CHOUANS, insurrectionary royalists in France, in particular Brittany, during the French Revolution, and even for a time under the Empire, when their head-quarters were in London; so named from their muster by night at the sound of the chat-huant, the screech-owl, a nocturnal bird of prey which has a weird cry.

CHRETIEN, or CHRESTIEN, DE TROYES, a French poet or trouvere of the last half of the 12th century; author of a number of vigorously written romances connected with chivalry and the Round Table.

CHRIEMHILDE, a heroine in the “Niebelungen” and sister of Gunther, who on the treacherous murder of her husband is changed from a gentle woman into a relentless fury.

CHRISAOR, the sword of Sir Artegal in the “Faerie Queene”; it excelled every other.

CHRIST CHURCH, a college in Oxford, founded by Wolsey 1525; was Gladstone’s college and John Ruskin’s, as well as John Locke’s.

CHRISTABEL, a fragmentary poem of Coleridge’s; characterised by Stopford Brooke as, for “exquisite metrical movement and for imaginative phrasing,” along with “Kubla Khan,” without a rival in the language.

CHRISTADELPHIANS, an American sect, called also Thomasites, whose chief distinctive article of faith is conditional immortality, that is, immortality only to those who believe in Christ, and die believing in him.

CHRISTCHURCH (16), capital of the province of Canterbury, New Zealand, 5 m. from the sea; Littleton the port.

CHRISTIAN, the name of nine kings of Denmark, of whom the first began to reign in 1448 and the last in 1863, and the following deserve notice:  CHRISTIAN II., conquered Sweden, but proving a tyrant, was driven from the throne by Gustavus Vasa in 1522, upon which his own subjects deposed him, an act which he resented by force of arms, in which he was defeated in 1531, his person seized, and imprisoned for life; characterised by Carlyle as a “rash, unwise, explosive man” (1481-1559).  CHRISTIAN IV., king from 1588 to 1648; took part on the Protestant side in the Thirty Years’ War, and was defeated by Tilly; he was a good ruler, and was much beloved by his subjects; was rather unsteady in his habits, it is said (1577-1648).  CHRISTIAN IX., king from 1863; son of Duke William of Sleswick-Holstein, father of the Princess of Wales, George I., king of Greece, and the dowager Empress of Russia; b. 1818.

CHRISTIAN CONNECTION, a sect in the United States which acknowledges the Bible alone as the rule of faith and manners.

CHRISTIAN KING, THE MOST, a title of the king of France conferred by two different Popes.

CHRISTIAN KNOWLEDGE, SOCIETY FOR PROMOTING (S.  P. C. K.), a religious association in connection with the Church of England, under the patronage of the Queen and the presidency of the Archbishop of Canterbury, established 1698, the object of which is to disseminate a knowledge of Christian doctrine both at home and abroad by means of churches, schools, and libraries, and by the circulation of Bibles and Christian literature.