Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/72

 64 MALESHERBES plant for the outdoor fernery, but its chief in- terest lies in the use that has been made of the ,-k in medicine. It was known to the ancients as an anthelmintic, but attention was called to it anew by the widow of a Swiss surgeon Mme. Nouffer, who had such great gnccess in expelling tapeworms that Louis XIV paid her 18,000 francs for her secret; it was found that her principal remedy was the root of the male fern, which was aided by pow- erful purges. The root stocks are collected when 3 to 6 in. long and dried, in which state they are kept in the shops ; the male fern roots, as they are called, contain about 10 per cent, of oily and resinous matters, upon which A orm-destroying properties depend ; the oil of male fern is an ethereal extract, and contains such constituents of the roots as are soluble in that menstruum. Like other agents for the destruction of tapeworms, it has had a varying reputation, some attributing its effi- cacy solely to the active cathartics used with it ; on the other hand, it is asserted that while it is effective against the unarmed tapeworm, common among the Swiss, it has much less or very little effect upon the armed tapeworm, the one most common in this country. The medi- cine appears to act as a poison upon the worm, which is then easily expelled. The dose of the powdered root is two or three drams, or of the oil half a dram, followed by castor oil. MALESHERBES, Chretien Gaillanme de Lamoi- pnon de, a French statesman, born in Paris, Dec. 6, 1721, guillotined April 22, 1794. Of an illus- trious family, son of a chancellor of France, he was educated in the Jesuits' college, became counsellor of the parliament of Paris in 1744, succeeded his father in the presidency of the court of aids in 1750, and was at the same time vored the publication of the Encyclopedic and other works of its authors in defiance of the anathemas of the Sorbonne. He protested in 1770 and 1771 against the imposition of new taxes and the abuses of lettres de cachet, for which he was banished from Paris. After the accession of Louis XVI. in 1774, he was called .into the ministry with Turgot, and the de- partment of Paris and the police of the king- dom was intrusted to him. His counsels were rejected, and he resigned in 1776 when Turgot ! '.-missed. He passed the time until the revolution in travels in France, Holland, and Switzerland, and in the pursuits of literature, with the exception of a brief interval in 1787 he was called into the ministry. When LMI'H XVI. was arraigned before the national ntion in 1792, Malesherbes obtained the rous honor of pleading his cause, and was the last to take leave of the condemned monarch. Kleven months afterward he was d with his family by the revolutionary tribunal, and condemned with them to the scaffold. Hi- Itiscourset remontrames (1779) nre valualil.- with reference to financial ques- tions, and hi- paper Sur la liberte de la presse MALHERBE (1809) is remarkable for its enlightened views. A monument was erected to his memory un- der the restoration. See Boissy d'Anglas, Essai sur la vie, les opinions et les ecrits de Malesherbes (2 vols., 1818), and Sainte-Beuve, Malesherbes, in Causeries du lundi, vol. ii. MALET. Claude Francois de, a French conspira- tor born in D61e, June 28, 1754, executed in Paris, Oct. 29, 1812. In 1799 he distinguished himself in the army during the passage of the Little 'St. Bernard, and was made brigadier general. He disapproved of the promotion of Bonaparte to the consulate, but apparently adhered to the empire, expressing in a letter to Napoleon a hope of its becoming beneficial to and not destructive of liberty. But Prince Eugene expelled him from his headquarters in Italy, on the charge of conspiring against the emperor, and he was imprisoned during ten months till May, 1808, and soon rearrest- ed. In prison he continued to plan conspira- cies with other opponents of Napoleon, espe- cially in 1809, after the defeat at Essling, but this attempt was abortive. The emperor or- dered him to be transferred from La Force to a regular state prison, but Fouch6 neglected to do so, and even permitted him in June, 1812, to remove to a private sanitary asylum. Here he met the Polignacs and Abbe Laf on, the prin- cipal Bourbon agents, while his wife, the cor- poral Rateau, and others worked against Na- poleon in the interior of the country. Malet's plot was ripe in October, when he deemed the anxiety respecting the Russian campaign favor- able for its execution. In the night of Oct. 23-24, when the disastrous retreat from Mos- cow became known, he announced to the gar- rison of Paris the death of Napoleon, and at first met with some success, with the aid of his confederates, and by promising rewards to those who would join him. He shot dead the recalcitrant Gen. Hullin, commander of the first division, but was disarmed by two officers, who disclosed the deception which had been practised, and the populace responded with the cry, Vive Vempereur. The whole plot fell to the ground, and Malet was sentenced to death. His wife was arrested ; and as she sub- sequently received a pension, and her son an appointment, from Louis XVIII., it was sup- posed that Malet had conspired in the interest of the Bourbons, but it is generally believed that he was a sincere republican. MALHERBE, Francois de, a French poet, born in Caen in 1555, died in Paris, Oct. 16, 1628. While young he studied at Heidelberg and Basel, and afterward bore arms in the wars of the league. He acquired some reputation in 1600 by an ode on the arrival in France of Maria de' Medici. In 1605, having gone to Paris on business, Henry IV. sent for him, praised his talents, and provided him with the means of remaining at court. After the death of Henry IV. his widow, Maria de' Medici, set- tled on Malherbe a pension of 500 crowns, " in ! gratitude for the ode addressed to her." He