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Riesener, Jean Henri

(Encyclopedia)Riesener, Jean Henri zhäN äNrēˈ rēzənĕrˈ [key], 1734–1806, French cabinetmaker, one of the major artists who made important contributions to the formation of the Louis XVI style in France. B...

Étaix, Pierre

(Encyclopedia)Étaix, Pierre, 1928–2016, French film actor and director. He excelled at highly physical slapstick comedy, influenced by his background as a circus and cabaret performer, and by Buster Keaton and C...

Cordeliers

(Encyclopedia)Cordeliers kôrdəlyāˈ [key], political club of the French Revolution. Founded (1790) as the Society of the Friends of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, it was called after its original meeting ...

emperor

(Encyclopedia)emperor [Lat. imperator=one holding supreme power, especially applied to generals], the sovereign head of an empire. In the Roman republic the term imperator referred to the chief military commander a...

Leclerc, Charles Victor Emmanuel

(Encyclopedia)Leclerc, Charles Victor Emmanuel shärl vēktôrˈ ĕmänüĕlˈ ləklĕrˈ [key], 1772–1802, French general. He served under Napoleon Bonaparte in the Italian campaign, married (1797) Pauline Bonap...

Heidegger, Martin

(Encyclopedia)Heidegger, Martin märˈtēn hīˈdĕger [key], 1889–1976, German philosopher. As a student at Freiburg, Heidegger was influenced by the neo-Kantianism of Heinrich Rickert and the phenomenology of E...

Boswell, James

(Encyclopedia)Boswell, James, 1740–95, Scottish author, b. Edinburgh; son of a distinguished judge. At his father's insistence the young Boswell reluctantly studied law. Admitted to the bar in 1766, he practiced ...

bicameral system

(Encyclopedia)bicameral system bīkămˈərəl [key], governmental system dividing the legislative function between two chambers, an “upper,” such as the U.S. Senate and the British House of Lords, and a “low...

Rawls, John Bordley

(Encyclopedia)Rawls, John Bordley, 1921–2002, American philosopher and political theorist, b. Baltimore, grad. Princeton (A.B., 1943; Ph.D., 1950). He taught at Princeton (1950–52), Cornell (1953–59), and the...

Halévy, Jacques François Fromental Élie

(Encyclopedia)Halévy, Jacques François Fromental Élie älāvēˈ [key], 1799–1862, French operatic composer. He studied with Cherubini at the Paris Conservatory, where he became a professor in 1827. Halévy's...