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Saint Vincent de Paul
Saint Vincent de Paul 1580?-1660, French priest renowned for charitable work, b. Gascony. He was ordained in 1600. There are conflicting stories about his capture by pirates and enslavement in Tunis and his subsequent escape. In Rome he came to the attention of Pope Paul V, who sent him on a missio...
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Saint Vincent Ferrer
Saint Vincent Ferrer , 1350?-1419, Spanish Dominican preacher, b. Valencia. He studied at Barcelona, taught at Lleida, and later studied at Toulouse. After 1379 he became a friend and protégé of Pedro de Luna, later antipope Benedict XIII. St. Vincent became widely known as a preacher ...
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Jean de Rotrou
Jean de Rotrou , 1609-50, French dramatist. One of the Cinq auteurs, five playwrights commissioned by Cardinal Richelieu, Rotrou wrote many plays, including the noble and effective tragedies Saint-Genest (1646) and Venceslas (1647). He was a friend and rival of Corneille.
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Gonzalo de Berceo
Gonzalo de Berceo , c.1198-1265?, earliest known Spanish medieval poet. He was a religious in a Benedictine monastery who wrote prolifically on saints and other figures important in the history of the church. His devotion to the Virgin is expressed in 25 poems entitled Milagros de Nuestra Señ...
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Ninon de Lenclos
Ninon de Lenclos , 1620-1705, French beauty and wit. Her real name was Anne de Lenclos. She numbered among her many lovers and friends such eminent men as the Great Condé, La Rochefoucauld, and Saint-Évremond. She gathered in her Paris salon a circle of wits and literary figures.
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Salomon de Brosse
Salomon de Brosse , 1571-1626, French architect, trained by his grandfather, Jacques du Cerceau, the elder. He paved the way for the next generation in the use of classicism as the style which denoted royalty. In Paris his works include the Luxembourg Palace (1615-20) built for Marie de' Medici and ...
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Maurice Quentin de La Tour
Maurice Quentin de La Tour , 1704-88, French portraitist working in pastel. From 1737 to 1773 he exhibited at the Salon portraits of considerable technical virtuosity and psychological penetration. They brought him an immense and continuing popularity. Among his famous sitters were Louis XV, Mme de ...
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Catherine de' Medici
Catherine de' Medici , 1519-89, queen of France, daughter of Lorenzo de' Medici, duke of Urbino. She was married (1533) to the duc d'Orléans, later King Henry II. Neglected during the reign of her husband and that of her eldest son, Francis II, she became (1560) regent for her son Charles IX...
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Louis XIII
Louis XIII 1601-43, king of France (1610-43). He succeeded his father, Henry IV , under the regency of his mother, Marie de' Medici . He married Anne of Austria in 1615. Even after being declared of age in 1614, he was excluded from affairs of state by his domineering mother. In 1617 he caused ...
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Saint-Jean-de-Luz
Saint-Jean-de-Luz , town (1990 pop. 13,181), Pyrénées-Atlantiques dept., SW France, in the Basque Provinces (see Basques ), on the Bay of Biscay. It is a beach resort with a casino and a sardine- and tuna-fishing port. Louis XIV married (1660) Marie Thérèse of Austria th...
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