Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition | Page 7

Chartres, commune of Sours), which gave its name to a celebrated treaty concluded there on the 8th of May 1360, between Edward III. of England and John II., surnamed the Good, of France. The exactions of the English, who wished to yield as few as possible of the advantages claimed by them in the treaty of London, made negotiations difficult, and the discussion of terms begun early in April lasted more than a month. By virtue of this treaty Edward III. obtained, besides Guienne and Gascony, Poitou, Saintonge and Aunis, Agenais, P��rigord, Limousin, Quercy, Bigorre, the countship of Gaure, Angoumois, Rouergue, Montreuil-sur-mer, Ponthieu, Calais, Sangatte, Ham and the countship of Guines. John II. had, moreover, to pay three millions of gold crowns for his ransom. On his side the king of England gave up the duchies of Normandy and Touraine, the countships of Anjou and Maine, and the suzerainty of Brittany and of Flanders. As a guarantee for the payment of his ransom, John the Good gave as hostages two of his sons, several princes and nobles, four inhabitants of Paris, and two citizens from each of the nineteen principal towns of France. This treaty was ratified and sworn to by the two kings and by their eldest sons on the 24th of October 1360, at Calais. At the same time were signed the special conditions relating to each important article of the treaty, and the renunciatory clauses in which the kings abandoned their rights over the territory they had yielded to one another.
See Rymer's Foedera, vol. iii; Dumont, Corps diplomatique, vol. ii.; Froissart, ed. Luce, vol. vi.; Les Grandes Chroniques de France, ed. P. Paris, vol. vi.; E. Cosneau, Les Grands Trait��s de la guerre de cent ans (1889).
BRETON, JULES ADOLPHE AIM�� LOUIS (1827- ), French painter, was born on the 1st of May 1827, at Courri��res, Pas de Calais, France. His artistic gifts being manifest at an early age, he was sent in 1843 to Ghent, to study under the historical painter de Vigne, and in 1846 to Baron Wappers at Antwerp. Finally he worked in Paris under Drolling. His first efforts were in historical subjects: "Saint Piat preaching in Gaul"; then, under the influence of the revolution of 1848, he represented "Misery and Despair." But Breton soon discovered that he was not born to be a historical painter, and he returned to the memories of nature and of the country which were impressed on him in early youth. In 1853 he exhibited the "Return of the Harvesters" at the Paris Salon, and the "Little Gleaner" at Brussels. Thenceforward he was essentially a painter of rustic life, especially in the province of Artois, which he quitted only three times for short excursions: in 1864 to Provence, and in 1865 and 1873 to Brittany, whence he derived some of his happiest studies of religious scenes. His numerous subjects may be divided generally into four classes: labour, rest, rural festivals and religious festivals. Among his more important works may be named "Women Gleaning," and "The Day after St Sebastian's Day" (1855), which gained him a third-class medal; "Blessing the Fields" (1857), a second-class medal; "Erecting a Calvary" (1859), now in the Lille gallery; "The Return of the Gleaners" (1859), now in the Luxembourg; "Evening" and "Women Weeding" (1861), a first-class medal; "Grandfather's Birthday" (1862); "The Close of Day" (1865); "Harvest" (1867); "Potato Gatherers" (1868); "A Pardon, Brittany" (1869); "The Fountain" (1872), medal of honour; "The Bonfires of St John" (1875); "Women mending Nets" (1876), in the Douai museum; "A Gleaner" (1877), Luxembourg; "Evening, Finist��re" (1881); "The Song of the Lark" (1884); "The Last Sunbeam" (1885); "The Shepherd's Star" (1888); "The Call Home" (1889); "The Last Gleanings" (1895); "Gathering Poppies" (1897); "The Alarm Cry" (1899); "Twilight Glory" (1900). Breton was elected to the Institut in 1886 on the death of Baudry. In 1889 he was made commander of the Legion of Honour, and in 1899 foreign member of the Royal Academy of London. He also wrote several books, among them Les Champs et la mer (1876), Nos peintres du si��cle (1900), "Jeanne," a poem, Delphine Bernard (1902), and La Peinture (1904).
See Jules Breton, Vie d'un artiste, art et nature (autobiographical), (Paris, 1890); Marius Vachon, Jules Breton (1899).
BRETON, BRITTON OR BRITTAINE, NICHOLAS (1545?-1626), English poet, belonged to an old family settled at Layer-Breton, Essex. His father, William Breton, who had made a considerable fortune by trade, died in 1559, and the widow (n��e Elizabeth Bacon) married the poet George Gascoigne before her sons had attained their majority. Nicholas Breton was probably born at the "capitall mansion house" in Red Cross Street, in the parish of St Giles without Cripplegate, mentioned in his father's will. There is no official record of his residence at the university, but the diary of the Rev. Richard