MONTENOTTE 



MONTESQUIEU 



ecclesiastical functions, and to elect liim their 

 secular |>rince, and declare the thrum 1 hereditary in 

 hi* family. The prince is an alisolutc sovereign; 

 lint lie is McMed by a state council and a ministry 

 of six members. The government both of the 

 country and of the family is really, however, patri- 

 archal, the will of the prince deciding nil tainfn 

 only in so far as it does not conflict with the will 

 of the people. During the last quarter of the 19th 

 century the little land has progressed greatly in 

 civilisation ; education has made rapid strides, 

 the men have taken to cultivating their fields, 

 and roads have been constructed ; while the old 

 militia has l>een converted into a standing army 

 of 30,00<) men, though not more than 100 serve 

 permanently, as a liodygnard to the prince. An 

 arm." factory has lieen established at Kieka and 

 ammunition-factories at liieka and Cetinje. The 

 last-named village is the capital. The empress of 

 Kiissia sup|Hirts a higher school for j*irls at Cetinje. 

 Crime is almost unknown. Podgorit/a and KieKa 

 are the chief trading-places. The state income 

 amounts to about i'(i(l,000 per annum, a portion of 

 which is a sulisidy from Russia (since 1856); the 

 expenditure is not known. There is a state debt of 

 100,000 owing to Austria and 70,000 owing to 

 Russia, Montenegro has no money of her own ; 

 she uses chielly Austrian paper and Turkish silver. 

 The vladika Peter II. (18:{O-51) in accounted one 

 of the greatest poets who have written in Servian. 

 In their patriotic songs and ballads the Monte- 

 negrins possess a treasure of great value, and of 

 great inllneiieo upon the national temperament. 

 The tiret Slavonic books to lie printed were issued 

 from presses at Cetinje and Kieka in the end of the 

 15th century. In 1895 a daughter of the prince 

 was married to the crown-prince of Italy. 



See Denton, Montcncyro (1877); Freeman in Mac- 

 miUan't Maiiazine (1870) ; Gopcevic, Afontetteyro (1877) ; 

 Schwarz, Montciuyro (1882); W. Carr, Montenegro 

 (1884); Coquelle, Montenegro et Sen-it (1896); and W. 

 Miller, The Balkam (' Story of the Nations,' 1896). 



Montenotte, a small village of Northern Italy, 

 20 miles \V. of Genoa, where Napoleon won his 

 lirst victory over the Austrians, on 12th April 1796. 



MoiitriMilriaiin. a town of Italy, a bishop's 

 see, situated on a high hill, 43 miles by rail SE. of 

 Siena. It was the birthplace of Politiau and I'.el- 

 larmine, and is famous for its red wine. Pop. 2952. 



Montercau, a town in the French department 

 of Seine et-Marnc, at the continence of this Seine 

 and Yonnc, 49 miles SK. of Paris. At the bridge 

 here, in 1419, .lean ^uis Teur, Duke of Burgundy, 

 was MHMtiaatod in the presence of the young 

 H.iuphiii, afterwards Charles VII. ; and in tfie iiu- 



i liate vicinity Napoleon, on February 18, 1814, 



gained his last victory over the allies. Pop. 75111. 



Monterey, capital of the Mexican state of 

 Nucvo I, cdii. lies in a fertile plateau-valley, by 

 rail 070 miles N. nf Mexico city. It U a well- 

 built town, with a thriving trade, and contains a 

 cathedral, seminary, and schools of law ami medi- 

 cine. Pop. 1(1,000. Founded in 1599, it was taken 

 by (Icm-ial Taylor in 1840. 



Monte Kosa. an Alpine mountain mass with 

 four principal peaks, in the Pennine ridge which 

 separates the Swi-s canton of Valais from Italy. 

 The highest pi-ak, the Dufonrspitze, 15,217 feet 

 high, is extremely ditlicult of ascent, and was first 

 (limited by Mr Smyth in 1855. 



Monte Sanf Anicelo, a citv of Southern 

 Italy. 2S miles NK. of Foggio. It stands 2790 

 fci-t alKivo sea-level, on one of the (iargano hills, 

 and is famed for its exquisite honey. Pop. 15,109. 



Montr Sarrhlo. a town of Southern Italy, 

 13 miles X\V. of Avellino. Pop. 5238. 



Montespan. Ft: VNOUSI; ATIIKX.MS. MM:- 

 ijt'lsK UK. mistress of I^ouis XIV.. was l>oni in 

 Ili4l, the daughter of Gabriel de liochcchouart. 

 Due <le Mortemart, and married in \Mi.\ the Mar- 

 quis ile Montespan. ami became attached to the 

 household of tin 1 queen. Her Iwatity and wit 

 captivated the heart of the king, and iilit 1668 

 she l>ecame his mistress, without, however, as yet 

 supplanting I.a Valliere. The marquis was thing 

 into the Bastille, next banished to his estates, and 

 finally in 1676 his marriage was formally annulled. 

 Montcspan reigned till 1(182. and liore the king 

 eight children, which were legitimised, but at last 

 her influence paled liefore the rising star of the 

 astute widow of Scarron, afterwards Madame de 

 Maintenon, whom she had engaged us governess to 

 her children. Gradually she lost all hold over the 

 king, and in 1687 left the court, in 1691 Paris itself. 

 Later, like so many women of her class, she found 

 relief in devotion, and died 27th May 1707. See 

 her Mi'tnuires (1829; trans. 1895), ami the studies 

 by A. Houssaye (6th ed. 1864) and Clement (1868). 



Montesquieu. On AKI.KS in; SKCOXDAT, BAROJJ 

 DE I.A i'.i;i:i'i: KT DE, a celebrated French writer on 

 politics and law, was born 18th January 1689, at 

 the chateau La lirede, near Bordeaux. Jacques 

 de Secondat, the father of the future author, was 

 second son of the Baron de Montesquieu, president 

 and chief-justice of the parliament of Guicmie. 

 Charles-Louis de la Brcde, as Montesquieu was 

 called, after studying the ancient classics, philo- 

 sophy, and law, MMOM councillor of the parlia- 

 ment of Bordeaux in 1714, and its president in 

 1716, succeeding his uncle, who left liim all his 

 property on condition of his assuming the name 

 and title of Montesquieu. The young* president dis- 

 charged the duties of his office faithfully, but he 

 gave himself by preference to the study of nature 

 under the inlliience of Newton. In his discourses 

 liefore the Academy of Sciences of Bordeaux ho 

 dealt with the onuses of echoes and of the weight 

 and transparency of l>odies, and with the use of 

 the renal glands, and sketched a project of a physi- 

 cal history of the earth ( Itim-mirs .Inn/inii'/iief, 

 1716-21). But defective vision compelled him to 

 abandon experimental research. His first great 

 literary success was the publication of his AI///V.V 

 Pcrtanetin 1721. These contain a satirical descrip- 

 tion of the contemporary manners, customs, and 

 institutions of society in France, and owed much of 

 their popularity to the ingenuity of their form and 

 the piquancy of their style. Two Persians, Kica 

 ami I'sliek, are represented as coming from Persia 

 to Paris, and exchanging their impressions by 

 letters to each other, as well as cm responding 

 with their friends at home. The idea was Ixir- 

 rowed from Dufresny, and it has been frequently 

 imitated since. The liltertinage, the political 

 decadence, and the irreligious insincerity of the 

 first years of the regency that followed tlie death 

 of Louis XIV. are limned with masterly art. 

 For his delineations of Persian manners and in- 

 stitutions he drew from the accounts of Sir John 

 Cliardin and other travellers; but his vivid, and 

 at times wantonly sensuous, imagination created 

 most of his situations and characters. Along 

 \viilr much that is frit ohms and ephemeral, the 

 /'I'l-xiiiH I.itlrm contain solid reflections on the 

 nature and relations of social institutions, and an 

 adumbration of the author's later views on govern- 

 ment, toleration, and the inllnence of climate on 

 population, customs, and religion. In 1725 Montes- 

 quieu wrote and published anonymously at Paris 

 a prose poem entitled f.i T> m/ili ilr Um'ilc, in the 

 artificial French style of the time. KcturniiiL' to 

 Bordeaux, he read to the Academy a treatise on duty 

 from the Stoic standpoint, and delivered an admir- 

 able discourse on the motives which ought to give 



