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French language

(Encyclopedia)CEE French language, member of the Romance group of the Italic subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages (see Romance languages). It is spoken as a first language by more than 70 million p...

French Polynesia

(Encyclopedia)French Polynesia, officially Overseas Lands of French Polynesia, internally self-governing dependency (2015 est. pop. 278,000) of France, consisting of 118 islands in the South Pacific. The capital is...

French horn

(Encyclopedia)CE5 French horn French horn, brass wind musical instrument. Fundamentally a metal tube of narrow conical bore, it is curved into circles because of its great length. The horn ends in a wide flare....

French Academy

(Encyclopedia)French Academy (L'Académie française), learned society of France. It is one of the five societies of the Institut de France. The work of the French Academy has chiefly consisted of the preparation...

French bulldog

(Encyclopedia)French bulldog, breed of small, alert nonsporting dog with batlike ears, developed in France in the second half of the 19th cent. It stands about 12 in. (30.4 cm) high at the shoulder and weighs from ...

French literature

(Encyclopedia)French literature, writings in medieval French dialects and standard modern French. Writings in Provençal and Breton are considered separately, as are works in French produced abroad (as at Canadian ...

French art

(Encyclopedia)French art, the artistic production of the region that constitutes the historic nation of France. See also French architecture. The innovations of postimpressionism, combined with the influence of C...

Restoration, in French history

(Encyclopedia)Restoration, in French history, the period from 1814 to 1830. It began with the first abdication of Emperor Napoleon I and the return of the Bourbon king, Louis XVIII, but was interrupted (1815) by Na...