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Massenet, Jules

(Encyclopedia)Massenet, Jules zhül mäsənāˈ [key], 1842–1912, French composer. He studied at the Paris Conservatory, where he taught from 1878 to 1896. In addition to many songs, several oratorios, and a numb...

Paray-le-Monial

(Encyclopedia)Paray-le-Monial pärāˈ-lə-mônyälˈ [key], town (1990 pop. 10,568), Saône-et-Loire dept., E central France. Ceramics and hosiery are produced. In the 17th cent. St. Margaret Mary founded the cult...

Saint François

(Encyclopedia)Saint François săN fräNswäˈ [key] or Saint Francis. 1 River, 165 mi (266 km) long, rising in Lac St. François, SE Que., Canada, and flowing SW through Lac Aylmer to Sherbrooke, then NW past Drum...

Guinea, archaic term for Africa's west coast

(Encyclopedia)Guinea gĭnˈē [key], an archaic term for the west coast of Africa. In its widest sense it has been applied to the region from Angola to Senegal. Parts of the region bore names originating in early c...

Du Maurier, George Louis Palmella Busson

(Encyclopedia)Du Maurier, George Louis Palmella Busson dyo͞o môrˈēā [key], 1834–96, English artist and novelist, b. Paris of a French father and an English mother. He studied chemistry, but later turned to a...

Digne

(Encyclopedia)Digne -lā-băNˈ [key], city, capital of Alpes-de-Haute, Provence dept., SE France, in Prove...

Bernadette, Saint

(Encyclopedia)Bernadette, Saint bûrnədĕtˈ [key], 1844–79, French peasant girl who reported seeing the Virgin Mary in apparitions at a grotto near Lourdes, her home, in 1858. She was born Marie Bernarde Soubir...

Smith, Red

(Encyclopedia)Smith, Red (Walter Wellesley Smith), 1905–82, American sportswriter, b. Green Bay, Wis., grad. Notre Dame, 1927. After working on newspapers in St. Louis and Philadelphia, he began a syndicated colu...

Montluçon

(Encyclopedia)Montluçon môNlüsôNˈ [key], town (1990 pop. 46,660), Allier dept., central France, on the Cher River. Industry developed in the 19th cent. because of nearby coal fields in Commentry and iron-ore d...

Gothic romance

(Encyclopedia)Gothic romance, type of novel that flourished in the late 18th and early 19th cent. in England. Gothic romances were mysteries, often involving the supernatural and heavily tinged with horror, and the...