duchy extending from the Charente to the Pyrenees. This duchy was held on the terms of homage to the French kings, an onerous obligation; and both in 1296 and 1324 it was confiscated by the kings of France on the ground that there had been a failure in the feudal duties. At the treaty of Brétigny (1360) Edward III. acquired the full sovereignty of the duchy of Guienne, together with Aunis, Saintonge, Angoumois and Poitou. The victories of du Guesclin and Gaston Phœbus, count of Foix, restored the duchy soon after to its 13th-century limits. In 1451 it was conquered and finally united to the French crown by Charles VII. In 1469 Louis XI. gave it in exchange for Champagne and Brie to his brother Charles, duke of Berry, after whose death in 1472 it was again united to the royal dominion. Guienne then formed a government which from the 17th century onwards was united with Gascony. The government of Guienne and Gascony, with its capital at Bordeaux, lasted till the end of the ancien régime. Under the Revolution the departments formed from Guienne proper were those of Gironde, Lot-et-Garonne, Dordogne, Lot, Aveyron and the chief part of Tarn-et-Garonne.
GUIGNES, JOSEPH DE (1721–1800), French orientalist, was
born at Pontoise on the 19th of October 1721. He succeeded
Fourmont at the Royal Library as secretary interpreter of the
Eastern languages. A Mémoire historique sur l’origine des
Huns et des Turcs, published by de Guignes in 1748, obtained his
admission to the Royal Society of London in 1752, and he
became an associate of the French Academy of Inscriptions in
1754. Two years later he began to publish his learned and
laborious Histoire générale des Huns, des Mongoles, des Turcs
et des autres Tartares occidentaux (1756–1758); and in 1757 he
was appointed to the chair of Syriac at the Collège de France.
He maintained that the Chinese nation had originated in
Egyptian colonization, an opinion to which, in spite of every
argument, he obstinately clung. He died in Paris in 1800.
The Histoire had been translated into German by Dähnert
(1768–1771). De Guignes left a son, Christian Louis Joseph
(1759–1845), who, after learning Chinese from his father, went
as consul to Canton, where he spent seventeen years. On his
return to France he was charged by the government with the
work of preparing a Chinese-French-Latin dictionary (1813).
He was also the author of a work of travels (Voyages à Pékin,
Manille, et l’île de France, 1808).
See Quérard, La France littéraire, where a list of the memoirs contributed by de Guignes to the Journal des savants is given.
GUILBERT, YVETTE (1869– ), French diseuse, was born in
Paris. She served for two years until 1885 in the Magasin du
Printemps, when, on the advice of the journalist, Edmond
Stoullig, she trained for the stage under Landrol. She made
her début at the Bouffes du Nord, then played at the Variétés,
and in 1890 she received a regular engagement at the Eldorado
to sing a couple of songs at the beginning of the performance.
She also sang at the Ambassadeurs. She soon won an immense
vogue by her rendering of songs drawn from Parisian lower-class
life, or from the humours of the Latin Quarter, “Quatre z’étudiants”
and the “Hôtel du numéro trois” being among her early
triumphs. Her adoption of an habitual yellow dress and long
black gloves, her studied simplicity of diction, and her ingenuous
delivery of songs charged with risqué meaning, made her famous.
She owed something to M. Xanrof, who for a long time composed
songs especially for her, and perhaps still more to Aristide Bruant,
who wrote many of her argot songs. She made successful tours
in England, Germany and America, and was in great request as
an entertainer in private houses. In 1895 she married Dr M.
Schiller. In later years she discarded something of her earlier
manner, and sang songs of the “pompadour” and the “crinoline”
period in costume. She published the novels La Vedette
and Les Demi-vieilles, both in 1902.
GUILDFORD, a market town and municipal borough, and
the county town of Surrey, England, in the Guildford parliamentary
division, 29 m. S.W. of London by the London and
South Western railway; served also by the London, Brighton,
and South Coast and the South Eastern and Chatham railways.
Pop. (1901) 15,938. It is beautifully situated on an acclivity
of the northern chalk Downs and on the river Wey. Its older
streets contain a number of picturesque gabled houses, with
quaint lattices and curious doorways. The ruins of a Norman
castle stand finely above the town and are well preserved;
while the ground about them is laid out as a public garden.
Beneath the Angel Inn and a house in the vicinity are extensive
vaults, apparently of Early English date, and traditionally
connected with the castle. The church of St Mary is Norman
and Early English, with later additions and considerably restored;
its aisles retain their eastward apses and it contains
many interesting details. The church of St Nicholas is a modern
building on an ancient site, and that of Holy Trinity is a brick
structure of 1763, with later additions, also on the site of an
earlier church, from which some of the monuments are preserved,
including that of Archbishop Abbot (1640). The town hall
dates from 1683 and contains a number of interesting pictures.
Other public buildings are the county hall, corn-market and
institute with museum and library. Abbot’s Hospital, founded
by Archbishop Abbot in 1619, is a beautiful Tudor brick building.
The county hospital (1866) was erected as a memorial to Albert,
Prince Consort. The Royal Free Grammar School, founded in
1509, and incorporated by Edward VI., is an important school
for boys. At Cranleigh, 6 m. S.E., is a large middle-class county
school. The town has flour mills, iron foundries and breweries,
and a large trade in grain; while fairs are held for live stock.
There is a manufacture of gunpowder in the neighbouring village
of Chilworth. Guildford is a suffragan bishopric in the diocese
of Winchester. The borough is under a mayor, 4 aldermen
and 12 councillors. Area, 2601 acres.
Guildford (Gyldeford, Geldeford), occurs among the possessions of King Alfred, and was a royal borough throughout the middle ages. It probably owed its rise to its position at the junction of trade routes. It is first mentioned as a borough in 1131. Henry III. granted a charter to the men of Guildford in 1256, by which they obtained freedom from toll throughout the kingdom, and the privilege of having the county court held always in their town. Edward III. granted charters to Guildford in 1340, 1346 and 1367; Henry VI. in 1423; Henry VII. in 1488. Elizabeth in 1580 confirmed earlier charters, and other charters were granted in 1603, 1626 and 1686. The borough was incorporated in 1486 under the title of the mayor and good men of Guildford. During the middle ages the government of the town rested with a powerful merchant gild. Two members for Guildford sat in the parliament of 1295, and the borough continued to return two representatives until 1867 when the number was reduced to one. By the Redistribution Act of 1885 Guildford became merged in the county for electoral purposes. Edward II. granted to the town the right of having two fairs, at the feast of St Matthew (21st of September) and at Trinity respectively. Henry VII. granted fairs on the feast of St Martin (11th of November) and St George (23rd of April). Fairs in May for the sale of sheep and in November for the sale of cattle are still held. The market rights date at least from 1276, and three weekly markets are still held for the sale of corn, cattle and vegetables respectively. The cloth trade which formed the staple industry at Guildford in the middle ages is now extinct.
GUILDHALL, the hall of the corporation of the city of London,
England. It faces a courtyard opening out of Gresham Street.
The date of its original foundation is not known. An ancient
crypt remains, but the hall has otherwise undergone much
alteration. It was rebuilt in 1411, beautified by the munificence
of successive officials, damaged in the Great Fire of 1666,
and restored in 1789 by George Dance; while the hall was
again restored, with a new roof, in 1870. This fine chamber,
152 ft. in length, is the scene of the state banquets and entertainments
of the corporation, and of the municipal meetings
“in common hall.” The building also contains a council
chamber and various court rooms, with a splendid library, open
to the public, a museum and art gallery adjoining. The hall
contains several monuments and two giant figures of wood,
