MONSIEUR BEAUCAIRE 



MONSTRANCE 



San Jeronimo, reaches an alt. of 

 4,070 ft. The Montsagrat of the 

 Catalans and the Monsalvatch of 

 the Middle Ages, on the sacred, or 

 sawn mountain, a monastery was 

 founded in the 8th century. Its 

 chapel contained an alleged 

 miracle-working image of the 

 Virgin Mary, which attracted 

 thousands of pilgrims annually, 

 and the monastery became one of 

 the richest and most celebrated in 

 Spain. In the Napoleonic Wars the 

 French sacked the monastery 

 (1811), and it suffered again 

 severely in the Carlist rising of 

 1827. It is now in ruins. The more 

 modern buildings date from 1560. 

 Monsieur Beaucaire. Roman- 

 tic comedy. Based by Mrs. E. G. 

 Sutherland and Booth Tarkington 

 on the latter's novel of the same 

 name, it was produced, Oct. 25, 

 1902, at the Comedy Theatre, Lon- 

 don, where it ran for 430 perfor- 

 mances. Louis d'Orleans, son of the 

 Regent,comes to Bath disguised as a 

 barber, and, although handicapped, 

 wins the love of the reigning toast, 

 Lady Mary Carlisle. Lewis Waller 



Elayed Beaucaire, and Grace Lane 

 adyMary. It was revived in 1919. 



Monsieur de Pourceaugnac. 

 Farcical comedy-ballet in three 

 acts by Moliere, produced at 

 Chambord, Oct. 6, 1669, the 

 author acting the title-role, and 

 Lulli supplying the music. The 

 scene is in Paris. Pourceaugnac is 

 a middle-aged rustic, between 

 whom and Julie, the daughter of 

 Oronte, the last named has ar- 

 ranged a marriage. The humour 

 turns on the devices adopted by 

 Julie's lover Eraste to drive 

 Pourceaugnac back to Limoges. 



Mousignore (Ital., my lord). 

 Title of honour bestowed by the 

 pope on prelates and high, officials 

 of the papal household. ' 



Monsou, BARON. British title 

 borne since 1728 by the family of 

 Monson. The Monsons were settled 

 in Lincolnshire in the 14th cen- 

 tury, and several of them were 

 prominent in public affairs. Sir 

 Thomas Monson, M.P. for Lincoln- 

 shire and falconer to James I, was 

 made a baronet in 1611. In 1728 

 Sir John, the 5th baronet, was 

 made a baron, and the title passed 

 from one descendant to another 

 until it came to William John, the 

 7th baron. An official at the court 

 of Queen Victoria and of the 

 House of Lords, he was made Vis- 

 count Oxenbridge in 1886. The 

 viscounty, however, became ex- 

 tinct when he died, April 16, 1898, 

 but the barony passed to his 

 brother. In 1900, Augustus 

 Debonnaire (b. 1868) became the 

 9th baron. The family seat is 

 Burton Hall, Lincoln. 



Monson, SIR EDMUND JOHN 

 (1834-1909). British diplomatist. 

 Born at Chart Lodge, Kent, Oct. 

 6, 1834, a 

 younger son 

 of the 6th 

 Baron Mon- 

 son, he was 

 educated at 

 Eton and 

 Balliol College 

 Oxford. He 

 entered the 



Sir E. J. Monson, diplomatic 

 British diplomatist service, being 

 Einoit A Fry attache at 



Paris, Flor- 

 ence, Washington, Hanover, and 

 Brussels. He was in retirement 

 from 1865-69, when he was ap- 

 pointed consul to the Azores. 

 Consul-general for Hungary in 

 1871, he was commissioned for 

 special service during the Turkish 

 War, 1876-77, and in 1879 be- 

 came minister- resident to Uruguay. 

 After that he successively repre- 

 sented Great Britain in Argentina, 

 Denmark, Greece, and Belgium. 

 Appointed ambassador to Austria- 

 Hungary in 1893, he was trans- 

 ferred to Paris in 1896, where he 

 remained until 1904. Knighted in 

 1886, and made a baronet in 1905, 

 he died Oct. 28, 1909. 



Monsoon (Ital. monsone ; Arab. 

 mausim, season). Name of a rain- 

 bearing wind which blows over the 

 Indian Ocean from May to Sept. 

 In the latitude of the Arabian Sea 

 and the Bay of Bengal the normal 

 wind is the N.E. trade, but in these 

 regions the N.E. trade blows only 

 during the cool season. When the 

 sun is overhead in N. latitudes a 

 barometric depression develops in 

 N.W. India, with the result that 

 the S.E. trade blows across the 

 equator, and then continues as a 

 S.W. wind to reach India and 

 circle round this centre of low 

 pressure, so that storms from the 

 Bay of Bengal pass up the Ganges 

 valley from the S.E. 



The early seafarers in these 

 waters, the Arabs, depended upon 

 these winds, and the first Euro- 

 peans who traded with India 

 regulated their voyages by them. 

 Modern navigators are instructed 

 by the pilot charts to vary the 

 route they follow in accordance 

 with the monsoon. Similar rever- 

 sals of the normal oceanic wind 

 occur elsewhere. 



Most of India receives from 60 

 to 90 p.c. of the total annual rain- 

 fall during the period of the mon- 

 soon ; the fall at a given place 

 varies from year to year, and the 

 comparative failure of the periodi- 

 cal downpour means famine and 

 plague ; the important economic 

 event annually for the Indian 



peasant is the " bursting " of the 

 heavy clouds which the wind rolls 

 over India from the Arabian Sea. 

 The term monsoon has gained a 

 technical significance as descrip- 

 tive of the special type of summer 

 rainfall, when very nearly the 

 whole of the annual precipitation 

 occurs during the three midsummer 

 months. See Wind. 



Monster, Word used in a 

 number of senses. Commonly a 

 monster is any huge animal, 

 especially an extinct animal, e.g. 

 prehistoric monsters as the dino- 

 saurs, ichthyosaurs, mammoths, 

 etc. It is also used in a somewhat 

 similar sense in connexion with such 

 fabulous creatures as mermaids, 

 dragons, and the like. In general, 

 anything abnormally big is called 

 a monster, as a monster potato. 



The word is also used in the 

 sense of monstrosity, i.e. anything 

 ugly, abnormal, or deformed, and 

 includes freaks as the Siamese 

 twins, two-headed men, etc. See 

 Dinosaur; Mammoth. 



Monstera deliciosa. Perennial 

 climber of the natural order Ara- 

 ceae, a native of tropical America. 



uionstera deliciosa. Foliage and 

 stems of the American climber 



The large, leathery, stalked leaves 

 are heart-shaped, but, as they de- 

 velop, the upper ones have part of 

 their substance absorbed, so that 

 their margins become lobed, and 

 the more central areas have large 

 perforations. The object of this 

 extraordinary development ap- 

 pears to be to allow light to pene- 

 trate to the lower-growing parts of 

 the plant. The large inflorescence 

 is, like that of the Calla, sur- 

 rounded by a hood (spathe). The 

 flowers are succeeded by a spike of 

 berries, but are so crowded that they 

 become six-sided at the surface, 

 and within amalgamated into a 

 fleshy, edible body like a banana, 

 with the flavour of pineapple. 

 v Monstrance (Lat. monstrare. to 

 show). Sacred vessel of the R.C. 

 Church, in which the Host is pre- 

 sented for adoration, carried in pro- 

 cession, and used in Benediction. 



