Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/638

Rh 608 M A S M A S said, his death was near at hand ; then tearing open his dress lie showed his body emaciated by fatigue and want of food. After some more wild talk he was disarmed and confined in a cell in the monastery. There the quiet seems to have restored him ; but his assassins soon broke in ; he turned to meet them ; five shots were at once fired, and he fell dead. His head was cut off and carried through the .streets, while his body was dragged about for a while and then buried outside the city. Next day some boys went and dug up the body, washed it, and took the head from the guard in charge of it. The Neapolitans forgot the excesses of the last few days, and only remembered the leader who had won them their great victory. People plucked out his hairs and preserved them as relics, some even prayed to him as a saint. All the priests of the city officiated at the funeral, and even the viceroy was repre sented by eight of his pages. (G. H. B.) MASAYA, a town in Nicaragua, Central America, on the east side of the Lake of Masaya, about 55 miles south east of Managua, and 25 miles north-west of Granada. The population, mostly of Indian blood, is estimated at 15,000 or 18,000 ; but, as nearly every house has its orchard or garden, the buildings are spread over a much larger area than this would suggest. Previous to 1871, when a steam- pump was Erected, all the water required had to be carried from the lake, which lies 340 feet below the level of the town. The volcano of Masaya on the opposite side of the lake was active at the time of the conquest of Nicaragua in 1522, and the conquerors, thinking the lava they saw was gold, had themselves lowered into the crater at the risk of their lives ; it had a great eruption in 1670, and began to smoke again in 1860. MASCARA, a fortified town of Algeria in the province of Oran, 60 miles south-east of Oran, lies at a height of 1900 feet above the sea, on the southern slope of the first chain of the Atlas mountains, and occupies two small hills separated by the Oued Toudman. The walls, upwards of 2 miles in circuit, and strengthened by bastions and towers, give the place a somewhat imposing appearance ; the French part of the town is substantial and clean ; and among the public buildings are three mosques (one used as a church, another as a granary), a large hospital, a small theatre, and the usual establishments attaching to the seat of a sub-prefect and the centre of a military subdivision. A public garden of 10 acres has been laid out in the ravine. The population was 9442 in 1866, and 9240 in 1872. Mascara (i.e., place of soldiers) was the capital of a beylik during the Spanish occupation of Oran from the 16th to the close of the 18th century; but for the most of that period it occupied a site about 2 miles distant from the present position. On the removal of the bey to Oran its importance rapidly declined ; and it was quite an insignificant place when in 1832 Abd-el-Kadir, who had been born in the neighbourhood, chose it as the seat of his power. It was laid in ruins by the French under Marshal Clausel and the duke of Orleans in 1835, and, being again occupied by Abd-el-Kadir in 1838, was again captured in 1841 by Bugeaud and Lamoriciere. MASCARENE ISLANDS, or MASCARENHAS, a group in the Indian Ocean to the east of Madagascar, consisting of Mauritius (lie de France), Reunion (Bourbon), and Rodriguez. Mauritius and Rodriguez belong to Great Britain, Reunion to France. The collective title is derived from the Portuguese navigator Garcia Mascarenhas, by whom Bourbon, at first called Mascarenhas, was discovered in 1505. MASCARON, JULES, was born at Marseilles in 1634, and died at his diocesan city of Agen in 1703. His father was an advocate, and he was himself intended for the law, but he preferred the church. As a member of the Oratoriau congregation he preached in different provincial towns, beginning with Saumur, and in all produced a great effect. Then he went to Paris and quickly established his reputa tion at a time when the court, dissolute enough in manners, had already begun to exercise its connoisseurship in matters of sacred eloquence. Several complimentary speeches of Louis XIV. to Mascaron are handed down by tradition. He was not, however, in the ordinary sense a courtier ; or if so he was a very bold and adroit one. In Lent 1669 he preached before the king against adultery in the strongest terms. Either from respect for him or to get rid of him Louis made him bishop of Tulle, but he still continued occasionally to preach and to deliver oraisons funebres before the court. His reputation for these was so high that the king not unfrequently indicated subjects to him himself. His crowning success in this way was his funeral sermon on Turenne in 1675. He was afterwards translated to Agen, where he died, as has been said ; but his appoint ment was not a banishment, and he was summoned more than once to preach before the court, notably in his sixtieth year, when Louis is said to have remarked to him, &quot; Votre eloquence n a pas vieilli.&quot; Mascaron, though the contem porary of Bossuet, belongs to an older school of oratory. His style is unequal, arid his taste not always sure, but occasionally he has much vigour. Besides the Turenne address his funeral sermon on the chancellor S^guier ranks as his chief performance. These, with other similar pieces, were collected and edited by Father Borde, a member of the author s own congregation, in 1740. MASCHERONI, LOKENZO (1750-1800), an Italian geometer, was professor of mathematics at the university of Pavia, and published a variety of mathematical works, the best-known of which is his Geometria del Coni2)asso (Pavia, 1797), a body of constructive geometry in which the use of the circle alone is postulated. Many of the solutions are most ingenious, and some of the constructions of considerable practical importance. The English reader will find a copious extract from Mascheroni s work in Leslie s Geometry, 3d ed., p. 204. There is a French translation by Carette (Paris, 1798), who also wrote a biography of Mascheroni. MASINISSA, a Numidian prince whose history is closely intertwined with that of the wars between Rome and Carthage. With true barbarian fickleness, and a keen eye to his own interests, he espoused now one side now the other, inclining however on the whole decidedly in favour of Rome, so much so indeed as to be spoken of by Roman orators and historians as &quot; a most faithful ally of the Roman people.&quot; He was the son of a Numidian king or chief, Gala, whose dominions coincided with the eastern portions of Numidia, and thus bordered on Carthaginian territory, or what is now Tunis. He was educated, like many of the Numidian chiefs, at Carthage, learnt Latin and Greek, it is said, and was in short an accomplished as well as a naturally clever man. Although his kingdom was nominally independent of Carthage, it really stood to it in a relation of vassalage ; it was directly under Carthaginian influences, and was imbued to a very considerable extent with Carthaginian civilization. It was to this that Masinissa owed his fame and success ; he was a barbarian at heart, but he had a varnish of culture, and to this he added the craft and cunning in which Carthaginian statesmen were supposed to excel. While yet a young man, he drove his neighbour Syphax, prince of western Numidia, out of the country now known as Algiers, and forced him to fly to the Moors in the extreme west of Africa. Soon afterwards he appears in Spain, fighting for Carthage with a large force of Numidian cavalry against the Romans under the two Scipios. The defeat of the Carthaginian army in 206 B.C., which for a time at least gave the Romans complete mastery of the so^th of Spain, led him to desert his old allies and to cast in his lot with the fortunes of Rome. The famous Scipio Africanus is said to have cultivated his friendship