Page:Imperialdictiona03eadi Brandeis Vol3a.pdf/478

MON Minerva at Rome, being carved by Montelupo himself. Montelupo died in 1588, and was buried with great honour in the church of Sta. Maria.—J. T—e.  MONTEMAYOR,, a Spanish poet, born some time before 1520 at Montemor, near Coimbra, in Portugal. In early life he was a soldier. He afterwards joined a company of musicians whom the infante of Spain, afterwards Philip II., engaged to accompany him in his travels. Probably he left Spain owing to a disappointment in love, and died in a duel at Turin in 1561; but the accounts of his life are conflicting. His "Diana Enamorada"—the first of the Spanish pastoral romances, justly thought worthy of preservation by Don Quixote's curate, and of which he is supposed to be himself the hero—was left unfinished. His lyrical, satirical, and historical poems, are not deserving of special notice.—F. M. W.  MONTEN,, a distinguished German battle painter, was born at Düsseldorf in 1799. After serving a year in the Prussian army he entered the academy of Düsseldorf, and went afterwards to Munich, to study the works of the celebrated battle painter, Peter Hess. At Munich he attracted the notice of the king, Ludwig I.; and was employed in 1827 by the king's painter, Cornelius, to paint a portion of the arcade of the Hof-garten at Munich, which is decorated with historical frescoes. Monten now painted a grand series of works for the king of Bavaria and other crowned heads of Europe, among which the principal are—"The Battle of Saarbrück," 1815; "The Departure of the Polos from their Fatherland," in 1831; "The Death of Gustavus Adolphus, at the Battle of Lützen;" "George I. at the Battle of Neerwinden," and "The Great Camp at Augsburg, in 1838," painted in 1839 for the Emperor Nicholas, who was present. Monten was very successful in his horses, which are always of a fine character; but he is often extravagant in his actions, and too sketchy in his execution. His works, however, are always well composed, well coloured, and of admirable effect, and he has had few superiors in his style at any time. He died at Munich on the 12th of December, 1843.—(Kunstblatt, 1844.)—R. N. W.  MONTEREAU,, a famous French architect who flourished in the first half of the thirteenth century. He constructed the chapel of Vincennes; the chapter-house, refectory, dormitory, and chapel of the abbey of St. Germain-des-Prés; and the Ste. Chapelle, Paris, which he built (1245-48) for St. Louis, to contain the relics obtained by that monarch from the East. Montereau's buildings are all remarkable for justness of proportions, and the purity and delicacy of the details. His master-work, however, is the Ste. Chapelle, which, though small, is generally regarded as the standard example of French Gothic architecture when at its greatest perfection; and as being consequently the most refined and graceful building of its class extant. It is, however, to be remembered that the Ste. Chapelle is only a small portion of a grand design which the troubles in which St. Louis became involved did not allow him to carry out. De Montereau died in March, 1266, and was buried on the 17th of that month in the chapel he had built at St. Germain-des-Près, where his effigy is carved on a tomb, folding in his hand a rule and compasses.—J. T—e.  MONTESPAN,, Marquise de, was born in 1641. The wife of the Marquis de Montespan, she is better known as the mistress of Louis XIV. As the favourite of this monarch she succeeded the Duchesse de la Vallière; and her grace, her beauty, her lively conversation soon gained remarkable influence over him. She long retained it, and it only yielded at last to that of Madame de Maintenon. By her husband, Madame de Montespan had a son (Gondrin, Duc d'Antin); by Louis XIV. she was the mother of a son who was created Duke of Maine, of two daughters, one of whom married the grandson of the great Condé, and another married the Duc de Chartres, and of several others, most of whom died young. Her latter years were spent at a distance from the court in a state of penitence, the sincerity of which has been much doubted. She died in 1717.—W. J. P.  MONTESQUIEU,, Baron de, and Baron de la Brède, was born on the 18th January, 1689, at the chateau of La Brede near Bordeaux; and died at Paris on the 10th February, 1755. He passed his youth at La Brède, and there also he wrote the works which have rendered his name so celebrated. The lands of Montesquieu had long been in the family. They were erected into a barony by Henry III. of Navarre, afterwards Henry II. of France, as a reward for the faithful services of Jacob de Secondat. Belonging to one of the best families of the district, and destined by his father to the career of law, young Montesquieu became in early life an assiduous student, and devoted special attention to the various codes which at that period encumbered the jurisprudence of France. His ardour for study was immense, but it was also accompanied by a true literary taste which led him with intense fervour to the mastery of the classics, the region of literature which above all others he preferred. History, voyages and travels, and even natural science, were also pursued as the recreations with which he refreshed himself in the midst of his more serious labours; so that while still a young man he was an accomplished scholar, and had filled his mind with a perfect store of unusual information. So completely could he throw himself into his work, that he said—"I never yet had an annoyance that an hour's reading would not cure." At the age of twenty he had begun a first essay in the field of literature, based on his love of antiquity—a work in the form of letters intended to prove that the idolatry of the pagans was not worthy of eternal punishment. The work was written, but not published; judgment being as powerful a faculty with Montesquieu as talent. In 1716 his paternal uncle, who held the office of perpetual president of the parliament of Bordeaux, lost his only son, and Montesquieu was adopted as the heir of his wealth and of his dignities. He entered on the duties with a full sense of the obligations they imposed, and for a time he sacrificed his literary tastes to his official occupations. At this period he was instrumental in founding the Academy of Sciences of Bordeaux. For natural science he had shown a predilection, rather than an aptitude; but his imperfect vision, which in later life amounted almost to blindness, arrested his scientific career, and fixed his attention on those subjects where his natural genius was unquestionably more at home. At the age of thirty-two he published his famous "Persian Letters" (Lettres Persannes); a work which, with all the charm of a romance, struck with remorseless satire at abuses of French society, and at the strange condition into which the court had fallen in the later days of Louis XIV. Specially appropriate to the circumstances of the time, the work was prodigiously successful—a success increased at first by the anonymous form in which it was published; and when the authorship was discovered, still farther increased by the fact that the author was the president of one of the principal courts in the kingdom. In 1726 he resigned or rather sold, as was then customary, the presidency of the parliament of Bordeaux. He had been able to understand the merits of the cases, but by his own confession he could never acquire a knowledge of procedure; and although he could compose an address of great merit, he had not the faculty of extempore address, desirable both for his own comfort and for the advance of business. Strange as it may appear in one who could write with such full knowledge and such breadth of thought, he declared that "timidity had been the bane of his life; that it tied his tongue, obscured his faculties, clouded his thoughts, and disordered his expressions." Under these circumstances he got rid of his office, and retired to ponder on his great work, "L'Esprit des Lois." In 1728 he was received member of the French Academy. Much controversy has arisen regarding the manner of his election. On the one hand, it is asserted that Cardinal Fleury objected to his nomination in the name of the king, and that Montesquieu modified the passages of the "Persian Letters" that could give offence to the reigning powers. On the other hand, it is alleged that he owed his election to his high rank and position, and that he threatened to retire from France if the opposition of the court to his election were successful. It must be remembered that he had never openly avowed the authorship of the objectionable work, and consequently the opposition of the court assumed in some sense the form of persecution. However this may be—and the facts are still undetermined—he was received at the Academy, and pronounced his introductory address on the 24th January, 1728. After this he entered on a course of travel, visiting Vienna—where he was frequently in the company of Prince Eugene; Hungary; Italy—at Venice forming the acquaintance of the Scottish speculator John Law, who had fallen into poverty and disgrace; then he went to Rome, Genoa, Switzerland, Holland—where he was intimate with Lord Chesterfield; and finally to London. In the English metropolis he was received with great distinction; the Royal Society electing him one of its members, and Queen Anne manifesting towards him peculiar favour. His 