The carmagnole was a revolutionary dress worn in France, especially during the reign of terror. It consisted of a blouse, a red cap, and a tricolored girdle. The term is applied also to a street dance, in which men, women and children promiscuously took hold of hands, danced in a ring, ran butting down the street, broke into small parties, and danced vehemently like Bedlamites, till ready to drop.

The Vikings were the piratical Northmen who infested the coasts of the British Islands and of France in the eighth, ninth and tenth centuries. This word is quite unconnected with "king," being derived from the Scandinavian vik, "a bay" (the same which appears in the names Lerwick, Berwick, etc.), and this class of marauders were so called because their ships put off from the bays and fiords.

Breaking on the wheel is a mode of capital punishment formerly in use in various European countries. In France it was abolished at the Revolution (1789), but it is said to have been inflicted in Prussia so late as 1841. The victim was placed upon a wheel, his arms and legs extended along the spokes, and, as the wheel was turned rapidly round, his limbs were broken by the executioner with a hammer or iron bar. The French word roue ("a rake") is derived from this form of capital punishment.

The salic law was the code of the Salian Franks, introduced into France (Gaul) by the Franks. It contained four hundred articles, chiefly concerning debt, theft, murder, and battery, the penalty in every case being a fine. The most famous article of the code is Title lxii. 6, according to which only males could succeed to the Salic land or lod, i.e. to the lands given for military service. In 1316, at the death of Louis le Hutin, the law was extended to the crown, and continued to be observed to the end of the monarchy.

A comparatively new term is "boycotting," the system of combining to hold no relations, social or commercial, with a neighbor, in order to punish him for differences in political opinion - a kind of social excommunication. It was first formulated by Mr. Parnell, the Irish leader, at Ennis, on 19th September, 1880, and derived its name from one of the first victims, Captain Boycott, a Mayo factor and farmer.

The Guelfs were dukes of Bavaria, who contended with the house of Hohenstauffen for pre-eminence. From a mere German feud the contention advanced to a long and bitter struggle between the civil and spiritual powers. The Guelfs were the pope's party, and labored to set the pope above the crowned princes. The Ghibellines were the imperial or civil party, and tried to set the kaiser above the pope.

Daimios, the old territorial nobles of Japan, who, before the revolution of 1871, enjoyed almost absolute power within their own domains, paying little more than nominal allegiance to the mikado. At the restoration of the mikado, however, they were obliged to surrender their castles and muster-rolls to the government, who took away their privileges and relieved them of the duty of paying allowances to their retainers.

The ceremony of wedding the Adriatic to the doge of Venice was instituted in 1174 by pope Alexander III., who gave the doge a gold ring from his own finger in token of the victory achieved by the Venetian fleet at Istria over Frederick Barbarossa. The pope, in giving the ring, desired the doge to throw a similar one into the sea every year on Ascension-Day in commemoration of this event. The doge's brigantine was called Bucentaur.

The praetorian guard was originally the cohorts of the praetor, then the imperial guard. They received higher pay than other soldiers, and enjoyal several important privileges. There were originally nine praetorian cohorts; Vitellius increased the number to sixteen, Septimus Sev-erus further increased the number. For many years they acted as dictators, and their insolence, want of discipline, avidity and insubordination became proverbial.

The spirit or pugnacity of the British nation is well expressed by the term British Lion, as opposed to John Bull, which symbolizes the substantiality, obstinacy, and solidity of the British nation, with all its prejudices and national peculiarities. To rouse John Bull is to tread on his corns, to rouse the British Lion is to blow the war-trumpet in his ears. The British Lion also means the most popular celebrity of the British nation for the time being.

The "carbonari" were secret societies which flourished both in Italy and France at the beginning of this century. The aim of the societies was the overthrow of the despotic and reactionary governments then existing. Originating in Italy, while under the rule of the Bonapartes, they took their name from the trade of charcoal burning pursued in that part of Italy. There were four grades with mystic rites of initiation. The system lived till about 1848.

The Templars were a famous military order, which, like the Hospitallers and the Teutonic Knights, owed its origin to the Crusades. In the year 1119 two comrades of Godfrey de Bouillon, Hugues de Payen and Geoffroi de Saint-Adhemar, bound themselves and seven other French knights to guard pilgrims to the holy places from the attacks of the Saracens, taking before the patriarch of Jerusalem solemn vows of chastity, poverty, and obedience.

The well known decoration of the Legion of Honor belongs to an order of merit instituted by Napoleon in 1802 as a recompense for military and civil services. It was ostensibly founded for the protection of republican principles and the laws of equality, every social grade being equally eligible. The constitution and incidents of the order have been repeatedly changed by the successive executive powers of France during the course of the nineteenth century.

The Great Fire or "The Great Fire of London" occurred in 1666, the year after the Plague, which it put an end to. It broke out at a bake house near London Bridge. Only six persons perished in the fire; though six hundred streets, thirteen hundred houses, eighty churches, St. Paul's Cathedral, the Custom-house, Guildhall, and four stone bridges were destroyed. The people, to the number of two hundred thousand, camped out in the fields of Islington and Highgate.