Encyclopaedia Britannica, 11th Edition | Page 7

E. Daudet, Coblentz,
1789-1793 (1889), forming part of his Hist. de l'émigration.
BRÉTIGNY, a French town (dept. Eure-et-Loir, arrondissement and
canton of Chartres, commune of Sours), which gave its name to a
celebrated treaty concluded there on the 8th of May 1360, between
Edward III. of England and John II., surnamed the Good, of France.
The exactions of the English, who wished to yield as few as possible of
the advantages claimed by them in the treaty of London, made
negotiations difficult, and the discussion of terms begun early in April
lasted more than a month. By virtue of this treaty Edward III. obtained,
besides Guienne and Gascony, Poitou, Saintonge and Aunis, Agenais,

Périgord, Limousin, Quercy, Bigorre, the countship of Gaure,
Angoumois, Rouergue, Montreuil-sur-mer, Ponthieu, Calais, Sangatte,
Ham and the countship of Guines. John II. had, moreover, to pay three
millions of gold crowns for his ransom. On his side the king of England
gave up the duchies of Normandy and Touraine, the countships of
Anjou and Maine, and the suzerainty of Brittany and of Flanders. As a
guarantee for the payment of his ransom, John the Good gave as
hostages two of his sons, several princes and nobles, four inhabitants of
Paris, and two citizens from each of the nineteen principal towns of
France. This treaty was ratified and sworn to by the two kings and by
their eldest sons on the 24th of October 1360, at Calais. At the same
time were signed the special conditions relating to each important
article of the treaty, and the renunciatory clauses in which the kings
abandoned their rights over the territory they had yielded to one
another.
See Rymer's Foedera, vol. iii; Dumont, Corps diplomatique, vol. ii.;
Froissart, ed. Luce, vol. vi.; Les Grandes Chroniques de France, ed. P.
Paris, vol. vi.; E. Cosneau, Les Grands Traités de la guerre de cent ans
(1889).
BRETON, JULES ADOLPHE AIMÉ LOUIS (1827- ), French painter,
was born on the 1st of May 1827, at Courrières, Pas de Calais, France.
His artistic gifts being manifest at an early age, he was sent in 1843 to
Ghent, to study under the historical painter de Vigne, and in 1846 to
Baron Wappers at Antwerp. Finally he worked in Paris under Drolling.
His first efforts were in historical subjects: "Saint Piat preaching in
Gaul"; then, under the influence of the revolution of 1848, he
represented "Misery and Despair." But Breton soon discovered that he
was not born to be a historical painter, and he returned to the memories
of nature and of the country which were impressed on him in early
youth. In 1853 he exhibited the "Return of the Harvesters" at the Paris
Salon, and the "Little Gleaner" at Brussels. Thenceforward he was
essentially a painter of rustic life, especially in the province of Artois,
which he quitted only three times for short excursions: in 1864 to
Provence, and in 1865 and 1873 to Brittany, whence he derived some
of his happiest studies of religious scenes. His numerous subjects may

be divided generally into four classes: labour, rest, rural festivals and
religious festivals. Among his more important works may be named
"Women Gleaning," and "The Day after St Sebastian's Day" (1855),
which gained him a third-class medal; "Blessing the Fields" (1857), a
second-class medal; "Erecting a Calvary" (1859), now in the Lille
gallery; "The Return of the Gleaners" (1859), now in the Luxembourg;
"Evening" and "Women Weeding" (1861), a first-class medal;
"Grandfather's Birthday" (1862); "The Close of Day" (1865); "Harvest"
(1867); "Potato Gatherers" (1868); "A Pardon, Brittany" (1869); "The
Fountain" (1872), medal of honour; "The Bonfires of St John" (1875);
"Women mending Nets" (1876), in the Douai museum; "A Gleaner"
(1877), Luxembourg; "Evening, Finistère" (1881); "The Song of the
Lark" (1884); "The Last Sunbeam" (1885); "The Shepherd's Star"
(1888); "The Call Home" (1889); "The Last Gleanings" (1895);
"Gathering Poppies" (1897); "The Alarm Cry" (1899); "Twilight
Glory" (1900). Breton was elected to the Institut in 1886 on the death
of Baudry. In 1889 he was made commander of the Legion of Honour,
and in 1899 foreign member of the Royal Academy of London. He also
wrote several books, among them Les Champs et la mer (1876), Nos
peintres du siècle (1900), "Jeanne," a poem, Delphine Bernard (1902),
and La Peinture (1904).
See Jules Breton, Vie d'un artiste, art et nature (autobiographical),
(Paris, 1890); Marius Vachon, Jules Breton (1899).
BRETON, BRITTON OR BRITTAINE, NICHOLAS (1545?-1626),
English poet, belonged to an old family settled at Layer-Breton, Essex.
His father, William Breton, who had made a considerable fortune by
trade, died in 1559, and the widow (née Elizabeth Bacon) married the
poet George Gascoigne before her sons had attained their majority.
Nicholas Breton was probably born at the "capitall mansion house" in
Red Cross Street, in the parish of St Giles without