FEUILLANS, a reformed brotherhood of Cistercian monks, founded in 1577 by Jean de la Barriere, abbot of the Cistercian monastery at Feuillans, in Languedoc.  The movement thus organised was a protest against the laxity which had crept into the Church, and probably received some stimulus from the Reformation, which was then in progress.  The Feuillans settled in a convent in the Rue St. Honore, Paris, which in after years became the meeting-place of a revolutionary club, which took the name of Feuillans; founded in 1790 by Lafayette, La Rochefoucauld, &c., and which consisted of members of the respectable property classes, whose views were more moderate than those of the Jacobins.  They could not hold out against the flood of revolutionary violence, and on March 28, 1791, a mob burst into their place of meeting and dispersed them.

FEUILLET, OCTAVE, a celebrated French novelist, born at Saint-Lo, in La Manche; started his literary career as one of Dumas’ assistants, but made his first independent success in the Revue des Deux Mondes by a series of tales, romances, &c., begun in 1848; in 1862 he was elected a member of the Academy, and later became librarian to Louis Napoleon; his novels, of which “Le Roman d’un Jeune Homme Pauvre” and “Sibylle” are the most noted, are graceful in style, and reveal considerable dramatic force, but often lapse into sentimentality, and too often treat of indelicate subjects, although in no spirit of coarseness (1812-1890).

FEZ (150), the largest city in Morocco, of which it is the second capital; is surrounded by walls and prettily situated in the valley of the Sebu, a stream which flows through its centre and falls into the Atlantic 100 m. to the E. It has been for many centuries one of the most important of the sacred cities of the Moslem; has many fine mosques, the Sultan’s palace, and an important university; is yet a busy commercial centre, although signs of decay appear all over the city, and carries on an active caravan trade with Central Africa.

FEZZAN (50), a Turkish province lying to the S. of Tripoli, to which it is politically united; in character partakes of the desert region to which it belongs, being almost wholly composed of barren sandy plateaux, with here and there an oasis in the low valleys, where some attempt at cultivation is made.  The people, who belong to the Berber stock, are Mohammedans, honest, but lazy and immoral.  Murzuk (6) is the chief town.

FIARS, an expression in Scotch law given to the prices of grain which are determined, by the respective sheriffs in the various counties assisted by juries.  The Court for “striking the fiars” is held towards the end of February in accordance with Acts of Sederunt of the Court of Session.  The prices fixed are used in the settling of contracts where no prices have been determined upon, e. g. in fixing stipends of ministers of the Church of Scotland, and are found useful in other ways.