Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/324

Rh 304 M A I M A I pedlar s wares, tobacco, and rice are imported. Cotton thread is largely manufactured, and there is some trade in bangles, hukds or pipes, inlaid wood-work, and other fancy articles. Saltpetre is refined at several factories. The district is thoroughly supplied with land and water communications. Good metalled roads connect all the principal towns and villages ; the East Indian Railway runs for 23 miles through the south-western angle ; the navigable branch of the Ganges canal intersects the central plateau ; and the natural highway of the Jumna skirts the district to the south. The gross amount of assessment in 1880-81 was 115,132. Education was afforded in 1880-81 by 151 schools with 4146 pupils. The climate is hot but not excessively sultry during the summer months, and damp or foggy during the cold weather rains. The average annual rainfall for the five years ending 1870-71 was 32 - 20 inches. The chief endemic disease is malarial fever. Mainpuri anciently formed part of the great kingdom of Kanauj, and after the fall of that famous state it was divided into a number of petty principalities, of which Rapri and Bhongaon were the chief. In 1194 Rapri was made the seat of a Moslem governor. Mainpuri fell to the Mughals on Babar s invasion in 1526, and, although temporarily wrested from them by the short-lived Afghan dynasty of Sher Shah, was again occupied by them on the reinstatement of Humayun after the victory of Panipat. Like the rest of the lower Doab, Mainpuri passed, towards the end of the last century, into the power of the Mahrattas, and finally became a portion of the province of Oudh. When this part of the country was ceded to the British in 1801, Mainpuri town became the headquarters of the ex- extensive district of Etawah, which was in 1856 reduced by the for mation of Etah and Mainpuri into separate collectorates. On the outbreak of the mutiny in 1857, the regiment stationed at Mainpuri revolted, and attacked the town, which was successfully defended by the few Europeans of the station for a week, until the arrival of the Jhausi mutineers made it necessary to abandon the district. the chief town and headquarters of the above district, is situated in 27 14 15&quot; N. lat, 79 3 5&quot; E. long., and had a population in 1872 of 21,117, viz., Hindus, 17,596; Mohammedans, 3435; Christians and &quot;others,&quot; 146. The town consists of two separate portions, Mainpuri proper and Mukhamganj ; the former traditionally dates from the prehistoric period of the Mahdbhdrata, while the latter was founded by Raja Jaswant Sinh in 1803. Holkar plundered and burned part of the town in 1804, but was repulsed by the local militia. Since the British occupation the population has rapidly increased, and many improvements have been carried out. The Agra branch of the Grand Trunk Road runs through the centre, and forms a wide street lined on both sides by shops, which constitute the principal bazaar. Besides the usual Government offices, &c., in the civil station, the chief buildings are the police station, opium warehouses, jail, post-office, dispensary, two large schools, American Presby terian mission, church, reading-rooms ; there are two public gardens. The town carries on a considerable trade in cotton, indigo seed, country produce, and iron ; and there is a manufacture of wooden articles inlaid with wire. MAINTENON, FRAH^OISE D AUBIGNE, MARQUISE DE (1635-1719), the second wife of Louis XIV., and unac knowledged queen of France for the last thirty years of his reign, was born in a prison at Niort on November 27, 1635. Her father Constant d Aubigne, was the son of Agrippa d Aubigne, the famous friend and general of Henry IV., and had been imprisoned as a Huguenot malcontent, but her mother, a fervent Catholic, had the child baptized in her religion, her sponsors being the Due de la Rochefoucauld, father of the author of the Maxims, and the Comtesse de Neuillant. In 1639 Constant d Aubignd was released from prison and took all his family with him to Martinique, where he died in 1645, after having lost what fortune remained to him at cards. Madame d Aubignd returned to France, and from sheer poverty unwillingly yielded her daughter to her sister-in-law, Madame de Villette, who made the child very happy, but, unfortunately for her, converted or pretended to convert her to Protestantism. When this was known, an order of state was issued that she should be entrusted to Madame de Neuillant, her godmother. Every means, every indignity even, was now used to convert her back to Catholicism, but at the last she only yielded on the con dition that she need not believe that the soul of Madame de Villette was lost. Once reconverted, she was neglected, and sent home to live with her mother, who had only a small pension of 200 livres a year, which ceased on her death in 1650. The Chevalier de Mere, a man of some literary distinction, who had made her acquaintance at Madame do Neuillant s, discovered her penniless condition, and introduced his &quot;young Indian,&quot; as he called her, to Scarron, the famous wit and comic writer, at whose houso all the literary society of the day assembled. The wit, who was of good legal family, and had a kind heart, took a fancy to the friendless girl, and offered either to pay for her admission to a convent, or, though he was deformed and an invalid, to marry her himself. She accepted his offer of marriage, and became Madame Scarron in 1651. For nine years she was not only his most faithful nurse, but an attraction to his house, where she tried to bridle the licence of the conversation of the time. On the death of Scarron in 1660, Anne of Austria continued his pension to his widow, and even increased it to 2000 livres a year, which enabled her to entertain and frequent the literary society her husband had made her acquainted with; but on the queen-mother s death in 1666 the king, in spite of all the efforts of her friends, refused to continue her pension, and she prepared to leave Paris for Lisloa as lady attendant to the queen of Portugal. But before she started, she met Madame de Montespan, who was already, though not avowedly, the king s mistress, at the Hotel d Albret, and the lady in question took such a fancy to her that she obtained the continuance of her pension, which put off for ever the question of going to Portugal. Madame de Montespan did yet more for her, for when, in 1669, her first child by the king was born Madame Scarron was established with a large income and a large staff of servants at Vaugirard to bring up the king s children in secrecy as they were born. In 1674 the king determined to have his children at court, and their governess, who had now made sufficient fortune to buy the estate of Maintenon, accompanied them. The king had now many opportunities of seeing Madame Scarron, and, though at first he was prejudiced against her, her even temper showed so advantageously against the storms of passion and jealousy exhibited by Madame de Montespan that she grew steadily in his favour, and had in 1678 the gratification of having her estate at Maintenon raised to a marquisate, and herself entitled Madame de Maintenon by the king himself. Such favours brought down the fury of Madame de Montespan s jealousy, and Madame de Maintenon s position was almost unendurable, until, in 1680, the king severed their connexion by making the latter second lady in waiting to the dauphiness, and soon after Madame de Montespan left the court. The new &quot; amie &quot; used her influence on the side of decency, and the queen openly declared she had never been so well treated as at this time, and eventually died in Madame de Maintenon s arms in 1683. The queen s death opened the way to yet greater advancement ; in 1684 she was made first lady in waiting to the dauphiness, and in the winter of 1685, or, Voltairo says, in January 1686, she was privately married to the king by Harlay, archbishop of Paris, in the presence, it is believed, of Pere la Chaise, the king s confessor, the Marquis de Montchevreuil, the Chevalier de Forbin, and Bontemps. No written proof of the marriage is extant, but that it took place is nevertheless certain. Her life during the thirty years of her second married life must be studied from more than one side, and can be so fully from her letters, which are masterpieces even of an age