MEUDON 



MEXICO 



165 



llcildoil. a village 5 miles W. of Paris by th. 

 railway to Versailles. The chateau, rebuilt b\ 

 Mansard for the Dauphin in 1695, and fitted u : 

 for Marie Louise by Napoleon in 1812, was reduce* 

 to ruin during the bombardment of Paris in 1871 

 The Forest is a favourite holiday resort. A chapel 

 dedicated to Notre Dame des Flammes, commemo 

 rates the terrible railway accident of May 1842, in 

 which over 100 persons were burned alive. Rabelais 

 was curt of Meudon. Pop. 7570. 



M'uleliek, a town in the Belgian province 

 of West Flanders, on the Mandel, a tributary o 

 the Lys, 24 miles SW. of Ghent. Pop. 9063. 



Meulen. ADAM (not ANTOINE) FRANCOIL 

 VAN DER, Flemish painter, born at Brussels, llth 

 January 1632 (not 1&S4), was appointed by Colbert 

 in 1666 battle-painter to Louis XIV., and thence 

 forward accompanied that king in his military 

 expeditions. A long series of Van der Meulen's 

 battle-pictures hang in the Louvre. He died in 

 Paris, 15th October 1690. 



Mcung, .IK.VN- HE, or Jean Clopinel, a French 

 satirist, the Voltaire of the middle ages as Gaston 

 Paris calls him, was born at Meun-sur-Loire about 

 1250. He flourished under Philip the Fair, trans- 

 lated many books into French, became rich and 

 prosperous, and died before November 1305. His 

 Testament, in single-rimed quatrains, with all 

 its raillery, reveals a genuine piety. But his great 

 work is his continuation to the length of 22,817 

 lines of the Human de la Rote, left unfinished in 

 4670 lines by William of Lorris before 1260. He 

 preserved the original metre, but completely 

 altered the treatment, substituting for its tender- 

 ness, refinement, and elaborate allegorising, sharp 

 satirical pictures of actual life, forming an invalu- 

 able^ mirror of the middle ages. See Hist. Lift, tie 

 la France, vol. xxviii. 



Mcursins, JOHANNES, the elder (properly Jan 

 de Meurs), a learned scholar, was born at Looz- 

 dninen near the Hague, 9th February 1579, studied 

 philology at Leyden, next travelled through Europe 

 with the son of the Grand-pensionary Barneveldt, 

 and became in 1610 professor of History, and next 

 year of Greek, at Leyden, and afterwards Historio- 

 grapher to the States-general. In 1625 he became 

 professor of History in the academy at Soro in 

 Denmark, and here he died, 20th September 1639. 

 His industry was portentous, and his works are a 

 storehouse of materials for students, especially in 

 Greek antiquities. He edited Gate's De Re Itustica, 

 Plato's Timanui, the Characters of Theophrastus, 

 and a long series of the writings of the later Greek 

 writers, as Lycophron, Cons tan tin us Porphyro- 

 genitus, Philostratus, Aristoxenus, Constantinus 

 Manasses, Theophylact, Theodoras Metochites, 

 Antigonua Carystiua, Apollonius Dyskolus, and 

 Phlegon. other works are the useful Glossarium 

 Grvco-Barbiirnm (1614), lies Belqica: (1612), Athena: 

 Batava; (1625), Uutoria. Danica (1630), and a 

 long .series of monographs on questions of Greek 

 antiquities which may be found in the Thesam n< 

 A ntii/Mit'ititiH ilrin-nruM of ( ironoviuH. A collected 

 edition nf his works was prepared by Lami ( 12 vols. 

 Flor. 1741-63). His son, JOHANNES MEURSIUS, 

 the younger, was born at Leyden in 1613, and died 

 in Denmark in 16.54. He wrote several antiquarian 

 works of value, but his name by a singular mis- 

 fortune survives in connection with the filthy 

 Elegantias linrjwe Latinte (best ed. Leyden, 1757), 

 with ^which it is certain that he had nothing to 

 do. The original edition bears neither place nor 

 date, but was most probably printed about 1680 at 

 Lyoa or Grenoble. It contains a little poem by 

 Chorier (1609-92), hence his name has been too 

 eauily connected with the book, the origin of which 

 till remains on unsolved puzzle. 



Meurthe-et-Moselle, a department in the 

 north-east of France, formed, after the treaty of 1871 

 with Germany, out of what remained of the former 

 departments of Moselle and Meurthe. It has four, 

 arrondissernents Briey, Luneville, Nancy and Toul 

 an area of 2020 sq. m., and a pop. (1872) of 

 305,137; (1891) 444,150. The capital is Nancy. 

 The department belongs to the plateau of Lorraine 

 has very fertile soil, producing corn, wine, potatoes 

 fruit, beet-root for sugar, hops, &c., and is drained 

 by the Moselle and its tributaries. It has valuable 

 iron-mines, and is the first department in France 

 for iron and steel, and the third for glass ; there 

 are also important manufactures of pottery, wool- 

 lens, cottons, chemicals, tobacco, paper, beer, 

 artificial flowers, and embroidery- work. Rock-salt 

 is mined in large quantities. In point of popular 

 education it ranks second amongst the French 

 departments, Doubs being first. 



. Meuse (Dutch Maas), an affluent of the Rhine, 

 rises in the French department of Haute-Marne, 

 flows in a northerly direction in a deep, narrow, 

 winding valley, past Verdun and Sedan, entering 

 Belgium just below Givet, on to Nanmr, whence 

 it makes a huge curve to the east, then flows north 

 past Liege and Maestricht, and, bending abruptly 

 to the west, finally joins the Waal, one of the 

 mouths of the Rhine, from the left opposite Gorkum. 

 The united streams take the name of the Maas, 

 which soon divides again. The southern branch 

 passes through the Biesbosch and Hollandsche 

 Diep, and, again dividing, reaches the sea in two 

 wide estuaries, Haringvliet and De Krammer. The 

 northern branch, called the Merwede as far as 

 Dordrecht and to the west of that town the Old 

 Maas, likewise reaches the sea in two channels, 

 the Old and the New Maas. On this last stands 

 Rotterdam. The entire river is 500 miles in length ; 

 it is navigable from Verdun. Area of basin, 18,530 

 sq. m. Its principal affluents are the Sambre on 

 the left and the Ourthe on the right. 



Mouse, a department in the north-east of 

 France, touching Belgium in the north. Area, 

 2404 sq. m. ; pop. (1872) 284,725; (1891) 292,253. 

 The surface is traversed from south-east to north- 

 west by the wooded Argonne ranges, which form 

 the right and left bank of the river Meuse, and 

 separate it from the basin of the Seine on the west 

 and from that of the Moselle on the east. The 

 soil in the valleys is fertile and well cultivated. 

 Wheat, oats, beet-root (for sugar), hemp, oil- 

 plants, and wine ( nearly 9,000,000 gallons annually ) 

 are the principal products. Iron is mined and 

 uanufactured ; glass and paper are the chief 

 tranches of industry. The four arrondissements 

 are Bar-le-Duc, Commercy, Montmedy, and Ver- 

 dun. The capital is Bar-le-Duc. 



Mexico, the most southerly country of North 

 America, is a federal republic, embracing twenty- 

 icven states, a federal district, and two territories. 

 It extends between the United States and Guate- 

 mala, with an extreme length of nearly 2000 miles; 

 ts breadth varies between 1000 and ( in the Isthmus 

 of Tehuantepec) 130 miles. It has a coast-line of 

 ilinost 6000 miles, but with scarcely a safe harbour 

 eyond the noble haven of Acapulco ; on the 

 Atlantic side, with its sandbanks and lagoons, 

 ,here are only open roadsteads, or river-mouths 

 :losed to ocean vessels by bars and shallows ; 

 larbour-works, however, were in active construc- 

 ion at Vera Cruz and Tampico in 1890. From 

 he south-eastern and north-western extremities 

 if the republic there extend the peninsulas of 

 fucatan and Lower California, enclosing the 

 julfs of Campeche and California respectively. 

 The islands of Mexico are few and of no import- 

 nee. 



