BRIOUDE

brioude, a town of central france, capital of an arrondissement in the department of haute-loire, on the left bank of the allier, 1467 ft. above the sea, 47 m. n.w. of le puy on the paris-lyon railway. pop. (1906) 4581. brioude has to a great extent escaped modernization and still has many old houses and fountains. its streets are narrow and irregular, but the town is surrounded by wide boulevards lined with trees. the only building of consequence is the church of st julian (12th and 13th centuries) in the romanesque style of auvergne, of which the choir, with its apse and radiating chapels and the mosaic ornamentation of the exterior, is a fine example. brioude is the seat of a sub-prefect, and of tribunals of first instance and of commerce. the plain in which it is situated is of great fertility; the grain trade of the town is considerable, and market-gardening is carried on in the outskirts. the industries include brewing, saw-milling, lace-making and antimony mining and founding. brioude, the ancient _brinas_, was formerly a place of considerable importance. it was in turn besieged and captured by the goths (532), the burgundians, the saracens (732) and the normans. in 1181 the viscount of polignac, who had sacked the town two years previously, made public apology in front of the church, and established a body of twenty-five knights to defend the relics of st julian. for some time after 1361 the town was the headquarters of berenger, lord of castelnau, who was at the head of one of the bands of military adventurers which then devastated france. the knights (or canons, as they afterwards became) of st julian bore the title of counts of brioude, and for a long time opposed themselves to the civic liberties of the inhabitants. briquemault (or briquemaut), francois de beauvais, seigneur de (c. 1502-1572), leader of the huguenots during the first religious wars, was the son of adrien de briquemault and alexane de sainte ville, and was born about 1502. his first campaign was under the count of brissac in the piedmontese wars. on his return to france in 1554 he joined admiral coligny. charged with the defence of rouen, in 1562, he resigned in favour of montgomery, to whom the prince of conde had entrusted the task, and went over to england, where he concluded the treaty of hampton court on the 20th of september. he then returned to france, and took dieppe from the catholics before the conclusion of peace. if his share in the second religious war was less important, he played a very active part in the third. he fought at jarnac, roche-abeille and montcontour, assisted in the siege of poitiers, was nearly captured by the catholics at bourg-dieu, re-victualled vezelay, and almost surprised bourges. in 1570, being charged by coligny to stop the army of the princes in its ascent of the rhone valley, he crossed burgundy and effected his junction [v.04 p.0573] with the admiral at st. etienne in may. on the 21st of the following june he assisted in achieving the victory of arnay-le-duc, and was then employed to negotiate a marriage between the prince of navarre and elizabeth of england. being in paris on the night of st bartholomew he took refuge in the house of the english ambassador, but was arrested there. with his friend arnaud da cavagnes he was delivered over to the parlement, and failed in courage when confronted with his judges, seeking to escape death by unworthy means. he was condemned, nevertheless, on the 27th of october 1572, to the last penalty and to the confiscation of his property, and on the 29th of october he and cavagnes were executed. see _histoire ecclesiastique des eglises reformees au royaume de france_ (new edition, 1884), vol. ii.; _la france protestante_ (2nd edition), vol. ii., article "beauvais." briquette (diminutive of fr. _brique_, brick), a form of fuel, known also as "patent fuel," consisting of small coal compressed into solid blocks by the aid of some binding material. for making briquettes the small coal, if previously washed, is dried to reduce the moisture to at most 4%, and if necessary crushed in a disintegrator. it is then incorporated in a pug mill with from 8 to 10% of gas pitch, and softened by heating to between 70° and 90° c. to a plastic mass, which is moulded into blocks and compacted by a pressure of 1⁄2 to 2 tons per sq. in. in a machine with a rotating die-plate somewhat like that used in making semi-plastic clay bricks. when cold, the briquettes, which usually weigh from 7 to 20 lb each, although smaller sizes are made for domestic use, become quite hard, and can be handled with less breakage than the original coal. their principal use is as fuel for marine and locomotive boilers, the evaporative value being about the same as, or somewhat greater than, that of coal. the principal seat of the manufacture in great britain is in south wales, where the dust and smalls resulting from the handling of the best steam coals (which are very brittle) are obtainable in large quantities and find no other use. some varieties of lignite, when crushed and pressed at a steam heat, soften sufficiently to furnish compact briquettes without requiring any cementing material. briquettes of this kind are made to a large extent from the tertiary lignites in the vicinity of cologne; they are used mainly for house fuel on the lower rhine and in holland, and occasionally come to london.