Page:The American Cyclopædia (1879) Volume XI.djvu/796

 778 MONTEBELLO MONTE CUCULI under the superintendence of a select commit- tee. The Paris mont de piete is situated in the rue des Blancs Manteaux, with two large branches in the rue Bonaparte and the rue de la Roquette. There are also about 20 agents scattered over Paris, appointed by the adminis- tration. The mont de pi6te makes advances from three francs upward at a rate fixed in 1854 at 4 per cent, per annum, which has since been as high as 9 per cent. In 1873 the rate was 5 per cent. No money is advanced except upon securities, the value of which is assessed by a committee of appraisers, four fifths of the value being advanced upon articles of gold and silver, and two thirds upon all other articles. A receipt for the article pledged is given to the owner, who must prove his identity in order to reclaim it. The articles pledged, if not redeemed, are sold at public sales at the expiration of 14 months, and the surplus money, if any, is paid to the owner of the article if ap- plied for within three years. The annual re- ceipts and expenditures of the mont de pi6t6 are respectively about 50,000,000 francs, with a balance of about 230,000 francs in favor of the institution. The most profitable customers of the mont de pi6te are not the poor, but the needy of the higher classes. During the rule of the commune in Paris in 1871, the official organ published a decree, May 12, that all arti- cles of wearing apparel, linen, books, bedding, and working tools, pledged at the mont de pie"t6 for a sum not exceeding 20 francs, could be taken out without any payment, the re- ceiver of money on such articles proving his identity ; and it was estimated that the sum to repay such advances would be about 8,000,000 francs. The largest number of applications for redemption is on Saturdays, and just before New Year's and Easter. In 1873 there were 46 monts de piete in France, with a capital of about 50,000,000 francs, making yearly loans of about 60,000,000. In five of the establish- ments the loans are gratuitous; in the rest the rate of interest varies. There are numerous similar establishments in Holland, Belgium, and Germany. In the latter country the rate of interest varies from 8 to 12 per cent. ; loans rarely exceed the amount of $150, and the smallest pledge must be worth at least $2, one month being the shortest and a year the long- | est term of the loan. The rate of interest in ! the Russian monts de pie" t6 is 6 per cent. Chi- na is said to possess very ancient institutions of the kind, under the direction of great public dignitaries, which seem to be conducted upon more charitable principles than those of Eu- rope, the rate of interest there being only from 2 to 3 per cent. These institutions are repre- sented in Great Britain and America by pawn shops, which differ from them in being pri- vate establishments regulated by special laws. MOSTEBELLO, a small village of Italy, on the road from Alessandria and Voghera to Pia- cenza,' about 4 m. E. of Voghera. It was the scene of a victory of the French under Lannes over the imperialists, June 9, 1800, five days before the battle of Marengo, and of an en- gagement between the French and Sardinian allies and the Austrians, May 20, 1859, in which, with a loss of about 650, the allies de- feated the Austrians, who lost about 1,000 killed and wounded and 200 prisoners. MONTE CASINO. See CASINO. MOM KU Cl LI, or Montecaeeoli, Raimondo, count, an Austrian general, born near Modeiaa in 1608, died in Linz, Oct. 16, 1681. He entered the Austrian army in 1627, and distinguished him- self in the thirty years' war. On Sept. 7, 1631, he was wounded and taken prisoner in the battle of Breitenfeld, and liberated in 1632. For his gallantry in the assault on Kaiserslau- tern, in July, 1635, he was promoted to a colonelcy. In 1639, while attempting to pre- vent the Swedes from crossing the Elbe at Melnik, in Bohemia, he was worsted and taken prisoner. On his release two years afterward he joined the imperial army in Silesia, defeated the enemy at Troppau, and took the town of Brieg. On the outbreak of war in Italy he went thither, and received from the duke of Modena the title of brigadier general and the command of his cavalry ; but he soon returned to Austria, was appointed in 1644 lieutenant field marshal and a member of the aulic coun- cil of war, supported in 1645 the archduke Leopold in his expedition against Rak6czy of Transylvania, and was sent to oppose Turenne on the Rhine. The next year, in conjunction with Johann von Werth, he completely routed the Swedes in Silesia, and received the rank of general of cavalry. Being in 1657 placed in command of the army sent by the emperor to protect John Casimir of Poland against the Transylvanians and the Swedes, he forced Ra- k6czy to make peace. Promoted to the rank of field marshal, he was sent the next year to relieve Denmark, rescued Copenhagen from the attacks of the Swedes, and expelled them from Jutland and! the island of Ftinen. After the establishment of peace in the north by the treaty of Oliva (1660), he commanded the army sent against the Turks, whom he drove from Transylvania, and on Aug. 1, 1664, gained on the banks of the Raab the victory of St. Gott- hard, which for the time delivered Christian Europe from Turkish invasion. When in 1672 Louis XIV. threatened Holland, Montecuculi commanded the imperial army which took the field in behalf of the Dutch, and baffled the plans of Turenne, whom he worsted on several occasions. For a while superseded in the com- mand by the elector of Brandenburg, he was soon recalled (1675), as the only general who could hold his ground in presence of the great French marshal. On the death of Turenne he drove the French army across the Rhine, and invaded Alsace ; but his progress was stopped by the prince of Cond6, who obliged him to raise the siege of Hagenau and recross the Rhine. After this campaign Montecuculi re- turned to Vienna and devoted his time to sci-