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 D