–1982, Russian-American linguist and literary critic, b. Moscow. He coined the term structural linguistics and stressed that the aim of historical ...

Bainbridge, Beryl

(Encyclopedia)Bainbridge, Beryl (Dame Beryl Margaret Bainbridge), 1933–2010, English author, b. Liverpool. Bainbridge is mainly known for her tightly plotted, rueful, and darkly comic fiction in which dull and si...

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