The university, a spacious Gothic building facing the Oder, is a striking edifice. It was built (1728–1736) as a college by the Jesuits, on the site of the former imperial castle presented to them by the emperor Leopold I., and contains a magnificent hall (Aula Leopoldina), richly ornamented with frescoes and capable of holding 1200 persons. Breslau possesses a large number of other important public buildings: the Stadthaus (civic hall), the royal palace, the government offices (a handsome pile erected in 1887), the provincial House of Assembly, the municipal archives, the courts of law, the Silesian museum of arts and crafts and antiquities, stored in the former assembly hall of the estates (Ständehaus), which was rebuilt for the purpose, the museum of fine arts, the exchange, the Stadt and Lobe theatres, the post office and central railway station. There are also numerous hospitals and schools. Breslau is exceedingly rich in fine monuments; the most noteworthy being the equestrian statues of Frederick the Great and Frederick William III., both by Kiss; the statue of Blücher by Rauch; a marble statue of General Tauentzien by Langhans and Schadow; a bronze statue of Karl Gottlieb Svarez (1746–1798), the Prussian jurist, a monument to Schleiermacher, born here in 1768, and statues of the emperor William I., Bismarck and Moltke. There are also several handsome fountains. Foremost among the educational establishments stands the university, founded in 1702 by the emperor Leopold I. as a Jesuit college, and greatly extended by the incorporation of the university of Frankfort-on-Oder in 1811. Its library contains 306,000 volumes and 4000 MSS., and has in the so-called Bibliotheca Habichtiana a valuable collection of oriental literature. Among its auxiliary establishments are botanical gardens, an observatory, and anatomical, physiological and kindred institutions. There are eight classical and four modern schools, two higher girls’ schools, a Roman Catholic normal school, a Jewish theological seminary, a school of arts and crafts, and numerous literary and charitable foundations. It is, however, as a commercial and industrial city that Breslau is most widely known. Its situation, close to the extensive coal and iron fields of Upper Silesia, in proximity to the Austrian and Russian frontiers, at the centre of a network of railways directly communicating both with these countries and with the chief towns of northern and central Germany, and on a deep waterway connecting with the Elbe and the Vistula, facilitates its very considerable transit and export trade in the products of the province and of the neighbouring countries. These embrace coal, sugar, cereals, spirits, petroleum and timber. The local industries comprise machinery and tools, railway and tramway carriages, furniture, cast-iron goods, gold and silver work, carpets, furs, cloth and cottons, paper, musical instruments, glass and china. Breslau is the headquarters of the VI. German army corps and contains a large garrison of troops of all arms.
History.—Breslau (Lat. Vratislavia) is first mentioned by the chronicler Thietmar, bishop of Merseburg, in A.D. 1000, and was probably founded some years before this date. Early in the 11th century it was made the seat of a bishop, and after having formed part of Poland, became the capital of an independent duchy in 1163. Destroyed by the Mongols in 1241, it soon recovered its former prosperity and received a large influx of German colonists. The bishop obtained the title of a prince of the Empire in 1290.[1] When Henry VI., the last duke of Breslau, died in 1335, the city came by purchase to John, king of Bohemia, whose successors retained it until about 1460. The Bohemian kings bestowed various privileges on Breslau, which soon began to extend its commerce in all directions, while owing to increasing wealth the citizens took up a more independent attitude. Disliking the Hussites, Breslau placed itself under the protection of Pope Pius II. in 1463, and a few years afterwards came under the rule of the Hungarian king, Matthias Corvinus. After his death in 1490 it again became subject to Bohemia, passing with the rest of Silesia to the Habsburgs when in 1526 Ferdinand, afterwards emperor, was chosen king of Bohemia. Having passed almost undisturbed through the periods of the Reformation and the Thirty Years’ War, Breslau was compelled to own the authority of Frederick the Great in 1741. It was, however, recovered by the Austrians in 1757, but was regained by Frederick after his victory at Leuthen in the same year, and has since belonged to Prussia, although it was held for a few days by the French in 1807 after the battle of Jena, and again in 1813 after the battle of Bautzen. The sites of the fortifications, dismantled by the French in 1807, were given to the civic authorities by King Frederick William III., and converted into promenades. In March 1813 this monarch issued from Breslau his stirring appeals to the Prussians, An mein Volk and An mein Kriegesheer, and the city was the centre of the Prussian preparations for the campaign which ended at Leipzig. After the Prussian victory at Sadowa in 1866, William I. made a triumphant and complimentary entry into the city, which since the days of Frederick the Great has been only less loyal to the royal house than Berlin itself.
See Bürkner and Stein, Geschichte der Stadt Breslau (Bresl. 1851–1853); J. Stein, Geschichte der Stadt Breslau im 19ten Jahrhundert (1884); O Frenzel, Breslauer Stadtbuch (“Codex dipl. Silisiae,” vol. ii. 1882); Luchs, Breslau, ein Führer durch die Stadt (12th ed., Bresl. 1904).
BRESSANT, JEAN BAPTISTE PROSPER (1815–1886), French actor, was born at Chalon-sur-Saône on the 23rd of October 1815, and began his stage career at the Variétés in Paris in 1833. In 1838 he went to the French theatre at St Petersburg, where for eight years he played important parts with ever-increasing reputation. His success was confirmed at the Gymnase when he returned to Paris in 1846, and he made his début at the Comédie Française as a full-fledged sociétaire in 1854. From playing the ardent young lover, he turned to leading rôles both in modern plays and in the classical répertoire. His Richelieu in Mlle de Belle-Isle, his Octave in Alfred de Musset’s Les Caprices de Marianne, and his appearance in de Musset’s Il faut qu'une porte soit ouverte ou fermée and Un caprice were followed by Tartuffe, Le Misanthrope and Don Juan. Bressant retired in 1875, and died on the 23rd of January 1886. During his professorship at the Conservatoire, Mounet-Sully was one of his pupils.
BRESSE, a district of eastern France embracing portions of the departments of Ain, Saône-et-Loire and Jura. The Bresse extends from the Dombes on the south to the river Doubs on the north, and from the Saône eastwards to the Jura, measuring some 60 m. in the former, and 20 m. in the latter direction. It is a plain varying from 600 to 800 ft. above the sea, with few eminences and a slight inclination westwards. Heaths and coppice alternate with pastures and arable land; pools and marshes are numerous, especially in the north. Its chief rivers are the Veyle, the Reyssouze and the Seille, all tributaries of the Saône. The soil is a gravelly clay but moderately fertile, and cattle-raising is largely carried on. The region is, however, more especially celebrated for its table poultry. The inhabitants preserve a distinctive but almost obsolete costume, with a curious head-dress. The Bresse proper, called the Bresse Bressane, comprises the northern portion of the department of Ain. The greater part of the district belonged in the middle ages to the lords of Bâgé, from whom it passed in 1272 to the house of Savoy. It was not till the first half of the 15th century that the province, with Bourg as its capital, was founded as such. In 1601 it was ceded to France by the treaty of Lyons, after which it formed (together with the province of Bugey) first a separate government and afterwards part of the government of Burgundy.
BRESSUIRE, a town of western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Deux-Sèvres, 48 m. N. of Niort by rail. Pop. (1906) 4561. The town is situated on an eminence overlooking the Dolo, a tributary of the Argenton. It is the centre of a cattle-rearing and agricultural region, and has important markets; the manufacture of wooden type and woollen goods is carried on. Bressuire has two buildings of interest: the church of Notre-Dame, which, dating chiefly from the 12th and 15th centuries, has an imposing tower of the Renaissance period; and the castle, built by the lords of
- ↑ In 1195 Jaroslaw, son of Boleslaus I. of Lower Silesia, who became bishop of Breslau in 1198, inherited the duchy of Neisse, which at his death (1201) he bequeathed to his successors in the see. The Austrian part of Neisse still belongs to the bishop of Breslau, who also still bears the title of prince bishop.
