Jacobins were the members of a political club which exercised a great influence during the French Revolution. It was originally called the Club Breton, and was formed at Versailles, when the States-general assembled there in 1789.

Formerly, in England, branding was a method of punishment, but was abolished (1829) in the reign of George IV. It was performed with a red-hot iron on the face, hand or other part of the body. Branding in the British Army abolished, 1879.

In Roman history there were two famous coalitions of three men each, called triumvirates, formed for ruling the state: (1) Between Julius Caesar, Pompey and Crassus (50 B.C.); (2) between Octavius Caesar, Mark Antony and Lepidus (43 B.C.)

The Italian city, Venice, is often called the "Bride of the Sea," from the ancient ceremony of the doge marrying the city to the Adriatic by throwing a ring into it, pronouncing these words, "We wed thee, O sea, in token of perpetual dominion."

It is not generally known that the four kings of a pack of cards are Charlemagne (the Franco-German king), David (the Jewish king), Alexander (the Macedonian king), and Caesar (the Roman king). These four kings are representatives of the four great monarchies.

The Young England Party was a party formed during the corn-law agitation of 1842-46. It consisted of young Tory aristocrats, prominent among whom was Lord John Manners, who advocated a return to a modified feudalism. Disraeli lent the party his support.

The Confederation of the Rhine, formed July 12, 1806, was a federation of the Germanic States, formed by Napoleon Bonaparte, whose disastrous Russian campaign (1812) caused the dissolution of the Confederation, the Germanic Confederation taking its place.

The Decemvirs were men who drew up a code of Roman laws, and who, in 451 B.C., had the whole government of Rome in their hands. They were successful in their administration till the incident of Appius Claudius and Virginia led to the appointment of consuls.

The triple expression, Liberty, Equality, Fraternity (Liberie, Egal-ite, Fraternite), as the motto of the French Republic, dates from the time of the first revolution. Equality, it should be noted, merely means equality before the law and the absence of class privileges.

An Africander is a descendant of European parents born in South Africa. An association called the Africander-Bond was formed in Cape Colony after the Transvaal war, the object of which was the consolidation and extension of the Dutch population in South Africa.

The Young Ireland Party was an Irish patriotic party which came to the front in 1848, shortly after O'Connell's death. They had resort to physical force, and several of their leaders, including Smith O'Brien, John Mitchell and Thomas Francis Meagher, were transported.

Concordat is a term sometimes applied to secular treaties, but generally employed to denote an agreement made between the pope, as the head of the Roman Catholic Church, and a secular government, on matters which concern the interests of its Roman Catholic subjects.

The Vendean rising in La Vendee, a maritime department of France, on the Atlantic, in favor of the Bourbons (1793), was eventually suppressed by General Hoche (1796). Georges Cadoudal, the last Vendean chief, was executed (1804) for his share in a plot against the life of Napoleon, when first consul.

Sicilian Vespers is the designation of the massacre of the French which began at Palermo, at vespers, on Easter Monday, March 30, 1282. The insurrection spread to the rest of the island, and ended in the overthrow of the government of Charles of Anjou and the establishment of the dynasty of Aragon.

Of deep historic significance were the Bulgarian Atrocities, a title given to an insurrection which in 1876 broke out in Bulgaria and was repressed with horrible cruelties, raising a wave of indignation throughout Europe. Mr. Gladstone published an article, " Horrors in Bulgaria," in September of that year.

The Illuminati was a name given to several societies or sects, but particularly to the Order of the Illuminati, a secret society founded by Adam Weishaupt at Ingolstadt, Bavaria, 1776. It was deistic and republican in principle, and spread very widely throughout Europe. Suppressed in Bavaria, 1784.

The oft-denounced French instrument, called by historians the lettre de cachet, was a sealed letter, in virtue of which the obnoxious person named therein might be arrested and sent either to prison or into exile, without trial or even being informed of the nature of his offence. This infamous tyranny was abolished by the revolution.

The Council of Ten was a secret tribunal of the Republic of Venice, armed with unlimited powers (1310) in watching over the safety of the state. It punished at discretion all secret enemies of the Republic. At first it was prorogued annually, but in 1325 it was made perpetual, and continued as long as the Venetian Republic endured.

The Continental System was the name given to Napoleon's plan for shutting England out from all connection with the continent of Europe. This system began with Napoleon's famous "Berlin Decree" of November 21, 1806, which declared the British Islands in a state of blockade, and prohibited all commerce and correspondence with them.

A representation of the half-moon with the horns turned upwards, called a crescent, is often used as an emblem of progress and success. It was the emblem of the Greek before it became that of the Turkish rule; but it was not adopted by the Turks from the Greeks, as is often said. It had been used by them hundreds of years before in Central Asia.

What is termed historically the "Boston Tea-party" (December 16, 1773) consisted of those citizens of Boston who, disguised as Indians, boarded the three English ships which had just come into the harbor, and threw into the sea several hundred chests of tea, by way of protest against English taxation of America without a representation in parliament.