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Quantel Paintbox

The Quantel Paintbox was a dedicated computer graphics workstation for composition of broadcast television video and graphics. Produced by the British production equipment manufacturer Quantel (which, via a series of mergers, is now part of Grass Valley), its design emphasized the studio workflow efficiency required for live news production.

At a price of $250,000 per unit, they were used primarily by large TV networks such as NBC, while in the UK, Peter Claridge's company CAL Videographics was the first commercial company to purchase one.

Following its initial launch in 1981, the Paintbox revolutionised the production of television graphics.

History

Artist Martin Holbrook worked with Quantel's development team to develop the artist-oriented functionality and user interface, which remained virtually unchanged throughout the life of the product; their Patented pressure-sensitive pen and tablet elevated it from a computer into a real artist's tool.

The real time, broadcast quality, 24 bit Quantel "Paint Box" as it was then known, was launched at NAB in Las Vegas in May 1981. The PAL DPB-7001 and the NTSC DPB-7000 , were literally just digital paint machines, with stencils/layers introduced 9 months later and font and text functions implemented by Pepper Howard in 1983. The hardware was readily-available off-the-shelf components, supported by Programmable Array Logic ICs which were custom-programmed by Quantel. Combining the latest hardware, custom software which had solved usable digital paint issues and an artist-friendly familiar way of creating artwork that required no computer knowledge meant that the Paintbox was an instant success. The Paintbox became the global industry standard digital studio and image manipulation tool for the next fifteen years, bringing digital art and graphics onto everyone's TV screens.

The second generation V-Series Paintbox was released in 1989 as a modernized and more compact and affordable model; with internal hardware improvements, better tablet, upgraded keyboard and a cordless stylus. Prices started at $80,000.

In 1985, Quantel found a way to vastly increase the framestore capacity, enabling them to create a high resolution print quality Paintbox, which revolutionized the photo manipulation industry five years before Photoshop was introduced and led to Quantel's high-profile lawsuit against Adobe for using the Paintbox's patented features. In the late 1980s, Quantel filed a patent infringement lawsuit against Spaceward Graphics for creating the Matisse system, which was marketed as a cheaper version of the Paintbox. They won the case against Spaceward at the High Court in London in 1990, but lost the case against Adobe in 1997, who were able to demonstrate that Dick Shoup's 1970's Superpaint had introduced particular features before Quantel's Paintbox. Though Adobe didn't yet exist as a company when Paintbox was launched, demonstrating prior use to the court meant that Quantel's Patents became invalid and the case was thrown out by the judge in Adobe's home state of Delaware.

A Paintbox was usually integrated into Quantel's editing systems, especially the Quantel Henry, and later  Quantel Editbox.

In contrast to the earlier DPB-7000 series machines, the V-series made extensive use of Altera CPLD and FPGA ICs, which integrated much of the complex SSI logic into a smaller number of ICs. Some versions of the V-series hardware refined the design further by moving the CPLD and FPGA logic into "hard-copy" ASICs, which were manufactured by Orbit Semiconductor.

In 2002, the generationQ series of products introduced the last stand-alone Paintbox and the QPaintbox software for PCs. Eventually, Paintbox became a feature of Quantel's other, more powerful editing, media management and post-production products.

In 2005 Quantel updated their line of x86-based workstations (with Paintbox and Paintbox gQ models, and a software-only version of QPaintbox). They also released their new Quantel Editbox.

Despite becoming the industry standard TV graphics and post production computer with hundreds sold around the world, Quantel lost all its market share against cheaper systems and software. There are just fifteen V-Series models and only five original DPB versions known to still exist, one of which is being restored to working order.

Paintbox and Art

Quantel invested heavily in art, employing a hundred digital artists by the late 1980s to improve and demonstrate the Paintbox features. Graphic Paintbox was used to create the posters for The Silence of the Lambs, JFK, The Doors, and record covers for Nirvana's Nevermind, and the Beastie Boys' Paul's Boutique. The Miracle, rock band Queen's studio album, was designed by Richard Gray and created by Richard Baker.

The first company in France to buy a Paintbox, Computer Video Film, were funded by Jack Lang at the French Ministry of Culture to create the 1985 short film Six Peintres Sur Ordinateur but it was most famously used by David Hockney, who created his first digital art on a Paintbox in June 1985, then Richard Hamilton, Howard Hodgkin, Larry Rivers, Sidney Nolan and Jennifer Bartlett in 1986 to create original digital artwork for the groundbreaking 1987 BBC series Painting with Light.

Quantel also gave three Paintbox systems to three art schools in the UK in the mid-1980s, including Blackpool College where it was used extensively by artist Adrian Wilson to create digital images, including the James album cover for Gold Mother. Two of Wilson's Paintbox pieces were included in the pioneering Art & Computers exhibition at the Cleveland Art Gallery, England, September 1988 and he was sponsored by Quantel, who used his images for the cover of the Graphic Paintbox sales brochure. One recipient, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art had recently appointed the video artist Stephen Partridge as a lecturer who then established (1984) The Television Workshop to support artists and filmmakers' production and access to high-level broadcast technology. Over 400 productions were supported in this way from 1984 to 1992 until desktop video pre-empted the need. Artists and filmmakers using the workshop included Richard Morrison, Jeff Keen, Robert Cahen, Tamara Krikorian, Pictorial Heroes, Judith Goddard and many others.

The music video for Dire Straits' "Money for Nothing" was created on a Bosch FGS-4000 3D animation system using a Quantel Paintbox for backgrounds and textures.

Graphics for Disney Sing-Along Songs were also created on a Paintbox.

To celebrate the 50th Anniversary of Quantel in 2023, Adrian Wilson curated an exhibition of Paintbox Art for the Computer Arts Society, with the exhibition and catalogue designed by Kim Mannes-Abbot, whose image appears on the front cover of the 1994 Paintboxed! book.

title: Quantel Paintbox


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DSB (railway company)

DSB, an abbreviation of Danske Statsbaner (, Danish State Railways), is the largest Danish train operating company, and the largest in Scandinavia. While DSB is responsible for passenger train operation on most of the Danish railways, goods transport and railway maintenance are outside its scope. DSB runs a commuter rail system, called the S-train, in the area around the Danish capital, Copenhagen, that connects the different areas and suburbs in the greater metropolitan area. Between 2010 and 2017, DSB operated trains in Sweden.

DSB was founded in 1885, when the state-owned companies De jysk-fynske Statsbaner and De sjællandske Statsbaner merged. DSB was established in 1885, after the state in 1867 under the name De Jutland-Fynske Statsbaner took over the private company Det Danske Jernbanedriftselskab and in 1880 they also took over the privately owned Zealand Railway Company.

History
The first railways in Denmark were built and operated by private companies. The railways in Funen and Jutland were built by Peto and Betts who also supplied the locomotives (built by Canada Works, Birkenhead). Most of the technical staff was also recruited from Britain, notably from the Eastern Counties Railway. When Peto and Betts went into insolvency, the Danish state took over Det danske Jernbane-Driftsselskab (The Danish Railway Operating Company) as of 1 September 1867 under the name De jysk-fyenske Jernbaner (the Funen and Jutland Railways), from 1874 De danske Statsbaner i Jylland og Fyn (The Danish State Railways in Jutland and Funen). The network was extended by new construction and by acquisition of the privately operated lines from Silkeborg to Herning (1 November 1879) and from Grenaa to Randers and Aarhus (1 April 1881).

The Danish state took over Det sjællandske Jernbaneselskab (the Zealand Railway Company) on 1 January 1880, forming De sjællandske Statsbaner (the State Railways of Zealand). With the majority of railways on both sides of the Great Belt thus owned by the Danish state, it was not until 1 October 1885 that the companies of Jutland/Funen and Zealand merged into one national railway company, De danske Statsbaner (the Danish State Railways), the merger being finalised on 1 April 1893.

After the merger, new lines were constructed and a new generation of rolling stock and locomotives were introduced by chief mechanical engineer Otto Busse. After Busse's retirement, however, DSB ceased to design its own locomotives and increasingly came to rely on outside suppliers, mainly Borsig of Berlin.

The 1930s were a decade of innovation and modernisation for DSB. New railway bridges were built across the Little Belt (1935), the Storstrøm (1937) and Oddesund (1938), eliminating the costly and time-consuming process of transfer by steam ferry. The suburban lines in and around Copenhagen were electrified for multiple-unit operation at 1,500 Volts DC (S-trains). Early experiments with Diesel propulsion led to the development of the all-purpose MO class heavy diesel-electric railcar equipped for multiple-unit operation, after World War II also fitted for push-pull operation with a driving trailer. Several classes of mainline diesel-electric locomotives were also built as prototypes by Burmeister and Wain of Copenhagen and Frichs of Aarhus, but further development was cut short by the German occupation and the consequent shortage of oil supplies, forcing DSB to rely on coal-burning steam locomotives for mainline duties.

Coinciding with the opening of the Little Belt Bridge in 1935, DSB introduced their new express train concept known as lyntog ("lightning trains"). These diesel-powered three- and four-coach trains, having a power car at each end with a power pack identical to that of the MO railcar series, featured a then-impressive top speed of 120 km/h as well as a high level of comfort, and they proved themselves DSB's most commercially successful initiative of the 1930s.

World War II left DSB with a fleet of outdated and worn-out trains, and apart from a series of second-generation MO railcars and the class MT multi-purpose centercab engines built by Frichs, domestic industry was unable to provide the kind of motive power required. Instead, DSB looked to foreign suppliers.

General Motors' diesel-electric locomotives had proved themselves in the US and Canada before the war. DSB's MV class A1A-A1A diesel locomotives, built on license from GM and delivered from NOHAB starting in 1954, were found to be very reliable and economically feasible compared to the steam locomotives, eventually putting the age of steam to an end as well as being a decisive factor in DSB's choice of motive power for nearly three decades. They were followed by the equally successful MX class with a lower axle load for branch line services and the MZ class for heavy express services.

Based on three diesel-hydraulic shunting locomotives built by Henschel and acquired by DSB, Frichs developed their own version of the class MH shunter, which replaced the steam-powered shunting engines. After the success of the Deutsche Bundesbahn's DB Class VT 11.5 class on Trans Europ Express services, DSB acquired eleven power cars and matching intermediate cars to replace the first-generation lyntog.

The 1960s were marked by an increasingly poor economy for DSB, leading to a steady staff reduction throughout the decade. However, this was also accompanied by the appearance of new technology, notably the utilisation of electronic equipment, improving the safety and efficiency of DSB's railway traffic. In 1972, along with the celebration of the 125th anniversary of railways in Denmark, DSB introduced a new corporate design by architect Jens Nielsen, inspired by British Rail and Canadian National Railways, with red as the dominant colour (with engine rooms of locomotives painted black), replacing the traditional maroon livery with yellow winged wheel symbols. DSB's position was additionally strengthened by the 1973 oil crisis.

Following the lead of the Nederlandse Spoorwegen, British Rail and Deutsche Bundesbahn, DSB in 1974 introduced a fixed interval timetable for its long-distance locomotive-hauled Intercity trains as well as the commuter services to and from Copenhagen. On regional services in Funen and Jutland, the prewar design MO class railcars were displaced by MR class DMUs, a licensed version of the Deutsche Bundesbahn class 628.

In 1990, after a delay of several years, the IC3 trains came into use, initially as lyntog, and in 1991 as ordinary intercity trains. The IC3 trains, being a specimen of the Flexliner type of multiple units, have a distinct appearance due to the rubber-framed ends, allowing access between trainsets when coupled together. The re-engined Flexliners are now (2014) nearing the end of their service life, but due to problems with the Ansaldo Breda built successor class IC4 they are expected to remain in service for another five to ten years.

The Great Belt Fixed Link was opened for railway traffic in 1997 (a year before road traffic), replacing DSB's railway ferries. In 1997, infrastructural duties were branched off into a new agency under the Danish Ministry of Transport, Banestyrelsen (now: Banedanmark), leaving DSB with the task of train operation. A new design was presented on 30 April 1998, as well as the announcement of the "Good Trains for All" plan, seeking to replace old and less comfortable trains by 2006/2007. DSB was turned into an independent public corporation on 1 January 1999.

The goods department of DSB, DSB Gods, was merged with Railion (now DB Cargo) in 2001, and DSB now solely manages passenger rail service, including the operation of railway stations. In 2003, Arriva, in competition with DSB, won the tender for operating a number of regional railway services in Jutland: Tønder-Esbjerg, Esbjerg-Struer, Skjern-Aarhus, Struer-Langå-Aarhus and Struer-Thisted. In 2007, the Øresundståg services were hived off into a separate company, DSBFirst, but the contract was terminated in 2011 after financial problems.

DSB operated services from 2009 in Sweden. In 2010, it purchased a 50 % shareholding in German operator Vias from Frankfurt Transport Company. All the operating companies in Sweden and Germany were sold between 2013 and 2019.

Corporate structure
DSB is an independent public state-owned corporation under the Danish Ministry of Transport and Energy. This has been the case since 1999, and is the result of a former political desire to privatise the Danish railways. Thus, DSB now operates on a for-profit basis, although it retains certain public service commitments via contracts with the Ministry of Transport and Energy. In March 2015, the ongoing privatization process was put on hold until at least 2024, as part of a broad centre-left political majority agreement on passenger rail-transport.

As of 2005, DSB employs about 9,000 people. Keld Sengeløv became president and CEO in February 2004, after a career in the DSB organization since 1997, but died from an undisclosed illness while travelling with friends in Scotland on 3 September 2006. His successor was Søren Eriksen, who was dismissed in March 2011 following the discovery of financial and contractual irregularities. He was largely exonerated in a subsequent inquiry. His successor, Jesper Lok, was announced in December 2011 and took office in April 2012, but resigned in 2014. Since 2015, former fighter pilot Flemming Jensen has been CEO for the corporation.

Divisions
DSB SOV (Selvstændig Offentlig Virksomhed / Independent Public Company)
 * DSB Commercial (sales and marketing)
 * DSB International (train operations abroad), DSB Detail a/s (management of shops on DSB stations)
 * DSB S-tog a/s (operation of the S-train network)
 * DSB Sales
 * DSB Long-Distance & Regional Trains
 * IC4 Programme, Sales, Onboard Service, Traffic,
 * DSB Finance
 * DSB Property Development, DSB Property
 * DSB HR & Organisation
 * Financial Management, IT, CSR
 * DSB Vedligehold A/S (Train Maintenance)

Services
As an originally state-owned company, DSB has experienced several reforms since its establishment in 1885. In particular, the large scale privatization reforms of Denmark in the 1990s, has resulted in the selling and outsourcing of many railway lines and services across the country.

DSB currently operates several types of passenger trains, varying in number of stops and motive power. Apart from the S-trains, types available for the general public include:
 * Regional trains (RØ in Eastern Denmark, RV in Western Denmark; ØR in the Øresund Region)
 * Inter-regional trains (IR)
 * InterCity trains (IC)
 * InterCityLyn (L) (express InterCity trains)
 * InterCityLyn Nonstop (IL) (IntercityLyn calling at fewer stations)
 * EuroCity trains (EC)

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: DSB (railway company)


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Jean Bertaut

Jean Bertaut (1552 – 8 June 1611), French poet, was born at Caen.

Life
He figures with Philippe Desportes in the disdainful couplet of Boileau on Ronsard: "Ce poëte orgueilleux, trébuché de si haut,

Rendit plus retenus Desportes et Bertaut." He wrote light verse to celebrate the incidents of court life in the manner of Desportes, but his verse is more fantastic and fuller of conceits than his master's. He early entered the church, and had a share in the conversion of Henry IV, a circumstance which assured his career. He was successively councillor of the parlement of Grenoble, secretary to the king, almoner to Marie de' Medici, abbot of the of Aunay-sur-Odon and finally, in 1606, bishop of Sées.

After his elevation to the bishopric he ceased to produce the light verse in which he excelled, though his scruples did not prevent him from preparing a new edition of his Recueil de quelques vers amoureux (1602) in 1606. The serious poems in which he celebrated the public events of his later years are dull and lifeless. Bertaut died at Sées on 8 June 1611. His works were edited by Adolphe Chenevière in 1891.

title: Jean Bertaut


text:
Closed timelike curve

In mathematical physics, a closed timelike curve (CTC) is a world line in a Lorentzian manifold, of a material particle in spacetime, that is "closed", returning to its starting point. This possibility was first discovered by Willem Jacob van Stockum in 1937 and later confirmed by Kurt Gödel in 1949, who discovered a solution to the equations of general relativity (GR) allowing CTCs known as the Gödel metric; and since then other GR solutions containing CTCs have been found, such as the Tipler cylinder and traversable wormholes. If CTCs exist, their existence would seem to imply at least the theoretical possibility of time travel backwards in time, raising the spectre of the grandfather paradox, although the Novikov self-consistency principle seems to show that such paradoxes could be avoided. Some physicists speculate that the CTCs which appear in certain GR solutions might be ruled out by a future theory of quantum gravity which would replace GR, an idea which Stephen Hawking labeled the chronology protection conjecture. Others note that if every closed timelike curve in a given spacetime passes through an event horizon, a property which can be called chronological censorship, then that spacetime with event horizons excised would still be causally well behaved and an observer might not be able to detect the causal violation.

Light cones

When discussing the evolution of a system in general relativity, or more specifically Minkowski space, physicists often refer to a "light cone". A light cone represents any possible future evolution of an object given its current state, or every possible location given its current location. An object's possible future locations are limited by the speed that the object can move, which is at best the speed of light. For instance, an object located at position p at time t0 can only move to locations within p + c(t1 − t0) by time t1.

This is commonly represented on a graph with physical locations along the horizontal axis and time running vertically, with units of $$t$$ for time and ct for space. Light cones in this representation appear as lines at 45 degrees centered on the object, as light travels at $$ct$$ per $$t$$. On such a diagram, every possible future location of the object lies within the cone. Additionally, every space location has a future time, implying that an object may stay at any location in space indefinitely.

Any single point on such a diagram is known as an event. Separate events are considered to be timewise separated if they differ along the time axis, or spacewise separated if they differ along the space axis. If the object were in free fall, it would travel up the t-axis; if it accelerates, it moves across the x axis as well. The actual path an object takes through spacetime, as opposed to the ones it could take, is known as the worldline. Another definition is that the light cone represents all possible worldlines.

In "simple" examples of spacetime metrics the light cone is directed forward in time. This corresponds to the common case that an object cannot be in two places at once, or alternately that it cannot move instantly to another location. In these spacetimes, the worldlines of physical objects are, by definition, timewise. However this orientation is only true of "locally flat" spacetimes. In curved spacetimes the light cone will be "tilted" along the spacetime's geodesic. For instance, while moving in the vicinity of a star, the star's gravity will "pull" on the object, affecting its worldline, so its possible future positions lie closer to the star. This appears as a slightly tilted lightcone on the corresponding spacetime diagram. An object in free fall in this circumstance continues to move along its local $$t$$ axis, but to an external observer it appears it is accelerating in space as well—a common situation if the object is in orbit, for instance.

In extreme examples, in spacetimes with suitably high-curvature metrics, the light cone can be tilted beyond 45 degrees. That means there are potential "future" positions, from the object's frame of reference, that are spacelike separated to observers in an external rest frame. From this outside viewpoint, the object can move instantaneously through space. In these situations the object would have to move, since its present spatial location would not be in its own future light cone. Additionally, with enough of a tilt, there are event locations that lie in the "past" as seen from the outside. With a suitable movement of what appears to it its own space axis, the object appears to travel through time as seen externally.

A closed timelike curve can be created if a series of such light cones are set up so as to loop back on themselves, so it would be possible for an object to move around this loop and return to the same place and time that it started. An object in such an orbit would repeatedly return to the same point in spacetime if it stays in free fall. Returning to the original spacetime location would be only one possibility; the object's future light cone would include spacetime points both forwards and backwards in time, and so it should be possible for the object to engage in time travel under these conditions.

General relativity
CTCs appear in locally unobjectionable exact solutions to the Einstein field equation of general relativity, including some of the most important solutions. These include:
 * the Misner space (which is Minkowski space orbifolded by a discrete boost)
 * the Kerr vacuum (which models a rotating uncharged black hole)
 * the interior of a rotating BTZ black hole
 * the van Stockum dust (which models a cylindrically symmetric configuration of dust)
 * the Gödel lambda dust (which models a dust with a carefully chosen cosmological constant term)
 * the Tipler cylinder (a cylindrically symmetric metric with CTCs)
 * Bonnor-Steadman solutions describing laboratory situations such as two spinning balls
 * J. Richard Gott has proposed a mechanism for creating CTCs using cosmic strings.

Some of these examples are, like the Tipler cylinder, rather artificial, but the exterior part of the Kerr solution is thought to be in some sense generic, so it is rather unnerving to learn that its interior contains CTCs. Most physicists feel that CTCs in such solutions are artifacts.

Consequences
One feature of a CTC is that it opens the possibility of a worldline which is not connected to earlier times, and so the existence of events that cannot be traced to an earlier cause. Ordinarily, causality demands that each event in spacetime is preceded by its cause in every rest frame. This principle is critical in determinism, which in the language of general relativity states complete knowledge of the universe on a spacelike Cauchy surface can be used to calculate the complete state of the rest of spacetime. However, in a CTC, causality breaks down, because an event can be "simultaneous" with its cause—in some sense an event may be able to cause itself. It is impossible to determine based only on knowledge of the past whether or not something exists in the CTC that can interfere with other objects in spacetime. A CTC therefore results in a Cauchy horizon, and a region of spacetime that cannot be predicted from perfect knowledge of some past time.

No CTC can be continuously deformed as a CTC to a point (that is, a CTC and a point are not timelike homotopic), as the manifold would not be causally well behaved at that point. The topological feature which prevents the CTC from being deformed to a point is known as a timelike topological feature.

The existence of CTCs would arguably place restrictions on physically allowable states of matter-energy fields in the universe. Propagating a field configuration along the family of closed timelike worldlines must, according to such arguments, eventually result in the state that is identical to the original one. This idea has been explored by some scientists as a possible approach towards disproving the existence of CTCs.

While quantum formulations of CTCs have been proposed, a strong challenge to them is their ability to freely create entanglement, which quantum theory predicts is impossible. If Deutsch's prescription holds, the existence of these CTCs implies also equivalence of quantum and classical computation (both in PSPACE). If Lloyd's prescription holds, quantum computations would be PP-complete.

Contractible versus noncontractible
There are two classes of CTCs. We have CTCs contractible to a point (if we no longer insist it has to be future-directed timelike everywhere), and we have CTCs which are not contractible. For the latter, we can always go to the universal covering space, and reestablish causality. For the former, such a procedure is not possible. No closed timelike curve is contractible to a point by a timelike homotopy among timelike curves, as that point would not be causally well behaved.

Cauchy horizon
The chronology violating set is the set of points through which CTCs pass. The boundary of this set is the Cauchy horizon. The Cauchy horizon is generated by closed null geodesics. Associated with each closed null geodesic is a redshift factor describing the rescaling of the rate of change of the affine parameter around a loop. Because of this redshift factor, the affine parameter terminates at a finite value after infinitely many revolutions because the geometric series converges.

title: Closed timelike curve


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Talk:Donohue syndrome

note
When I first saw this, I thought it was a joke post. It's entirely real. This disturbs me. -- Jake 12:33, 2003 Aug 3 (UTC)

There are a lot of genetic diseases like that. Check out OMIM for more. Sadly, there is a movement towards giving them boring names ('Donohue Syndrome') instead of cool ones like "Happy Puppet Syndrome" and "Leprechaunism." 132.241.163.248 (talk) 23:26, 2 May 2008 (UTC)

title: Talk:Donohue syndrome


text:
Talk:Gretchen Grebe

In the actual tree of Don Rosa she is mentioned as "Grethen Grebe". Where does "Gretchin Grebe" come from? User: Dimadick

title: Talk:Gretchen Grebe


text:
Madame de La Fayette

Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne, Comtesse de La Fayette (baptized 18 March 1634 – 25 May 1693), better known as Madame de La Fayette, was a French writer; she authored La Princesse de Clèves, France's first historical novel and one of the earliest novels in literature.

Life
Christened Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne, she was born in Paris to a family of minor but wealthy nobility. At 16, de la Vergne became the maid of honour to Queen Anne of Austria and began also to acquire a literary education from Gilles Ménage, who gave her lessons in Italian and Latin. Ménage led her to join the fashionable salons of Madame de Rambouillet and Madeleine de Scudéry. Her father, Marc Pioche de la Vergne, had died a year before, and the same year her mother married Renaud de Sévigné, uncle of Madame de Sévigné, who remained her lifelong intimate friend.

In 1655, de la Vergne married François Motier, comte de La Fayette, a widowed nobleman some eighteen years her senior, with whom she had two sons. She accompanied him to country estates in Auvergne and Bourbonnais although she made frequent trips back to Paris, where she began to mix with court society and formed her own successful salon. Her sister-in-law was Louise de La Fayette (1618–1665), favourite of Louis XIII of France. Some of her acquaintances included Henrietta of England, future Duchess of Orleans, who asked La Fayette to write her biography; Antoine Arnauld; and the leading French writers Segrais and Huet. Earlier on, during the Fronde, La Fayette had also befriended the Cardinal de Retz with whom her stepfather was associated.

Settling permanently in Paris in 1659, La Fayette published, anonymously, La Princesse de Montpensier in 1662. From 1665 onwards she formed a close relationship with François de La Rochefoucauld, author of Maximes, who introduced her to many literary luminaries of the time, including Racine and Boileau. 1669 saw the publication of the first volume of Zaïde, a Hispano-Moorish romance which was signed by Segrais but is almost certainly attributable to La Fayette. The second volume appeared in 1671. The title ran through reprints and translations mostly thanks to the preface Huet had offered.

La Fayette's most famous novel was La Princesse de Clèves, first published anonymously in March 1678. An immense success, the work is often taken to be the first true French novel and a prototype of the early psychological novel.

Her correspondence showed her as the acute diplomatic agent of Marie Jeanne Baptiste of Savoy-Nemours, duchess of Savoy, at the court of Louis XIV.

The death of La Rochefoucauld in 1680 and her husband in 1683 led La Fayette to lead a less active social life in her later years. Three works were published posthumously: La Comtesse de Tende (1718), Histoire d'Henriette d'Angleterre (1720), and Memoires de la Cour de France (1731).

Family
Marie-Madeleine Pioche de La Vergne was the eldest daughter of Marc Pioche (–1649), Esquire to the King, Sieur de La Vergne and the tutor to Cardinal Richelieu's nephew, Jean Armand de Maille-Breze, and Isabella Pena (–1656) daughter of François Pena, physician of the King, and his wife, Michelle Coupe.

Her baptism took place March 18, 1634 in the Church of Saint-Sulpice. Her godfather was Urbain de Maillé-Brézé, Marshal of France, and her godmother was Marie-Madeleine de Vignerot, lady Combalet, later Duchess of Aiguillon, a niece of Richelieu.

Her marriage took place in the Church of Saint-Sulpice.

She is buried in the Church of Saint-Sulpice.

Marie-Madeleine had two younger sisters:
 * Eléonore-Armande, baptized 1635
 * Isabelle Louise, born 1636

Her mother, Isabella Pena, remarried in 1650 to René Renaud de Sévigné (–1656), uncle of the Marquise de Sévigné.

She married on February 15, 1655 François Motier, comte de La Fayette (brother of Louise de La Fayette) (1616–1683). He held several lands in the Auvergne region such as de La Fayette, de Goutenoutouse, de Médat and de Forest. They had two sons: After the birth of her two sons, her husband disappeared from her life so effectively that it was long supposed that he died about 1660.
 * Louis de Lafayette (1658–1729), baptized March 7, 1658, commendatory abbot of Notre-Dame de Valmont;
 * Armand Renaud de La Fayette (1659–1694), Brigadier des armées, count and marquis de La Fayette.

Works

 * La Princesse de Montpensier, 1662, 2nd edition 1674 and 1675.
 * Zaïde, histoire espagnole, vol. 1, vol 2, Paris, Claude Barbin, 1671.
 * La Princesse de Clèves, Paris, Claude Barbin, 16 mai 1678 [anonymous]. (English translation 1689, London).
 * Romans et Nouvelles, Paris, Classiques Garnier, 1989,.
 * La Comtesse de Tende, 1718.
 * Histoire de madame Henriette d'Angleterre, première femme de Philippe de France, Duc d'Orléans, Amsterdam, M.-C. Le Cène, 1720.
 * Mémoires de la cour de France pour les années 1688 et 1689, Paris, Foucault, 1828.

title: Madame de La Fayette


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Jean Hérault, Baron of Gourville

Jean Hérault, Baron of Gourville (July 10, 1625 – June 14, 1703) was a French adventurer and aristocrat.

He was born in La Rochefoucauld, in today's Charente département. At the age of eighteen he entered the house of La Rochefoucauld as a servant, and in 1646 became secretary to François de La Rochefoucauld, author of the Maximes. Resourceful and quick-witted, he rendered services to his master during the Fronde, in his intrigues with the parliament, the court or the princes. In these negotiations he made the acquaintance of Condé, whom he wished to help to escape from the château of Vincennes; of Mazarin, for whom he negotiated the reconciliation with the princes; and of Nicolas Fouquet.

After the Fronde he engaged in financial affairs, thanks to Fouquet. In 1658 he farmed the taille in Guienne. He bought depreciated rentes and had them raised to their nominal value by the treasury; he extorted gifts from the financiers for his protection, being Fouquet's confidant in many operations of which he shared the profits. In three years he accumulated an enormous fortune, still further increased by his unfailing good fortune at cards, playing even with the king. He was involved in the trial of Fouquet, and in April 1663 was condemned to death for peculation and embezzlement of public funds; but escaping, was executed in effigy. He sent a valet one night to take the effigy down from the gallows in the court of the Palais de Justice, and then fled the country.

He remained five years abroad, being excepted in 1665 from the amnesty accorded by Louis XIV to the condemned financiers. Having returned secretly to France, he entered the service of Condé, who, unable to meet his creditors, had need of a clever manager to put his affairs in order. In this way he was able to reappear at court, to assist at the campaigns of the war with Holland, and to offer himself for all the delicate negotiations for his master or the king. He received diplomatic missions in Germany, in Holland, and especially in Spain, though it was only in 1694, that he was freed from the condemnation pronounced against him by the chamber of justice. From 1696 he fell ill and withdrew to his estate, where he dictated to his secretary, in four months and a half, his Mémoires, an important source for the history of his time. In spite of several errors, introduced purposely, they give a clear idea of the life and morals of a financier of the age of Fouquet, and throw light on certain points of the diplomatic history. They were first published in 1724.

Gourville died in Paris on June 14, 1703.

title: Jean Hérault, Baron of Gourville


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Politiken

Politiken is a leading Danish daily broadsheet newspaper, published by JP/Politikens Hus in Copenhagen, Denmark. It was founded in 1884 and played a role in the formation of the Danish Social Liberal Party. Since 1970 it has been independent of the party but maintains a liberal stance. It now runs an online newspaper, politiken.dk. The paper's design has won several international awards, and a number of its journalists have won the Cavling Prize.

History and profile
Dagbladet Politiken was founded on 1 October 1884 in Copenhagen by Viggo Hørup, Edvard Brandes and Hermann Bing. Hørup and Brandes formed the newspaper after being fired as editors from the Morgenbladet over political differences. Hørup led the paper as editor-in-chief for fifteen years from its start in 1884.

In 1904, the tabloid Ekstra Bladet was founded as a supplement to Politiken and was later spun off as an independent newspaper on 1 January 1905. The paper established its present location in central Copenhagen at The City Hall Square in 1912.

In 1987 Politiken started its business supplement. The paper was published by Politikens Hus until 1 January 2003 when the company merged with Jyllands-Posten A/S to form JP/Politikens Hus. Thus, Jyllands-Posten became its sister paper. Politiken is published in broadsheet format.

The newspaper also publishes an international edition named Politiken Weekly which compiles the most important stories of the week for Danes living abroad.

In 2012, Politiken Foundation became one of the founding members of the European Press Prize.

In February 2020 Politiken and its editor-in-chief, Christian Jensen, had to pay a fine due to the publication of the sections from a book on the security and intelligence of Denmark in 2016.

Since 2016, Danish journalist Mette Davidsen-Nielsen has worked as the cultural editor at Politiken Foundation.

In November 2023, Politiken joined with the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, Paper trail media and 69 media partners including Distributed Denial of Secrets and the Organized Crime and Corruption Reporting Project (OCCRP) and more than 270 journalists in 55 countries and territories to produce the 'Cyprus Confidential' report on the financial network which supports the regime of Vladimir Putin, mostly with connections to Cyprus, and showed Cyprus to have strong links with high-up figures in the Kremlin, some of whom have been sanctioned. Government officials including Cyprus president Nikos Christodoulides and European lawmakers began responding to the investigation's findings in less than 24 hours, calling for reforms and launching probes.

Wartime reporting
On 28 April 1940, three weeks after the German invasion of Denmark, Politiken ran an editorial in which Winston Churchill was called "a dangerous man". The editorial was written by foreign affairs editor Einard Schou after a conversation in the editor-in-chief's office with chairman of the board and soon-to-be-again Danish foreign minister Erik Scavenius. The aim is thought to have been to please the German occupation force, though no other Danish newspaper took such steps at the time. Usually, it was enough to keep within the newly introduced censorship. The article led to 15,000 readers, about 10% of subscribers, cancelling their subscriptions in protest.

Editorial line
During the early 1900s Politiken had a cultural radical political stance. Historically the paper was connected to the Danish Social Liberal Party (Det Radikale Venstre), but the newspaper declared its political independence in 1970. The paper has a far-leaning social, liberal and centre-left stance.

In February 2010 the editor in chief at the time Tøger Seidenfaden apologized to anyone who was offended by the newspaper's decision to reprint the cartoon drawing by Kurt Westergaard depicting Muhammed with a bomb in his turban, which was originally published in Morgenavisen Jyllands-Posten. Seidenfaden explained that "Politiken has never intended to reprint the cartoon drawing as a statement of editorial opinion or values but merely as part of the newspaper's news coverage".

Circulation
Politiken started with a daily circulation of 2,000 copies. Its circulation was 23,142 copies in 1901. In 1910 its circulation rose to 41,400 copies. Later it became one of Denmark's leading newspapers in terms of both circulated copies and number of readers. Its circulation was 165,615 copies in 1950. During the last six months of 1957 the paper had a circulation of 148,169 copies on weekdays. It fell to 142,847 copies in 1960. The circulation of the paper was 134,728 in 1970, 138,921 copies in 1980 and 152,435 copies in 1990. During the second half of 1997 its circulation was 146,000 copies on weekdays.

Politiken had a circulation of 143,000 copies on weekdays and 185,000 copies on Sundays in the first quarter of 2000, making it the third best selling newspaper in the country. It was 142,780 copies in 2000. In 2002 it was the third best-selling newspaper in the country with a circulation of 142,000 copies. The circulation of the paper was 137,000 copies in 2003, making it again the third best selling newspaper in the country. In 2004 the paper had a circulation of 134,000 copies.

The circulation of Politiken was 110,230 copies in 2007. The number of copies sold per day in the first half of 2012 were 97,820 on weekdays and Saturdays, and 120,411 on Sundays. The same year the number of readers were 375,000 on weekdays and Saturdays, and 479,000 readers on Sundays. The paper had a circulation of 88,597 copies in 2013.

Its online newspaper, politiken.dk, received around 800,000 monthly users in 2011 and was the tenth most viewed page among the members of the Association of Danish Interactive Media.

Awards
Internationally, Politiken has received recognition for its design through the form of several awards. In 2012 Politiken was declared 'World's Best' along with four other newspapers in a competition carried out by the Society for News Design. In 2014 the paper was chosen as one of Scandinavia’s best-designed newspapers in the Best of Scandinavian News Design competition.

The paper's design, format, and brand was given as the reason, when in 2010, the European Newspapers Congress awarded Politiken with the European Newspaper Award in the national newspaper category.

Politiken has also been known for its photography. Jan Grarup, winner of several World Press Photo Awards and numerous other prizes, was a staff photographer from 2003 until 2009.

Anselm Hüwe is one of the contemporary awarded photographers.

The Cavling Award
Cavlingprisen ("The Cavling Award") is a Danish honorary award for journalism. It was named after a former reporter and editor-in-chief at Politiken Henrik Cavling.

Cavling award winners at Politiken:

 * 1945 Henrik V. Ringsted
 * 1946 Kristian Find (Findus)
 * 1962 Jørgen Hartmann-Petersen (Habakuk)
 * 1966 Herbert Pundik
 * 1967 Sune Skallerup Sørensen
 * 1968 Erik Nørgaard
 * 1974 Anne Wolden-Ræthinge (Ninka)
 * 1976 Inger Østergaard
 * 1982 J. B. Holmgaard
 * 1992 Svend Bjering Schmidt (Svenne)
 * 2006 Miriam Dalsgaard (photographer) and Olav Hergel

Editors in chief
Politiken has had a number of editors in chief since its inception. In some periods there were more than one editor at a time, causing overlap.

 * 1884–1901: Viggo Hørup
 * 1901–1904: Edvard Brandes
 * 1905–1927: Henrik Cavling
 * 1927–1937: Valdemar Koppel
 * 1937–1933: Ove Rode
 * 1931–1959: Niels Hasager
 * 1941–1963: Poul Graae
 * 1946–1959: Hakon Stephensen
 * 1959–1963: Svend Tillge-Rasmussen
 * 1963–1966: Bo Bramsen
 * 1963–1970: Ernst Priemé
 * 1963–1971: Harald Engberg
 * 1966–1971: Arne Ejbye-Ernst
 * 1970–1993: Herbert Pundik
 * 1971–1982: Bent Thorndahl
 * 1981–1993: Agner Ahm
 * 1981–1992: Jørgen Grunnet
 * 1993–2011: Tøger Seidenfaden
 * 2011– 2016: Bo Lidegaard
 * 2016-: Christian Jensen

title: Politiken


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Harpoon

A harpoon is a long spear-like projectile used in fishing, whaling, sealing, and other hunting to shoot, kill, and capture large fish or marine mammals such as seals, sea cows and whales. It impales the target and secures it with barb or toggling claws, allowing the fishermen or hunters to use an attached rope or chain to pull and retrieve the animal. A harpoon can also be used as a ranged weapon against other watercraft in naval warfare.

Certain harpoons are made with different builds to perform better with the type of target. For example, the Inuit have short, fixed-foreshaft harpoons for hunting at breathing holes, while loose-shafted ones are made for throwing and remaining attached to the game.

History

In the 1990s, harpoon points, known as the Semliki harpoons or the Katanda harpoons, were found in the Katanda region in Zaire. As the earliest known harpoons, these weapons were made and used 90,000 years ago, most likely to spear catfishes. Later, in Japan, spearfishing with poles was widespread in palaeolithic times, especially during the Solutrean and Magdalenian periods. Cosquer Cave in southern France has cave art over 16,000 years old, including drawings of seals that appear to have been harpooned.

There are references to harpoons in ancient literature, though in most cases the descriptions do not go into detail. An early example can be found in the Bible in Job 41:7 (NIV): "Can you fill its hide with harpoons or its head with fishing spears?" The Greek historian Polybius (c. 203 BC – 120 BC), in his Histories, describes hunting for swordfish by using a harpoon with a barbed and detachable head. Copper harpoons were known to the seafaring Harappans well into antiquity. Early hunters in India include the Mincopie people, aboriginal inhabitants of India's Andaman and Nicobar islands, who have used harpoons with long cords for fishing since early times.

Whaling

In the novel Moby-Dick, Herman Melville explained the reason for the harpoon's effectiveness: "In most land animals there are certain valves or flood gates in many of their veins, whereby when wounded, the blood is in some degree at least instantly shut off in certain directions. Not so with the whale; one of whose peculiarities is, to have an entire non-valvular structure of the blood-vessels, so that when pierced even by so small a point as a harpoon, a deadly drain is at once begun upon his whole arterial system; and when this is heightened by the extraordinary pressure of water at a great distance below the surface, his life may be said to pour from him in incessant streams. Yet so vast is the quantity of blood in him, and so distant and numerous its interior fountains, that he will keep thus bleeding and bleeding for a considerable period; even as in a drought a river will flow, whose source is in the well springs of far off and undiscernible hills."

- Herman Melville, Moby-Dick, 1851

He also describes another device that was at times a necessary addition to harpoons:

"All whale-boats carry certain curious contrivances, originally invented by the Nantucket Indians, called druggs [i.e. drogues]. Two thick squares of wood of equal size are stoutly clenched together, so that they cross each other's grain at right angles; a line of considerable length is then attached to the middle of this block, and the other end of the line being looped, it can in a moment be fastened to a harpoon. It is chiefly among gallied [frightened] whales that this drugg is used. For then, more whales are close round you than you can possibly chase at one time. But sperm whales are not every day encountered; while you may, then, you must kill all you can.  And if you cannot kill them all at once, you must wing [injure] them, so that they can be afterwards killed at your leisure.  Hence it is that at times like these the drugg comes into requisition."

- Melville, Moby-Dick

Explosive harpoons
The first use of explosives in the hunting of whales was made by the British South Sea Company in 1737, after some years of declining catches. A large fleet was sent, armed with cannon-fired harpoons. Although the weaponry was successful in killing the whales, most of the catch sank before being retrieved. However, the system was still occasionally used, and underwent successive improvements at the hands of various inventors over the next century, including Abraham Stagholt in the 1770s and George Manby in the early 19th century.

William Congreve, who invented some of the first rockets for British Army use, designed a rocket-propelled whaling harpoon in the 1820s. The shell was designed to explode on contact and impale the whale with the harpoon. The weapon was in turn attached by a line to the boat, and the hope was that the explosion would generate enough gas within the whale to keep it afloat for retrieval. Expeditions were sent out to try this new technology; many whales were killed, but most of them sank. These early devices, called bomb lances, became widely used for the hunting of humpbacks and right whales. A notable user of these early explosive harpoons was the American Thomas Welcome Roys in 1865, who set up a shore station in Seydisfjördur, Iceland. A slump in oil prices after the American Civil War forced their endeavor into bankruptcy in 1867.

An early version of the explosive harpoon was designed by Jacob Nicolai Walsøe, a Norwegian painter and inventor. His 1851 application was rejected by the interior ministry on the grounds that he had received public funding for his experiments. In 1867, a Danish fireworks manufacturer, Gaetano Amici, patented a cannon-fired harpoon, and in the same year, an Englishman, George Welch, patented a grenade harpoon very similar to the version which transformed whaling in the following decade.

In 1870, the Norwegian shipping magnate Svend Foyn patented and pioneered the modern exploding whaling harpoon and gun. Foyn had studied the American method in Iceland. His basic design is still in use today. He perceived the failings of other methods and solved these problems in his own system. He included, with the help of H.M.T. Esmark, a grenade tip that exploded inside the whale. This harpoon design also utilized a shaft that was connected to the head with a moveable joint. His original cannons were muzzle-loaded with special padding and also used a unique form of gunpowder. The cannons were later replaced with safer breech-loading types.

Together with the steam-powered whale catcher, this development ushered in the modern age of commercial whaling. Euro-American whalers were now equipped to hunt faster and more powerful species, such as the rorquals. Because rorquals sank when they died, later versions of the exploding harpoon injected air into the carcass to keep it afloat.

The modern whaling harpoon consists of a deck-mounted launcher (mostly a cannon) and a projectile which is a large harpoon with an explosive (penthrite) charge, attached to a thick rope. The spearhead is shaped in a manner which allows it to penetrate the thick layers of whale blubber and stick in the flesh. It has sharp spikes to prevent the harpoon from sliding out. Thus, by pulling the rope with a motor, the whalers can drag the whale back to their ship.

A recent development in harpoon technology is the hand-held speargun. Divers use the speargun for spearing fish. They may also be used for defense against dangerous marine animals. Spearguns may be powered by pressurized gas or with mechanical means like springs or elastic bands.

Space
The Philae spacecraft carried harpoons for helping the probe anchor itself to the surface of comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. However, the harpoons failed to fire.

title: Harpoon


text:
Antoine Furetière

Antoine Furetière (28 December 1619 – 14 May 1688) was a French scholar, writer, and lexicographer, known best for his satirical novel Scarron's City Romance. He was expelled from the Académie Française for seeking to publish his own French language dictionary.

Biography
Furetière was born in Paris, the son of an employee of the royal household. He studied law and worked for a time as an attorney and tax assessor. Later he became a Catholic clergyman and, after various promotions, the abbé of Chalivoy in the diocese of Bourges in 1662. Thanks to the leisure he enjoyed as a clergyman, he was able to devote himself to writing. He was admitted to the Académie Française in 1662 by virtue of his satire Nouvelle allégorique, ou histoire des derniers troubles arrivés au royaume d'éloquence (1658), among other works.

One of Furetière's most important literary works was Le Roman bourgeois (1666). This satirical novel described everyday life, especially within the legal profession, and ridiculed the fashionable romances of Madeleine de Scudéry and of Gauthier de Costes, seigneur de la Calprenède. Because of its similarity to Paul Scarron's Le Roman comique (1651, 1657), it was translated into English as Scarron's City Romance in 1671. With a self-conscious narrator who comments on his techniques and disregards the conventions of the novel, it anticipates Laurence Sterne's Tristram Shandy (1759–1767).

At its founding, the Académie Française had been entrusted with the task of producing a complete dictionary of the French language. Furetière initially participated in the collaborative project with enthusiasm, but eventually grew frustrated with his colleagues' approach and slow progress and began work on his own dictionary, probably around 1676–1678. When members of the academy heard that Furetière was about to publish his dictionary, they interfered, alleging that he had stolen their material and violated the monopoly they had held on French dictionaries since 1672. In 1685, after fierce recrimination on both sides, Furetière was expelled from the academy, and the French government revoked his permission to publish the dictionary. In 1690, Furetière's Dictionaire universel was published posthumously in the Netherlands with a Preface prepared by his friend Pierre Bayle.

title: Antoine Furetière


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Gauthier de Costes, seigneur de la Calprenède

Gauthier de Costes, seigneur de la Calprenède (1609 or 1610 – 1663) was a French novelist and dramatist. He was born at the Château of Tolgou in Salignac-Eyvigues (Dordogne). After studying at Toulouse, he came to Paris and entered the regiment of the guards, becoming in 1650 gentleman-in-ordinary of the royal household. He died in 1663 in consequence of a kick from his horse.

La Calprenède wrote several long heroic romances that were later ridiculed by Boileau, and most of them were also referenced in Charlotte Lennox's The Female Quixote. They are: Cassandre (5 vols., 1642–1650); Cléopâtre (1648); Faramond (1661); and Les Nouvelles, ou les Divertissements de la princesse Alcidiane (1661) published under his wife's name, but generally attributed to him. His Le Comte d'Essex, produced in 1638, supplied some ideas to Thomas Corneille for his tragedy of the same name.

Works online

 * Édouard, 1640
 * Phalante, 1642
 * Herménigilde, 1643
 * Jeanne, reyne d’Angleterre, 1638
 * La Bradamante, 1637
 * La Mort de Mitridate, 1637
 * La Mort des enfants d’Hérodes, ou Suite de Mariane, 1639
 * Le Clarionte, ou le Sacrifice sanglant, 1637
 * Le Comte d’Essex, 1638


text:
Dagbladet Information

Information, full name: Dagbladet Information , is a Danish newspaper published Monday through Saturday.

History and profile
Dagbladet Information was established and published by the Danish resistance movement in 1943 during World War II. The paper was edited by Børge Outze and was illegal during the war as it was not regulated by the German occupying power. Following the liberation on 5 May 1945 Dagbladet Information was a reality and was officially founded in August 1945. Outze continued to work as the paper's editor in chief to his death in 1980. It has its headquarters in Copenhagen.

Dagbladet Information is the youngest major newspaper in Denmark and remains independent of the larger publishing houses. The paper is owned by A/S Information and is published by A/S Dagbladet Information from Monday to Saturday. It is based in Copenhagen.

In the 1970s Dagbladet Information was one of the alternative media together with Politisk Revy in Denmark and covered all dimensions of new social movements.

The newspaper, which despite being politically independent, is regarded as left liberal and leftist by some, but known as being equally critical in its point of view of all political organizations. It prints letters from prominent conservative figures and it tries to see several sides of a case. The tone is serious and the number of charts and pictures is limited, comparable to the French newspaper Le Monde. Information has a syndication agreement with the British newspaper The Guardian, and often collaborates with The Independent for articles and reports. The paper covers in-depth analytical articles.

Dagbladet Information was published in broadsheet format until 30 November 2004 when it switched to a compact format.

On 8 September 2006, the newspaper printed six of the less offensive entries from the Iranian Holocaust cartoon exhibition, which was a response to the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy. The editor chose the cartoons after consulting the main rabbi in Copenhagen.

Danish journalist Mette Davidsen-Nielsen served as the paper's CEO from 2010 to 2016.

Circulation
During the last six months of 1957 Dagbladet Information had a circulation of 24,214 copies on weekdays. The circulation of the paper was 22,000 copies on weekdays during the second half of 1997. Its circulation was also 22,000 copies in the first quarter of 2000. The paper had a circulation of 20,000 copies in 2004 and 20,600 copies in 2005. In 2009 it had a daily circulation of 22,000 copies, making it the smallest national daily newspaper in Denmark.

title: Dagbladet Information


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Mary O'Rourke

Mary O'Rourke (Lenihan; born 31 May 1937) is an Irish former Fianna Fáil politician who served as Leader of the Seanad and Leader of Fianna Fáil in the Seanad from 2002 to 2007, Deputy leader of Fianna Fáil from 1994 to 2002, Minister for Public Enterprise from 1997 to 2002, Minister for Health from 1991 to 1992 and Minister for Education from 1987 to 1991. She also served as a Minister of State from 1992 to 1994. She served as a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1982 to 2002 and 2007 to 2011. She served as a Senator for the Cultural and Educational Panel from 1981 to 1982 and from 2002 to 2007, after being Nominated by the Taoiseach.

Early life
She was born in Athlone, County Westmeath, in 1937. She was educated at St. Peter's, Athlone; Loreto Bray Convent, County Wicklow; University College Dublin and St Patrick's College, Maynooth. She worked as a secondary school teacher before she began her political career.

Political career
O'Rourke began her political career in local politics, serving on Athlone Urban District Council between 1974 and 1987 and on Westmeath County Council between 1979 and 1987. She was elected to Seanad Éireann in 1981 as a Senator for the Cultural and Educational Panel. She stood unsuccessfully for the Dáil at the February 1982 general election, but was subsequently re-elected to the Seanad. At the November 1982 general election, she was first elected to Dáil Éireann as a Fianna Fáil TD for the Longford–Westmeath constituency, and from 1992 for the new Westmeath constituency.

In 1987, she was appointed Minister for Education by Charles Haughey. O'Rourke and her brother, Brian Lenihan, became the first brother and sister in Irish history to serve in the same cabinet. In the November 1991 cabinet reshuffle, O'Rourke became Minister for Health. In February 1992, Charles Haughey resigned as Taoiseach and Fianna Fáil leader. O'Rourke contested the subsequent leadership election along with Michael Woods and Albert Reynolds. Reynolds defeated the other two contenders and O'Rourke was subsequently dropped from her ministerial position, but was appointed to a junior ministry as Minister of State at the Department of Industry and Commerce with responsibility for Trade and Marketing. In January 1993, she was appointed as Minister of State at the Department of Enterprise and Employment with responsibility for Labour Affairs, serving until the fall of the Reynolds government in December 1994.

In 1994, Bertie Ahern became party leader and he appointed O'Rourke as deputy leader of Fianna Fáil, serving in the position until 2002. Following Ahern's election as Taoiseach in June 1997, O'Rourke became Minister for Public Enterprise, holding this position until she lost her Dáil seat at the 2002 general election. This followed a vote management strategy from Fianna Fáil head office which restricted her from campaigning in her traditional areas around Kilbeggan, in an attempt to win 2 of the 3 seats in Westmeath. The loss of her Dáil seat has also been attributed to her association with and the championing of, the privatisation of Telecom Éireann, which proved a financial disaster for many small investors, due to the share price falling radically, post privatisation. During this term as Minister, she also became the subject of public criticism by Ryanair chief executive Michael O'Leary. Following the loss of her Dáil seat, she was nominated to Seanad Éireann as a Senator by Taoiseach Bertie Ahern where she became Leader of the Seanad and leader of Fianna Fáil in the Seanad.

In January 2006, O'Rourke received the party nomination to stand at the 2007 general election. She narrowly defeated her nearest rival and Dáil election running mate, Kevin "Boxer" Moran of Athlone Town Council, causing a controversy when she thanked her election team for working "like blacks." In May 2007, she was re-elected to the Dáil at the 2007 general election, with her highest ever vote.

In November 2008, during a march against the re-introduction of college fees, students from the Athlone Institute of Technology laid a funeral wreath at the door of O'Rourke's constituency office. The card in the wreath stated "Sincere sympathies on the death of free fees. We will remember this." O'Rourke described the act as "heinous". The wreath was placed there because O'Rourke was not speaking at a rally against the fees.

In July 2010, O'Rourke conceded that she did not expect the party to be in power after the next general election. On RTÉ Radio's Today with Pat Kenny programme, O'Rourke said the government was taking tough decisions to steer the country through the financial crisis and this would make it easy for the opposition. She said there was a general air of "crossness" within the Fianna Fáil party over their standing in the polls, but nobody was harboring leadership ambitions to challenge Brian Cowen.

O'Rourke in November 2010 said there was then more to unite her party and Fine Gael than to divide them. She pointed to the common approach of the two parties to Northern Ireland, Europe and the current financial crisis. In an address to the 1916–1921 Club in Dublin Castle last night, she said that most voters no longer defined themselves in terms of Civil War politics. Having pointed to the shared values of the two parties on a number of issues, she said the last issue she wanted to mention was the "dreaded b" word.

Her senior years led her to often being referred to as the "Mammy of the Dáil".

She contested the 2011 general election, but was defeated on the poll. O'Rourke has criticised former Taoiseach Brian Cowen, saying that he should have resigned after his infamous "congested" radio interview. She supported the attack on Cowen by her nephew, former Finance Minister Brian Lenihan, who said he was "disappointed" by Cowen's performance and he had to provide the leadership when the Taoiseach did not.

In retirement, she received a lump sum of €237,000 and an annual pension of €97,000.

Other activities
As well as being a well-known politician, O'Rourke makes regular appearances in the media in a non-political capacity. She has been a contestant on RTÉ's reality series Celebrity Bainisteoir, as well as other shows such as Sex & Sensibility. She has guest presented Tonight with Vincent Browne.

In 2012, Just Mary: My Memoir was published. It won the 2012 Irish Book Award in the "Listeners' Choice" category.

Family
O'Rourke comes from a strong political family, her father Patrick Lenihan served as a TD for Longford–Westmeath from 1965 to 1970. Her brother Brian Lenihan was a senior government Minister and Tánaiste. Another brother Paddy Lenihan was a County Councillor in Roscommon, but resigned from Fianna Fáil in 1983 and became associated with Neil Blaney's Independent Fianna Fáil party. Two of her nephews, Brian Lenihan Jnr and Conor Lenihan, both sons of her brother Brian, served as Ministers. Brian Lenihan Jnr was the Minister for Finance. Conor Lenihan was a Minister of State.

O'Rourke was widowed in January 2001, following the death of her husband, Enda. She has two sons. One of them, Aengus O'Rourke (her adopted son), ran for Athlone Town Council in 2009. The other son, Feargal O'Rourke, became Managing Partner of PriceWaterHouseCoopers in Ireland in 2015 and is considered the "grand architect" of the double Irish tax system, a major contributor to Ireland's economic success in attracting US multinationals to Ireland.

title: Mary O'Rourke


text:
Madeleine de Scudéry

Madeleine de Scudéry (15 November 1607 – 2 June 1701), often known simply as Mademoiselle de Scudéry, was a French writer.

Her works also demonstrate such comprehensive knowledge of ancient history that it is suspected she had received instruction in Greek and Latin. In 1637, following the death of her uncle, Scudéry established herself in Paris with her brother, Georges de Scudéry, who became a playwright. Madeleine often used her older brother's name, George, to publish her works. She was at once admitted to the Hôtel de Rambouillet coterie of préciosité, and afterwards established a salon of her own under the title of the Société du samedi (Saturday Society). For the last half of the 17th century, under the pseudonym of Sapho or her own name, she was acknowledged as the first bluestocking of France and of the world. She formed a close romantic relationship with Paul Pellisson which was only ended by his death in 1693. She never married.

Biography
Born at Le Havre, Normandy, in northern France, she was without fortune, but she was exceedingly well-educated. Her father, captain of the port in Le Havre, died in 1613 with her mother following shortly after. Madeleine and her brother Georges de Scudéry were placed in the care of an uncle who cared for them very well. He gave Madeleine an abnormally well-rounded education: she studied writing, spelling, drawing, dancing, painting, and needlework. In addition, on her own, Madeleine studied agriculture, medicine, cooking, Spanish, and Italian.

Works
Her lengthy novels, such as Artamène, ou le Grand Cyrus (10 vols., 1648–53), Clélie (10 vols., 1654–61), Ibrahim, ou l'illustre Bassa (4 vols., 1641), Almahide, ou l'esclave reine (8 vols., 1661–63) were the delight of Europe, commended by other literary figures such as Madame de Sévigné. Artamène, which contains about 2.1 million words, ranks among the longest novels ever published. Her novels derive their length from endless conversations and, as far as incidents go, successive abductions of the heroines, conceived and told decorously. Contemporary readers also enjoyed these novels because they gave a glimpse into the life of important society figures. These figures were often disguised as Persian, Greek, and Roman warriors and maidens. In fact, Scudéry created the roman à clef to provide a forum for her thinly veiled fiction featuring political and public figures.

Les Femmes Illustres (1642) addresses itself to women and defends education, rather than the beauty or cosmetic, as a means of social mobility for women. This text was a means to justify women's participation in rhetoric and literary culture. It uses women speakers as models for the speeches, including Cleopatra of Egypt. In Les Femmes Illustres (1642), Conversations Sur Divers Sujets (1680), and Conversations Nouvelles sur Divers Sujets, Dediees Au Roy (1684), Madeleine de Scudéry adapted classical rhetorical theory from Cicero, Quintilian, Aristotle, and the sophists to a theory of salon conversation and letter writing. Scudéry's Conversations Sur Divers Sujets, included dialogues covering "Conversation," "The Art of Speaking," "Raillery," "Invention," and "The Manner of Writing Letters." This text offers the rhetoric of salon conversation and model scenarios where women take intellectual control of the conversation. Other works devoted to conversations, pertaining to the education of women include: "The Slave Queen" (1660), "Mathilda of Aguilar, a Spanish Tale," (1667), and "The Versailles Promenade, or the Tale of Celanire" (1669). These covered the art of speaking, invention, the manner of writing letters, and scenarios where women had control of the intellectual conversation.

Scudéry's novels are usually set in the classical world or "the Orient", but their language and action reflect fashionable ideas of the 17th century, and the characters can be identified with Mademoiselle de Scudéry's contemporaries. In Clélie, Herminius represents Paul Pellisson; Scaurus and Lyriane were Paul Scarron and his wife (who became Mme de Maintenon); and in the description of Sapho in vol. 10 of Le Grand Cyrus the author paints herself.

In Clélie, Scudéry invented the famous Carte de Tendre, a map of an Arcadia where the geography is all based around the theme of love: the river of Inclination flows past the villages of "Billet Doux" (love letter), "Petits Soins" (Little Trinkets) and so forth. Scudéry was a skilled conversationalist; several volumes purporting to report her conversations upon various topics were published during her lifetime. She had a distinct vocation as a pedagogue.

Later years
Madeleine survived her brother by more than thirty years, and in her later days published numerous volumes of conversations, to a great extent extracted from her novels, thus forming a kind of anthology of her work. Scudéry was deaf for the last 40 years of her life. She outlived her vogue to some extent, but retained a circle of friends, like Marie Dupré, to whom she was always the "incomparable Sapho."

Her Life and Correspondence was published at Paris by MM. Rathery and Boutron in 1873.

Legacy
Madeleine de Scudéry was part of a movement in the late Renaissance in England and France where women used classical rhetorical theory for their own. She revised discourse to be modeled on conversation rather than public speaking, favoring that as a means of rhetoric, the speaker in the salon built on the ideas of the speaker before them, opting for consensus rather than argument. She is one of the central figures associated with the "salon" conversation and letter writing.

Cultural references
Controversial in her own era, Mademoiselle de Scudéry was satirized by Molière in his plays Les Précieuses ridicules (1659) and Les Femmes savantes (1672) and by Antoine Furetière in his Roman Bourgeois (1666).

The 19th century German writer E.T.A. Hoffmann wrote what is usually referred to as the first German-language detective story, featuring Scudéry as the central figure. "Das Fräulein von Scuderi" (Mademoiselle de Scudery) is still widely read today, and is the origin of the "Cardillac syndrome" in psychology.

Mademoiselle de Scudéry is also featured prominently in Madeleine: One of Love's Jansenists, a novel published in 1919 by modernist writer Hope Mirrlees. The novel is set in and around the literary circles of the 17th Century Précieuses. The protagonist, a young woman named Madeleine Troqueville, becomes enamored of Mademoiselle de Scudéry, who snubs young Madeleine. It has been suggested that the novel is a roman à clef with Natalie Clifford Barney portrayed as Mademoiselle de Scudéry.

Literature

 * Oliver Mallick, "Le héros de toutes les saisons": Herrscherlob und politische Reflexionen in Madeleine de Scudérys Roman "La Promenade de Versailles" (1669), in: Zeitschrift für historische Forschung, vol. 41, no. 4 (2014), p. 619–686.
 * Sainte-Beuve, Causeries du lundi, volume IV (Paris, 1857–62)
 * Rathery and Boutron, Mademoiselle de Scudéry: Sa vie et sa correspondance (Paris, 1873)
 * Victor Cousin, La société française au XVIIe siècle (sixth edition, two volumes, Paris, 1886)
 * André Le Breton, Le roman au XVIIe siècle (Paris, 1890)
 * AG Mason, The Women of the French Salons (New York, 1891)
 * Georges Mongrédien, Madeleine de Scudéry et son salon: d'après des documents inédits, 1946
 * Dorothy McDougall, Madeleine de Scudéry: her romantic life and death, 1972
 * Alain Niderst, Madeleine de Scudéry, Paul Pellisson et leur monde, 1976

Summaries of the stories and keys to the characters may be found in Heinrich Körting, Geschichte des französischen Romans im 17ten Jahrhundert (second edition, Oppeln, 1891).

title: Madeleine de Scudéry


text:
Eoin MacNeill

Eoin MacNeill (Eoin Mac Néill; born John McNeill; 15 May 1867 – 15 October 1945) was an Irish scholar, Irish language enthusiast, Gaelic revivalist, nationalist and politician who served as Minister for Education from 1922 to 1925, Ceann Comhairle of Dáil Éireann from 1921 to 1922, Minister for Industries 1919 to 1921 and Minister for Finance January 1919 to April 1919. He served as a Teachta Dála (TD) from 1918 to 1927. He was a Member of Parliament (MP) for Londonderry City from 1918 to 1922 and a Member of the Northern Ireland Parliament (MP) for Londonderry from 1921 to 1925.

A key figure of the Gaelic revival, MacNeill was a co-founder of the Gaelic League, to preserve Irish language and culture. He has been described as "the father of the modern study of early Irish medieval history".

He established the Irish Volunteers in 1913 and served as Chief-of-Staff of the minority faction after its split in 1914 at the start of the World War. He held that position at the outbreak of the Easter Rising in 1916, but had no role in the Rising or its planning, which was carried out by his nominal subordinates, including Patrick Pearse, who were members of the secret society, the Irish Republican Brotherhood. On learning of the plans to launch an uprising on Easter Sunday, and after confronting Pearse about it, MacNeill issued a countermanding order, placing a last-minute newspaper advertisement instructing Volunteers not to take part.

In 1918 he was elected to the First Dáil as a member of Sinn Féin.

Early life
MacNeill was born John McNeill, one of five children born to Archibald McNeill, a Roman Catholic working-class baker, sailor and merchant, and his wife, Rosetta (née McAuley) McNeill, also a Catholic. He was raised in Glenarm, County Antrim, an area which "still retained some Irish-language traditions". His niece was nationalist and teacher, Máirín Beaumont.

MacNeill was educated at St Malachy's College (Belfast) and Queen's College, Belfast. He had an interest in Irish history and immersed himself in its study. He achieved a BA degree in economics, jurisprudence and constitutional history in 1888, and then worked in the British Civil Service.

He co-founded the Gaelic League in 1893, along with Douglas Hyde; MacNeill was unpaid secretary from 1893 to 1897, and then became the initial editor of the League's official newspaper An Claidheamh Soluis (1899–1901). He was also editor of the Gaelic Journal from 1894 to 1899. In 1908, he was appointed professor of early Irish history at University College Dublin.

He married Agnes Moore on 19 April 1898. The couple had eight children, four sons and four daughters (though the 1911 census entry for Mac Neill noted 11 children, seven of whom were still alive).

Irish Volunteers
The Gaelic League was from the start strictly non-political, but in 1915, a proposal was put forward to abandon that policy and become a semi-political organisation. MacNeill strongly supported that and rallied to his side a majority of delegates at the 1915 Oireachtas. Douglas Hyde, a non-political Protestant, who had co-founded the League and been its president for 22 years, resigned immediately afterward. Through the Gaelic League, MacNeill met members of Sinn Féin, the Irish Republican Brotherhood (IRB), and other nationalists and republicans. One such colleague, The O'Rahilly, ran the league's newspaper An Claidheamh Soluis, and in October 1913 they asked MacNeill to write an editorial for it on a subject more broad than Irish language issues. MacNeill submitted a piece called "The North Began", encouraging formation of a nationalist volunteer force committed to Irish Home Rule, much as the unionists had done earlier that year with the Ulster Volunteers to thwart Home Rule in Ireland.

Bulmer Hobson, a member of the IRB, approached MacNeill about bringing the idea to fruition, and, through a series of meetings, MacNeill became chairman of the council that formed the Irish Volunteers, later becoming its chief of staff. Unlike the IRB, MacNeill was opposed to the idea of an armed rebellion, except in resisting any suppression of the Volunteers, seeing little hope of success in open battle against the British army.

The Irish Volunteers had been infiltrated by the Irish Republican Brotherhood, which planned on using the organisation to stage an armed rebellion, with the goal of separating Ireland from the United Kingdom and establishing an Irish Republic. The entry of the UK into the First World War was, in their view, a perfect opportunity to do that. With the co-operation of James Connolly and the Irish Citizen Army, a secret council of IRB officials planned a general rising at Easter 1916. On the Wednesday before Easter, they presented MacNeill with a letter, allegedly stolen from high-ranking British staff in Dublin Castle, indicating that the British were going to arrest him and all the other nationalist leaders. Unbeknownst to MacNeill, the letter—called the Castle Document—was a forgery.

When MacNeill learned about the IRB's plans, and when he was informed that Roger Casement was about to land in County Kerry with a shipment of German arms, he was reluctantly persuaded to go along with them, believing British action was now imminent and that mobilization of the Irish Volunteers would be justified as a defensive act. However, after learning that the German arms shipment had been intercepted and Casement arrested, and having confronted Patrick Pearse, who refused to relent, MacNeill countermanded the order for the Rising by sending written messages to leaders around the country, and placing a notice in the Sunday Independent cancelling the planned "manoeuvres". That greatly reduced the number of volunteers who reported for duty on the day of the Easter Rising.

Pearse, Connolly and the others agreed that the uprising would go ahead anyway, but it began one day later than originally intended to ensure that the authorities were taken by surprise. Beginning on Easter Monday, 24 April 1916, the Rising lasted less than a week. After the surrender of the rebels, MacNeill was arrested although he had taken no part in the insurrection. The rebel leader Tom Clarke, according to his wife Kathleen, warned her on the day before his execution, "I want you to see to it that our people know of his treachery to us. He must never be allowed back into the National life of this country, for so sure as he is, so sure will he act treacherously in a crisis. He is a weak man, but I know every effort will be made to whitewash him."

Political life
MacNeill was released from prison in 1917 and was elected MP for the National University and Londonderry City constituencies for Sinn Féin in the 1918 general election. In line with abstentionist Sinn Féin policy, he refused to take his seat in the British House of Commons in London and sat instead in the newly convened Dáil Éireann in Dublin, where he was made Secretary for Industries in the second ministry of the First Dáil. He was a member of the Parliament of Northern Ireland for Londonderry between 1921 and 1925, although he never took his seat. In 1921, he supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty. In 1922, he was in a minority of pro-Treaty delegates at the Irish Race Convention in Paris. Following the establishment of the Irish Free State, he became Minister for Education in its second (provisional) government, the third Dáil.

In 1923, MacNeill, a committed internationalist, was also a key member of the diplomatic team that oversaw Ireland's entry to the League of Nations.

MacNeill's family was split on the treaty issue. One son, Brian, took the anti-Treaty side and was killed in disputed circumstances near Sligo by Free State troops during the Irish Civil War in September 1922. Two other sons, Niall and Turloch, as well as nephew Hugo MacNeill, served as officers in the Free State Army. One of Eoin's brothers, James McNeill, was the second and penultimate Governor-General of the Irish Free State.

Irish Boundary Commission
In 1924 the three man Irish Boundary Commission was set up to settle the border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Free State; MacNeill represented the Irish Free State. MacNeill was the only member of the Commission without legal training and has been described as having been “pathetically out of his depth”. However, each of the Commissioners was selected out of political expediency rather than for any established competence or insight into boundary making. On 7 November 1925, a conservative British newspaper, The Morning Post, published a leaked map showing a part of eastern County Donegal (mainly The Laggan district) that was to be transferred to Northern Ireland; the opposite of the main aims of the Commission. Perhaps embarrassed by that, especially since he said that it had declined to respect the terms of the Treaty, MacNeill resigned from the Commission on 20 November. On 24 November 1925 he also resigned as Minister for Education, a position unrelated to his work on the Commission.

On 3 December 1925, the Free State government agreed with the governments in London and Belfast to end its onerous treaty requirement to pay its share of the United Kingdom's "imperial debt" and, in exchange, agreed that the 1920 boundary would remain as it was, overriding the Commission. That angered many nationalists and MacNeill was the subject of much criticism, but in reality, he and the Commission had been sidestepped by the intergovernmental debt renegotiation. In any case, despite his resignations, the intergovernmental boundary deal was approved by a Dáil vote of 71–20 on 10 December 1925, and MacNeill is listed as voting with the majority in favour. He lost his Dáil seat at the June 1927 election.

Academic
MacNeill was an important scholar of Irish history and among the first to study Early Irish law, offering both his own interpretations, which at times were coloured by his nationalism, and translations into English. He was also the first to uncover the nature of succession in Irish kingship, and his theories are the foundation for modern ideas on the subject.

He was a contributor to the Royal Irish Academy's Clare Island Survey, recording the Irish place names of the island. On 25 February 1911, he delivered the inaugural address on "Academic Education and Practical Politics" to the Legal and Economic Society of University College Dublin.. His disagreements and disputes with Goddard Henry Orpen, particularly over the latter's book Ireland under the Normans, generated controversy.

He was President of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland from 1937 to 1940 and President of the Royal Irish Academy from 1940 to 1943.

Later life and death
He retired from politics completely and became Chairman of the Irish Manuscripts Commission. In his later years he devoted his life to scholarship, he published a number of books on Irish history. MacNeill died in Dublin of natural causes, aged 78 in 1945. He is buried in Kilbarrack Cemetery.

Legacy
His grandson Michael McDowell served as Tánaiste, Minister for Justice, Equality and Law Reform, TD and a Senator. Another grandson, Myles Tierney, served as a member of Dublin County Council, where he was Fine Gael whip on the council.

Works

 * Ireland Before Saint Patrick (1903)
 * Duanaire Finn: the book of the lays of Fionn (1908)
 * Early Irish population groups: their nomenclature, classification and chronology (1911)
 * The Authorship and Structure of the Annals of Tigernach (1913)
 * Phases of Irish history (1919)
 * The Irish law of dynastic succession (1919)
 * The Case for an Irish Republic (1920)
 * Celtic Ireland (1921)
 * History of Ireland: Pre-Christian times to 1921 (1932)
 * Saint Patrick, Apostle of Ireland (1934)
 * Early Irish laws and institutions (1935)
 * The Irish Nation and Irish culture (1938)
 * Military service in Medieval Ireland (1941)

title: Eoin MacNeill


text:
Gerry Fitt

Gerard Fitt, Baron Fitt (9 April 1926 – 26 August 2005) was a politician from Northern Ireland. He was a founder and the first leader of the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP), a social democratic and Irish nationalist party.

Early years
Fitt was born in Belfast in the Lisburn Road Workhouse to the unmarried Rose Martin on 8 April 1926. He was christened Gerald in the infirmary at the Workhouse by Fr JB Murray, a curate at St Brigid. He was subsequently adopted by George and Mary Fitt and assumed their name for the rest of his life however he changed his first name to Gerard. When isn't recorded but written evidence shows he was using his new name by 1942. He was educated at a local Christian Brothers school. He served in the Merchant Navy as a stoker until 1953, having joined in 1941 during World War II and served on convoy duty. He witnessed the sinking of HMS Bluebell from which there was one survivor. His elder brother Geordie, an Irish Guardsman, was killed during the Battle of Normandy.

Living in the nationalist Beechmount neighbourhood of the Falls, he stood for the Falls as a candidate for the Dock Labour Party in a city council by-election in 1956, but lost to Paddy Devlin of the Irish Labour Party, who would later be his close ally. In 1958, he was elected to Belfast City Council as a member of the Irish Labour Party.

1960s
In 1962, he won a Stormont seat from the Ulster Unionist Party, becoming the only Irish Labour member. Two years later, he left Irish Labour and joined with Harry Diamond, the sole Socialist Republican Party Stormont MP, to form the Republican Labour Party.

At the 1966 general election, Fitt won the Belfast West seat in the Westminster parliament. The Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association (NICRA) was launched in 1967 with Fitt as a prominent spokesperson for the movement.

He used Westminster as a platform to interest British members of parliament (MPs) in the problems and issues of Northern Ireland. On 28 August 1968, he tabled a House of Commons motion, signed by 60 Labour Party backbenchers, criticising RUC action in Dungannon on 24 August at the first civil rights march in Northern Ireland, demanding that: "citizens of Northern Ireland should be allowed the same rights of peaceful demonstration as those in other parts of the United Kingdom".

Many sympathetic MPs were present at the civil rights march in Derry on 5 October 1968 when Fitt and others were beaten by the Royal Ulster Constabulary. RTÉ's film, in which Fitt featured prominently, of the police baton charge on the peaceful, but illegal, demonstration drew world attention to the claims of the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association.

The following year, Fitt announced at a press conference subsequent to the August 1969 rioting in Belfast that disturbance were created by a decision to "take some action to try to draw off the forces engaged in the Bogside area."

Fitt also supported the 1969 candidacy of Bernadette Devlin in the Mid Ulster by-election who ran as an anti-abstentionist 'Unity' candidate. Devlin's success greatly increased the authority of Fitt in the eyes of many British commentators, particularly as it produced a second voice on the floor of the British House of Commons who challenged the Unionist viewpoint at a time when Harold Wilson and other British ministers were beginning to take notice. In his maiden speech, he called for an inquiry into the unionist government of Northern Ireland.

Fitt was elected as a socialist republican and unveiled a plaque at the house on the Falls Road where James Connolly, the socialist leader of the Irish Easter Rising had lived. He was anxious to build a broader movement that would challenge Unionist hegemony. At the same time, a new generation of Catholics, many with secondary education and university degrees for the first time as a consequence of the post-War creation of the welfare state, were determined to make their voices heard.

1970s
In August 1970, Fitt became the first leader of a coalition of civil rights and nationalist leaders who created the Social Democratic and Labour Party (SDLP). The party was founded on high hopes – rejecting abstentionism and containing a number of prominent Protestants and without the stigma of conservatism and impotency that surrounded the old nationalist party. But already by then Northern Ireland was charging headlong towards near-civil war and the majority of unionists remained hostile.

After the collapse of Stormont in 1972 and the establishment of the Northern Ireland Assembly in 1973 he became deputy chief executive of the short-lived Power-Sharing Executive created by the Sunningdale Agreement. 1 January 1974 was a historic day with the power-sharing Executive taking office. The years of Unionist single-party rule had come to an end with the SDLP and Alliance parties joining the Executive alongside the Brian Faulkner wing of Unionism. Arguments still rage over the extent to which Fitt, as opposed to John Hume, helped shape the agreement. Fitt certainly was becoming less engaged with the nationalist concerns of the majority of the SDLP.

Within the nationalist community, the Provisionals condemned the powersharing agreement as falling short of British withdrawal and a united Ireland. A majority of Unionists opposed the Sunningdale agreement and the Executive collapsed when confronted by the Ulster Workers Council strike.

The SDLP had developed a political strategy of calling for powersharing within Northern Ireland alongside the adoption of an all-Ireland dimension. Fitt had always seen powersharing as the priority and he felt the calls for an all-Ireland dimension were alienating Unionists while promising little. In the aftermath of the collapse of the Executive, the British Government became less hopeful of achieving powersharing and, as a result, the all-Ireland dimension became the bigger policy priority for the SDLP.

Fitt became increasingly unhappy with what he saw as the SDLP's shift towards green nationalism and its emphasis on the all-Ireland dimension. He also became more outspoken in his condemnation of the Provisional Irish Republican Army. He became a target for republican sympathisers in 1976 when they attacked his home.

Fitt became disillusioned with the handling of Northern Ireland by the British government. Labour’s Northern Ireland Secretary of State Roy Mason spent little time and effort on local political initiatives instead opting for a strategy of criminalisation and attempting to militarily defeat the IRA. This policy shift resulted in growing complaints of mistreatment of prisoners. The minority Labour Government was relying on Unionist votes in Parliament to survive and promised extra Westminster seats for Northern Ireland, which pointed to integration with Britain instead of devolved powersharing as the Government's emerging political preference. In 1979, Fitt abstained from a crucial vote in the House of Commons which brought down the Labour government, citing the way that the government had failed to help the nationalist population and tried to form a deal with the Ulster Unionist Party: “under no circumstances will I support the Labour government in a vote of confidence because of the attitude of the Secretary of State and the policies of the government in Northern Ireland”.

As the 1970s were coming to a close, Fitt believed that the SDLP had changed and had become simply a "Catholic nationalist party". He increasingly felt isolated within the party with Fortnight, a Belfast current affairs magazine, describing him at the time as the "only Labour man" left.

In 1979, Gerry Fitt left the party altogether after he had agreed to constitutional talks with British Secretary of State Humphrey Atkins without any provision for an 'Irish dimension' and had then seen his decision overturned by the SDLP party conference. Like Paddy Devlin before him, he claimed the SDLP had ceased to be a socialist force.

1980s
Gerry Fitt enters the 1980s no longer a member of the SDLP but is still the MP for West Belfast. Politics in nationalist communities were about to change as the prison protests over political status became the hunger strikes and Provisional Sinn Fein make a strategic turn towards electoral politics.

In 1981, Fitt opposed the hunger strikes in the Maze prison in Belfast. In April of that year, he contacted the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) to seek assurances that the British government would not give in to the hunger strikers' demands for political status. In the Westminster parliament, he urged the Conservative Government "not to make the mistake of granting political status".

Fitt's seat in Westminster was targeted by Sinn Féin as well as by the SDLP. In June 1983, he lost his seat in Belfast West to Gerry Adams, in part due to competition from an SDLP candidate. Fitt, standing as an Independent Socialist with no party machine behind him and with widespread nationalist criticism over his stance on the H Block hunger strikes, still received over 10,326 votes but he lost the seat to Gerry Adams who polled 16,379 votes with the SDLP’s Joe Hendron coming second with 10,934 votes.

The following month, on 14 October 1983, he was created a UK life peer as Baron Fitt, of Bell's Hill in the County of Down. (The Fitt family were evacuated to Bell's Hill during the Belfast Blitz.) His Belfast home was firebombed a month after he was made a peer and he moved to live in London.

Later career
In his later life he was an active member of the House of Lords, where he was strongly critical of some aspects of the political developments of Northern Ireland. Until the appointment of Margaret Ritchie in 2019 he was unique in that he was the only nationalist or republican from Northern Ireland to have been elevated to the House of Lords.

Political beliefs
Although Fitt was initially considered a nationalist politician, his career often defied the traditional terms used for the discussion of Northern Irish politics. He sometimes said that he considered himself first and foremost a socialist politician rather than a nationalist. For example, on 11 October 1974 he stated, "In Northern Ireland it is very difficult to be a socialist without being labelled a Unionist socialist or an anti-partitionist socialist, but I am a socialist....".

Death
Lord Fitt died on 26 August 2005, at the age of 79, after a long history of heart disease, a widower survived by five of his daughters, one having predeceased him. When his daughters had campaigned for him in elections, they were nicknamed 'the Miss Fitts'.

title: Gerry Fitt


text:
Georges de Scudéry

Georges de Scudéry (22 August 1601 – 14 May 1667), the elder brother of Madeleine de Scudéry, was a French novelist, dramatist and poet.

Life
Georges de Scudéry was born in Le Havre, in Normandy, whither his father had moved from Provence. He served in the army for some time, and, though in the vein of gasconading which was almost peculiar to him he no doubt exaggerated his services, there seems little doubt that he was a stout soldier.

He conceived a fancy for literature before he was thirty, and during the whole of the middle of the century he was one of the most characteristic figures of Paris. He gained the favour of Richelieu by his opposition to Corneille. He wrote a letter to the Académie française criticizing Le Cid, and his play, L'Amour tyrannique (1640), was patronized by the cardinal in opposition to Corneille.

Possibly these circumstances had something to do with his appointment as governor of the fortress of Notre-Dame de la Garde, near Marseille in 1643, and in 1650 he was elected to the Académie. During the troubles of the Fronde he was exiled to Normandy, where he made his fortune by a rich marriage. He was an industrious dramatist, but L'Amour tyrannique is practically the only piece among his numerous tragi-comedies and pastorals that has escaped oblivion. His other most famous work was the epic of Alaric (1659). He lent his name to his sister's first romances, but did little beyond correcting the proofs.

Scudéry's swashbuckler affectations were rather exaggerated by literary gossip and tradition. Although possibly not quite sane, he had some poetical power, a fervent love of literature, a high sense of honour and of friendship.

Scudéry also wrote CURIA POLITIAE, OR, THE APOLOGIES OF SEVERALL PRINCES: Justifying to the WORLD Their Most Eminent Actions", which had been translated into English and printed by Humphrey Moseley "at the sign of the Prince's-Arms, in St. Paul's Church-Yard", in 1654.

Georges de Scudéry was sketched by Théophile Gautier in his Grotesques.

title: Georges de Scudéry