Persian Letters
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Persian Letters
''Persian Letters'' (french: Lettres persanes) is a literary work, published in 1721, by Charles de Secondat, baron de Montesquieu, recounting the experiences of two fictional Persian noblemen, Usbek and Rica, who spend several years in France under Louis XIV and the Regency.; Publication The first edition of the novel, which consisted of 150 letters, appeared in May 1721 under the rubric Cologne: Pierre Marteau, a front for the Amsterdam publisher Jacques Desbordes whose business was now being run by his widow, Susanne de Caux. Referred to as edition A, this is the text utilized in the recent critical edition of ''Lettres persanes'' (2004) for the ongoing complete works of Montesquieu published in Oxford and Lyon/Paris beginning in 1998. A second edition (B) by the same publisher later in the same year, for which there is so far no entirely satisfactory explanation, curiously included three new letters but omitted thirteen of the original ones. All subsequent editions in the ...
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Charles De Secondat, Baron De Montesquieu
Charles Louis de Secondat, Baron de La Brède et de Montesquieu (; ; 18 January 168910 February 1755), generally referred to as simply Montesquieu, was a French judge, man of letters, historian, and political philosopher. He is the principal source of the theory of separation of powers, which is implemented in many constitutions throughout the world. He is also known for doing more than any other author to secure the place of the word '' despotism'' in the political lexicon.. His anonymously published ''The Spirit of Law'' (1748), which was received well in both Great Britain and the American colonies, influenced the Founding Fathers of the United States in drafting the U.S. Constitution. Biography Montesquieu was born at the Château de la Brède in southwest France, south of Bordeaux. His father, Jacques de Secondat (1654–1713), was a soldier with a long noble ancestry, including descent from Richard de la Pole, Yorkist claimant to the English crown. His mother, Mari ...
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Novel
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself from the la, novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of ''novellus'', diminutive of ''novus'', meaning "new". Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, John Cowper Powys, preferred the term "romance" to describe their novels. According to Margaret Doody, the novel has "a continuous and comprehensive history of about two thousand years", with its origins in the Ancient Greek and Roman novel, in Chivalric romance, and in the tradition of the Italian renaissance novella.Margaret Anne Doody''The True Story of the Novel'' New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1996, rept. 1997, p. 1. Retrieved 25 April 2014. The ancient romance form was revived by Romanticism, especially the histori ...
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Palais Royal
The Palais-Royal () is a former royal palace located in the 1st arrondissement of Paris, France. The screened entrance court faces the Place du Palais-Royal, opposite the Louvre. Originally called the Palais-Cardinal, it was built for Cardinal Richelieu from about 1633 to 1639 by the architect Jacques Lemercier. Richelieu bequeathed it to Louis XIII, and Louis XIV gave it to his younger brother, the Duke of Orléans. As the succeeding dukes of Orléans made such extensive alterations over the years, almost nothing remains of Lemercier's original design. The Palais-Royal now serves as the seat of the Ministry of Culture, the Conseil d'État and the Constitutional Council. The central Palais-Royal Garden (Jardin du Palais-Royal) serves as a public park, and the arcade houses shops. History Palais-Cardinal Originally called the Palais-Cardinal, the palace was the personal residence of Cardinal Richelieu. The architect Jacques Lemercier began his design in 1629; construction comm ...
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Tuileries
The Tuileries Palace (french: Palais des Tuileries, ) was a royal and imperial palace in Paris which stood on the right bank of the River Seine, directly in front of the Louvre. It was the usual Parisian residence of most French monarchs, from Henry IV to Napoleon III, until it was burned by the Paris Commune in 1871. Built in 1564, it was gradually extended until it closed off the western end of the Louvre courtyard and displayed an immense façade of 266 metres. Since the destruction of the Tuileries, the Louvre courtyard has remained open and the site is now the location of the eastern end of the Tuileries Garden, forming an elevated terrace between the Place du Carrousel and the gardens proper. History Plan of Catherine de Medici (16th C.) The site of the Tuileries palace was originally just outside the walls of the city, in an area frequently flooded by the Seine as far as the present Rue Saint-Honore. The land was occupied by the workshops and kilns craftsmen who ma ...
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Jesuits
The Society of Jesus ( la, Societas Iesu; abbreviation: SJ), also known as the Jesuits (; la, Iesuitæ), is a religious order (Catholic), religious order of clerics regular of pontifical right for men in the Catholic Church headquartered in Rome. It was founded in 1540 by Ignatius of Loyola and six companions, with the approval of Pope Paul III. The society is engaged in evangelization and apostolic ministry in 112 nations. Jesuits work in education, research, and cultural pursuits. Jesuits also give retreats, minister in hospitals and parishes, sponsor direct social and humanitarian ministries, and promote Ecumenism, ecumenical dialogue. The Society of Jesus is consecrated under the patron saint, patronage of Madonna della Strada, a title of the Blessed Virgin Mary, and it is led by a Superior General of the Society of Jesus, Superior General. The headquarters of the society, its Curia, General Curia, is in Rome. The historic curia of Ignatius is now part of the attached to t ...
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Order Of Friars Minor Capuchin
The Order of Friars Minor Capuchin (; postnominal abbr. O.F.M. Cap.) is a religious order of Franciscan friars within the Catholic Church, one of Three " First Orders" that reformed from the Franciscan Friars Minor Observant (OFM Obs., now OFM), the other being the Conventuals (OFM Conv.). Franciscans reformed as Capuchins in 1525 with the purpose of regaining the original Habit (Tunic) of St. Francis of Assisi and also for returning to a stricter observance of the rule established by Francis of Assisi in 1209. History Origins The Order arose in 1525 when Matteo da Bascio, an Observant Franciscan friar native to the Italian region of Marche, said he had been inspired by God with the idea that the manner of life led by the friars of his day was not the one which their founder, St. Francis of Assisi, had envisaged. He sought to return to the primitive way of life of solitude and penance, as practised by the founder of their Order. His religious superiors tried to suppress ...
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Robert Shackleton
Robert Shackleton CBE (25 November 1919 – 9 September 1986) was an English French language philologist and librarian. Shackleton was born in Todmorden, now in West Yorkshire. He was educated at Oriel College, Oxford, and taught French at Brasenose College, Oxford, from 1946 to 1966. He also served as college librarian from 1948 to 1966. From 1966 to 1979 he served as Bodley's Librarian, the director of the Bodleian Library. From 1979 to 1986 he was Marshal Foch Professor of French Literature at the university, a position that carried with it a Fellowship at All Souls College, Oxford. He was appointed a Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE) in 1986. He was a bibliophile who amassed a considerable collection of books relating to the Enlightenment, much of which is now in the John Rylands Library in Manchester. He also bequeathed a collection of c.1,000 volumes concerning Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu (1689-1755) to the Bodleian Library. He is the au ...
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Lunar Calendar
A lunar calendar is a calendar based on the monthly cycles of the Moon's phases (synodic months, lunations), in contrast to solar calendars, whose annual cycles are based only directly on the solar year. The most commonly used calendar, the Gregorian calendar, is a solar calendar system that originally evolved out of a lunar calendar system. A purely lunar calendar is also distinguished from a lunisolar calendar, whose lunar months are brought into alignment with the solar year through some process of intercalation. The details of when months begin vary from calendar to calendar, with some using new, full, or crescent moons and others employing detailed calculations. Since each lunation is approximately  days, (which gives a mean synodic month as 29.53059 days or 29 days 12 hours 44 minutes and 3 seconds) it is common for the months of a lunar calendar to alternate between 29 and 30 days. Since the period of 12 such lunations, a lunar year, is 354 days, 8 h ...
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Samuel Richardson
Samuel Richardson (baptised 19 August 1689 – 4 July 1761) was an English writer and printer known for three epistolary novels: ''Pamela; or, Virtue Rewarded'' (1740), '' Clarissa: Or the History of a Young Lady'' (1748) and ''The History of Sir Charles Grandison'' (1753). He printed almost 500 works, including journals and magazines, working periodically with the London bookseller Andrew Millar. Richardson had been apprenticed to a printer, whose daughter he eventually married. He lost her along with their six children, but remarried and had six more children, of which four daughters reached adulthood, leaving no male heirs to continue the print shop. As it ran down, he wrote his first novel at the age of 51 and joined the admired writers of his day. Leading acquaintances included Samuel Johnson and Sarah Fielding, the physician and Behmenist George Cheyne, and the theologian and writer William Law, whose books he printed. At Law's request, Richardson printed some poems by J ...
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Françoise D'Issembourg D'Happoncourt, Madame De Graffigny
Françoise () is a French feminine given name (equivalent to the Italian Francesca) and may refer to: * Anne Françoise Elizabeth Lange (1772–1816), French actress * Claudine Françoise Mignot (1624–1711), French adventuress * Françoise Adnet (1924-2014), French figurative painter * Françoise Ardré (1931-2010), French phycologist and marine scientist * Françoise Arnoul (1931–2021), French actress * Françoise Atlan (born 1964), Moroccan singer * Françoise Balibar (born 1941), French physicist and science historian * Françoise Ballet-Blu (born 1964), French politician * Françoise Barré-Sinoussi (born 1947), virologist and Nobel Prize winner * Françoise Basseporte (1701–1780), French painter * Françoise Bertaut de Motteville (c. 1621–1689), French memoir writer * Françoise Bertin (1925-2014), French actress * Françoise Boivin (born 1960), Canadian politician * Françoise Bonnet (born 1957), French long-distance runner * Françoise Briand (born 1951), French po ...
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Jean-Baptiste De Boyer, Marquis D'Argens
Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, Marquis d'Argens (24 June 1704 – 11 January 1771) was a French rationalist, author and critic of the Catholic church, who was a close friend of Voltaire and spent much of his life in exile at the court of Frederick the Great. Life Jean-Baptiste de Boyer, later Marquis d’Argens, was born on 24 June 1704 in the southern French town of Aix-en-Provence. He was the eldest of seven children of Pierre-Jean de Boyer and Angélique de L'Enfant, daughter of Luc de L'Enfant (1656–1729), President of the Regional Parliament. Pierre-Jean de Boyer was Procureur général or Attorney-General for the Regional Parliament of Provence and a member of the Second Estate, the ''Noblesse de robe'' or Nobles of the robe. Their rank derived from the possession of judicial or administrative posts and unlike the aristocratic ''Noblesse d'épée'' or Nobles of the Sword, they were often hard-working middle-class professionals. By the mid-18th century, many of these pos ...
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Régence
The ''Régence'' (, ''Regency'') was the period in French history between 1715 and 1723 when King Louis XV was considered a minor and the country was instead governed by Philippe d'Orléans (a nephew of Louis XIV of France) as prince regent. Philippe was able to take power away from the Duke of Maine (illegitimate son of Louis XIV and Madame de Montespan) who had been the favourite son of the late king and possessed much influence. From 1715 to 1718 the ''Polysynody'' changed the system of government in France, in which each minister (secretary of state) was replaced by a council. The '' système de Law'' was also introduced, which transformed the finances of the bankrupted kingdom and its aristocracy. Both Cardinal Dubois and Cardinal Fleury were highly influential during this time. Contemporary European rulers included Philip V of Spain, John V of Portugal, George I of Great Britain, Holy Roman Emperor Charles VI, and Victor Amadeus II of Sardinia, the maternal grandfath ...
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