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Eboué, Félix Adolphe

(Encyclopedia)Eboué, Félix Adolphe fālēksˈ ädôlfˈ ĕbwāˈ [key], 1884–1944, French colonial official. After service in Martinique and in the Sudan, he became France's first black colonial governor. He se...

Devils Island

(Encyclopedia)Devils Island, Fr. Île du Diable, the smallest and southernmost of the Îles du Salut, in the Caribbean Sea off French Guiana. A penal colony founded in 1852, it was used largely for political prison...

Custine, Adam Philippe, comte de

(Encyclopedia)Custine, Adam Philippe, comte de ädäNˈ fēlēpˈ kôNt də küstēnˈ [key], 1740–93, French general. He served in the Seven Years War and in the American Revolution. Elected to the States-Genera...

Colomb, Michel

(Encyclopedia)Colomb or Colombe, Michel both: mēshĕlˈ kôlôNˈ [key], c.1430–1512, French sculptor, one of the masters of the French Renaissance. Few of his works survive. His name is associated with the exec...

Cinco de Mayo

(Encyclopedia)Cinco de Mayo, May 5, the anniversary of Mexico's victory over France in 1862 in the Battle of Puebla, in which Gen. Ignacio Zaragoza's small, ill-equipped Mexican forces defeated a much larger French...

Chartier, Alain

(Encyclopedia)Chartier, Alain älăNˈ shärtyāˈ [key], b. c.1385, d. c.1433, French writer, secretary to Charles VII. His most popular work was the love poem La Belle Dame sans mercy (1424), which provided Keats...

Fabre d'Églantine, Philippe François Nazaire

(Encyclopedia)Fabre d'Églantine, Philippe François Nazaire fēlēpˈ fräNswäˈ näzĕrˈ fäˈbrə dāgläNtēnˈ [key], 1755–94, French dramatist and revolutionist. His chief work, Le Philinte de Molière (1...

Abraham, Plains of

(Encyclopedia)Abraham, Plains of, fairly level field adjoining the upper part of the city of Quebec, Canada. There, in 1759, the English under Gen. James Wolfe defeated the French under Gen. Louis Montcalm. The bat...

Gravelot, Hubert

(Encyclopedia)Gravelot, Hubert übĕrˈ grävlōˈ [key], 1699–1772, French engraver. Gravelot was instrumental in introducing the French rococo pictorial tradition to England. The books he illustrated include th...

Guillaume de Lorris

(Encyclopedia)Guillaume de Lorris gēyōmˈ də lôrēsˈ [key], c.1215–c.1278, French poet, author of the first part of the Roman de la Rose. He handled the chivalric conventions with subtlety and charm, and his...