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François-Xavier-Joseph
François-Xavier-Joseph Droz (; 31 December 1773 – 9 November 1850) was a reactionary France, French writer on ethics, political science and political economy. Biography He was born at Besançon, where his family had supplied many notable members of the legal profession. Droz's own legal studies led him to Paris in 1792; he arrived the day after the dethronement of King Louis XVI of France, and was present during the massacres of September. On the declaration of war he joined the volunteer battalion of the Doubs (department), Doubs, and for the next three years served in the Army of the Rhine. Discharged on health grounds, he obtained a much more congenial post in the newly founded école centrale of Besançon; and in 1799 he made his first appearance as an author by an ''Essai sur l'art oratoire'' (Paris, French Revolutionary Calendar, Fructidor, An VII.), in which he acknowledges his indebtedness more especially to Hugh Blair. Moving to Paris in 1803, he became friendly not ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1850 Deaths
Events January–March * January 29 – Henry Clay introduces the Compromise of 1850 to the United States Congress. * January 31 – The University of Rochester is founded in Rochester, New York. * January – Sacramento floods. * February 28 – The University of Utah opens in Salt Lake City. * March 5 – The Britannia Bridge opens over the Menai Strait in Wales. * March 7 – United States Senator Daniel Webster gives his "Seventh of March" speech, in which he endorses the Compromise of 1850, in order to prevent a possible civil war. * March 16 – Nathaniel Hawthorne's historical novel '' The Scarlet Letter'' is published in Boston, Massachusetts. * March 19 – American Express is founded by Henry Wells and William Fargo. * March 31 – The paddle steamer , bound from Cork to London, is wrecked in the English Channel with the loss of all 250 on board. April–June * April 4 – Los Angeles is incorporated as a cit ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Montyon Prizes
The Montyon Prize () is a series of prizes awarded annually by the French Academy of Sciences and the Académie française. They are endowed by the French benefactor Baron de Montyon. History Prior to the start of the French Revolution, the Baron de Montyon established a series of prizes to be given away by the Académie Française, the Académie des Sciences, and the Académie Nationale de Médecine. These were abolished by the National Convention, but were taken up again when Baron de Montyon returned to France in 1815. When he died, he bequeathed a large sum of money for the perpetual endowment of four annual prizes. The endowed prizes were as follows: * Making an industrial process less unhealthy * Perfecting of any technical improvement in a mechanical process * Book which during the year rendered the greatest service to humanity * The "prix de vertu" for the most courageous act on the part of a poor Frenchman These prizes were considered by some to be a forerunner of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pierre Jean George Cabanis
Pierre Jean Georges Cabanis (; 5 June 1757 – 5 May 1808) was a French physiologist, freemason and materialist philosopher. Life Cabanis was born at Cosnac (Corrèze), the son of Jean Baptiste Cabanis (1723–1786), a lawyer and agronomist. At the age of ten, he attended the college of Brives, where he showed great aptitude for study, but his independence of spirit was so great that he was almost constantly in a state of rebellion against his teachers and was finally expelled. He was then taken to Paris by his father and left to carry on his studies at his own discretion for two years. From 1773 to 1775 he travelled in Poland and Germany, and on his return to Paris he devoted himself mainly to poetry. About this time he sent to the Académie française a translation of the passage from Homer proposed for their prize, and, though he did not win, he received so much encouragement from his friends that he contemplated translating the whole of the Iliad. At his father's wish, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
1773 Births
Events January–March * January 1 – The hymn that becomes known as '' Amazing Grace'', at this time titled "1 Chronicles 17:16–17", is first used to accompany a sermon led by curate John Newton in the town of Olney, Buckinghamshire, England. * January 12 – The first museum in the American colonies is established in Charleston, South Carolina; in 1915, it is formally incorporated as the Charleston Museum. * January 17 – Second voyage of James Cook: Captain Cook in HMS Resolution (1771) becomes the first European explorer to cross the Antarctic Circle. * January 18 – The first opera performance in the Swedish language, ''Thetis and Phelée'', performed by Carl Stenborg and Elisabeth Olin in Bollhuset in Stockholm, Sweden, marks the establishment of the Royal Swedish Opera. * February 8 – The Grand Council of Poland meets in Warsaw, summoned by a circular letter from King Stanisław August Poniatowski to respond to the Kingdom ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Oubliette
A dungeon is a room or cell in which prisoners are held, especially underground. Dungeons are generally associated with medieval castles, though their association with torture probably derives more from the Renaissance period. An oubliette (from the French , meaning 'to forget') or bottle dungeon is a basement room which is accessible only from a hatch or hole (an '' angstloch'') in a high ceiling. Etymology The word ''dungeon'' comes from French ''donjon'' (also spelled ''dongeon''), which means "keep", the main tower of a castle. The first recorded instance of the word in English was near the beginning of the 14th century when it held the same meaning as ''donjon''. The earlier meaning of "keep" is still in use for academics, although in popular culture, it has come to mean a cell or "oubliette". Though it is uncertain, both ''dungeon'' and ''donjon'' are thought to derive from the Middle Latin word ''dominus'', meaning "lord" or "master". In French, the term ''donjon'' sti ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Peter Kropotkin
Pyotr Alexeyevich Kropotkin (9 December 1842 – 8 February 1921) was a Russian anarchist and geographer known as a proponent of anarchist communism. Born into an aristocratic land-owning family, Kropotkin attended the Page Corps and later served as an officer in Siberia, where he participated in several geological expeditions. He was imprisoned for his activism in 1874 and managed to escape two years later. He spent the next 41 years in exile in Switzerland, France (where he was imprisoned for almost four years) and England. While in exile, he gave lectures and published widely on anarchism and geography. Kropotkin returned to Russia after the Russian Revolution in 1917, but he was disappointed by the Bolshevik state. Kropotkin was a proponent of the idea of Libertarian socialist decentralization, decentralized communist society free from central government and based on voluntary associations of self-governing communities and worker-run enterprises. He wrote many books, pamp ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Michel Chevalier
Michel Chevalier (; 13 January 1806 – 18 November 1879) was a French engineer, statesman, economist and free market liberal. Biography Born in Limoges, Haute-Vienne, Chevalier studied at the ''École Polytechnique'', obtaining an engineering degree at the Paris '' École des mines'' in 1829.Robinson, Moncure. "Obituary Notice of Michel Chevalier." (1880): 28-37. May 7, Read before the American Philosophical Society, May 7, 1880 In 1830, after the July Revolution, he became a Saint-Simonian, and edited their paper '' Le Globe''. The paper was banned in 1832 when the "Simonian sect" was found to be prejudicial to the social order, and Chevalier, as its editor, was sentenced to six months imprisonment. After his release, Minister of the Interior Adolphe Thiers sent him in 1834 on a mission to the United States and Mexico to observe the state of industrial and financial affairs in the Americas. In the United States, Chevalier visited different parts of the country, studying Ame ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Académie Française
An academy (Attic Greek: Ἀκαδήμεια; Koine Greek Ἀκαδημία) is an institution of tertiary education. The name traces back to Plato's school of philosophy, founded approximately 386 BC at Akademia, a sanctuary of Athena, the goddess of wisdom and Skills, skill, north of Ancient Athens, Athens, Greece. The Royal Spanish Academy defines academy as scientific, literary or artistic society established with public authority and as a teaching establishment, public or private, of a professional, artistic, technical or simply practical nature. Etymology The word comes from the ''Academy'' in ancient Greece, which derives from the Athenian hero, ''Akademos''. Outside the city walls of Athens, the Gymnasium (ancient Greece), gymnasium was made famous by Plato as a center of learning. The sacred space, dedicated to the goddess of wisdom, Athena, had formerly been an olive Grove (nature), grove, hence the expression "the groves of Academe". In these gardens, the philos ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve
Charles Augustin Sainte-Beuve (; 23 December 1804 – 13 October 1869) was a French literary critic. Early life He was born in Boulogne, educated there, and studied medicine at the Collège Charlemagne in Paris (1824–27). In 1828, he served in the St Louis Hospital. Beginning in 1824, he contributed literary articles, the ''Premier lundis'' of his collected ''Works'', to the newspaper ''Globe'', and in 1827 he came, by a review of Victor Hugo's ''Odes et Ballades'', into close association with Hugo and the Cénacle, the literary circle that strove to define the ideas of the rising Romanticism and struggle against classical formalism. Sainte-Beuve became friendly with Hugo after publishing a favourable review of the author's work but later had an affair with Hugo's wife, Adèle Foucher, which resulted in their estrangement. Curiously, when Sainte-Beuve was made a member of the French Academy in 1845, the ceremonial duty of giving the reception speech fell upon Hugo. ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Jean-François Ducis
Jean-François Ducis (; 22 August 173331 March 1816) was a French dramatist and adapter of Shakespeare. Biography Ducis was born in Versailles, one of ten children. His father, Pierre Ducis, originally from Savoy, was a linen draper at Versailles, and his mother, Maria-Thérèse Rappe, was the daughter of a porter of the Count of Toulouse and all through life he retained the simple tastes and straightforward independence fostered by his bourgeois education.Golder, John. Shakespeare for the Age of Reason: The Earliest Stage Adaptations of Jean-François Ducis 1769-1793. The Voltaire Foundation. In 1768, he produced his first tragedy, ''Amélise''. The failure of this first attempt was fully compensated by the success of his ''Hamlet'' (1769), and '' Roméo et Juliette'' (1772). ''Œdipe chez Admète'', imitated partly from Euripides and partly from Sophocles, appeared in 1778, and secured him in the following year the chair in the Academy left vacant by the death of Voltaire. E ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
