- Industry: Library & information science
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Project Gutenberg (PG) is a volunteer effort to digitize and archive cultural works, to encourage the creation and distribution of eBooks. It was founded in 1971 by Michael S. Hart and is the oldest digital library. Most of the items in its collection are the full texts of public domain books. The ...
A fragrance which arises from the burning of certain gums and burnt in connection with sundry religious observances, particularly in the Roman Catholic Church, as an expression of praise presumably well pleasing to God; a practice which Protestants repudiate as without warrant in Scripture.
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A French astronomer; was professor of Astronomy in the College of France, and produced an excellent treatise on the subject in two vols. (1732-1807).
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A French author, politician, and poet, born in Macon; his poetic effusions procured for him admission into the French Academy, and in 1834 he entered the Chamber of Deputies; his ability as a poet, and the independent attitude he maintained in the Chamber, gained for him a popularity which his action in 1848 contributed to increase, but it suffered eclipse from the moment he allied himself with Ledru-Rollin; after serving in the Provisional Government of 1848 he stood candidate for the Presidency, but was defeated, and on the occasion of the coup d'état, he retired into private life; he published in 1819 "Méditations Poétiques," in 1847 the "Histoire de Girondins," besides other works, including "Voyage en Orient"; he was "of the second order of poets," says Professor Saintsbury, "sweet but not strong, elegant but not full;... a sentimentalist and a landscape painter" (1790-1869).
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A French dramatist, born at Paris; his dramas give evidence of a genius of inexhaustible fertility of invention, wit, and humour; his best-known play "Le Voyage de M. Perrichon," 1860 (1815-1888).
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A French explorer, born at Rouen; set out from Canada and explored the North American continent along the course of the Mississippi as far as the Gulf of Mexico, planting the French flag at what he thought was, but was not, the mouth of the river; was assassinated by one of his retinue in the end (1640-1687).
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A French Jesuit, an extremely politic member of the fraternity in the reign of Louis XIV.; had a country house E. of Paris, the garden of which is now the cemetery Père la Chaise (1624-1709).
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A French jurist, born in Paris; was a Moderate in politics; wrote on French law, and was the author of some tales of a humorous turn, such as "Paris in America" (1811-1883).
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A French missionary, born at Toulouse; visited China and Thibet, and wrote an account of his experiences on his return (1813-1860).
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A French naturalist, born at Bazentin, Picardy; entered the army at the age of 17, and after serving in it a short time retired and devoted himself to botany; in his "Flora Francaise" published (1773) adopted a new method of classification of plants; in 1774 became keeper of what ultimately became the Jardin des Plantes, and was professor of Zoology, devoting himself to the study of particularly invertebrate animals, the fruits of which study appeared in his "Histoire Naturelle des Animaux sans Vertèbres"; he held very advanced views on the matter of biology, and it was not till the advent of Darwin they were appreciated (1744-1820).
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A French physician and materialist, born at St. Malo; bred to medicine, served as an army surgeon at Dettingen and Fontenoy; his materialistic views were given first in a publication entitled "D'Histoire Naturelle de l'Âme," and at length in his "L'Homme Machine," both in profession of a materialism so gross and offensive, being absolutely atheistic, that he was glad to escape for shelter to Berlin under the wing of Frederick the Great (1709-1754).
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