Columbia Encyclopedia

(Encyclopedia) Bibliothèque nationale bēblēōtĕkˈ näsyônälˈ [key], national library of France, in Paris, a government archive, and one of the foremost libraries of the world. It originated with the collecti...

(Encyclopedia) Levasseur, Émile (Pierre Émile Levasseur) pyĕr āmēlˈ lüväsörˈ [key], 1828–1911, French economist. He was noted especially for his historical approach to the study of economics. He studied ...

(Encyclopedia) Mendès-France, Pierre pyĕr măNdĕsˈ-fräNs [key], 1907–82, French statesman. A lawyer and economist, he entered (1932) the chamber of deputies as a Radical Socialist. In World War II he was a pi...

(Encyclopedia) Charles III or Charles the Fat, 839–88, emperor of the West (881–87), king of the East Franks (882–87), and king of the West Franks (884–87); son of Louis the German, at whose death he inherit...

(Encyclopedia) Institut de France ăNstētüˈ də fräNs [key], cultural institution of the French state. Founded in 1795 by the Directory, it replaced five learned societies that had been suppressed in 1793 by the...

(Encyclopedia) Picardy pĭkˈərdē [key], Fr. Picardie, region and former province, N France, on the English Channel, part of the French administrative region of Hauts-de-France. It includes the Somme, Oise, and Ai...

(Encyclopedia) city government, political administration of urban areas. The English tradition of incorporating urban units (cities, boroughs, villages, towns) and allowing them freedom in most local matters is gene...

(Encyclopedia) Bourget, Le, town, Seine–Saint-Denis dept., N central France. A suburb of Paris, it is the site of Le Bourget airport, once Paris's main airport but n...

(Encyclopedia) Coypel kwäpĕlˈ [key], family of French painters. Noël Coypel, 1628–1707, director of the Académie de France à Rome and later of the Académie royale de péinture et de sculpture in Paris, was ...

(Encyclopedia) Vienne, river, 230 mi (370 km) long, rising in the Massif Central, central France, and flowing W past Limoges, then N into the Loire near Saumur. ...