The Encyclopdia BritannicaVolume IV Part 03 of 04

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The Project Gutenberg EBook of Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition,
Volume 4, Part 3, by Various

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Title: Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition, Volume 4, Part 3
"Brescia" to "Bulgaria"

Author: Various

Release Date: April 13, 2007 [EBook #19699]

Language: English

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BRÉQUIGNY, LOUIS GEORGE OUDARD FEUDRIX DE (continued from part 2)

... volumes x.-xiv., the preface to vol. xi. containing important researches into the French communes. To the Table
chronologique des diplômes, chartes, lettres, et actes imprimés concernant l'histoire de France he contributed
three volumes in collaboration with Mouchet (1769-1783). Charged with the supervision of a large collection of
documents bearing on French history, analogous to Rymer's Foedera, he published the first volume (Diplomatat.
Chartae, &c., 1791). The Revolution interrupted him in his collection of Mémoires concernant l'histoire, les
sciences, les lettres, et les arts des Chinois, begun in 1776 at the instance of the minister Bertin, when fifteen volumes
had appeared.

See the note on Bréquigny at the end of vol. i. of the Mémoires de l'Académie des Inscriptions (1808); the
Introduction to vol. iv. of the Table chronologique des diplômes (1836); Champollion-Figeac's preface to the Lettres
des rois et reines; the Comité des travaux historiques, by X. Charmes, vol. i. passim; N. Oursel, Nouvelle
biographie normande (1886); and the Catalogue des manuscrits des collections Duchesne et Bréquigny (in the
Bibliothèque Nationale), by René Poupardin (1905).

(C. B.*)

BRESCIA (anc. Brixia), a city and episcopal see of Lombardy, Italy, the capital of the province of Brescia, finely
situated at the foot of the Alps, 52 m. E. of Milan and 40 m. W. of Verona by rail. Pop. (1901) town, 42,495;
commune, 72,731. The plan of the city is rectangular, and the streets intersect at right angles, a peculiarity handed down
from Roman times, though the area enclosed by the medieval walls is larger than that of the Roman town, which
occupied the eastern portion of the present one. The Piazza del Museo marks the site of the forum, and the museum on
its north side is ensconced in a Corinthian temple with three cellae, by some attributed to Hercules, but more probably
the Capitolium of the city, erected by Vespasian in A.D. 73 (if the inscription really belongs to the building; cf. Th.
Mommsen in Corp. Inscrip. Lat. v. No. 4312, Berlin, 1872), and excavated in 1823. It contains a famous bronze
statue of Victory, found in 1826. Scanty remains of a building on the south side of the forum, called the curia, but which
may be a basilica, and of the theatre, on the east of the temple, still exist.

Brescia contains many interesting medieval buildings. The castle, at the north-east angle of the town, commands a fine
view. It is now a military prison. The old cathedral is a round domed structure of the 10th (?) century erected over an
early Christian basilica, which has forty-two ancient columns; and the Broletto, adjoining the new cathedral (a building
of 1604) on the north, is a massive building of the 12th and 13th centuries (the original town hall, now the prefecture
and law courts), with a lofty tower. There are also remains of the convent of S. Salvatore, founded by Desiderius, king
of Lombardy, including three churches, two of which now contain the fine medieval museum, which possesses good

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ivories. The church of S. Francesco has a Gothic façade and cloisters. There are also some good Renaissance palaces
and other buildings, including the Municipio, begun in 1492 and completed by Jacopo Sansovino in 1554-1574. This is
a magnificent structure, with fine ornamentation. The church of S. Maria dei Miracoli (1488-1523) is also noteworthy
for its general effect and for the richness of its details, especially of the reliefs on the façade. Many other churches, and
the picture gallery (Galleria Martinengo), contain fine works of the painters of the Brescian school, Alessandro
Bonvicino (generally known as Moretto), Girolamo Romanino and Moretto's pupil, Giovanni Battista Moroni. The
Biblioteca Queriniana contains early MSS., a 14th-century MS. of Dante, &c., and some rare incunabula. The city is
well supplied with water, and has no less than seventy-two public fountains. Brescia has considerable factories of iron
ware, particularly fire-arms and weapons (one of the government small arms factories being situated here), also of
woollens, linens and silks, matches, candles, &c. The stone quarries of Mazzano, 8 m. east of Brescia, supplied material
for the monument to Victor Emmanuel II. and other buildings in Rome. Brescia is situated on the main railway line
between Milan and Verona, and has branch railways to Iseo, Parma, Cremona and (via Rovato) to Bergamo, and
steam tramways to Mantua, Soncino, Ponte Toscolano and Cardone Valtrompia.

The ancient Celtic Brixia, a town of the Cenomani, became Roman in 225 B.C., when the Cenomani submitted to Rome.
Augustus founded a civil (not a military) colony here in 27 B.C., and he and Tiberius constructed an aqueduct to supply
it. In 452 it was plundered by Attila, but was the seat of a duchy in the Lombard period. From 1167 it was one of the
most active members of the Lombard League. In 1258 it fell into the hands of Eccelino of Verona, and belonged to the
Scaligers (della Scala) until 1421, when it came under the Visconti of Milan, and in 1426 under Venice. Early in the
16th century it was one of the wealthiest cities of Lombardy, but has never recovered from its sack by the French under
Gaston de Foix in 1512. It belonged to Venice until 1797, when it came under Austrian dominion; it revolted in 1848,
and again in 1849, being the only Lombard town to rally to Charles Albert in the latter year, but was taken after ten
days' obstinate street fighting by the Austrians under Haynau.

See Museo Bresciano Illustrato (Brescia, 1838).

(T. As.)

BRESLAU (Polish Wraclaw), a city of Germany, capital of the Prussian province of Silesia, and an episcopal see,
situated in a wide and fertile plain on both banks of the navigable Oder, 350 m. from its mouth, at the influx of the Ohle,
and 202 m. from Berlin on the railway to Vienna. Pop. (1867) 171,926; (1880) 272,912; (1885) 299,640; (1890)
335,186; (1905) 470,751, about 60% being Protestants, 35% Roman Catholics and nearly 5% Jews. The Oder,
which here breaks into several arms, divides the city into two unequal halves, crossed by numerous bridges. The larger
portion, on the left bank, includes the old or inner town, surrounded by beautiful promenades, on the site of the
ramparts, dismantled after 1813, from an eminence within which, the Liebichs Höhe, a fine view is obtained of the
surrounding country. Outside, as well as across the Oder, lies the new town with extensive suburbs, containing,
especially in the Schweidnitz quarter in the south, and the Oder quarter in the north, many handsome streets and
spacious squares. The inner town, in contrast to the suburbs, still retains with its narrow streets much of its ancient
characters, and contains several medieval buildings, both religious and secular, of great beauty and interest. The
cathedral, dedicated to St John the Baptist, was begun in 1148 and completed at the close of the 15th century, enlarged
in the 17th and 18th centuries, and restored between 1873 and 1875; it is rich in notable treasures, especially the high
altar of beaten silver, and in beautiful paintings and sculptures. The Kreuzkirche (church of the Holy Cross), dating from
the 13th and 14th centuries, is an interesting brick building, remarkable for its stained glass and its historical monuments,
among which is the tomb of Henry IV., duke of Silesia. The Sandkirche, so called from its dedication to Our Lady on
the Sand, dates from the 14th century, and was until 1810 the church of the Augustinian canons. The Dorotheenor
Minoritenkirche, remarkable for its high-pitched roof, was founded by the emperor Charles IV. in 1351. These are the
most notable of the Roman Catholic churches. Of the Evangelical churches the most important is that of St Elizabeth,
founded about 1250, rebuilt in the 14th and 15th centuries, and restored in 1857. Its lofty tower contains the largest bell
in Silesia, and the church possesses a celebrated organ, fine stained glass, a magnificent stone pyx (erected in 1455)
over 52 ft. high, and portraits of Luther and Melanchthon by Lucas Cranach. The church of St Mary Magdalen, built in
the 14th century on the model of the cathedral, has two lofty Gothic towers connected by a bridge, and is interesting as
having been the church in which, in 1523, the reformation in Silesia was first proclaimed. Other noteworthy
ecclesiastical buildings are the graceful Gothic church of St Michael built in 1871, the bishop's palace and the Jewish
synagogue, the finest in Germany after that in Berlin.

The business streets of the city converge upon the Ring, the market square, in which is the town-hall, a fine Gothic
building, begun in the middle of the 14th and completed in the 16th century. Within is the Fürstensaal, in which the diets
of Silesia were formerly held, while beneath is the famous Schweidnitzer Keller, used continuously since 1355 as a beer
and wine house. The university, a spacious Gothic building facing the Oder, is a striking edifice. It was built (1728-
1736) as a college by the Jesuits, on the site of the former imperial castle presented to them by the emperor Leopold I.,
and contains a magnificent hall (Aula Leopoldina), richly ornamented with frescoes and capable of holding 1200
persons. Breslau possesses a large number of other important public buildings: the Stadthaus (civic hall), the royal
palace, the government offices (a handsome pile erected in 1887), the provincial House of Assembly, the municipal
archives, the courts of law, the Silesian museum of arts and crafts and antiquities, stored in the former assembly hall of
the estates (Ständehaus), which was rebuilt for the purpose, the museum of fine arts, the exchange, the Stadt and Lobe
theatres, the post office and central railway station. There are also numerous hospitals and schools. Breslau is
exceedingly rich in fine monuments; the most noteworthy being the equestrian statues of Frederick the Great and

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Frederick William III., both by Kiss; the statue of Blücher by Rauch; a marble statue of General Tauentzien by
Langhans and Schadow; a bronze statue of Karl Gottlieb Svarez (1746-1798), the Prussian jurist, a monument to
Schleiermacher, born here in 1768, and statues of the emperor William I., Bismarck and Moltke. There are also several
handsome fountains. Foremost among the educational establishments stands the university, founded in 1702 by the
emperor Leopold I. as a Jesuit college, and greatly extended by the incorporation of the university of Frankfort-on-
Oder in 1811. Its library contains 306,000 volumes and 4000 MSS., and has in the so-called Bibliotheca
Habichtiana a valuable collection of oriental literature. Among its auxiliary establishments are botanical gardens, an
observatory, and anatomical, physiological and kindred institutions. There are eight classical and four modern schools,
two higher girls' schools, a Roman Catholic normal school, a Jewish theological seminary, a school of arts and crafts,
and numerous literary and charitable foundations. It is, however, as a commercial and industrial city that Breslau is most
widely known. Its situation, close to the extensive coal and iron fields of Upper Silesia, in proximity to the Austrian and
Russian frontiers, at the centre of a network of railways directly communicating both with these countries and with the
chief towns of northern and central Germany, and on a deep waterway connecting with the Elbe and the Vistula,
facilitates its very considerable transit and export trade in the products of the province and of the neighbouring
countries. These embrace coal, sugar, cereals, spirits, petroleum and timber. The local industries comprise machinery
and tools, railway and tramway carriages, furniture, cast-iron goods, gold and silver work, carpets, furs, cloth and
cottons, paper, musical instruments, glass and china. Breslau is the headquarters of the VI. German army corps and
contains a large garrison of troops of all arms.

History.—Breslau (Lat. Vratislavia) is first mentioned by the chronicler Thietmar, bishop of Merseburg, in A.D. 1000,
and was probably founded some years before this date. Early in the 11th century it was made the seat of a bishop, and
after having formed part of Poland, became the capital of an independent duchy in 1163. Destroyed by the Mongols in
1241, it soon recovered its former prosperity and received a large influx of German colonists. The bishop obtained the
title of a prince of the Empire in 1290.[1] When Henry VI., the last duke of Breslau, died in 1335, the city came by
purchase to John, king of Bohemia, whose successors retained it until about 1460. The Bohemian kings bestowed
various privileges on Breslau, which soon began to extend its commerce in all directions, while owing to increasing
wealth the citizens took up a more independent attitude. Disliking the Hussites, Breslau placed itself under the protection
of Pope Pius II. in 1463, and a few years afterwards came under the rule of the Hungarian king, Matthias Corvinus.
After his death in 1490 it again became subject to Bohemia, passing with the rest of Silesia to the Habsburgs when in
1526 Ferdinand, afterwards emperor, was chosen king of Bohemia. Having passed almost undisturbed through the
periods of the Reformation and the Thirty Years' War, Breslau was compelled to own the authority of Frederick the
Great in 1741. It was, however, recovered by the Austrians in 1757, but was regained by Frederick after his victory at
Leuthen in the same year, and has since belonged to Prussia, although it was held for a few days by the French in 1807
after the battle of Jena, and again in 1813 after the battle of Bautzen. The sites of the fortifications, dismantled by the
French in 1807, were given to the civic authorities by King Frederick William III., and converted into promenades. In
March 1813 this monarch issued from Breslau his stirring appeals to the Prussians, An mein Volk and An mein
Kriegesheer, and the city was the centre of the Prussian preparations for the campaign which ended at Leipzig. After
the Prussian victory at Sadowa in 1866, William I. made a triumphant and complimentary entry into the city, which
since the days of Frederick the Great has been only less loyal to the royal house than Berlin itself.

See Bürkner and Stein, Geschichte der Stadt Breslau (Bresl. 1851-1853); J-Stein, Geschichte der Stadt Breslau im
19ten Jahrhundert (1884); O Frenzel, Breslauer Stadtbuch ("Codex dipl. Silisiae," vol. ii. 1882); Luchs, Breslau, ein
Führer durch die Stadt (12th ed., Bresl. 1904).

[1] In 1195 Jaroslaw, son of Boleslaus I. of Lower Silesia, who became bishop of Breslau in 1198, inherited
the duchy of Neisse, which at his death (1201) he bequeathed to his successors in the see. The Austrian part
of Neisse still belongs to the bishop of Breslau, who also still bears the title of prince bishop.

BRESSANT, JEAN BAPTISTE PROSPER
(1815-1886), French actor, was born at Chalon-sur-Saône on the

23rd of October 1815, and began his stage career at the Variétés in Paris in 1833. In 1838 he went to the French
theatre at St Petersburg, where for eight years he played important parts with ever-increasing reputation. His success
was confirmed at the Gymnase when he returned to Paris in 1846, and he made his début at the Comédie Française as
a full-fledged sociétaire in 1854. From playing the ardent young lover, he turned to leading rôles both in modern plays
and in the classical répertoire. His Richelieu in Mlle de Belle-Isle, his Octave in Alfred de Musset's Les Caprices de
Marianne, and his appearance in de Musset's Il faut qu'une porte soit ouverte ou fermée and Un caprice were
followed by Tartuffe, Le Misanthrope and Don Juan. Bressant retired in 1875, and died on the 23rd of January
1886. During his professorship at the Conservatoire, Mounet-Sully was one of his pupils.

BRESSE, a district of eastern France embracing portions of the departments of Ain, Saône-et-Loire and Jura. The
Bresse extends from the Dombes on the south to the river Doubs on the north, and from the Saône eastwards to the
Jura, measuring some 60 m. in the former, and 20 m. in the latter direction. It is a plain varying from 600 to 800 ft.
above the sea, with few eminences and a slight inclination westwards. Heaths and coppice alternate with pastures and
arable land; pools and marshes are numerous, especially in the north. Its chief rivers are the Veyle, the Reyssouze and
the Seille, all tributaries of the Saône. The soil is a gravelly clay but moderately fertile, and cattle-raising is largely carried
on. The region is, however, more especially celebrated for its table poultry. The inhabitants preserve a distinctive but
almost obsolete costume, with a curious head-dress. The Bresse proper, called the Bresse Bressane, comprises the
northern portion of the department of Ain. The greater part of the district belonged in the middle ages to the lords of

Bâgé, from whom it passed in 1272 to the house of Savoy. It was not till the first half of the 15th century that the
province, with Bourg as its capital, was founded as such. In 1601 it was ceded to France by the treaty of Lyons, after
which it formed (together with the province of Bugey) first a separate government and afterwards part of the
government of Burgundy.

BRESSUIRE, a town of western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Deux-Sèvres, 48 m. N. of
Niort by rail. Pop. (1906) 4561. The town is situated on an eminence overlooking the Dolo, a tributary of the
Argenton. It is the centre of a cattle-rearing and agricultural region, and has important markets; the manufacture of
wooden type and woollen goods is carried on. Bressuire has two buildings of interest: the church of Notre-Dame,
which, dating chiefly from the 12th and 15th centuries, has an imposing tower of the Renaissance period; and the castle,
built by the lords of Beaumont, vassals of the viscount of Thouars. The latter is now in ruins, and a portion of the site is
occupied by a modern château, but an inner and outer line of fortifications are still to be seen. The whole forms the
finest assemblage of feudal ruins in Poitou. Bressuire is the seat of a sub-prefect and has a tribunal of first instance.
Among the disasters suffered at various times by the town, its capture from the English and subsequent pillage by
French troops under du Guesclin in 1370 is the most memorable.

BREST, a fortified seaport of western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Finistère, 155 m.
W.N.W. of Rennes by rail. Population (1906) town, 71,163; commune, 85,294. It is situated to the north of a
magnificent landlocked bay, and occupies the slopes of two hills divided by the river Penfeld,—the part of the town on
the left bank being regarded as Brest proper, while the part on the right is known as Recouvrance. There are also
extensive suburbs to the east of the town. The hill-sides are in some places so steep that the ascent from the lower to
the upper town has to be effected by flights of steps and the second or third storey of one house is often on a level with
the ground storey of the next. The chief street of Brest bears the name of rue de Siam, in honour of the Siamese
embassy sent to Louis XIV., and terminates at the remarkable swing-bridge, constructed in 1861, which crosses the
mouth of the Penfeld. Running along the shore to the south of the town is the Cours d'Ajot, one of the finest
promenades of its kind in France, named after the engineer who constructed it. It is planted with trees and adorned with
marble statues of Neptune and Abundance by Antoine Coysevox. The castle with its donjon and seven towers (12th to
the 16th centuries), commanding the entrance to the river, is the only interesting building in the town. Brest is the capital
of one of the five naval arrondissements of France. The naval port, which is in great part excavated in the rock, extends
along both banks of the Penfeld; it comprises gun-foundries and workshops, magazines, shipbuilding yards and
repairing docks, and employs about 7000 workmen. There are also large naval barracks, training ships and naval
schools of various kinds, and an important naval hospital. Brest is the seat of a sub-prefect and has tribunals of first
instance and of commerce, a chamber of commerce, a board of trade-arbitrators, two naval tribunals, and a tribunal of
maritime commerce. There are also lycées for boys and girls and a school of commerce and industry. The commercial
port, which is separated from the town itself by the Cours d'Ajot, comprises a tidal port with docks and an outer
harbour; it is protected by jetties to the east and west and by a breakwater on the south. In 1905 the number of vessels
entered was 202 with a tonnage of 67,755, and cleared 160 with a tonnage of 61,012. The total value of the imports in
1905 was £244,000. The chief were wine, coal, timber, mineral tar, fertilizers and lobsters and crayfish. Exports, of
which the chief were wheat-flour, fruit and superphosphates, were valued at £40,000. Besides its sardine and mackerel
fishing industry, the town has flour-mills, breweries, foundries, forges, engineering works, and manufactures of blocks,
candles, chemicals (from sea-weed), boots, shoes and linen. Brest communicates by submarine cable with America and
French West Africa. The roadstead consists of a deep indentation with a maximum length of 14 m. and an average
width of 4 m., the mouth being barred by the peninsula of Quélern, leaving a passage from 1 to 2 m. broad, known as
the Goulet. The outline of the bay is broken by numerous smaller bays or arms, formed by the embouchures of streams,
the most important being the Anse de Quélern, the Anse de Poulmie, and the mouths of the Châteaulin and the
Landerneau. Brest is a fortress of the first class. The fortifications of the town and the harbour fall into four groups: (1)
the very numerous forts and batteries guarding the approaches to and the channel of the Goulet; (2) the batteries and
forts directed upon the roads; (3) a group of works preventing access to the peninsula of Quélern and commanding the
ground to the south of the peninsula from which many of the works of group (2) could be taken in reverse; (4) the
defences of Brest itself, consisting of an old-fashioned enceinte possessing little military value and a chain of detached
forts to the west of the town.

Nothing definite is known of Brest till about 1240, when it was ceded by a count of Léon to John I., duke of Brittany.
In 1342 John of Montfort gave it up to the English, and it did not finally leave their hands till 1397. Its medieval
importance was great enough to give rise to the saying, "He is not duke of Brittany who is not lord of Brest." By the
marriage of Francis I. with Claude, daughter of Anne of Brittany, Brest with the rest of the duchy definitely passed to
the French crown. The advantages of the situation for a seaport town were first recognized by Richelieu, who in 1631
constructed a harbour with wooden wharves, which soon became a station of the French navy. Colbert changed the
wooden wharves for masonry and otherwise improved the post, and Vauban's fortifications followed in 1680-1688.
During the 18th century the fortifications and the naval importance of the town continued to develop. In 1694 an English
squadron under John, 3rd Lord Berkeley, was miserably defeated in attempting a landing; but in 1794, during the
revolutionary war, the French fleet, under Villaret de Joyeuse, was as thoroughly beaten in the same place by the
English admiral Howe.

BREST-LITOVSK (Polish Brzesc-Litevski; and in the Chron. Berestie and Berestov), a strongly fortified town of
Russia, in the government of Grodno, 137 m. by rail S. from the city of Grodno, in 52° 5′ N. lat. and 23° 39′ E. long.,
at the junction of the navigable river Mukhovets with the Bug, and at the intersection of railways from Warsaw, Kiev,

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Moscow and East Prussia. Pop. (1867) 22,493; (1901) 42,812, of whom more than one-half were Jews. It contains a
Jewish synagogue, which was regarded in the 16th century as the first in Europe, and is the seat of an Armenian and of
a Greek Catholic bishop; the former has authority over the Armenians throughout the whole country. The town carries
on an extensive trade in grain, flax, hemp, wood, tar and leather. First mentioned in the beginning of the 11th century,
Brest-Litovsk was in 1241 laid waste by the Mongols and was not rebuilt till 1275; its suburbs were burned by the
Teutonic Knights in 1379; and in the end of the 15th century the whole town met a similar fate at the hands of the khan
of the Crimea. In the reign of the Polish king Sigismund III. diets were held there; and in 1594 and 1596 it was the
meeting-place of two remarkable councils of the bishops of western Russia. In 1657, and again in 1706, the town was
captured by the Swedes; in 1794 it was the scene of Suvarov's victory over the Polish general Sierakowski; in 1795 it
was added to the Russian empire. The Brest-Litovsk or King's canal (50 m. long), utilizing the Mukhovets-Bug rivers,
forms a link in the waterways that connect the Dnieper with the Vistula.

BRETEUIL, LOUIS CHARLES AUGUSTE LE TONNELIER,
Baron de (1730-1807), French diplomatist, was

born at the chateau of Azay-le-Féron (Indre) on the 7th of March 1730. He was only twenty-eight when he was
appointed by Louis XV. ambassador to the elector of Cologne, and two years later he was sent to St Petersburg. He
arranged to be temporarily absent from his post at the time of the palace revolution by which Catherine II. was placed
on the throne. In 1769 he was sent to Stockholm, and subsequently represented his government at Vienna, Naples, and
again at Vienna until 1783, when he was recalled to become minister of the king's household. In this capacity he
introduced considerable reforms in prison administration. A close friend of Marie Antoinette, he presently came into
collision with Calonne, who demanded his dismissal in 1787. His influence with the king and queen, especially with the
latter, remained unshaken, and on Necker's dismissal on the 11th of July 1789, Breteuil succeeded him as chief
minister. The fall of the Bastille three days later put an end to the new ministry, and Breteuil made his way to
Switzerland with the first party of émigrés. At Soleure, in November 1790, he received from Louis XVI. exclusive
powers to negotiate with the European courts, and in his efforts to check the ill-advised diplomacy of the émigré
princes, he soon brought himself into opposition with his old rival Calonne, who held a chief place in their councils. After
the failure of the flight to Varennes, in the arrangement of which he had a share, Breteuil received instructions from Louis
XVI., designed to restore amicable relations with the princes. His distrust of the king's brothers and his defence of Louis
XVI.'s prerogative were to some extent justified, but his intransigeant attitude towards these princes emphasized the
dissensions of the royal family in the eyes of foreign sovereigns, who looked on the comte de Provence as the natural
representative of his brother and found a pretext for non-interference on Louis's behalf in the contradictory statements
of the negotiators. Breteuil himself was the object of violent attacks from the party of the princes, who asserted that he
persisted in exercising powers which had been revoked by Louis XVI. After the execution of Marie Antoinette he
retired into private life near Hamburg, only returning to France in 1802. He died in Paris on the 2nd of November
1807.

See the memoirs of Bertrand de Molleville (2 vols., Paris, 1816) and of the marquis de Bouillé (2 vols., Paris, 1884);
and E. Daudet, Coblentz, 1789-1793 (1889), forming part of his Hist. de l'émigration.

BRÉTIGNY, a French town (dept. Eure-et-Loir, arrondissement and canton of Chartres, commune of Sours), which
gave its name to a celebrated treaty concluded there on the 8th of May 1360, between Edward III. of England and
John II., surnamed the Good, of France. The exactions of the English, who wished to yield as few as possible of the
advantages claimed by them in the treaty of London, made negotiations difficult, and the discussion of terms begun early
in April lasted more than a month. By virtue of this treaty Edward III. obtained, besides Guienne and Gascony, Poitou,
Saintonge and Aunis, Agenais, Périgord, Limousin, Quercy, Bigorre, the countship of Gaure, Angoumois, Rouergue,
Montreuil-sur-mer, Ponthieu, Calais, Sangatte, Ham and the countship of Guines. John II. had, moreover, to pay three
millions of gold crowns for his ransom. On his side the king of England gave up the duchies of Normandy and Touraine,
the countships of Anjou and Maine, and the suzerainty of Brittany and of Flanders. As a guarantee for the payment of
his ransom, John the Good gave as hostages two of his sons, several princes and nobles, four inhabitants of Paris, and
two citizens from each of the nineteen principal towns of France. This treaty was ratified and sworn to by the two kings
and by their eldest sons on the 24th of October 1360, at Calais. At the same time were signed the special conditions
relating to each important article of the treaty, and the renunciatory clauses in which the kings abandoned their rights
over the territory they had yielded to one another.

See Rymer's Foedera, vol. iii; Dumont, Corps diplomatique, vol. ii.; Froissart, ed. Luce, vol. vi.; Les Grandes
Chroniques de France, ed. P. Paris, vol. vi.; E. Cosneau, Les Grands Traités de la guerre de cent ans (1889).

BRETON, JULES ADOLPHE AIMÉ LOUIS
(1827- ), French painter, was born on the 1st of May 1827, at

Courrières, Pas de Calais, France. His artistic gifts being manifest at an early age, he was sent in 1843 to Ghent, to
study under the historical painter de Vigne, and in 1846 to Baron Wappers at Antwerp. Finally he worked in Paris
under Drolling. His first efforts were in historical subjects: "Saint Piat preaching in Gaul"; then, under the influence of the
revolution of 1848, he represented "Misery and Despair." But Breton soon discovered that he was not born to be a
historical painter, and he returned to the memories of nature and of the country which were impressed on him in early
youth. In 1853 he exhibited the "Return of the Harvesters" at the Paris Salon, and the "Little Gleaner" at Brussels.
Thenceforward he was essentially a painter of rustic life, especially in the province of Artois, which he quitted only three
times for short excursions: in 1864 to Provence, and in 1865 and 1873 to Brittany, whence he derived some of his
happiest studies of religious scenes. His numerous subjects may be divided generally into four classes: labour, rest, rural
festivals and religious festivals. Among his more important works may be named "Women Gleaning," and "The Day

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after St Sebastian's Day" (1855), which gained him a third-class medal; "Blessing the Fields" (1857), a second-class
medal; "Erecting a Calvary" (1859), now in the Lille gallery; "The Return of the Gleaners" (1859), now in the
Luxembourg; "Evening" and "Women Weeding" (1861), a first-class medal; "Grandfather's Birthday" (1862); "The
Close of Day" (1865); "Harvest" (1867); "Potato Gatherers" (1868); "A Pardon, Brittany" (1869); "The Fountain"
(1872), medal of honour; "The Bonfires of St John" (1875); "Women mending Nets" (1876), in the Douai museum; "A
Gleaner" (1877), Luxembourg; "Evening, Finistère" (1881); "The Song of the Lark" (1884); "The Last Sunbeam"
(1885); "The Shepherd's Star" (1888); "The Call Home" (1889); "The Last Gleanings" (1895); "Gathering Poppies"
(1897); "The Alarm Cry" (1899); "Twilight Glory" (1900). Breton was elected to the Institut in 1886 on the death of
Baudry. In 1889 he was made commander of the Legion of Honour, and in 1899 foreign member of the Royal
Academy of London. He also wrote several books, among them Les Champs et la mer (1876), Nos peintres du
siècle (1900), "Jeanne," a poem, Delphine Bernard (1902), and La Peinture (1904).

See Jules Breton, Vie d'un artiste, art et nature (autobiographical), (Paris, 1890); Marius Vachon, Jules Breton
(1899).

BRETON, BRITTON or BRITTAINE, NICHOLAS
(1545?-1626), English poet, belonged to an old family

settled at Layer-Breton, Essex. His father, William Breton, who had made a considerable fortune by trade, died in
1559, and the widow (née Elizabeth Bacon) married the poet George Gascoigne before her sons had attained their
majority. Nicholas Breton was probably born at the "capitall mansion house" in Red Cross Street, in the parish of St
Giles without Cripplegate, mentioned in his father's will. There is no official record of his residence at the university, but
the diary of the Rev. Richard Madox tells us that he was at Antwerp in 1583 and was "once of Oriel College." He
married Ann Sutton in 1593, and had a family. He is supposed to have died shortly after the publication of his last
work, Fantastickes (1626). Breton found a patron in Mary, countess of Pembroke, and wrote much in her honour
until 1601, when she seems to have withdrawn her favour. It is probably safe to supplement the meagre record of his
life by accepting as autobiographical some of the letters signed N.B. in A Poste with a Packet of Mad Letters (1603,
enlarged 1637); the 19th letter of the second part contains a general complaint of many griefs, and proceeds as follows:
"hath another been wounded in the warres, fared hard, lain in a cold bed many a bitter storme, and beene at many a
hard banquet? all these have I; another imprisoned? so have I; another long been sicke? so have I; another plagued with
an unquiet life? so have I; another indebted to his hearts griefe, and fame would pay and cannot? so am I." Breton was
a facile writer, popular with his contemporaries, and forgotten by the next generation. His work consists of religious and
pastoral poems, satires, and a number of miscellaneous prose tracts. His religious poems are sometimes wearisome by
their excess of fluency and sweetness, but they are evidently the expression of a devout and earnest mind. His praise of
the Virgin and his references to Mary Magdalene have suggested that he was a Catholic, but his prose writings
abundantly prove that he was an ardent Protestant. Breton had little gift for satire, and his best work is to be found in his
pastoral poetry. His Passionate Shepheard (1604) is full of sunshine and fresh air, and of unaffected gaiety. The third
pastoral in this book—"Who can live in heart so glad As the merrie country lad"—is well known; with some other of
Breton's daintiest poems, among them the lullaby, "Come little babe, come silly soule,"[1]—it is incorporated in A.H.
Bullen's Lyrics from Elizabethan Romances (1890). His keen observation of country life appears also in his prose
idyll, Wits Trenchmour, "a conference betwixt a scholler and an angler," and in his Fantastickes, a series of short
prose pictures of the months, the Christian festivals and the hours, which throw much light on the customs of the times.
Most of Breton's books are very rare and have great bibliographical value. His works, with the exception of some
belonging to private owners, were collected by Dr A.B. Grosart in the Chertsey Worthies Library in 1879, with an
elaborate introduction quoting the documents for the poet's history.

Breton's poetical works, the titles of which are here somewhat abbreviated, include The Workes of a Young Wit
(1577); A Floorish upon Fancie (1577); The Pilgrimage to Paradise (1592); The Countess of Penbrook's
Passion (MS.), first printed by J.O. Halliwell Phillipps in 1853; Pasquil's Fooles cappe, entered at Stationers' Hall in
1600; Pasquil's Mistresse (1600); Pasquil's Passe and Passeth Not (1600); Melancholike Humours (1600); Marie
Magdalen's Love: a Solemne Passion of the Soules Love (1595), the first part of which, a prose treatise, is probably
by another hand; the second part, a poem in six-lined stanza, is certainly by Breton; A Divine Poem, including "The
Ravisht Soul" and "The Blessed Weeper" (1601); An Excellent Poem, upon the Longing of a Blessed Heart (1601);
The Soules Heavenly Exercise (1601); The Soules Harmony (1602); Olde Madcappe newe Gaily mawfrey
(1602); The Mother's Blessing (1602); A True Description of Unthankfulnesse (1602); The Passionate
Shepheard (1604); The Soules Immortall Crowne (1605); The Honour of Valour (1605); An Invective against
Treason; I would and I would not (1614); Bryton's Bowre of Delights (1591), edited by Dr Grosart in 1893, an
unauthorized publication which contained some poems disclaimed by Breton; The Arbor of Amorous Devises (entered
at Stationers' Hall, 1594), only in part Breton's; and contributions to England's Helicon and other miscellanies of verse.
Of his twenty-two prose tracts may be mentioned Wit's Trenchmour (1597), The Wil of Wit (1599), A Poste with a
Packet of Mad Letters (1603). Sir Philip Sidney's Ourania by N.B. (1606); Mary Magdalen's Lamentations
(1604), and The Passion of a Discontented Mind (1601), are sometimes, but erroneously, ascribed to Breton.

[1] This poem, however, comes from The Arbor of Amorous Devises, which is only in part Breton's work.

BRETÓN DE LOS HERREROS, MANUEL (1796-1873), Spanish dramatist, was born at Quel (Logroño) on the
19th of December 1796 and was educated at Madrid. Enlisting on the 24th of May 1812, he served against the French
in Valencia and Catalonia, and retired with the rank of corporal on the 8th of March 1822. He obtained a minor post in
the civil service under the liberal government, and on his discharge determined to earn his living by writing for the stage.

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His first piece, Á la vejez viruelas, was produced on the 14th of October 1824, and proved the writer to be the
legitimate successor of the younger Moratin. His industry was astonishing: between October 1824 and November
1828, he composed thirty-nine plays, six of them original, the rest being translations or recasts of classic masterpieces.
In 1831 he published a translation of Tibullus, and acquired by it an unmerited reputation for scholarship which secured
for him an appointment as sub-librarian at the national library. But the theatre claimed him for its own, and with the
exception of Elena and a few other pieces in the fashionable romantic vein, his plays were a long series of successes.
His only serious check occurred in 1840; the former liberal had grown conservative with age, and in La Ponchada he
ridiculed the National Guard. He was dismissed from the national library, and for a short time was so unpopular that he
seriously thought of emigrating to America; but the storm blew over, and within two years Bretón de los Herreros had
regained his supremacy on the stage. He became secretary to the Spanish Academy, quarrelled with his fellow-
members, and died at Madrid on the 8th of November 1873. He is the author of some three hundred and sixty original
plays, twenty-three of which are in prose. No Spanish dramatist of the nineteenth century approaches him in comic
power, in festive invention, and in the humorous presentation of character, while his metrical dexterity is unique.
Marcela o a cual de los trés? (1831), Muérete; y verás! (1837) and La Escuela del matrimonio (1852) still hold
the stage, and are likely to hold it so long as Spanish is spoken.

See Marqués de Molíns, Bretón de los Herreros, recuerdos de su vida y de sus obras (Madrid, 1883); Obras de
Bretón de Herreros (5 vols., Madrid, 1883); E. Piñeyro, El Romanticismo en España (Paris, 1904).

(J. F.-K.)

BRETSCHNEIDER, KARL GOTTLIEB
(1776-1848), German scholar and theologian, was born at Gersdorf in

Saxony. In 1794 he entered the university of Leipzig, where he studied theology for four years. After some years of
hesitation he resolved to be ordained, and in 1802 he passed with great distinction the examination for candidatus
theologiae, and attracted the regard of F.V. Reinhard, author of the System der christlichen Moral (1788-1815),
then court-preacher at Dresden, who became his warm friend and patron during the remainder of his life. In 1804-1806
Bretschneider was Privat-docent at the university of Wittenberg, where he lectured on philosophy and theology.
During this time he wrote his work on the development of dogma, Systematische Entwickelung aller in der
Dogmatik vorkommenden Begriffe nach den symbolischen Schriften der evangelisch-lutherischen und
reformirten Kirche (1805, 4th ed. 1841), which was followed by others, including an edition of Ecclesiasticus with a
Latin commentary. On the advance of the French army under Napoleon into Prussia, he determined to leave
Wittenberg and abandon his university career. Through the good offices of Reinhard, he became pastor of Schneeberg
in Saxony (1807). In 1808 he was promoted to the office of superintendent of the church of Annaberg, in which
capacity he had to decide, in accordance with the canon law of Saxony, many matters belonging to the department of
ecclesiastical law. But the climate did not agree with him, and his official duties interfered with his theological studies.
With a view to a change he took the degree of doctor of theology in Wittenberg in August 1812. In 1816 he was
appointed general superintendent at Gotha, where he remained until his death in 1848. This was the great period of his
literary activity.

In 1820 was published his treatise on the gospel of St John, entitled Probabilia de Evangelii el Epistolarum Joannis
Apostoli indole et origine, which attracted much attention. In it he collected with great fulness and discussed with
marked moderation the arguments against Johannine authorship. This called forth a number of replies. To the
astonishment of every one, Bretschneider announced in the preface to the second edition of his Dogmatik in 1822, that
he had never doubted the authenticity of the gospel, and had published his Probabilia only to draw attention to the
subject, and to call forth a more complete defence of its genuineness. Bretschneider remarks in his autobiography that
the publication of this work had the effect of preventing his appointment as successor to Karl C. Tittmann in Dresden,
the minister Detlev von Einsiedel (1773-1861) denouncing him as the "slanderer of John" (Johannisschänder). His
greatest contribution to the science of exegesis was his Lexicon Manuale Graeco-Latinum in libros Novi Testamenti
(1824, 3rd ed. 1840). This work was valuable for the use which its author made of the Greek of the Septuagint, of the
Old and New Testament Apocrypha, of Josephus, and of the apostolic fathers, in illustration of the language of the New
Testament. In 1826 he published Apologie der neuern Theologie des evangelischen Deutschlands. Hugh James
Rose had published in England (1825) a volume of sermons on the rationalist movement (The State of the Protestant
Religion in Germany), in which he classed Bretschneider with the rationalists; and Bretschneider contended that he
himself was not a rationalist in the ordinary sense of the term, but a "rational supernaturalist." Some of his numerous
dogmatic writings passed through several editions. An English translation of his Manual of the Religion and History of
the Christian Church appeared in 1857. His dogmatic position seems to be intermediate between the extreme school
of naturalists, such as Heinrich Paulus, J.F. Röhr and Julius Wegscheider on the one hand, and D.F. Strauss and F.C.
Baur on the other. Recognizing a supernatural element in the Bible, he nevertheless allowed to the full the critical
exercise of reason in the interpretation of its dogmas (cp. Otto Pfleiderer, Development of Theology, pp. 89 ff.).

See his autobiography, Aus meinem Leben: Selbstbiographie von K.G. Bretschneider (Gotha, 1851), of which a
translation, with notes, by Professor George E. Day, appeared in the Bibliotheca Sacra and American Biblical
Repository, Nos. 36 and 38 (1852, 1853); Neudecker i n Die allgemeine Kirchenzeitung (1848), No. 38;
Wüstemann, Bretschneideri Memoria (1848); A.G. Farrar, Critical History of Free Thought (Bampton Lectures,
1862); Herzog-Hauck, Realencyklopädie (ed. 1897).

BRETTEN, a town of Germany, in the grand duchy of Baden, on the Saalbach, 9 m. S.E. of Bruchsal by rail. Pop.

(1900) 4781. It has some manufactories of machinery and japanned goods, and a considerable trade in timber and
livestock. Bretten was the birthplace of Melanchthon (1497), and in addition to a statue of him by Drake, a memorial
hall, containing a collection of his writings and busts and pictures of his famous contemporaries, has been erected.

BRETWALDA, a word used in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle under the date 827, and also in a charter of Æthelstan,
king of the English. It appears in several variant forms (brytenwalda, bretenanwealda, &c.), and means most
probably "lord of the Britons" or "lord of Britain"; for although the derivation of the word is uncertain, its earlier syllable
seems to be cognate with the words Briton and Britannia. In the Chronicle the title is given to Ecgbert, king of the
English, "the eighth king that was Bretwalda," and retrospectively to seven kings who ruled over one or other of the
English kingdoms. The seven names are copied from Bede's Historia Ecclesiastica, and it is interesting to note that the
last king named, Oswiu of Northumbria, lived 150 years before Ecgbert. It has been assumed that these seven kings
exercised a certain superiority over a large part of England, but if such superiority existed it is certain that it was
extremely vague and was unaccompanied by any unity of organization. Another theory is that Bretwalda refers to a
war-leadership, or imperium, over the English south of the Humber, and has nothing to do with Britons or Britannia. In
support of this explanation it is urged that the title is given in the Chronicle to Ecgbert in the year in which he
"conquered the kingdom of the Mercians and all that was south of the Humber." Less likely is the theory of Palgrave
that the Bretwaldas were the successors of the pseudo-emperors, Maximus and Carausius, and claimed to share the
imperial dignity of Rome; or that of Kemble, who derives Bretwalda from the British word breotan, to distribute, and
translates it "widely ruling." With regard to Ecgbert the word is doubtless given as a title in imitation of its earlier use,
and the same remark applies to its use in Æthelstan's charter.

See E.A. Freeman, History of the Norman Conquest, vol. i. (Oxford, 1877); W. Stubbs, Constitutional History,
vol. i. (Oxford, 1897); J.R. Green, The Making of England, vol. ii. (London, 1897); F. Palgrave, The Rise and
Progress of the English Commonwealth (London, 1832); J. M. Kemble, The Saxons in England (London, 1876);
J. Rhys, Celtic Britain (London, 1884).

BREUGHEL (or Brueghel), PIETER, Flemish painter, was the son of a peasant residing in the village of Breughel
near Breda. After receiving instruction in painting from Koek, whose daughter he married, he spent some time in France
and Italy, and then went to Antwerp, where he was elected into the Academy in 1551. He finally settled at Brussels and
died there. The subjects of his pictures are chiefly humorous figures, like those of D. Teniers; and if he wants the
delicate touch and silvery clearness of that master, he has abundant spirit and comic power. He is said to have died
about the year 1570 at the age of sixty; other accounts give 1590 as the date of his death.

His son Pieter, the younger (1564-1637), known as "Hell" Breughel, was born in Brussels and died at Antwerp, where
his "Christ bearing the Cross" is in the museum.

Another son Jan (c. 1569-1642), known as "Velvet" Breughel, was born at Brussels. He first applied himself to painting
flowers and fruits, and afterwards acquired considerable reputation by his landscapes and sea-pieces. After residing
long at Cologne he travelled into Italy, where his landscapes, adorned with small figures, were greatly admired. He left a
large number of pictures, chiefly landscapes, which are executed with great skill. Rubens made use of Breughel's hand in
the landscape part of several of his small pictures—such as his "Vertumnus and Pomona," the "Satyr viewing the
Sleeping Nymph," and the "Terrestrial Paradise."

BREVET (a diminutive of the Fr. bref), a short writing, originally an official writing or letter, with the particular meaning
of a papal indulgence. The use of the word is mainly confined to a commission, or official document, giving to an officer
in the army a permanent, as opposed to a local and temporary, rank in the service higher than that he holds
substantively in his corps. In the British army "brevet rank" exists only above the rank of captain, but in the United
States army it is possible to obtain a brevet as first lieutenant. In France the term breveté is particularly used with
respect to the General Staff, to express the equivalent of the English "passed Staff College" (p.s.c.).

BREVIARY (Lat. breviarium, abridgm...