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ARMAGNAC. mainly included within the Department of Gers. Its capitals were Auch and Lectoure. The Counts of Armagnac played an important part in French history from the Tenth Century to the Sixteenth. The most celebrated of the line was Bernard VII. The inhabitants of Armagnac were celebrated as soldiers, and constituted an important element in the French armies during the Hundred Years' War. About the close of this period, their roving bands laid waste large parts of the country, and in order to rid himself of them, Charles VII. sent them to fight the indomitable Swiss, who made short work of large numbers of them. Consult F. Berthault, L'Armagnac (Paris, 1899).

ARMAGNAC,, Count d' (?-1418). The leader of the Orleanist party, in the reign of Charles VI. of France, which, from him, took the name Armagnacs. The rise of this party was due to the feud between the dukes of Burgundy and Orleans over the possession of the royal power during the incapacity of Charles VI. (q.v.). In the struggle the Duke of Orleans was assassinated and the Burgundians gained the upper hand in the State. Bernard, father-in-law of the Duke of Orleans, assumed the leadership, and in 1413 got possession of Paris. After the battle of Agincourt, in 1415, he became Constable of France. He ruled Paris so oppressively that the populace rose, June 12, 1418, and killed him and all of his party they could find.

ARMAGNAC, Count d' (c. 1420-1473). A grandson of Bernard; a notoriously passionate and wicked man. He publicly married his own sister, fraudulently securing a Papal dispensation. Charles VII. took away his possessions, but they were restored by Louis VI. Armagnac later joined the "League for the Public Good," and in consequence was driven into Aragon by the King, and his estates were forfeited. At the intercession of the King's brother, the estates were returned, but Armagnac remained a fugitive and was put to death by the King's soldiers.

AR'MAMENT (Lat. nom. pl. armamenta, implements or utensils for any purpose; tackle of a ship). The guns and other weapons of offense supplied to a ship or fortification for use against an enemy. It includes ammunition and gun-mountings, torpedoes, torpedo-tubes, etc. In a broader sense, it is used to designate the whole or a part of the military and naval equipments or forces of a nation.

ARMAND, iir'maN', Marquis de la Rouarie (1756-93). A French soldier in the American Revolution. Dismissed from the French service for fighting a duel about an actress, he came to America, and (in May, 1777) entered the Continental Army as a colonel. In October, 1779, he succeeded Pulaski in command of the "Pulaski Legion" (soon renamed "Armand's Partisan Corps"), and in 1783 became a brigadier-general. He returned to France in 1783 and took an active part, on the Royalist side, in the French Revolution. See a Memoir by Townshend Ward in Vol. II, Pennsylvania Magazine of History and Biography (Philadelphia, 1878).

ARMANDE, ar'miiNd'. One of the elder sisters of Henriette, in Molière's Les femmes savantes. Armande, wishing to marry Henriette's lover, tried to marry her off to Trissottin, and would have succeeded but for the interference of her uncle.

ARMANSPERG, iir'mans-perK, Count von (1787-1853). A German statesman, born in Lower Bavaria. In 1826 he was appointed Bavarian Minister of Foreign Affairs, and soon after exchanged that office for the portfolios of the interior and the finances. He drew upon himself the hatred of the Camarilla by his strenuous opposition to the claims of Rome, as well as by his attempts to identify himself with the Liberal party, and the Roman Catholic clergy brought about his dismissal. He accompanied the young King Otho to Greece in 1833, where for four years he acted as regent or chancellor. Greece derived many benefits from his administration.

ARMATOLES, ar'ma-tolz. A body of Greek militia, first formed under the reign of Sultan Selim I. about the beginning of the Sixteenth Century. They were organized to preserve the fertile plains from the ravages of the klephts, Christian mountain robbers of Thessaly, Epirus, and Macedonia (from Gk. κλέπτης, kleptēs, robber), who had never been entirely conquered by the Turks. The Armatoles themselves were originally klephts, but received their more honorable designation when the Porte had transformed them into a sort of military police. The safety of the public roads was intrusted to their care. The whole of northern Greece was divided into fourteen districts, each placed under the supervision of a chief of these militia, who, however, had himself to receive orders from a Turkish pasha or Greek bishop. But although the Armatoles frequently suppressed the brigandage of the klephts, they still regarded them in the light of brothers, inasmuch as they had a common origin and faith; both detested the oppressors of their country, and the sentiment of patriotism overruled every other consideration. This sympathy at last appeared to the Turks so dangerous that they grew alarmed, and desired to substitute for the Armatoles, the Mohammedan Albanians, who were the implacable enemies of the Greeks, which resolution did not a little to hasten the insurrection which the Porte ever dreaded. The moment it broke out, the Armatoles pronounced themselves in favor of the national cause, and in the war of independence that ensued, distinguished themselves by their brilliant exploits, Marco Bozzaris, leader of the Suliotes, was a good type of the Armatole.

AR'MATURE (Lat. armatura, armor; Ger. Anker). The mass of iron or other magnetizable substance that is placed in contact with the pole or poles of a magnet, or in proximity thereto. In the case of a permanent magnet of the horseshoe pattern, the armature may be of soft iron and act as the keeper to help retain and preserve the magnetism by completing the magnetic circuit through the two poles. The armature of an electro-magnet is placed near its poles, and whenever a current of electricity is sent through the coils of the latter, is attracted or repelled. If the armature is a piece of soft iron, attraction always takes place, and on this principle is based the action of the electric bell, the telegraph sounder, and other forms of electrical apparatus. Such an armature, as soon as the flow of the current ceases, returns to its normal posi-