BAYEUX TAPESTRY, representations in tapestry of events connected with the Norman invasion of England, commencing with Harold’s visit to the Norman court, and ending with his death at the battle of Hastings; still preserved in the public library of Bayeux; is so called because originally found there; it is 214 ft. long by 20 in. wide, divided into 72 scenes, and contains a variety of figures.  It is a question whose work it was.

BAYLE, PIERRE, a native of Languedoc; first Protestant (as the son of a Calvinist minister), then Catholic, then sceptic; Professor of Philosophy at Padua, then at Rotterdam, and finally retired to the Boompjes in the latter city; known chiefly as the author of the famous Dictionnaire Historique et Critique, to the composition of which he consecrated his energies with a zeal worthy of a religious devotee, and which became the fountain-head of the sceptical philosophy that flooded France on the eve of the Revolution; pronounced by a competent judge in these matters, a mere “imbroglio of historical, philosophical, and anti-theological marine stores” (1647-1700).

BAYLEN, a town in the province of Jaen, Spain, where General Castanos defeated Dupont, and compelled him to sign a capitulation, in 1808.

BAYLEY, SIR JOHN, a learned English judge; author of a standard work “On the Law of Bills of Exchange”; d. 1841.

BAYONNE (24), a fortified French town, trading and manufacturing, in the dep. of Basses-Pyrenees, at the confluence of the Adour and Nive, 4 m. from the Bay of Biscay; noted for its strong citadel, constructed by Vauban, and one of his chef-d’oeuvres, and its 12th-century cathedral church; it belonged to the English from 1152 to 1451.

BAZAINE, FRANCOIS ACHILLE, a marshal of France, born at Versailles; distinguished himself in Algiers, the Crimea, and Mexico; did good service, as commander of the army of the Rhine, in the Franco-German war, but after the surrender at Sedan was shut up in Metz, surrounded by the Germans, and obliged to surrender, with all his generals, officers, and men; was tried by court-martial, and condemned to death, but was imprisoned instead; made good his escape one evening to Madrid, where he lived to write a justification of his conduct, the sale of the book being prohibited in France (1811-1888).

BAZARD, SAINT-AMAND, a French socialist, founder of the Charbonnerie Francaise; a zealous but unsuccessful propagator of St. Simonianism, in association with ENFANTIN (q. v.), from whom he at last separated (1791-1832).

BAZOCHE, a guild of clerks of the parliament of Paris, under a mock king, with the privilege of performing religious plays, which they abused.

BEACHES, RAISED, elevated lands, formerly sea beaches, the result of upheaval, or left high by the recession of the sea, evidenced to be such by the shells found in them and the nature of the debris.

BEACHY HEAD, a chalk cliff in Sussex, 575 ft. high, projecting into the English Channel; famous for a naval engagement between the allied English and Dutch fleets and those of France, in which the latter were successful.