Mably, Gabriel Bonnot de, Abbé

1709-1785 A French philosopher and politician, and brother of Condillac, his works contributed to the later concepts of both Communism and Republicanism. His best known work is Entretiens de Phocion, a dialogue first published in 1763, which introduced themes of his mature thought.

BkXIX:Chap5:Sec2 The young Napoleon studied his works.

 

Macbeth

The protagonist in Shakespeare’s play of that name.

BkXVII:Chap3:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

Macbeth, Lady

The character in Shakespeare’s play, Macbeth, a role made famous by Mrs Siddons.

BkXXVII:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

MacCarthy, Nicholas Tuite, Abbé

1769-1833. Born in Dublin but educated in Paris, he was ordained in 1814 before becoming a Jesuit in 1818. After the July Revolution he retired to Italy where he died of a fever on the 3rd of May 1833.

BkXXXVII:Chap3:Sec1 He had died before being able to respond to Charles X’s summons.

 

Macchi, Vincenzo, Cardinal

1770-1860. Papal Nuncio to France (1819-1826), he was in Paris from January 1820. He was a Cardinal from 1826. He was Bishop of Ostia at his death.

BkXXV:Chap12:Sec1 The phrases used of the infant Duc de Bordeaux derived from a speech of condolence to Louis XVIII on behalf of the diplomatic corps.

BkXXX:Chap3:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap6:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

Macdonald, Jacques Étienne Joseph Alexandre, Duc de Tarente, Marshal of France

1765-1840. A Marshal of France, of Scottish descent, he distinguished himself in the French Revolutionary Wars, particularly in Italy, but was defeated by Russian forces under Alexander Suvorov at the battle of Trebbia (June, 1799). He aided Napoleon’s coup of 18th Brumaire (1799). Temporarily in disgrace for defending Jean Victor Moreau, he returned to favour, was created duke of Taranto, and played an important part in the battle of Wagram (1809), the Peninsular War, and the Russian campaign. In the Hundred Days he was loyal to King Louis XVIII.

BkXX:Chap1:Sec1 Withdrew from Naples in June 1799.

BkXXII:Chap 21:Sec1 Rallied to Louis XVIII at Compiègne in 1814.

BkXXIII:Chap1:Sec1 Hastened to Lyons when Napoleon landed from Elba.

BkXXIII:Chap20:Sec2 At Gonesse in 1815.

 

Macerata

A city in Italy, the capital of the province of Macerata in the Marche region.

BkXXIV:Chap11:Sec2 Napoleon’s 1787 proclamation from there.

BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec3 Chateaubriand there in October 1828.

 

Machault d’Arnouville, Jean Baptiste de,

1701-1794. A French statesman, he held a succession of government offices and was (1743–45) Intendant of Valenciennes. Louis XV appointed him Controller General of finances in 1745. To raise funds for the War of the Austrian Succession and to alleviate the government's chronic deficit he proposed (1749) that a tax of one twentieth (vingtième) of all incomes be levied. Opposition and evasion by the nobility, clergy, and certain privileged groups made the tax inequitable and decreased its revenue. Finally in December 1751, he was forced to suspend payment of the vingtième by the clergy and to abandon fiscal reform. In 1754, Machault was made Minister for the Navy. Having incurred the enmity of Madame de Pompadour, he was dismissed (1757) by Louis XV. He was arrested (1794) during the French Revolution and died in prison.

BkXXIII:Chap20:Sec2 BkXLII:Chap10:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Machiavelli, Niccolo

1469-1527. Florentine political philosopher, musician, poet, and romantic comedic playwright, Machiavelli was also a key figure in realist political theory. His best known work is his political treatise Il Principe (The Prince).

BkXX:Chap7:Sec1 A reference to The Prince and its cynical view of power politics.

BkXL:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Mack, Karl Freiherr, Baron von Lieberich

1752-1828. Austrian soldier, commander of the defeated forces at the Napoleonic battles of Ulm and Austerlitz. He was subsequently court-martialled and imprisoned for two years, but later re-instated.

BkXX:Chap2:Sec1 Defeated at Ulm.

 

Mackenzie, Sir Alexander

1755-1820. Alexander Mackenzie was born in Lewis, in the Outer Hebrides, in 1764. His family emigrated to North America when he was 12. Mackenzie worked for the North West Company as a fur trapper and trader and became convinced that there had to be a river route to the Pacific and set out to find it. On his first trip in 1789 he followed a river which the local Indians called the ‘Big River’. It was later to be called the Mackenzie River but instead of reaching the Pacific it ended up in the Arctic. Three years later he began a voyage on the Peace River but, when it became impassable, the rest of the journey had to be completed overland on foot through the Rocky Mountains. He eventually reached the Pacific, carving on a rock the words ‘Alex Mackenzie from Canada by Land 22 July 1793.’

BkIV:Chap13:Sec1 Mentioned. Chateaubriand in 1802 wrote an appreciation of his Voyages, published in 1801.

BkVII:Chap1:Sec1 His 1789 trip.

 

Mackintosh, Sir James

1765-1832. The British writer and public servant, was born in Scotland. He was trained as a physician, but after settling (1788) in London he became a writer and lawyer. His Vindiciae Gallicae (1791), a spirited reply to Edmund Burke's Reflections on the French Revolution, was the leading Whig statement in favour of the French Revolution, but from 1796 he grew hostile to French radicalism. Mackintosh served as recorder of Bombay (1804–6) and judge in Bombay vice-admiralty court (1806–12). As a Member of Parliament after 1812, he supported penal and parliamentary reform. His writings include several historical works. He defended Peltier in 1803.

BkXII:Chap5:Sec1 BkXXII:Chap15:Sec3 Peltier at first and wrongly hoped General Bonaparte would reinstate the monarchy. He then abused Bonaparte in his English journal L’Ambigu. Napoleon demanded his extradition after the Peace of Amiens with England. He took Peltier to Court in England in February 1803 for libel, but Mackintosh obtained the moral victory for Peltier, who was not sentenced, and continued to inveigh against Napoleon.

 

Madame Mère, see Bonaparte, Maria Letizia

 

Madeleine, Mary Magdalen

Mary Magdalene of Magdala, See Luke vii:2. Identified with the sinner of Luke vii:37

BkXVIII:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Madelonnettes

A convent in Paris founded in 1620, it was converted to a Prison for male prisoners during the Revolution. The building was later razed by Haussman.

BkXXIII:Chap20:Sec2 Machault died there.

 

Madrid, Spain

The capital and largest city in Spain, located on the Manzanares river in the centre of the country. Cultural highlights include the Escorial, the Royal Palace of Madrid, and the nearby royal monastery of San Lorenzo de El Escorial, built by Philip II in the sixteenth century.

BkXVIII:Chap3Sec1 Chateaubriand there in 1807.

BkXVIII:Chap3Sec2 A letter dated from there.

BkXX:Chap7:Sec2 BkXXXVII:Chap1:Sec1 BkXXXVII:Chap7:Sec1

The Escorial palace.

BkXX:Chap8:Sec1 Napoleon left Spain in January 1809.

BkXXII:Chap3:Sec1 The paintings at the Prado and the Escorial.

BkXXII:Chap6:Sec1 The Spanish capital.

BkXXIII:Chap8:Sec1 An example of French influence.

BkXLII:Chap2:Sec1 France supplied troops to put down the Carlist insurrections in Madrid in 1836. Thiers wished to increase the force but was opposed and resigned in August 1836, to be replaced by Molé at the Foreign office.

 

Maeotian Sea, Sea of Azov

The Sea of Azov, a northern section of the Black Sea, linked to the larger body through the Strait of Kerch, is bounded on the north by Ukraine, on the east by Russia and on the west by the Crimean peninsula. In antiquity, it was known as the Maeotian Lake or Maeotian Sea (Palus Maeotis).

BkXXI:Chap1:Sec1 The reference is to a comment in Jornandès. Chateaubriand’s text has Palus Méotides.

 

Maffliers, France

A commune in the Val ‘dOise, it lies near Beaumont-sur-Oise, thirty kilometres north of Paris.

BkXXVIII:Chap18:Sec1 Madame de Staël took refuge there.

 

Magellanic Clouds

The Large and Small Magellanic Clouds are satellite galaxies which accompany our own. They are situated near the south pole of the heavens. They were first recorded by the great navigator, Ferdinand Magellan (c1480-1521) in 1519.

BkXXIV:Chap9:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Magon de La Gicquelais, Hervine

Childhood playmate of Chateaubriand.

BkI:Chap5:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

Mahamet, Mahamed

Mamelukes.

BkXIX:Chap18:Sec1 Executed after the fall of Jaffa in 1799.

 

Mahmud II, Sultan

1784-1839. The Ottoman sultan (1808-39) was the younger son of Abd al-Hamid I. He was raised to the throne of the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) upon the deposition of his brother, Mustafa IV, and continued the reforms of his cousin, Selim III. During his reign, the Eastern Question assumed increasing importance. Mahmud inherited the Russo-Turkish War of 1806-12, which ended with Turkey’s loss of Bessarabia.

BkXX:Chap11:Sec1 Napoleon asks for an alliance in 1812.

BkXXIX:Chap13:Sec1 The brutal elimination of the Janissaries in 1826 displayed his political determination. At the end of 1831 he started on the path of reform.

BkXXIX:Chap13:Sec2 Supported by England.

BkXXIX:Chap13:Sec4 The threat from him in 1828 analysed.

BkXXIX:Chap16:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned. The lady who wrote to Chateaubriand in 1829, and was pro-Mahmud, was the Comtesse de Castellane whose friendship with Chateaubriand in 1823 lead Madame Récamier to leave Paris for a long stay in Italy.

BkXXIX:Chap17:Sec1 The French Liberal view of him.

 

Mahomet, or Mohammed, or Muhammad

c570-c632. The founder of the Islamic faith, he was born into the noble Quraish clan, he was orphaned at an early age. He became a successful merchant then a contemplative. Following a supposedly divine vision he spent the rest of his life winning converts and uniting Arabia behind his faith, known as Islam (‘Submission’, to the Will of God). His teachings later formed the basis of the written Koran (or Quran).

BkXVIII:Chap4Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXIX:Chap12:Sec2 The militaristic origins of Islam.

BkXIX:Chap14:Sec3 Bonaparte as a friend of Islam. In Islam, Munkar and Nakir (the Moukir and Quarkir of the text) are two black, blue-eyed malaikah (angels) who test the faith of the dead in their graves.

BkXIX:Chap16:Sec1 Muslim faith in an afterlife.

BkXXIX:Chap13:Sec2 The tomb of the prophet is in Medina.

BkXXIX:Chap13:Sec3 Chateaubriand’s dislike of Islam as a pernicious religion.

 

Mahomet, for Mehmed II, the Conqueror, Sultan

1432-1481. He was Sultan of the Ottoman Empire for a short time from 1444 to 1446, and later from 1451 to 1481. At the age of 21, he conquered Constantinople, bringing an end to the Medieval Greek Byzantine Empire. From this point onward, he claimed the title of Caesar in addition to his other titles.

BkXXXVII:Chap11:Sec1 In 1490 his son Bayezid II (1447-1512) was Sultan.

 

Mailhes, for Mailhe, Jean-Baptiste

1754-1834. Deputy to the National Convention from Haute-Garrone, he reported in 1792 the decision of the Committee on Legislation that the person of Louis XVI was not inviolate as a matter of law. As one of the first to vote in the question of death after the trial, he voted for death but suggested that the Convention might delay the execution. Mailhe survived the persecution of the Gerondists and, after the fall of Robespierre, moved the disbanding of the Jacobins. As a regicide he was exiled to Brussels at the Restoration; he prospered there and returned to Paris a wealthy man in 1830.

BkXXII:Chap18:Sec1 Welcomed the Provisional Government’s condemnation of Napoleon in April 1814.

 

Maillard de Lescourt, Major

An artillery officer in 1814.

BkXXII:Chap14:Sec1 Ordered to blow up the Grenelle powder-magazine.

 

Maillis, Théodore Berbis de

Officer in the Navarre Regiment.

BkIV:Chap4:Sec1 Chateaubriand encountered him in 1786.

 

Mailly, Louise-Julie de Mailly-Nesle, Comtesse de

1710-1751 Mistress of Louis XV, she was the daughter of Louis, Marquis de Nesle. In 1726 she married her cousin, Louis Alexandre de Mailly. Although Louis XV had paid her attentions from 1732, she did not become titular mistress until 1738. She did not use her position either to enrich herself or to interfere in politics. She was supplanted by her sister, the Duchess of Châteauroux, and obliged to leave court in 1742.

BkXVII:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Maine de Biron

1766-1824. Lawyer and writer.

BkXXII:Chap7:Sec1 A Member of the Legislative commission in 1813.

 

Maintenon, France

The château, near Chartres, was bought in 1674 and enhanced by Françoise d'Aubigné, the widow of the poet Scarron and future Marquise de Maintenon. In 1698 it passed to the Noailles family.

BkIV:Chap13:Sec1 Mentioned as a place where part of the Memoirs was written.

BkXXXIII:Chap4:Sec1 The Maintenon road from Rambouillet.

 

Maintenon, Françoise d’Aubigné, Marquise de

1635–1719. The second wife of the French king Louis XIV, her grandfather was Agrippa d'Aubigné, the Huguenot hero. The family spent some years in Martinique, but upon her father's death she and her mother returned to France. Although baptized a Roman Catholic, the child was educated by a Protestant aunt. Later cared for by Catholic relatives, she became a very devout Catholic. At 16 she married the poet Paul Scarron and became a figure in the literary and intellectual world of Paris. After his death in 1660 the queen mother continued the poet's pension to his widow, and later Mme de Montespan obtained a pension for her. She became (1669) the governess for the children of Mme de Montespan and the king and gradually supplanted Mme de Montespan in the esteem and affections of Louis XIV, who made her a marquise. Mme de Maintenon exercised considerable influence over Louis and greatly lifted the moral tone of the court, although the ascription to her of Louis's mistakes (particularly the revocation of the Edict of Nantes) is an exaggeration. The queen, Marie Thérèse, was devoted to her and died in her arms. In 1684 she was morganatically married to the king. In her later years Mme de Maintenon gave much of her attention to the famous school of Saint-Cyr, which she had founded for the daughters of poor but noble families. She also wrote remarkable essays and letters dealing with education.

BkI:Chap1:Sec11 Her school at Saint-Cyr.

BkXIII:Chap7:Sec2 Madame de Vintimille might have lived in her company.

BkXXVII:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Mainz, Germany

Capital of the Rhineland-Palatinate, West Germany, a port on the east bank of the Rhine River opposite the mouth of the Main River. Its French name is Mayence. Mainz is one of the great historical cities of Germany. It grew on the site of the Roman camp of Maguntiacum, or Mogontiacum (founded 1st cent. BC). The city was (746–47) the seat of the first German archbishop, St. Boniface (c.675–754). The later archbishops acquired considerable territory around Mainz and in Franconia, on both sides of the Main, which they ruled as princes of the Holy Roman Empire. Very early they received a vote in the imperial elections and had precedence over the other Electors; they crowned the German kings. From the 16th cent., with the emperors-elect, the archbishops-electors were ex officio arch-chancellors of the Holy Roman Empire. Under the rule of the archbishops-electors Mainz flourished as a commercial and cultural centre. Johann Gutenberg (c.1397–1468) lived in Mainz, which he made the first printing centre of Europe. Occupied in 1792 by the French, the city was ceded to France by the treaties of Campo-Formio (1797) and Lunéville (1801), and the archbishopric was secularized and reduced to a diocese in 1803. The last archbishop, K. T. von Dalberg, became (1806) prince-primate of the Confederation of the Rhine. The Congress of Vienna made (1815) Mainz a federal fortress of the German Confederation and awarded it, with Rhenish Hesse, to the grand duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt. The city was made (1816) the provincial capital of Rhenish Hesse.

BkXIX:Chap13:Sec1 Ceded to the French (as Mayence) in 1797.

BkXX:Chap6:Sec1 Napoleon there in 1806.

BkXXII:Chap6:Sec1 Napoleon retreated there after Hanau in November 1813.

BkXXVI:Chap1:Sec1 BkXXVI:Chap7:Sec1 Chateaubriand crossed the Rhine there in 1821.

 

Maison, Nicholas-Joseph

1771-1840. General under Napoleon, he was a Peer of France under Louis XVIII, and Governor of Paris, a Marshal of France under Charles X, and ambassador to Venice (1831) and St Petersburg (1833) under Louis-Philippe, and finally Minister of War in 1835.

BkXXII:Chap 21:Sec1 Met Louis XVIII landing at Calais in April 1814. He was made a Marshal in 1829 for his action leading the expedition to the Morea.

BkXXXIII:Chap3:Sec1 BkXXXIII:Chap4:Sec1 Appointed as one of the three Commissioners charged with escorting Charles X to Cherbourg in 1830.

 

Maison-Blanche

He was secretary to Deshayes in 1647.

BkXXIX:Chap7:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Maitland, Rear Admiral Sir Frederick Lewis,

1777-1839. A Naval commander, he was born in Rankeilour (near Cupar, Fife), the son of a naval Captain, who had fought much of the Seven Years War in the West Indies, and grandson of Charles Maitland, the 6th Earl of Lauderdale. Maitland began his naval career at the age of 8, as servant to his father who was, by that time, Captain of the Royal Yacht Princess Augusta. He was a Midshipman by the age of 16, Lieutenant by 18, Commander by 22 and Captain of his own ship by 24. He served in the Mediterranean, supported General Sir Ralph Abercromby (1734 - 1801) at Aboukir Bay, but also in Canada, America and the West Indies. While in command of HMS Bellerophon, he took Napoleon on board at Rochefort (France) after the Hundred Days. Maitland went on to be promoted to Admiral (1830), knighted (1831) and ended his career (and his life) as Commander-in-Chief in the East Indies. He acquired an estate at Lindores through his wife’s family and built a country house there.

BkXXIV:Chap3:Sec1 BkXXIV:Chap4:Sec1 Captain of Bellerephon.

 

Majorat

On March 1, 1808, Napoleon established a legal system of titles, but the word ‘nobility’ is not used anywhere in the legal texts, and no privileges were attached to it. Nevertheless, in common parlance it is often called nobility (‘noblesse d’Empire’). Titles were created by Letters Patent of the Emperor, or, for the most part, were automatic and came with certain positions. However, the titles did not become hereditary until certain conditions were met (in particular the constitution by the grantee of an endowment in land to be attached to the title, the majorat), and a newly created Conseil du Sceau des Titres was in charge of verifying compliance.

BkXXII:Chap18:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Majorien, Emperor Julius Valerius Majorianus

d. 461. Soldier, Western Emperor from 457, he campaigned in Gaul, Italy and Spain.

BkIX:Chap13:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Malavalle

Saint William of Malavalle (William X, Duke of Aquitania and Count of Poitiers) supporter of anti-pope Anacletus II, was converted by Bernard of Clairvaux. He withdrew to Malavalle di Castiglione della Pescaia, an isolated valley in Tuscany in Siennese territory, to live a hermit’s life. He died in 1157, and was canonized in 1202.

BkXXX:Chap14:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Malcolm, Admiral Sir Pulteney

1768-1838. The Naval Commander at St Helena, replacing Cockburn, he was a friend of Walter Scott. He entered the navy in 1778. He distinguished himself by his support of Nelson against the French fleet in the West Indies in 1805. Promoted to Rear Admiral, he was given command of a convoy carrying troops to America in 1813. Malcolm was involved in the British attack on Washington DC, the battle of Baltimore, and the battle of New Orleans. He returned to duty in the North Sea, providing naval support for the army under Wellington. He was made commander on the St. Helena station, maintaining a blockade of the island to guard Napoleon. He completed his active naval career with two terms as Commander in Chief of the Mediterranean between 1828 and his retirement in 1834.

BkXXIV:Chap10:Sec1 Met Napoleon on St Helena.

 

Malescot, Gilles

Attorney-general to Louis XIV.

BkI:Chap1:Sec4 Signatory to the order granting rights to Christophe II in 1669.

 

Malesherbes, Chrétien-Guillaume de Lamoignon de

1721-1794. A leading figure of the pre-Revolutionary era in France. Minister of State under Louis XVI, he defended the King in front of the Convention. He was banished from court in 1771 for criticising the monarchy, but was guillotined as a Royalist, 22nd April 1794.

Preface:Sect1 Chateaubriand mentions meeting him.

BkI:Chap1:Sec6. BkXXX:Chap14:Sec1 Great-grandfather on the mother’s side, and godfather, of Christian de Chateaubriand.

BkI:Chap2:Sec1 Grandfather-in-law of Jean-Baptiste.

BkIII:Chap6:Sec1 He admired Lucile.

BkIV:Chap13:Sec1 BkIX:Chap15:Sec1 His two daughters were Marie-Thérèse who married President de Rosanbo, and Françoise-Pauline who married Baron de Montboissier. His grand-daughter was Madame d’Aulnay. Sympathetic to the revolutionary ideals.

BkV:Chap12:Sec2 Executed with Le Chapelier and Chateaubriand’s brother.

BkV:Chap15:Sec3 BkVII:Chap1:Sec1 His support for Chateaubriand’s voyage to America to search for the North-West Passage.

BkVII:Chap8:Sec1 Chateaubriand writes to him from Niagara.

BkIX:Chap5:Sec1 Chateaubriand visits him again in Paris in 1792.

BkIX:Chap6:Sec1 Godfather of Christian de Chateaubriand.

BkIX:Chap6:Sec2 In fact Malesherbes had married in 1749 the daughter of the financier Grimod de la Reynière. His second daughter’s mother-in-law, Madame de Montboissier was Charlotte Boutin, but not a daughter of Boutin of the Tivoli Gardens, rather the daughter of Charles-Robert Boutin, the Intendant of Guyenne.

BkX:Chap2:Sec1 He invited Chateaubriand’s brother to return to France from Brussels in late 1792.

BkX:Chap3:Sec1 Chateaubriand’s brother staying with him in Paris in January 1793.

BkX:Chap8:Sec1 Chateaubriand learnt of his death and those of his other relatives, executed on the 22nd of April 1794 at 5pm, in the Place de la Révolution.

BkX:Chap8:Sec2 His name appears on the death warrant exhibited, and he was executed with Chateaubriand’s brother.

BkXXI:Chap1:Sec1 Stumbled on leaving for the Tribunal.

BkXXV:Chap2:Sec1 A monument to him at Montboissier.

BkXXX:Chap14:Sec1 The Malesherbes estate passed to Louis de Chateaubriand.

BkXLII:Chap10:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Malestroit en Dol

A village in Brittany, it was part of the titled estates of Chateaubriand’s father.

BkIV:Chap5:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Malet, Claude-François, General

1754-1812. Malet tried to overthrow Napoleon and was later executed. A member of an aristocratic family, Malet was disinherited for supporting the revolution. He was opposed to the crowning of Napoleon as emperor, and was accused of belonging to the Philadelphes, a secret Republican society. He was under house arrest at the time of his conspiracy, but disguised himself as a current general with a fictitious name, Lamotte, in order to free his co-conspirators from prison. He shot the governor of Paris in 1812 but got no closer to the emperor, and was captured, court-martialed and executed.

BkXVI:Chap4:Sec1 BkXXII:Chap1:Sec1 He smashed Hulin’s jaw in the attack.

BkXXI:Chap5:Sec3 Napoleon made aware of the conspiracy in Russia.

 

Malfilâtre, Alexandre-Henri de

1757-1803. A Counsellor at the High Court of Brittany, he was a cousin of the poet.

BkIII:Chap6:Sec1 BkXIII:Chap8:Sec1 Secretly loved by Lucile.

 

Malfilâtre, Jacques-Charles-Louis de Clinchamp de

1732-1767. A French poet, he led a difficult and impoverished life in Paris. He left verse fragments of a translation of Virgil and a poem Narcisse dans l'île de Vénus (1769).

BkIII:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Malibran, Maria Felicita, Madame

1808-1836. Daughter of the tenor Manuel García, she began her brief but intense career at a very early age, making her debut in London in 1825 when she stood in for Giuditta Pasta in the Barbiere di Siviglia. Famous throughout the world for her performances in the operas of Rossini and Bellini, she was considered one of the greatest singers of the nineteenth century, thanks to her fine stage presence and a voice (soprano, mezzo-soprano, contralto) with extraordinary extension. She died in Manchester, England, at the age of twenty-eight, after a fall from a horse.

BkXIV:Chap2:Sec5 BkXLII:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Mallet du Pan, Jacques

1749-1800. Born in Geneva, he left for Paris after the 1782 Revolution. A Royalist partisan, he was editor/writer of the Mercure de Paris. He fled to Geneva, then in 1792 Brussels and finally England, where he was an effective counter-revolutionary agent.

BkV:Chap14:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Malleville, Claude de

1597-1647. A French poet, he became Secretary to the King.

BkXXX:Chap11:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

Malmaison (Rueil-Malmaison), France

Located six miles outside Paris, on Josephine’s initiative the château was purchased by Napoleon in 1799 and transformed by the architects Percier and Fontaine into what was to become the couple’s preferred residence during the entire Consulate period. Although Josephine was occasionally elsewhere during the first years of the Empire, Malmaison became her refuge after the divorce in 1809 and it was here that she died in 1814. 

BkXVI:Chap2:Sec2 BkXVI:Chap5:Sec1 Bonaparte there while the Duc d’Enghien was executed.

BkXXII:Chap 23:Sec1 Used for receptions for the foreign sovereigns in 1814.

BkXXIII:Chap18:Sec2 Napoleon writes from there in June 1815.

BkXXIII:Chap19:Sec1 Napoleon retires there after his second abdication.

BkXXIV:Chap1:Sec1 BkXXIV:Chap2:Sec1 Napoleon there from the 25th to the 29th of May 1815.

BkXXIV:Chap11:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

Malodeczno (Molodetschino)

The modern Maladzechna in the Minsk province of Belarus, it is located on the Usza River, and has been a settlement since 1388 when it was part of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

BkXXI:Chap7:Sec1 Napoleon’s 29th Bulletin is headed from there, dated December 3rd 1812.

 

Maloyaroslavec (Malojaroslavets), Russia

A town near Moscow, on the Luzh River, it was where Eugène’s corps won a battle on 24th October 1812 during the retreat from Moscow. French casualties were about 5,000, including Delzons killed, while the Russians lost 6,000. Strategically, though not tactically, it was a victory for the Russians.

BkXXI:Chap5:Sec1 Taken during the French retreat.

 

Malo, Saint

Born in Glamorgan, Wales c487. A disciple of Saint Brendan. The British Saint Aaron crossed into Armorica (Brittany) and lived as a hermit on the island of Cesambre, called Saint Aaron until 1150 and now Saint Malo. Eventually Aaron was joined by a group of disciples and became their abbot. Among the disciples was Saint Malo, who arrived from Wales c538 and was warmly welcomed.

BkI:Chap4:Sec3 Malo’s building of a church on the island.

 

Malouët, Pierre Victor, Baron

1740-1814. French publicist and politician, born at Riom (Puy-de-Dôme), he entered the civil service and was employed in Lisbon, San Domingo, and in France under Napoleon, who created him Baron, and the first Restoration when he became Commissary of the Navy. He had previously emigrated to England in September 1792.

BkXI:Chap2:Sec1 Chateaubriand met him at Mrs Lindsay’s.

BkXXII:Chap 24:Sec1 Commissary of the Navy in 1814.

 

Malouine Islands, The Falklands

The Falkland Islands were first sighted by English navigator John Davis of the ‘Desire’ in 1592.  They were re-identified by another English navigator Sir Richard Hawkins in 1594 who named them ‘Hawkins Maydenlande’ after himself and Queen Elizabeth.   The first recorded landing by the British on the Falkland Islands occurred in 1690. The name ‘Falkland's Land’ was given to the whole archipelago in 1708 by Captain Woode Rogers, an English privateer who was later made Governor of Jamaica.  The first settlement was established in February 1764 by the French nobleman, Antoine Louise de Bougainville, who named the Islands ‘Isles Malouines’ after Saint-Malo, the port from which the expedition set out.  Bougainville dreamt of founding a new colony for the Acadians who had been expelled from Canada to Saint-Malo.  He chose the Falkland Islands because he believed their remote location would protect the colonists from harassment. In 1766 Political expediency forced the French to accede to Spanish demands that France abandon the colony, which the Spanish claimed contravened both the papal bull of 1494 and the recently signed 'Family Pact'.  Bougainville was instructed to sign away the colony in return for £25,000 and reimbursement of the expenses which he had incurred in setting it up.  The formal act of cession was carried out at Fort St. Louis (renamed Port Soledad or Port Solitude by the Spanish) on 1 April 1767 in the presence of Bougainville and a small contingent of Spanish settlers lead by the new Governor of the ‘Islas Malvinas’ Don Felipe Ruiz Puente. The disputed islands (claimed successively by Britain, France, Spain, and Argentina) were reclaimed by the British during the mid-nineteenth century, and subsequently defended against invasion.

BkI:Chap4:Sec5 Named by Bougainville after Saint-Malo.

 

Malta, Order of

The Sovereign Military Hospitaller Order of St. John of Jerusalem of Rhodes and of Malta (commonly known as the “Order of Malta”) is a lay, religious order of the Catholic Church, founded in Jerusalem during the eleventh century. With the Bull of 15 February 1113, Pope Paschal II approved the foundation of the Hospital and placed it under the aegis of the Holy See, granting it the right to freely elect its superiors without any interference by other secular or religious authorities. The Order first settled in Cyprus, then Rhodes, after the abandonment of the Holy Land, and driven from Rhodes established itself in Malta which it defended from Sultan Soliman in the great siege of 1530. Its fleet contributed to the Battle of Lepanto in 1571 which destroyed Ottoman naval power. The Order was forced to leave Malta in 1798 when Napoleon occupied the island, and the Order settled in Rome. The earliest members of the Order were drawn from throughout Europe. Most were of noble birth, being the younger sons of enfeoffed knights and other feudal lords. They belonged to one of three ranks, namely knights, who were of noble birth, chaplains, and serving brothers. Much later, the Order instituted the practice of investing as knights worthy gentlemen who, though not of noble birth, were received by the grace of the Grand Master.

BkI:Chap1:Sec3 Chateaubriand mentions his affiliation to the Order.

BkI:Chap1:Sec5 BkIV:Chap7:Sec1 BkV:Chap4:Sec1 His application for enrolment.

BkIX:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand’s affiliation to the Order would have entitled him to certain benefices.

BkXIX:Chap14:Sec2 Napoleon landed there and seized the island on the 9th of June 1798.

BkXXIII:Chap20:Sec3 The Bailli de Crussol a survivor of the Order from Malta.

BkXXXIX:Chap5:Sec1 Its churches.

BkXXXIX:Chap21:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Malte-Brun, Malte Conrad Bruun, called

1775-1826. A Danish geographer, living in Paris from 1802. He published a number of significant works on Geography and wrote for the Journal des Débats. First Secretary-general of the French Geographic Society from 1822-1824.

BkXVIII:Chap6:Sec1 Advised Chateaubriand regarding Les Martyrs.

BkXIX:Chap9:Sec1 His news sheet, La Semaine.

 

Mandaroux-Vertamy, Jean-Baptiste-Julien

He was a lawyer in the Court of Cassation, and one of Chateaubriand’s literary executors.

BkXXXV:Chap24:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Mandelot, François de, Seigneur de Pacy, Vicomte de Chalon

d. 1588 Governor of Lyons at the time of the St Bartholomew’s Day Massacres in 1572. He was responsible for the Huguenot massacre there.

BkXVII:Chap4:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Mandini, Stefano

1750-c1810. Singer at the Opera Buffa. The baritone sang the role of Count Almaviva in Mozart’s The Marriage of Figaro. He later sang in Vienna, Venice, Naples and St. Petersburg.

BkV:Chap14:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Mandini, Madame

A singer at the Opera Buffa, she was the wife of Stefano. The soprano sang Marcellina in the Marriage of Figaro. She was born in France, the daughter of a court official at Versailles, joining the newly formed Italian Opera company with him in Vienna in 1783.  Her début with the Italian Opera company was as Madama Brillante in L'Italiana in Londra by Cimarosa.  She also appeared as Britomarte in L'arbore di Diana by Vicente Martín y Soler - another opera to a libretto by Da Ponte.

BkV:Chap14:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Mamelukes, Mamluks

Slave soldiers who converted to Islam and served the Muslim caliphs and the Ottoman Empire. Over time they became a powerful military caste, and on more than one occasion they seized power for themselves, for example in Egypt from 1250 to 1517. Napoleon defeated Mameluke troops when he attacked Egypt in 1798 and drove them to Upper Egypt.

BkXVIII:Chap3Sec4 BkXIX:Chap14:Sec2 BkXIX:Chap14:Sec3

BkXIX:Chap15:Sec1 BkXIX:Chap16:Sec1 BkXIX:Chap16:Sec2

BkXIX:Chap18:Sec1 BkXXIII:Chap12:Sec1 BkXXXVI:Chap6:Sec1

Mentioned.

BkXXXIV:Chap13:Sec1 BkXXXV:Chap4:Sec1 Mentioned. Chateaubriand’s Mameluke sabre was a souvenir from his trip to the Orient.

 

Manfrin, Girolamo

d. 1801. An art collector from Friuli, whose wealth derived from a tobacco monopoly, he built up a fine collection (from 1748) displayed from 1787 in his palace (the Palazzo Venier renamed Palazzo Manfrin) in the Canareggio quarter. The collection mainly specialized in paintings from the Veneto. The collection was added to by his son, see Hobhouse’s journal and Byron’s Beppo: Stanzas 11-12. The collection was later sold and dispersed ( Paris 1870).

BkXXXIX:Chap7:Sec1 Chateaubriand visits the gallery.

 

Mangin, Jean-Henri-Claude

1786-1835. Magistrate and Orator, Councillor at the Court of Cassation from 1827, he was Prefect of Police during the 1830 Revolution, having taken up his post in August 1829.

BkXXXII:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned in 1830.

BkXXXII:Chap2:Sec1 He attempted to seize the National’s presses on 27th of July 1830.

 

Manin, Ludovico

d. 1797. He was the last Doge of Venice. His tomb is in the church of Santa Maria Nazareth on the Grand Canal.

BkXXXIX:Chap19:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Maniots

The Maniots (also known as Maniates) are the Greek inhabitants of the Mani Peninsula in southern Peloponnese in the Greek prefecture of Laconia. The peninsula itself is an extension of the Taygetus mountain range. The Maniots are deemed an ancient Greek people who descend from the Lacedaemonians (Spartans). They played a prominent part in the wars of Greek Independence.

BkXIX:Chap12:Sec2 Bonaparte writes to them.

 

Mannheim

A city in Germany. It is now the second largest city in the state of Baden-Württemberg after the capital Stuttgart. Mannheim is situated at the confluence of the rivers Rhine and Neckar, in the northwestern corner of the state of Baden-Württemberg.

BkXXII:Chap7:Sec1 Blücher’s army crossed the Rhine there in 1813.

BkXXXVIII:Chap7:Sec1 Chateaubriand on his way there in June 1833.

BkXXXVIII:Chap8:Sec1 Chateaubriand there in June 1833. Mannheim gold is a kind of brass made in imitation of gold. It contains eighty percent copper and twenty percent zinc.

 

Manouf

It was the site of an Egyptian canal project.

BkXVIII:Chap3Sec4 Mentioned.

 

Mansfield, Frederica Markham Murray, Lady

1774-1860. Society hostess.

BkVI:Chap1:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

Manso, Giambattista, Marchese della Villa

1560-1645. Founder of the College of nobles at Naples, he published a Life of Tasso.

BkXL:Chap2:Sec4 Mentioned.

 

Mantua, Italy

A city of northern Italy south-southwest of Verona, it was originally an Etruscan settlement, was ceded to Austria in 1714 and was finally returned to Italy in 1866.

BkXIX:Chap12:Sec1 Napoleon took the strategic Austrian fortress there finally after a long siege on 2nd February 1797.

BkXIX:Chap14:Sec3 On the 14th-15th September 1796 the French had won against Wurmser at San-Giorgio (a suburb of Mantua containing the ducal castle)

BkXX:Chap1:Sec1 The second siege of Mantua in 1799.

 

Manuel, Jacques-Antoine

1775-1827. French politician and orator, he left the army in 1797 to become a lawyer. In 1814 he was chosen a member of the Chamber of Representatives, and in 1815 he urged the claim of Napoleon’s son to the French throne and protested against the restoration of the Bourbons. After this event he actively opposed the government, his eloquence making him the foremost orator among the members of the Left. In February 1823 his opposition to the proposed expedition into Spain to help Ferdinand VII against his rebellious subjects produced a tumult in the Assembly. Manuel was expelled, but he refused to accept this sentence, and force was employed to remove him.

BkXXIII:Chap18:Sec2 His support for Napoleon’s son and his claims.

BkXXVIII:Chap14:Sec1 His death in 1827.

 

Manzoni, Alessandro

1785–1873, An Italian novelist and poet, in 1821–27, under the influence of Sir Walter Scott, Manzoni produced his most famous work, I promessi sposi (translated as The Betrothed, 1827), a novel of 16th-century Milan, that reveals a detailed understanding of Italian life and remains one of Italy’s most enduring novels. By 1875, 118 editions had appeared, and the work was widely translated.

Preface:Sect3. BkXL:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXIV:Chap11:Sec1 His ode on the death of Napoleon entitled: ‘Il cinque maggio’ (1821)

BkXXXIV:Chap14:Sec1 See the second plague in Milan in The Betrothed of 1827.

BkXXXVIII:Chap8:Sec1 See his tragedy of 1820-1822 Adelchi IV:1 lines 15-16. ‘Sento una pace! Stanca, foriera della tomba.’

BkXXXIX:Chap10:Sec1 See Adelchi IV:1 lines 98-102.

 

Marais, Le

The château of Le Marais, near Saint-Chéron, forty kilometres south-west of Paris belonged to Madame La Briche.

BkXXXVI:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Marat, Jean-Paul

1743-1793. A Swiss-born scientist and physician, who made much of his career in England, he is best known as a French Revolutionary. A member of the radical Jacobin faction he helped to launch the Reign of Terror. From a relatively early date, Marat advocated doing away with the monarchy and raged against more moderate revolutionary leaders. In July 1790 he wrote ‘Five or six hundred heads cut off would have assured your repose, freedom and happiness. A false humanity has held your arms and suspended your blows; because of this millions of your brothers will lose their lives.’ He approved of the September 1792 massacres of jailed ‘enemies of the Revolution’ and established the ‘Committee of Surveillance’ whose role was to root out antirevolutionaries. Marat composed the death lists from which the innocent and the guilty alike were executed. One of his victims may have been the chemist Antoine Lavoisier. He was stabbed in his bathtub by Charlotte Corday, a Girondist, in 1793.

BkIV:Chap12:Sec4 BkV:Chap9:Sec1 BkXIII:Chap4:Sec1

BkXXI:Chap4:Sec2 BkXLII:Chap2:Sec1 BkXLII:Chap4:Sec2 Mentioned.

BkV:Chap10:Sec1 BkV:Chap14:Sec1 Active, publishing L’ami du peuple from1789.

BkIX:Chap3:Sec1 Publishing L’ami du people in early 1792 despite the decree against him.

BkIX:Chap3:Sec2 He and his friends described. He had achieved fame as a doctor, and in 1777, the comte d’Artois, afterwards Charles X of France, made him, by brevet, physician to his guards with 2000 livres a year and allowances.

BkIX:Chap4:Sec1 One of Danton’s ‘Furies’.

BkXIX:Chap10:Sec1 His bust, by Bonvalet, was displayed in the council-chamber, and widely replicated as part of the cult following his death.

 

Marathon

The site of the battle during the Greek-Persian Wars, in 490BC, it was where Miltiades and the Athenians defeated the Persians. Phidippides was sent to summon Spartan help (the Marathon distance) but the Spartans arrived too late to influence the battle.

BkVIII:Chap5:Sec2 Marathon, New York State.

BkXVIII:Chap3Sec5 The plains of Marathon in Greece.

 

Marbeuf, Charles-Louis-René, Comte de

1712-1786. A Breton general from a military family, born in Rennes, he rose to the rank of Brigadier before becoming gentleman-in-waiting to King Stanislas I of Poland. He was subsequently Governor of Corsica (1772-1786), where he died. James Boswell, Samuel Johnson’s biographer, stayed with him when visiting Corsica.

BkXIX:Chap3:Sec1  He sponsored Napoleon’s schooling at Autun and Brienne.

 

Marceau-Desgraviers, François-Séverin, General

1769-1796. A Revolutionary General, he joined in the storming of the Bastille on July 14, 1789. He took part in the defence of Verdun in 1792 and the defence of Saumur against the Vendéean Royalists, distinguishing himself at Saumur on 10 June 1793. With Kléber, he won important victories near Le Mans (December 12-13) and Savenay (23 December 1793). He took part in the 1795-1796 campaign with the armies of the Sambre and Meuse, fighting on the Rhine and the Lahn and distinguishing himself alongside Kléber near Neuwied and Sulzbach. In 1796, Jourdan and Jean Victor Moreau’s invasion of Germany ended in disaster and Marceau’s men covered Jourdan’s retreat over the Rhine. Marceau fought in the desperate actions on the Lahn (16-18 September 1796) until at Altenkirchen on September 19, he received a mortal wound. He died two days later. The Austrians competed with Marceau’s own countrymen to honour the dead general. His body was burned and the ashes placed under a pyramid in Koblenz designed by Kléber. They were transferred to the Panthéon in 1889.

BkXXII:Chap15:Sec1 A great general of the Republic.

 

Marcellus, Marie-Louis-Jean-André Demartin du Tyrac, Vicomte then Comte de

1795-1865. A Diplomat and writer, and a cultivated man he brought the Venus de Milo to France. He served in Constantinople from 1816-1820. He was the author of Souvenirs de L’Orient (1839), Twenty Days in Sicily (1841).

BkVI:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand’s main confidante in London. Became First secretary and then chargés d’affaires at the time of the Congress of Vienna.

BkXXVIII:Chap16:Sec1 Chateaubriand meets Rivière at his house in 1827, he having served under Rivière in Constantinople.

 

Marchais, Andre-Louis-Augustin

1800-1857. A Republican he was in 1830 secretary to the ‘Aide-toi’ society. ‘Aide-toi, le ciel t’aidera: Aid yourself, and Heaven will aid you’ was founded by Guizot in 1827, its President in 1830 being Barrot a moderate Republican who favoured a Constitutional monarchy hedged by Republcian institutions.

BkXXXII:Chap4:Sec1 His arrest ordered but not carried out on 28th July 1830.

BkXXXII:Chap16:Sec1 At the Palais-Royal on the 31st of July 1830.

 

Marchal, Pierre-François

1785-1864. A Deputy from 1827, he used the telegraph to consolidate the new regime’s grip on France. Re-elected 1831-1834 and 1837-1845.

BkXXXII:Chap8:Sec1 Named as Commissioner for Telegraphic Services of the Municipal Commission, 29th July 1830.

 

Marchand or Le Marchand, Abbé

A teacher at Rennes college.

BkII:Chap7:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Marchand, Louis Joseph, Comte

1791-1876. Napoleon’s head valet on St Helena, and an executor of his will. He joined the Imperial service in 1811, remained loyal to Napoleon and retired to France after Napoleon’s death, where he married in 1823. Napoleon made him a Count on his death-bed, an act ratified in 1869 by Napoleon III. He participated in the ceremonial return of Napoleon’s remains in 1840. His Memoirs were published in 1955.

BkXXIV:Chap10:Sec1 At St Helena.

 

Marche, Jean-François de la, Comte de Léon, Bishop of Saint-Pol-de-Léon

1729-1805. Royalist reactionary.

BkXI:Chap2:Sec4 Emigrated to London.

 

Marchenna, José

1768-1821. Exiled in France because of his unorthodox views, he collaborated with Marat for a time. He was expelled after Fructidor (1797) for his counter-revolutionary views. He is known as a translator and for his erotic Latin pastiches.

BkXIX:Chap11:Sec1 His pamphlets.

 

Marco Polo

c1254-1324. A Venetian traveller, he journeyed with his uncle Niccolo Polo and his uncle Maffeo Polo who had made a trip to Beijing (Peking) in 1260-1269, in 1271. He entered the Mongol Emperor, Kublai Khan’s service there and conducted missions to South India. He left China in 1292. He subsequently fought for the Venetians against the Genoese, was captured, and in prison (1296-1298) dictated his account of his travels, which remained a major source of knowledge on the East until the 19th century.

BkXL:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand attributes him with a 27 year trip.

 

Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus Caesar

121-180. He was the last of the ‘Five Good Emperors’ who governed the Roman Empire from 96 to 180, and is also considered one of the most important Stoic philosophers.

BkXXX:Chap12:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXXIX:Chap20:Sec1 Quoted.

 

Maréchal, see Keith, Lord

 

Marengo

The Battle of Marengo witnessed the defeat of the Austrians on 14 June 1800 by a French army under Napoleon, during his Italian campaign, near the village of Marengo in Piedmont, Italy. It was one of Napoleon’s most significant victories and resulted in the Austrians ceding northern Italy to France.

BkIV:Chap1:Sec2 BkXVI:Chap4:Sec1 BkXX:Chap9:Sec3

BkXX:Chap13:Sec1 BkXXII:Chap4:Sec1 BkXXII:Chap 26:Sec1

BkXXIII:Chap1:Sec1 BkXXIII:Chap14:Sec1 BkXXV:Chap1:Sec1

BkXXXIII:Chap7:Sec1 BkXXXIV:Chap13:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkVIII:Chap5:Sec2 Marengo County, Alabama.

BkXVI:Chap2:Sec2 BkXIX:Chap18:Sec1 Bonaparte wept at Desaix’s death there.

BkXX:Chap2:Sec1 BkXXIV:Chap12:Sec1 The battle fought there on the 14th of June 1800.

 

Maret, Hughues-Bernard, Duc de Bassano

1763-1839. A French statesman and publicist, born at Dijon, he was a Feuillant. He helped to publish the Moniteur universel, which gained a wide reputation for correctness and impartiality. Representative of the Revolutionary Government in London and Naples. Secretary of State to Napoleon, the Moniteur became the official journal of State. Made a Minister 1804, and a Duke 1809. Remained as private secretary to Napoleon through 1814-1815. Exiled after the second Restoration, he retired to Gratz. Returned to France in 1820. After the 1830 Revolution he was made a Peer by Louis-Philippe. He was noted for his loyalty to Napoleon, his moderation, sense, and hard-work.

BkIX:Chap6:Sec2 BkXIX:Chap6:Sec1 Chateaubriand met him in 1792.

BkXXI:Chap5:Sec1 Napoleon writes to him in October 1812.

BkXXII:Chap15:Sec1 He takes Chateaubriand’s pamphlet to Napoleon in 1814.

BkXXIII:Chap18:Sec2 With Napoleon after the Hundred Days.

 

Marguerite d’Écosse, Margaret of Scotland

c1418-1445. Daughter of James I of Scotland, she married Louis XI of France in 1436.

BkXIV:Chap2:Sec2 The legend of the virtuous kiss she gave to Alain Chartier while he was sleeping.

 

Marguerite de France, Duchesse de Berry

1523-1574. Daughter of Francis I of France and his first wife Claude of France, the daughter of Louis XII and Anne de Bretagne. Marguerite married Emmanuel Philibert, Duke of Savoy. Their only child was Charles Emmanuel I of Savoy.

BkXIV:Chap2:Sec5 Supported Cujas.

 

Marguerite de Navarre

1492-1549. Margaret of Angoulême was queen consort of Navarre, and sister of King Francis I of France. After the death of her first husband she married (1527) Henri d’Albret, king of Navarre; their daughter was Jeanne d’Albret. Margaret was an ardent supporter of religious liberty and mild church reform. Her brilliant court at Navarre was frequented by literary men, among them Étienne Dolet, Clément Marot, and François Rabelais. A writer herself, she is best known for the Heptaméron (1558), an original collection of 72 stories in the manner of Boccaccio. She also wrote plays and poems.

BkXLII:Chap6:Sec1 The second Marguerite is Marguerite de Valois.

 

Marguerite de Provence

c1221-1295. A daughter of Raymond Berenger IV, Count of Provence, and Beatrice of Savoy. She was queen consort of Louis IX, Saint Louis. Her older sister Sanchia of Provence became the Queen consort of Richard, Earl of Cornwall and rival King of the Germans. Her sister of similar age Beatrice of Provence was the Queen consort of Charles I of Sicily. Her younger sister Eleanor of Provence became the Queen consort of Henry III of England. See Dante’s Paradiso Canto VI:112 for a famous mention of Raymond and his four daughters ‘every one a queen’.

BkIV:Chap13:Sec1 Noted for her beauty.

 

Marguerite de Valois

1553-1615. Queen of France and Navarre, she was the daughter of King Henry II of France and of Catherine de’ Medici. She was known as Queen Margot. Her wedding (1572) with Henry, Protestant king of Navarre (later Henry IV of France), which was intended to mark the peace between Roman Catholics and Protestants, instead was a prelude to the massacre of Protestants on Saint Bartholomew’s Day. The marriage was one of mutual toleration. Margaret took part in the intrigues of her husband and her brother Francis, duke of Alençon and Anjou. In 1583 her brother King Henry III exiled her from Paris because of her promiscuous conduct. Estranged from both her husband and her brother, she took up arms against them and seized Agen. She was taken prisoner by royal troops (1586) and confined at the castle of Usson, but she soon became mistress of the castle. Although sympathetic with the Catholic League, she took little part in the succeeding troubles. She refused to agree to Henry IV’s demand for the annulment of their marriage so he could marry his mistress, Gabrielle d’Estrées, although she finally consented (1599) to the annulment after Gabrielle’s death. In her retirement at Usson (1587–1605), she maintained a small court, in which men of letters were prominent. She spent her last years in Paris. See Dumas’ ‘Queen Margot’.

BkXIII:Chap7:Sec2 Her lover Aubiac.

BkXIV:Chap2:Sec5 Pibrac was her chancellor.

BkXLII:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Maria

She was a maidservant in the London Embassy in 1822.

BkVI:Chap1:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

Maria-Christina of Bourbon, Princess of the Two Sicilies, Queen of Spain

1806-1878. Queen Consort of Spain (1829 to 1833), Queen Regent of Spain (1833 to 1840). Maria Christina was the fourth wife of her uncle King Ferdinand VII of Spain.

BkXXXI:Chap2:Sec1 Married in 1829.

 

Marie-Antoinette, Queen of France

1755-1793. Daughter of Francis I, and Maria Theresa, she was the wife (from 1770) of Louis the Dauphin (Louis XVI of France) and Queen from 1774-1793, her extravagance, alleged immorality, and uncompromising attitude to the Revolution contributed to the monarchy’s demise. She was guillotined on the 16th October 1793.

BkIV:Chap1:Sec3 Living at Versailles in all her ‘youth and beauty’ in 1786.

BkV:Chap3:Sec1 The affair of the Queen’s necklace was a scandal that took place at court just before the Revolution. An adventuress who called herself the comtesse de La Motte duped Cardinal de Rohan, the grand almoner, who was out of favour with the queen, into believing that she could regain the queen’s regard for him. Mme de La Motte and her accomplices then engineered a sham correspondence between the cardinal and the queen and even arranged an interview between him and a woman impersonating the queen. In the interview the cardinal was led to believe that the queen wished to acquire a diamond necklace of enormous value and that she had chosen him as her confidential agent. When Rohan obtained the necklace from the jewellers, he turned it over to the Comtesse; her husband took it to London, where it was broken up for sale. The affair became public after Rohan failed to meet the payments to the jewellers. The cardinal was arrested and tried by the parlement; he was acquitted but lost his position in court. Mme de La Motte was punished and imprisoned, but she escaped to London, where she wrote her highly questionable memoirs. Alessandro Cagliostro, at first suspected of complicity, was acquitted. The queen, noted for her extravagance and frivolity, was unjustly implicated in the affair; her enemies hinted that she had schemed to ruin the cardinal or that she had used her favour to obtain the necklace and then refused to pay. The scandal added greatly to her unpopularity at a critical time. A vast literature grew around the subject, notably Dumas’ romance The Queen’s Necklace and Carlyle’s Diamond Necklace.

BkV:Chap8:Sec1 Chateaubriand saw her at Versailles in July 1789.

BkV:Chap9:Sec1 She remained with the King after the fall of the Bastille.

BkV:Chap10:Sec1 Appeared at the provocative banquet given by the Guardes du Corps for the officers of the Flanders Regiment, on 1st October 1789.

BkVI:Chap1:Sec1 The anniversary of her death on the 16th October.

BkVII:Chap2:Sec1 She intervened on behalf of Charles Asgill.

BkIX:Chap3:Sec1 Madame Roland sought her execution.

BkXX:Chap3:Sec1 Owner of the Château of Saint-Cloud.

BkXXII:Chap 25:Sec1 Her remains exhumed 18th January 1815.

BkXXV:Chap2:Sec1 Her ‘will’, a letter to Madame Elisabeth was found among the papers of Courtois a deputy who had hidden it, and published in 1816.

BkXXXIII:Chap1:Sec1 Her liking for the Trianon.

BkXXXV:Chap25:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Marie-Caroline, see Berry

 

Maria Christina Albertina Carolina of Saxony

1779-1851. She married the Prince de Carignan, Charles-Emmanuel of Savoy. After his death in 1800 she married again. Her son Charles-Albert became King of Piedmont-Sardinia in 1831.

BkXXXVI:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Maria-Christina, Johana Josephe Antonie of Austria, Archduchess

1742-1798. Called ‘Mimi’, she was the fourth daughter and fifth child of Maria Theresa of Austria and Francis I, Holy Roman Emperor. She is buried in the Tuscan Vault of the Imperial Crypt in Vienna, along with her husband and daughter. The famous and moving monument sculpted by Canova, her husband erected to her memory, is in the Augustinerkirche.

BkXXXIX:Chap7:Sec1 Her splendid monument by Canova.

 

Maria-Fedorovna, Sophie Marie Dorothea Auguste Louise of Württemberg

1759-1828. The second wife of Paul I of Russia.

BkXXIX:Chap13:Sec4 She died on the 4th of November 1828. The reference is to the Decembrist conspiracy which broke out in December 1825, and resulted in the executions of 13th January 1826.

 

Marie de France

Late 12th century. A poetess born in France according to her works, she later lived in England. She wrote a form of continental French that was copied by Anglo-Norman scribes.

BkXLII:Chap6:Sec1 The langue d’Oïl is the linguistic and historical designation of the Gallo-Romance languages which originated in the northern territories of Roman Gaul now occupied by northern France, part of Belgium and the Channel Islands. It takes its name from the word for ‘yes’, now pronounced oui.

 

Marie-Louise, Empress of the French, Duchess of Parma

1791-1847. She was Marie Louise Léopoldine Françoise Thérèse Joséphine Lucie, the daughter of Emperor Francis I of Austria. Empress of the French (1810–15) as consort of Napoleon I she was also duchess of Parma, Piacenza, and Guastalla (1816–47). She was the mother of Napoleon II. When Napoleon I was defeated (1814), she fled to Vienna. Her duchies were awarded to her at the Congress of Vienna; she ruled them ineptly from Parma, with the assistance of her lover, Count Adam Adalbert von Neipperg, whom she married morganatically in 1821. After his death (1829) she married the Comte de Bombelles.

BkXIX:Chap1:Sec1 BkXIX:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned. She visited Dresden and met her father with Napoleon in May 1812.

BkXX:Chap9:Sec3 BkXX:Chap10:Sec1 She married Napoleon by proxy in the church of St. Augustine, Vienna, on the 11th of March 1810 after delays due to the divorce from Josephine. Her son the future King of Rome, and ultimately Duc de Reichstadt was born on March 20th 1811.

BkXX:Chap13:Sec1 She joined Napoleon in Dresden in May 1812.

BkXXI:Chap2:Sec1 She sent their son’s portrait to Napoleon in Russia in 1812.

BkXXII:Chap7:Sec1 BkXXII:Chap11:Sec1 BkXXIII:Chap11:Sec2 Head of the ‘Regency’ Cabinet in 1814. She fled Paris in 1814.

BkXXII:Chap14:Sec1 Passed through Blois on her way to Vienna in 1814.

BkXXII:Chap 26:Sec1 She was expected to visit her husband, Napoleon, on Elba but went to Vienna.

BkXXIII:Chap13:Sec1 She remained in Vienna despite Napoleon’s return from Elba.

BkXXIV:Chap11:Sec2 Napoleon ordered on his death-bed that she was to receive his heart.

BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec1 Her sons by Count von Neipperg were Wilhelm Albrecht I Prince of Montenuovo (1819-1895), and Gustav Count of Montenuovo. She was Duchess of Parma and Plaisance from 1815.

BkXXXVI:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Marie-Stuart, see Mary Stuart

 

Marie-Thérèse, Empress Maria Teresa

1717-1780. The first and only female head of the Habsburg dynasty, she was Archduchess of Austria, Queen of Hungary and Bohemia, and ruler of other territories from 1740 until her death. She also became the Holy Roman Empress when her husband was elected Holy Roman Emperor.

BkXX:Chap10:Sec1 The Military Order of Maria Theresa (Militär-Maria-Theresien-Orden in German) was an Order of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, founded on June 18, 1757, the day of the Battle of Kolin, by the Empress to reward especially meritorious and valorous acts by a commissioned officer.

BkXXXVIII:Chap1:Sec1 She had the Mill Baths at Carlsbad re-built in 1762.

BkXLII:Chap10:Sec1 Her daughter Marie-Antoinette.

 

Marie-Thérèse of France, see Duchesse d’Angoulême

 

Marie-Thérèse Infirmary, Paris

Founded in 1819 by Chateaubriand’s wife in Paris, for aged priests and widows, and named after the sister of the Duc D’Enghien. It was sited originally at 92 Rue Denfert-Rochereau (then Rue d’Enfer, the Chateaubriands lived at the present 88), then in addition 261-285 Boulevard Raspail (next to the present Cartier Foundation building, where there is a Cedar of Lebanon planted by Chateaubriand in 1823). See Balzac Ferragus, Ch. V. The Infirmary was transferred to the Archbishopric of Paris in 1836 and Céleste de Chateaubriand was buried in the Infirmary chapel in 1847.

BkIII:Chap13:Sec1 BkIX:Chap1:Sec2 BkXXVII:Chap6:Sec1

BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec3 BkXXIX:Chap10:Sec1 BkXXXI:Chap3:Sec1

BkXLI:Chap7:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXVIII:Chap5:Sec2 BkXVIII:Chap8:Sec2 Chateaubriand left the Infirmary in July 1838 to take up residence at 112 Rue du Bac.

BkXXXIV:Chap12:Sec1 Chateaubriand writes from there in December 1831.

BkXXXVI:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned in 1833. The Foundlings Hospital is that of Saint-Vincent de Paul. The boulevard is now Boulevard Raspail.

 

Marignan, Battle of

On 13th-14th September 1515, near the village of Melegnano on the Lambro, 10 miles south-east of Milan, Francis I defeated the Swiss mercenary troops supporting the Duke of Milan, and was knighted by Bayard on the field of battle.

BkXIX:Chap13:Sec1 BkXXXIV:Chap13:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Marigny, France

The château was seven miles north-west of Fougères, in Saint-Germain-en-Coglès. It served as an active centre for the Chouans, and under the restoration was transformed by the Pommereul family, who hosted Balzac there in 1828. As Vivetière it appears in Balzac’s Les Chouans. It was demolished after the First World War.

BkIV:Chap7:Sec1 Chateaubriand visits his sister there.

BkIV:Chap10:Sec1 The château was altered significantly after it was sold.

 

Marigny, François-Jean-Joseph-Geffelot, Comte de

d. 1793. Brother-in-law of Chateaubriand. Married Marie-Anne-Françoise de Chateaubriand 11th January 1780.

BkII:Chap3:Sec3 His marriage.

 

Marigny, Marie-Anne-Françoise de Chateaubriand, Comtesse de

1760-1860. Wife of François, sister of Chateaubriand. Born 4th July 1760. Married 1780. Widowed 1793. Died, aged over 100, on 17th July 1860.

BkI:Chap2:Sec1 Her birth.

BkII:Chap3:Sec3 Her marriage.

BkII:Chap7:Sec5 Settled in Fougères with her husband.

BkIV:Chap7:Sec1 Chateaubriand stayed with her.

BkXIII:Chap8:Sec1 Sought Chateaubriand out first on his return to France.

 

Marin, Louis de?, Le Chevalier

He was the leading harpist in 1802.

BkXXIX:Chap1:Sec2 Played Mozart with Madame Récamier in London in 1802, possibly a favourite Salon piece, the harp variations ‘O dolce contento’ (published later by Marin in 1810) based on an air from The Magic Flute.

 

Marin, Scipion

1799?-d.after 1840. He wrote a Life of Chateaubriand published 1832.

BkXXXVIII:Chap7:Sec1 Mentioned, for its false claim that Chateaubriand was deformed.

 

Marion, Charles Stanislaus, Baron de, General

1758-1812. A Napoleonic General.

BkXXI:Chap3:Sec1 Killed at Borodino.

 

Marius, Gaius

157-86BC. Roman general and politician elected Consul an unprecedented seven times during his career. He was also noted for his dramatic reforms of Roman armies, authorizing recruitment of landless citizens and reorganizing the structure of the legions into separate cohorts.

BkXXII:Chap 20:Sec3 He was exiled to Africa.

BkXXV:Chap8:Sec1 His conflict with Sulla.

BkXXX:Chap6:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

Mark, Saint

The disciple is considered the author of St Mark’s Gospel.

BkXXXIX:Chap18:Sec1 For Simon’s mother-in-law see Mark I:30-31

BkXXXIX:Chap21:Sec1 See Mark IV:39.

 

Marlborough, John Churchill, 1st Duke of

1650-1722. An English military officer during the War of the Spanish Succession, Marlborough is often considered the greatest military genius that Britain has produced.

BkXX:Chap13:Sec1 Sent to meet with Charles XII of Sweden in 1707.

BkXXXVI:Chap7:Sec1 Defeated Tallart at Blenheim.

 

Marmont, Auguste-Frédéric-Louis-Viesse de, Marshal of France, Duc de Raguse

1774-1852. He concluded a truce with Russia in 1814, and was regarded by Bonapartists as a traitor. He tried to suppress the 1830 Revolution, and escorted Charles X to Cherbourg in 1830.

BkXIX:Chap18:Sec2 Returned to France from Egypt with Napoleon in 1799.

BkXXII:Chap9:Sec1 Defending Paris in 1814.

BkXXII:Chap12:Sec1 He accepted the surrender of Paris in 1814.

BkXXIII:Chap3:Sec1 His agreement with Chateaubriand in 1815.

BkXXXI:Chap8:Sec1 BkXXXII:Chap1:Sec1 BkXXXII:Chap2:Sec1

BkXXXII:Chap4:Sec1 Commanding for the King during the July Revolution.

BkXXXII:Chap2:Sec1 Chateaubriand refers to the incident when Marmont agreed the surrender of his corps with the Allies in March 1814, while previously defending Paris, an action Napoleon never forgave.

BkXXXII:Chap3:Sec1 He writes to the King on the 28th of July 1830.

BkXXXII:Chap5:Sec1 Active on the 29th of July.

BkXXXII:Chap12:Sec1 His scene with the Dauphin on the 30th.

 

Marmontel, Jean-François

1723-1799. A French poet, literary critic, novelist and historian, he entered the French Academy in 1763 as one of France’s principal ‘historiographers’. Marmontel’s reputation was largely extended after contributing many works of literature, and articles, notably in the Mercure and in the great Encyclopédie.

BkIV:Chap12:Sec4 Mentioned.

 

Marnes, Comtesse de, see Duchesse d’Angoulême

 

Maroboduus (Marbod)

d. 37 AD. King of the Marcomanni, he organized a confederation of several Germanic tribes in about 9 BC to deal with the threat of Roman expansion into the Rhine-Danube basin. The Marcomanni formed a confederation with neighboring Germanic tribes in what are now Silesia and Saxony. He was the first historical ruler of Bohemia.

BkXLI:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Marolles, Abbé Michel de

1600-1681. He was the son of an officer in the Royal Guard. Author of Mémoires (1656-1657). Abbé of Villeloin (Indre et Loire, 1626, effective 1630). He made a prose translation of Virgil (1649) and wrote a history of the Roman Emperors (1677). A notable collector of prints and engravings, his prints, gifted to the King in 1627, formed the core of the Cabinet des estampes.

BkIII:Chap1:Sec2 At the start of his Memoirs, Michel mentions acquiring the team of white horses, with a little carriage, later used by his mother to go to church.

 

Marot, Clément

1496-1544. The French Renaissance poet won the patronage of Francis I and Margaret of Navarre. Imprisoned for Reformationist heresy in 1526 he based his allegorical satire Enfer on the experience. Exiled from France for his Calvinist sympathies, he eventually died in Turin. He translated the Psalms into French for the Geneva Psalter

BkXXXIX:Chap13:Sec1 He was in exile in Venice July to November 1536.

 

Mars

The Roman war god, equivalent to the Greek Ares, was the son of Jupiter and Juno.

BkIII:Chap8:Sec1 His skill with weapons.

BkXXVII:Chap3:Sec2 Canova’s statue of Napoleon as Mars.

BkXLI:Chap2:Sec1 Tyr or Tiw was the Teutonic god of war, hence the equivalent of Mars.

 

Mars, Mademoiselle, Anne-François-Hippolyte Boutet-Monvel

1779-1847. French actress, the natural daughter of the actor-author named Monvel and Mlle Mars Salvetat, an actress whose southern accent had made her Paris debut a failure. Mlle Mars began her stage career in childrens’ parts, and by 1799, after the rehabilitation of the Comédie Française, she and her elder sister joined that company, of which she remained an active member for thirty-three years. Her beauty and talent soon placed her at the top of her profession. She was incomparable in ingenue parts, and equally charming as a coquette. Molière, Marivaux, Sedaine, and Beaumarchais had no more accomplished interpreter, and in her career of half a century, besides many comedy roles of the older repertoire, she created fully a hundred parts in plays which owed success largely to her. For her farewell performance she selected Elmire in Tartuffe, and Silvia in Jeu de lamour et du hasard, two of her most popular roles; and for her benefit, a few days after, Climne in Le Misanthrope and Araminthe in Les Femmes savantes. She retired in 1841.

BkIV:Chap11:Sec1 Actress at the Montansier Theatre.

 

Marseilles, France

The principal French seaport, capital of the Bouches-du-Rhône department, it is flanked by limestone hills and overlooks the Gulf of Lions. Founded about 600BC it was destroyed by Arabs in the 9th century, redeveloped during the Crusades, and came under the French crown in 1481.

BkXIV:Chap2:Sec3 Chateaubriand was there in 1802. Its history. Notre-Dame de la Garde developed as a religious complex on the traditional look-out post of the Garde hill. Francis I fortified the hill, the first church was founded in 1241, and from the 16th century it became a site for pilgrimage and religious devotion. A large Basilica was later built in 1853.

BkXIX:Chap6:Sec1 Letizia Bonaparte fled to Marseilles in 1793.

BkXIX:Chap7:Sec1 BkXXII:Chap 20:Sec1 BkXXIII:Chap12:Sec1

BkXXXII:Chap16:Sec1 Mentioned. The Marseillaise, written by Rouget de Lisle, first called the Chant de la guerre pour l’armée du Rhin when published at Strasbourg, became known by its present title when published by the Marseilles Federalists in Paris. It was banned for a time by Napoleon and after the Restoration.

BkXIX:Chap18:Sec1 Subject to Corsair raids from the Barbary Coast/  Algiers.

BkXXXIV:Chap14:Sec1 The plague there in 1720 and 1721. The Église Notre Dame des Accoules, in the Accoules quarter of the city, was built in the 12th Century and modified in the 14th and 17th Centuries. It was mostly destroyed during the Revolution for hosting meetings of the Sections who were outraged by the Convention. The fine belltower, built above an older square tower, remains. Phocea was an Ionian Greek city near Izmir from which Marseilles, the Roman Massilia, was founded traditionally around 600BC.

BkXXXV:Chap3:Sec1 The Duchesse de Berry’s failed attempt to stir insurrection there at the end of April 1832.

 

Martha of Bethany

She was the sister of Mary and Lazarus. See Luke 10, John 11.

BkXV:Chap6:Sec1 BkXXXIX:Chap18:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Martignac, Jean-Baptiste Sylvère Gay, Vicomte de

1776-1832. A French statesman, he was elected (1821) to the chamber of deputies and was named a member of the council of state in 1822. In 1828 he was made minister of the interior and virtual head of the new cabinet by King Charles X after the fall of the ministry of the Comte de Villèle. Martignac’s cabinet, composed of both liberals and reactionaries, was ineffective; his liberal reforms were killed by the ultra-royalists. The king had never liked Martignac’s moderate concessions to the liberals and in 1829 dismissed him and appointed the reactionary Prince de Polignac to succeed him.

BkXXVIII:Chap16:Sec1 BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec1 BkXXIX:Chap10:Sec1

BkXXXII:Chap9:Sec1 President of the Council 1828.

BkXXXI:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned in 1829.

 

Martin

A character in Voltaire’s Candide.

 

Martin Saint

316-367. A bishop of Tours whose shrine became a famous stopping-point for pilgrims on the road to Santiago de Compostela.. His miraculous cloak was preserved among the relics gathered by the Merovingian kings of the Franks.

BkXXXIX:Chap1:Sec1 His cloak mentioned.

 

Martinez de la Rosa, Francisco

1787-1862, Spanish dramatic poet, statesman, and historian. He was an outspoken liberal professor of philosophy, a deputy, and an ambassador. His major plays include La conjuración de Venecia [the conspiracy of Venice] (1834), a landmark of the romantic theatre in Spain; Abén Humeya (in French, 1830, Span. tr. 1836); and the neoclassic Edipo [Oedipus] (1829). Among his poems the best known are the elegy entitled Epístola al duque de Frias and El recuerdo de la patria [memory of our country]. Martínez de la Rosa also wrote historical novels and political histories.

Preface:Sect1 Chateaubriand mentions meeting him.

 

Martyrs, Les

A work by Chateaubriand entitled Les Martyrs ou le triomphe de la religion chrétienne (1809).

BkIX:Chap14:Sec1 BkXXXIV:Chap12:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXII:Chap4:Sec2 The quotation is from Book IV.

BkXIII:Chap7:Sec2 The question is asked by Paul, of Eudore,  in Book XI, a reference to the Lives of the Desert Fathers.

BkXV:Chap7:Sec3 The Bay of Naples described in Book V.

BkXVIII:Chap2:Sec1 Chateaubriand working on the descriptive passages on the voyage to Tunis in December 1806.

BkXVIII:Chap5:Sec2 Chateaubriand working on it at the Vallée-aux-Loups in 1807.

BkXVIII:Chap6:Sec1 It went on sale on the 27th of March 1809. The third edition with major corrections was published in January 1810, the fourth in September 1822. The definitive edition is that in the Complete Works of 1826-7.

BkXIX:Chap16:Sec2 The reference is to Book XI.

BkXXIX:Chap1:Sec3 BkXXXVI:Chap7:Sec1 Chateaubriand quotes from the work.

BkXXXIV:Chap9:Sec1 BkXXXV:Chap11:Sec1 Its influence on Augustin Thierry.

BkXXXIX:Chap12:Sec1 For the description of Velléda see Book IX.

 

Mary, the Virgin

Traditionally she was the mother of Jesus Christ.

BkI:Chap4:Sec8 BkXIV:Chap2:Sec3 Traditional prayer to her. She is called Stella Maris, the Star of the Seas.

BkIII:Chap8:Sec1 Pictures of her in church.

 

Mary of Bethany

The sister of Martha and Lazarus. See Luke 10:38-42, John 11 and 12.

BkXV:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Maryland, USA

An eastern seaboard state. One of the 13 original colonies it was first settled by the English. It was granted in 1632 to George Calvert, 1st Baron Baltimore by Charles I and named after his wife Henrietta Maria. It became a refuge for Catholics under the 2nd Baron Baltimore.

BkVI:Chap6:Sec1 Chateaubriand’s ship becalmed off the coast in 1791.

 

Marylebone (High) Street, London

Located in the City of Westminster, London, south of the Marylebone Road and running into Paddington Street.

BkX:Chap6:Sec2 Chateaubriand lodged by Saint-George’s cemetery (1731-1857) off Paddington Street, near Paddington Street Gardens. Body-snatching (for anatomical dissection) was a common problem at the time.

 

Mason, William

1725-1797. English poet, editor and gardener, he was born in Hull and studied at St John’s College, Cambridge. He was ordained in 1754 and held a number of posts in the church. Among his works, none of them highly regarded today, are the historical tragedies Elfrida (1752) and Caractacus (1759) and a long poem on gardening, The English Garden (three volumes, 1772-82). His garden designs included one for the 2nd Earl of Harcourt.

BkXII:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Massa, Italy

The Duchy of Massa and Carrara controlled the towns of Massa di Carrara and Carrara; the area is now part of unified Italy, but retains its local identity as the province of Massa-Carrara. It lies in the north-west of Tuscany and passed to the Duke of Modena in 1814. The Duchesse de Berry lived there from the start of 1832.

BkXXXV:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Masséna, André, Duc de Rivoli, Prince d’Essling, Marshal of France

1756-1817. He fought in Napoleon’s Italian campaign, winning an important victory at Rivoli in 1797. He subsequently defeated the Russians in Switzerland in 1799, fought again in Italy, and against the Austrians, 1809-10. He was defeated by Wellington in the Peninsular War, and was relieved of his command.

BkXIX:Chap12:Sec1 Commanding in Nice, under Napoleon, in 1796.

BkXIX:Chap12:Sec2 Napoleon’s early opinion of him.

BkXX:Chap1:Sec1 BkXXIV:Chap7:Sec1 BkXXXV:Chap13:Sec1 In Switzerland in 1799. He fought the Battle of Zurich on the 26th of September 1799 defeating Korsakov and driving Suvorov’s army off.

BkXX:Chap2:Sec1 He surrendered Genoa as ordered on 4th June 1800.

BkXX:Chap10:Sec1 At Wagram Masséna was overpowered by the Austrian troop concentration.

BkXXIII:Chap1:Sec1 On the evening of 3rd March 1815 he sent a courier from Marseilles to Lyons carrying the news of Napoleon’s landing from Elba, it was passed by telegraph to Paris and arrived in the King’s hands late on the morning of the 6th. The Moniteur published the news on the 7th. Note the skilful literary use of the delay (and the innovation of the telegraph) in Dumas’: The Count of Monte Cristo.

BkXXIII:Chap3:Sec1 Devious in his dealings with the monarchy in 1815.

BkXXIII:Chap18:Sec2 Speaking in the Chamber of Peers in June 1815.

BkXXVIII:Chap18:Sec1 Madame Récamier’s white ribbon.

 

Masseria, Philippe (Antonio Filippo)

1739-1814. A nationalist who acted as a British secret agent in the Corsican nationalist movement, the friend and confidante of Paoli. He was President from 1790 of the Jacobin Club in Ajaccio, and helpful to Napoleon.

BkXIX:Chap7:Sec1 His praise of Napoleon’s pamphlet.

 

Massillon, Jean-Baptiste

1663-1742. Bishop of Clermont from 1717. He was celebrated for his preaching, especially at the courts of Louis XIV and Louis XV. Collections of his sermons include a series for Advent and a series for Lent.

BkII:Chap3:Sec4 His sermons on the Adulteress and the Prodigal Son.

BkIII:Chap7:Sec2 His verbal portraits depicting the effects of passion.

 

Massimo, Prince Camillo VII of Arsari

1730-1801. Father of Princess Lancellotti.

BkXXIX:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Massorah, al-Mansurah

Battle of, 1250. At this battle, the Egyptian army under Turan Shah defeated the armies of the Seventh Crusade commanded by Louis IX, King of France, who was taken captive and imprisoned in Dar bin Luqman in Mansurah, near Cairo.

BkI:Chap1:Sec3 Chateaubriand’s ancestor Geoffroy IV taken prisoner there.

 

Mathilde, Plantagenet

1101-1169. Daughter of Henry I of England. Married Geoffrey V (Plantagenet) of Anjou. After much internecine warfare, her son Henry II became King.

BkI:Chap1:Sec6 Grandmother of Agnès de Laval.

 

Matignon, Madame de

Angelique-Elisabeth le Tonnelier de Breteuil, married the Comte de Gracé, Louis Charles Auguste de Goyon-Matignon in 1772. She was the mother of the Duchesse de Montmorency.

BkXVIII:Chap7:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

Matthew, Saint

One of the twelve apostles in the New Testament, he was a tax-collector who became a follower of Jesus. According to tradition he preached in Judea, Ethiopia and Persia, and suffered martyrdom. His gospel draws material from that of Saint Mark.

BkII:Chap6:Sec2 Chateaubriand alludes to Matthew XVI.19

BkIII:Chap12:Sec1 Chateaubriand alludes to Matthew XX.12. ‘unto us which have borne the burden and heat of the day.’

BkXXIII:Chap3:Sec1 The reference is to Matthew IX.6.

BkXXIII:Chap16:Sec1 The casting of lots for Christ’s garments: see Matthew XXVII.35, also Mark XV.24, Luke XXIII.34, John XIX.23-24.

BkXXIV:Chap11:Sec1 See Matthew IV.7, also Luke IV.12.

BkXXXV:Chap1:Sec1 See Matthew V.7.

BkXLII:Chap8:Sec1 See Matthew XXVII:30

 

Maubreuil, Marquis de

1782-1855. A French political adventurer, who was equerry to the King of Westphalia, he was implicated at the start of 1814, in a theft to the detriment of the Queen of Westphalia. He tried to exonerate himself by claiming he had been charged by Talleyrand and the Allies with liquidating Napoleon.

BkXXII:Chap 20:Sec3 Mentioned.

BkXLII:Chap8:Sec1 At Saint-Denis on 21st January 1827 he revenged himself on Talleyrand, whom he considered responsible for his arrest, and during the funeral service for Louis XVI struck him, knocking him to the ground.

 

Mauduit

He was a sergeant of the gendarmerie at Saint-Lô in 1809.

BkXVIII:Chap7:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

Mauguin, François

1785-1854. A Liberal lawyer he joined the Chamber of Deputies in 1827. He remained in opposition under Louis-Philippe.

BkXXXII:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXXII:Chap8:Sec1 Speaks against admitting Mortemart on the 30th JUly 1830.

 

Maunoir, le Père Julien

1606-1683. A revered seventeenth-century Jesuit, he was one of the most active missionaries of the Counter-Reformation in Brittany.  He spent forty-two years traversing Brittany, recording his many missions in his Latin Journal.

BkI:Chap4:Sec8 Chateaubriand quotes him.

 

Maupeou, Chancellor

1714-1792. Chancellor of France (1768-74). He was president of the parlement of Paris before he succeeded his father as chancellor. He was the chief mover in the attempt of Louis XV to master the parlement and end its opposition to the fiscal measures needed to replenish the treasury. Maupeou dissolved (1771) all the parlements, exiled the magistrates from Paris, and abolished the sale of many offices. He then substituted a new high court (nominating all the members) and a system of superior courts. He became highly unpopular with the nobility, whose interests had been protected by the parlement. Louis XVI on his accession dismissed Maupeou and restored the old parlements. Although Maupeou's reforms have been regarded by many enlightened leaders as an act of tyranny, his measures, if Louis XVI had allowed them to stand, might have brought about enough fundamental reform to have prevented the fall of the monarchy.

BkV:Chap1:Sec1 BkXLII:Chap10:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Maupertuis, Pierre-Louis Moreau de

1698-1795. A mathematician, famous for his journey to northern Sweden to measure the meridian degree of the Arctic Circle, which established the slight flattening of the ice-cap. He was elected by Frederick II to the new Academy of Berlin, and lived at his court from 1745 to 1756.

BkI:Chap3:Sec2 His parents were friends of Chateaubriand’s mother.

BkI:Chap4:Sec5 Born in Saint-Malo.

 

Maurepas, Jean-Frédéric Phélypeaux, Comte de

1701-1781. On the accession of Louis XVI in 1774 he became a minister of state and Louis XVI’s chief adviser, a position he held until 1781.

BkXLII:Chap10:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Maxime, Sextus Quintilius ValeriusMaximus?

He was the recipient of a letter from Pliny the Younger.

BkXXX:Chap12:Sec1 See Pliny’s Letters VIII:24.

 

Maximilien I, see Bavaria

 

Mayenne, Charles de Lorraine, Duc de

1554-1611. French Catholic general in the Wars of Religion, brother of Henri, 3d Duc de Guise, and Louis de Lorraine, Cardinal de Guise. After the murder of his brothers (1588), he became the head of the Catholic League. Defeated by Henry IV of France at Arques (1589) and Ivry (1590), he nevertheless raised Henry’s siege of Paris (1590). For a time he wielded almost royal power over the parts of France that supported the League. He became estranged from the pro-Spanish faction, which supported the claim to the French crown of the Spanish Infanta Isabella, a granddaughter of King Henry II of France. In 1596, Mayenne made his final peace with Henry IV, who had previously abjured.

BkIX:Chap3:Sec2 BkXIX:Chap10:Sec1 BkXXII:Chap18:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Mayeux

A grotesque character representing the National Guard, a ‘hero of July’, created by Charles Traviès in 1831, and the subject of anecdotes and engravings..

BkXXXIV:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Mazarin, Jules, Cardinal

1602-1661. A French statesman, cardinal of the Roman Catholic Church, born in Italy, his original name was Giulio Mazarini. After serving in the papal army and diplomatic service and as nuncio at the French court (1634–36), he entered the service of France and made himself valuable to King Louis XIII’s chief minister, Cardinal Richelieu, who brought him into the council of state. Although he had received only minor orders and had never been ordained a priest, he was raised to cardinal upon the recommendation of Louis XIII (1641). After the deaths of Richelieu (1642) and Louis XIII (1643), he was the principal minister of the regent, Anne of Austria. The theory that he was secretly married to the widowed queen has been widely credited. He won favourable terms for France in the Peace of Westphalia (1648), but his attempts to raise money through taxation and his centralizing policy provoked the troubles of the Fronde (1648–53), during which he was several times forced to leave France. After the defeat of the Fronde, Mazarin was securely in control of France. By clever diplomacy he strengthened the crown and negotiated the favourable Peace of the Pyrenees at the end of the war with Spain (1659).

BkXIII:Chap1:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap11:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXV:Chap4:Sec1 More powerful in fact than the Regent or King.

 

Meaux, France

A commune in the metropolitan area of Paris, it is located 25.5 miles east-northeast from the centre of Paris. Meaux is a sous-préfecture of the Seine-et-Marne département, being the seat of the Arrondissement of Meaux.

BkXXXI:Chap6:Sec1 Bossuet was called the Eagle of Meaux, being Bishop there.

BkXXXVIII:Chap10:Sec1 Chateaubriand passes through in June 1833.

 

Mecca

A city of western Saudi Arabia near the coast of the Red Sea, the birthplace of Muhammad, it is the holiest city of Islam, and a pilgrimage site for all devout believers of that faith.

BkXVIII:Chap3Sec4 Mentioned.

BkXIX:Chap14:Sec2 The Ka’aba is a building located inside the mosque known as al-Masjidu’l-Ḥarām in Mecca. The mosque was built around the original Kaaba. The Kaaba is the holiest place in Islam.

 

Méchin, Alexandre, Baron

1772-1849. A Prefect from 1801 to 1814, he was a liberal Deputy from 1819, a translator of Juvenal, and a supporter of the Duc d’Orléans. He became Prefect of the North, then Councillor of State.

BkXXXII:Chap15:Sec1 At the Hôtel de Ville on the 31st of July 1830.

 

Mecklenburg

Mecklenburg is a geographical area located in Northern Germany. Its borders are the Baltic Sea to the north, the rivers of Recknitz and Trebel to the east, the Elbe river to the southwest, and Lower Saxony and Holstein to the west.The name derives from a castle named ‘Mikilenburg’ (Old German: ‘big castle’), located between the cities of Schwerin and Wismar. It was the ancestral seat of the House of Mecklenburg.

BkXXII:Chap5:Sec1 Körner was buried at Wubbelin near Ludwigslust in Mecklenburg.

 

Medea

The mythological sorceress of Chalcis, she appears as a character in Corneille’s Medée.

BkXX:Chap12:Sec1 See Act I, Scene V: ‘Moi!/Moi, dis-je, et c’est assez.’

BkXXXIX:Chap12:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Megacci for Mattei (?), Alessandro

1744-1820. After the French occupation of Rome, he was named pro-datary on March 26, 1808. Expelled from Rome on June 10, 1809 by order of the French authorities as a reprisal for posting the bull of excommunication against Emperor Napoléon; he was exiled to Paris; he refused to attended Napoleon’s wedding to Archduchess Marie-Louise of Austria on April 2, 1810, and because of this he was prohibited by Napoleon from wearing the red cardinal’s habit and became one of the thirteen ‘black cardinals’.

BkXX:Chap9:Sec1 Mentioned? The name Megacci in the text is unknown.

 

Megara

Megara is a city in Greece, northeast of the Isthmus of Corinth in the modern Attiki region.

BkVII:Chap5:Sec1 Phocion’s body was taken there and burnt.

 

Méhémet-Ali

c1769-1849. An Albanian soldier in the service of Turkey, who was made viceroy of Egypt, and wrested control from the Ottoman Empire to establish Egypt as a modern state.

BkXVIII:Chap3Sec4 BkXIX:Chap15:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Meillerie

Several scenes in Rousseau’s best-seller, La Nouvelle Héloïse, are set in Meillerie, a village on the edge of Lake Léman, close to Evian, which became a romantic place of pilgrimage for tourists.

BkXXVIII:Chap10:Sec1 Chateaubriand there in 1826.

 

Mélas, Michael, General

1729-1806. Born in Transylvania, he fought in the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763) but was a solid, rather than exceptional, soldier and advanced slowly up the ladder. In 1799, he rose to command the army in the Italy campaign and began it well with victories at Cassovo, Novi and a successful siege that forced Massena to surrender Genoa.

BkXX:Chap2:Sec1 At Marengo he failed to push home his advantage and handed over control prematurely to a subordinate.

 

Melchthal, Arnold von

A character (possibly the name of a historical person) in the reconstructed and therefore mythical Swiss legend of William Tell, according to which Albert of Austria, with the view of depriving the Forest lands of their ancient freedom, sent bailiffs (among them Gessler) to Uri and Schwyz, who committed many tyrannical acts, so that finally on 8th November 1307, at the Rutli, Werner von Stauffacher of Schwyz, Walter Fürst of Uri, and Arnold von Melchthal in Unter-walden, each with ten companions, among whom was William Tell, resolved on a rising to expel the oppressors, which was fixed in literature at New Year’s Day 1308. The underlying reference is to a legend of the Swiss Confederation the origin of which dates back to the agreement between the three mountain cantons of Uri, Schwytz and Unterwalden in 1291. Supposedly representatives of the three cantons met in the Grutli (or Rutli) meadow in 1307, and took an oath of loyalty in the joint struggle against Austrian rule.

BkXXII:Chap5:Sec1 BkXXXV:Chap11:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

Melinde

An ancient kingdom, Melindum, it lay on the east coast of Africa, near Zanzibar. The Portuguese traded there.

BkXXIV:Chap9:Sec1 It was used by poets as a romantic location.

 

Melun

The capital of the Seine-et-Marne, 33 miles south south-east of Paris, on the Seine. The nearby chateau of Vaux-le-Vicomte is considered a smaller predecessor of Palace of Versailles.

BkVIII:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Melzi d’Eril, Francesco, Comte de Magenta, Duc de Lodi

1753-1816. An open-minded politician of broad education (he travelled in France, England and Spain), he was a champion of moderate liberalism. Opposed to the republican régime, he would have preferred a strong monarchic state in northern Italy, to ensure a balance of power between France and Austria; nevertheless, when Napoleon constituted the Italian Republic (Congress of Lyons: 1802), he agreed to become its Vice-President (the President was Napoleon himself). With the advent of the Kingdom of Italy he ceased to hold any position. In 1807 he acquired the title of Duke of Lodi.

BkXIV:Chap7:Sec1 Chateaubriand dined at a reception given by him in Rome in 1803.

 

Memnon

In Greek mythology a dark-skinned Ethiopian king, the son of Tithonus and Aurora (the Dawn), he fought for Troy in the Trojan War with Greece. He was killed by Achilles, but his mother Aurora begged Zeus for funeral honours, and he created the warring flock of birds, the Memnonides, from his ashes.

BkXL:Chap2:Sec4 Chateaubriand refers to the Colossi of Memnon, two massive stone statues of Pharaoh Amenhotep III (14th century BC) in the Theban necropolis, across the Nile from the modern city of Luxor. The Greek historian and geographer Strabo writing in the early years of the 1st century, tells of an earthquake (in 27 BC) that shattered the northern colossus, collapsing it from the waist up. Following its rupture, this statue was then reputed to ‘sing’ every morning at dawn: a moaning or whistling probably caused by rising temperature and the evaporation of dew from the porous rock. The reputation of the statue’s oracular powers caused several Roman Emperors to visit. The mysterious vocalisations ceased in 199, however, when Emperor Septimius Severus reassembled the two shattered halves.

 

Mémoires sur de Consulat

It is a work by Thibaudeau.

 

Memphis, Egypt

An ancient city of Lower Egypt, south of modern Cairo, it was founded as the capital of Egypt after its unification by Menes (c3100 BC) remaining so until supplanted by Thebes (c1570 BC). The necropolis of Saqqarah, and the Pyramids and Sphinx complex at Giza form part of its extensive ruins.

BkIII:Chap9:Sec1 BkXXVII:Chap11:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkVI:Chap8:Sec1 Napoleon’s Egyptian Campaign in 1798.

BkVIII:Chap5:Sec2 Memphis, Tennessee.

 

Menelaus

King of Sparta. The younger son of Atreus, brother of Agamemnon, hence called Atrides minor. Paris’s theft of his wife Helen instigated the Trojan War.

BkVIII:Chap5:Sec1 Greece, his homeland.

 

Menneval, for Méneval, Claude François, Baron de

1778-1850. He was private secretary to Napoleon from April 1802, until St. Helena in 1815, and published various Memoirs.

BkXX:Chap10:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Menichini, Luigi, Abbot

He was one of the instigators of the Carbonari uprising in Naples in July 1820.

BkXXVI:Chap7:Sec1 A reference to him as one of the instigators.

 

Menou, Jacques-François, Baron de

1750-1810. He represented the nobility in the States-General, committed himself to the Revolution and fought in the Vendée. He succeeded Kléber in Egypt in 1800 but was unable to avoid abandoning Egypt in 1801. He was Military governor of Rosetta when the famous stone was discovered, and had the Greek characters translated which enabled the deciphering of the hieroglyphic script.

BkXIX:Chap14:Sec1 Went with Napoleon on the Egyptian Campaign.

 

Méot

He was a restaurant owner of the Palais-Royal, his restaurant becoming highly popular during the Revolution. Once chef to the Duc d’Orleans. Hired by Joseph Bonaparte and followed him to Naples and Madrid.

BkIX:Chap3:Sec2 Mentioned.

 

Mercoeur, Élisa

1809-1835. A poetess, born in Nantes, she lived in Paris from 1828. Her complete works were published in 1843.

BkXLII:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Mercure de France

c 1672-1785. A long running publication, taken over by Chamfort and Mirabeau it became an important periodical of the Revolution.

BkIV:Chap6:Sec1 Read prior to the Revolution by Chateaubriand’s father.

BkXIII:Chap6:Sec1 Issued under Lucien Bonaparte, as Minister of the Interior, with Fontanes as editor, helped by La Harpe. It ran from June 1800, and Chateaubriand collaborated on the journal in 1800-1.

BkXVIII:Chap5:Sec1 Chateaubriand became sole editor for a sum of 20,000 francs paid to Fontanes probably in 1807. His article appeared in the Mercure on the 4th July 1807, at the same time as the bulletin announcing the victory of Friedland. On the 9th the Treaty of Tilsit was announced.

BkXVIII:Chap8:Sec2 The publication terminated with its incorporation in the Revue philosophique (the former Décade) in 1807.

BkXXVIII:Chap18:Sec1 BkXXIX:Chap1:Sec1 The letter of 22nd December 1800 ‘to Citizen Fontanes.’

BkXXIX:Chap9:Sec1 The letter of 3rd March 1804 ‘to Fontanes’.

BkXXXVI:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXXIX:Chap11:Sec1 Chateaubriand’s article of 1807 quoted.

 

Mercy, François de = Franz Freiherr von Merci

c1595-1645. Lord of Mandre and Collenburg, he was a German general in the Thirty Years War, who came of a noble family of Lorraine. He was made general field marshal in 1643 when he won his great victory over the French marshal Rantzau at Tuttlingen (Nov. 24-25). In the following year he opposed the French armies, under the duke of Enghien (afterwards the great Condé) and the Vicomte de Turenne. He lost the desperate battle of Freiburg, but the following year inflicted on Turenne the defeat of Mergentheim (Marienthal). Later on 3rd August 1645, fighting once more against Enghien and Turenne, Mercy was killed at the battle of Nordlingen (or Allerheim). On the spot where he fell, Enghien erected a memorial, with the inscription Sta viator, heroem calcas (Stop passer-by, you tread upon a hero).

BkIX:Chap16:Sec1 Born at Longwy.

 

Merdrignac

Town in Brittany, near Dinan.

BkI:Chap1:Sec8 François-Henri, rector there.

 

Mère coupable, La

Work by Beaumarchais.

 

Méréville, Château de

The château, Essonne, Île-de-France, in the Juine valley, belonged to Jean-Joseph de Laborde, and was inherited by Nathalie de Noailles his daughter.

BkXVIII:Chap3Sec1 Mentioned. The column, a sort of replica of Trajan’s column, 37 metres high, sometimes served as a telegraph relay station. It was a feature of the Park. Chateaubriand travelled to the Pyrenees again in 1829, and to Toulouse in 1838.

BkXXII:Chap 24:Sec1 Chateaubriand met Claire de Duras there.

BkXXVII:Chap5:Sec1 Chateaubriand remembered Léontine de Noailles as a child there in 1806-7.

BkXXXVI:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Merfeld (Merveldt), Maximilian Freidrich, Baron von

1764-1815. An Austro-Hungarian soldier and diplomat, as a General commanding the 2nd Corps he was captured at Leipzig. He was Ambassador to St Petersburg from 1806-8, and to London from 1814, where he died.

BkXXXII:Chap3:Sec1 Captured at Leipzig.

 

Méricourt, see Théroigne

 

Mérilhou, Joseph

1788-1856. A Liberal lawyer.

BkXXXII:Chap1:Sec1 His advice sought in July 1830.

BkXXXII:Chap8:Sec1 Named as Commissioner for Justice of the Municipal Commission, 29th July 1830.

 

Merlin, J. S.

A Paris bookseller, he was still active in 1832.

BkXXV:Chap6:Sec1 Auctioned Chateaubriand’s library of almost 1800 volumes in April 1817, at 30 Rue des Bon-Enfants

 

Merlin de Douai, Philippe-Antoine, Comte

1754-1838. As a member of the Convention he instigated the Law of Suspects, and was a Director and Councillor of State in 1806. He was proscribed as a regicide by the law of 25th July 1815.

BkXXIII:Chap12:Sec1 Suggested by the liberals as Minister of Justice.

 

Mérona, Monsieur de

In Lisbon in 1824.

BkXXVIII:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Mesmer, Franz Anton

1734-1815. A German physician who claimed to cure disease by correcting the flow of ‘animal magnetism’ in his patient’s bodies during séance like sessions. Investigations concluded that cures were due to his powers of suggestion and prompted studies of hypnosis.

BkV:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned. Mesmerism was popular in Paris among the nobility.

 

Mesnard, Louis-Charles, Comte de

1769-1842. A co-pupil of Bonaparte’s at Brienne, he emigrated to England. There he entered the service of the Duc de Berry. He was his aide-de-camp during the Restoration and then principal Master of Horse to his widow. He was involved in the abortive uprising of 1832, tried and acquitted in 1833. He replaced de Brissac at Blaye, and accompanied the Duchess to Italy.

BkXXXIX:Chap2:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Mesnier, Louis-Marthe

A Royal notary (1814-1819) he had offices at 30 Rue du Bac.

BkXXV:Chap2:Sec1 Chateaubriand at his office in 1816.

 

Messager des Chambres, Le

It was an ultra newspaper in Paris (in 1829), owned by Count Colonna-Walewski (1810-1868), Napoleon’s son by Countess Walewski. He sold the paper to Thiers in 1840.

BkXXX:Chap5:Sec1 Its dispute with the Constitutionnel in March 1829.

 

Messenia

A prefecture in the Peloponnese, a region of Greece, Messenia is bounded on the east by Mount Taygetus, on the north by the river Neda and the Arcadian Mountains, on the south and west by the sea.

BkXXXVIII:Chap9:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Messina

The port in north-eastern Sicily on the Strait of Messina, originally known as Zancle, was successively occupied by Greeks, Carthaginians, Mamertines, Romans, Saracens, Normans and Spaniards. In 1860 it became part of united Italy.

BkIII:Chap8:Sec1 BkXXXVIII:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned as an exotic location.

 

Mestre, Italy

The industrial town is in the Veneto near Marghera, not far from Venice on the mainland.

BkXL:Chap7:Sec1 Chateaubriand sets out for Mestre in September 1833.

BkXLI:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand passes by in the night.

 

Metastasio, Pietro, (Pietro Antonio Domenico Trapassi)

1698-1782. An Italian poet and librettist, in 1730 he was appointed Court poet in Vienna, where he wrote classical libretti. These include L’Adriano (1731), and La clemenza di Tito (1732) set to music by Mozart and others.

BkX:Chap6:Sec2 His early poem, Scendi propizia col tuo splendore,  o bella Venere, madre d'Amore, from Epitalamio, II.

 

Métel, Hugues, Hugo Metellus

1080-1157. A pupil of Anselm, Canon of the abbey of Saint-Léon, at Toul (Lorraine) he was a contemporary of Abelard to whom he addressed letters.

BkIX:Chap12:Sec1 His fable of Le loup qui se fit ermite.

 

Metella, Cecilia

1st Century BC. The famous circular turret-like tomb of Cecilia Metella, daughter of Quintus Caecilius Metello, the Consul who conquered Crete, and wife of the triumvir Marcus Licinius Crassus’ son, who served with Caesar in Gaul from 57 to 51BC, is on the Appian Way and its most important symbol. It was commonly called Capo di Bove, and was converted into a fortress by the Caetani (their coat of arms is still there), who added the pinnacles and built a palace. They fortified with walls a little village which included a church (S. Nicola di Bari). The fortress was attacked and damaged several times and eventually became a brigands' retreat.

BkXV:Chap7:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap12:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap13:Sec1

Chateaubriand mentions the tomb.

BkXXIX:Chap5:Sec1 Her sarcophagus from the tomb is in the courtyard of the Villa Farnese.

BkXXXVIII:Chap5:Sec1 Chateaubriand sets his nocturne near her tomb, near the catacombs of St Sebastian and not far from the valley of the nymph Egeria.

 

Metropolitan

In hierarchical Christian churches, the rank of Metropolitan pertains to the diocesan bishop or archbishop (then more precisely called Metropolitan archbishop) of a metropolis; that is, the chief city of an old Roman province, ecclesiastical province, or regional capital. His jurisdiction is called a metropolia.

BkXXI:Chap1:Sec1 In 1812, Platon Levshin (1737-November 1812) was the Metropolitan of Moscow. In 1775 he was enthroned archbishop of Moscow, and throughout the reigns of Catherine II, Paul, and Alexander I diligently promoted the religious, moral, intellectual, and material welfare of his archdiocese, It was Platon who crowned both Paul (1797) and Alexander I (1801); Shortly before his death, he was evacuated from Moscow, which was about to be surrendered to Napoleon.

 

Metternich, Klemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar, Prince von

1773-1859. An Austrian nobleman and political leader; he was Chancellor of the Austrian government for nearly forty years. Through his leadership at the Congress of Vienna and elsewhere, Metternich restored order in Europe after the fall of Napoleon. He did so, however, to the advantage of the European kings and princes and at the expense of movements toward democracy in Europe.

BkXXIII:Chap11:Sec1 BkXXIII:Chap12:Sec1 His intrigues regarding the Congress of Vienna.

BkXXVII:Chap3:Sec2 His admiration for the Countess von Lieven.

BkXXVIII:Chap1:Sec1 In 1822.

BkXXVIII:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned in 1824.

BkXXVIII:Chap13:Sec1 BkXXIX:Chap13:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap6:Sec2

BkXXXII:Chap10:Sec1 BkXXXIII:Chap10:Sec1 BkXXXVI:Chap9:Sec1

BkXXXVI:Chap10:Sec1 BkXXXVII:Chap9:Sec1 BkXXXVIII:Chap8:Sec1

BkXXXIX:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXXI:Chap8:Sec1 His view of the July 1830 decrees.

BkXXXVI:Chap12:Sec1 Count Choteck writes to him on Chateaubriand’s behalf in 1833.

BkXXXVII:Chap3:Sec1 His potential for meddling in French affairs.

BkXL:Chap6:Sec1 Mentioned in 1833.

BkXLII:Chap8:Sec1 The transaction took place in 1817, with Metternich’s agreement.

 

Metz

The city in north-east France, capital of the Moselle Department, is situated on the Moselle River. Part of the Holy Roman Empire until seized by France in 1552, it fell to Germany in 1871 but returned to France after World War I.

BkXXIII:Chap3:Sec1 Chateaubriand suggested that the Duc d’Orléans might go there in 1815.

BkXXXVIII:Chap10:Sec1 Chateaubriand there in June 1833. Defended by Guise (1552) and fortified by Vauban (1648).

 

Meunier, Captain

A captain of the 3rd Guards Regiment in 1830.

BkXXXII:Chap5:Sec1 Wounded in the fighting on the 29th of July 1830.

 

Mézeray, François Eudes de

1610-1683. French historian, He had two brothers, one of whom, Jean Eudes, was the founder of the order of the Eudists. He studied at the university of Caen, and completed his education at the college of Ste Barbe at Paris. His Histoire de France depuis Faramond jusqu' a Louis le Juste (3 vols. 1643-1651), is a fairly accurate summary of French and Latin chronicles.

BkII:Chap4:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Mézy, Antoinette Véron, Madame de

d. 1824 Daughter of a Tax-Collector. Wife of Charles Dupleix de Mézy (1766-1835), Prefect under the Restoration, Peer of France under the July Monarchy. The Manor of Mézy (at Mézy-sur-Seine, Yvelines) on the right bank of the Seine, downstream from Melan, contained a garden by Le Nôtre. Her daughter Louise was killed in an accident in 1812, and she later lost a son to consumption.

BkXVII:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Micara, Ludovico, Cardinal

1775-1847. A Cardinal from 1824, he was a friend and then defender of Premier Lamenais. His brother Clemente was an economist.

BkXXX:Chap1:Sec2 An anti-Jesuit voter.

 

Micetto

Chateaubriand’s cat (micetto simply means kitten) inherited from Leo XII.

BkXXXVI:Chap1:Sec1 Mentioned.

 

Michaud, Joseph-François

1767-1839. A Royalist journalist and editor, he was a close friend of Madame de Krüdner. He wrote at times for Le Mercure. He edited La Quotidienne, from 1796, being arrested and sentenced to death for his royalist polemic. He edited it again under the Directory, was briefly imprisoned in 1800 under the Consulate, and temporarily abandoned journalism. From 1814 he edited the paper again under the Restoration. He lost his post as King’s Reader for his opposition to the law on censorship in 1827. He was Deputy for the Ain in 1815, and wrote a monumental History of the Crusades (1808-1822) and the first Universal Biography (1811-1828, with his brother).

BkXV:Chap3:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXXVIII:Chap14:Sec1 He writes to Chateaubriand.

 

Michelangelo di Ludovico Buonarroti Simoni

1475-1564. Italian sculptor, painter, architect and poet, he trained under Ghirlandaio and in the school in the Medici Gardens under the patronage of Lorenzo de’ Medici. His later works include the David in Florence, the Piéta in Rome, the Medici Chapel in Florence (San Lorenzo) and the Sistine Chapel ceiling and Last Judgement (1534-1541) frescoes in Rome (Vatican).

BkV:Chap12:Sec1 BkXXIV:Chap16:Sec1 BkXXIX:Chap8:Sec1

BkXXXVIII:Chap8:Sec1 Mentioned.

BkXII:Chap1:Sec1 Chateaubriand quotes slightly incorrectly from the second verse of his poem ‘Dal ciel discese..’

BkXIV:Chap2:Sec2 BkXIV:Chap7:Sec1 BkXXX:Chap5:Sec1

BkXXX:Chap12:Sec1 BkXXXVI:Chap1:Sec1 He designed (1547) the dome of Saint Peter’s in Rome, dying when the drum for the dome was virtually complete.

BkXIX:Chap12:Sec1 BkXIX:Chap13:Sec1 Napoleon shipped artworks back to France.

BkXX:Chap5:Sec3 Napoleon comparable to him in his fields of war and politics.

BkXXIX:Chap2:Sec2 The Franciscan monks of Ravenna hid Dante’s remains, when Pope Leo X decided in 1519 to deliver them to Florence to Michelangelo, who planned to construct a glorious tomb.

BkXXIX:Chap5:Sec1 Michelangelo in 1589 completed the cornice etc of the Farnese Palace