OBITUARIES, FOREIGN. (LECONTE DE LISLE MERCIER.) 



617 



store and established a camp of the Clan na Gael. 

 He sent extravagant reports of revolutionary con- 

 spiracies to Scotland Yard, implicating the chiefs of 

 the parliamentary party in Ireland and their friends 

 in the United States. In 1889 he testified before the 

 Purnell commission in London, and broke down in 

 his attempt to explain his reports, of which ho had 

 sent over 1,200 during his twenty-three years' service 

 as a police spy. He published a book called " Twen- 

 ty-five Years in the Secret Service." 



Leconte de Lisle, Charles Marie Eene", a French poet, 

 born in the island of .Reunion, Oct. 23, 1818; died in 

 Paris, July 17, 1894. His parents had emigrated to 

 Reunion from Brittany. He was sent to Rennes for 

 his education in 1847, and took part in the revolu- 

 tionary overturn of 1848 as an ardent Republican. In 

 1853 he published " Poemes Antiques," remarkable 

 for artistic perfection. " Poemes Barbares " appeared 

 in 1862. In 1873 his tragedy " Les Erynnies " was 

 acted at the Odeon. In 1882 he published " Poemes 

 Tragiques." A second tragedy, " L'Apollonide," pub- 

 lished in 1888, was never put upon the stage. He 

 translated into French with wonderful literal exacti- 

 tude the " Idyls " of Theocritus and the " Odes " of 

 Anacreon (1861); the "Iliad" (1866); the "Odys- 

 sey " (1867) ; Hesiod's " Orphic Hymns" (1869) ; the 

 tragedies of JSsohrlus (1872) ; Horace (1873) ; and 

 Sophocles (1877). In 1871 he published anonymously 

 a u Republican Catechism " and a " Popular History 

 of Christianity." From 1873 till his death he was 

 librarian of the Luxembourg. In 1887 he was elected 

 a member of the Academy as the successor of Victor 

 Hugo, whose vote had been one of the two cast for 

 him when he was first a candidate ten years before. 



Ledochowski, Mieczyslaw, a Polish prelate, born in 

 Gorki, Oct. 29, 1822 ; died in Lucerne. Switzerland, 

 July 28, 1894. He was educated for the Church in 

 the Jesuit College of nobles at Kome, was ordained 

 in 1845, and in a short time was made a prelate of the 

 papal household and apostolic prothonotary. He was 

 attached to the papal legation at Lisbon, and thence 

 was sent in 1856 as a delegate to the South Amer- 

 ican republics. In 1862 he was appointed nuncio 

 at Brussels. In 1866 his election as Archbishop of 

 Gnezno, Poland, was approved by the King of Prussia. 

 When the Government refused to support the Pope in 

 his pretensions to temporal power, and when the edu- 

 cational question arose after the establishment of the 

 German Empire, he became the bitterest opponent of 

 the Government, and incited the priests to resist the 

 new laws. In 1873 he was sentenced to imprison- 

 ment for two years. While he was in prison the Pope 

 created him a cardinal, March 15, 1875. After his 

 release, on being expelled from Galicia, where his 

 compatriots greeted him with warm demonstrations, 

 he went to Rome, and was the recipient of the marked 

 favor of Pius IX, who gave him apartments in the 

 Vatican palace, from which he continued to issue 

 pastorals to his diocese. This angered the Prussian 

 Government. He was tried in his absence, and again 

 condemned. When at length the severities of the 

 May laws were relaxed and the German Government 

 adopted a conciliatory attitude in return for the sup- 

 port of the Center party, the Vatican changed its pro- 

 vocative policy, and, in token .of the changed spirit, 

 Ledochowski resigned his archbishopric in 1884, be- 

 ing made secretary of the memorials. In 1892 he 

 succeeded Cardinal Simeoni as prefect-general of the 

 Congregation de propaganda fide. 



McMurdo, Sir William Scott, a British general, born in 

 Lotus, Scotland, in 1819 ; died in Nice, France, March 

 2, 1894. He was educated at Sandhurst, entered the 

 army as ensign in 1837, was a captain in 1843, and 

 served as assistant quartermaster general under Sir 

 Charles Napier, whose daughter he' married in Sindh. 

 He was badly wounded at the battle of Hyderabad. 

 He distinguished himself again in the campaign 

 against the Afridis in 1852, and became a colonel in 

 1854._ In the beginning of the Crimean campaign he 

 was intrusted with the formation and command ot 

 the land transport or military train. He performed 



signal service, in the siege of Sevastopol and in other 

 operations. In 1859 he was appointed inspector gen- 

 eral of the newly organized volunteer forces. He be- 

 came a major general in 1868, lieutenant general in 

 1876, and general in 1878, and in 1881 he was retired. 



Madrazo, Federico, a* Spanish painter, born in 1815; 

 died in Madrid, June 11, 1894. He studied in Paris, 

 and exhibited several pictures in the Salon. lie was 

 a fine colorist and strong in portraits, and gained a 

 wide reputation by his paintings of historical person- 

 ages. At the time of his death he was Director of 

 the Academy of Fine Arts and of the Museum of 

 Painting in Madrid. 



Magnard, Frangois, a French journalist, born in Bel- 

 gium, in 1837 ; died in Paris, Nov. 18, 1894. He held 

 an office in the Government before he joined the stall' 

 of the " Figaro," soon after it was founded and before 

 it was converted into a daily paper. He became man- 

 aging editor in 1876, and when Villemessant died, in 

 1879, he succeeded him as editor in chief. Magnard 

 made the paper the journal of aristocratic and fash- 

 ionable society and of the literary and artistic world. 

 No writer did so much to secure the acceptance of 

 the republic by those classes. He was the chief 

 political writer, and treated the questions of the day 

 in a regular article signed with his initials. The 

 Boulanger movement he condemned in unqualified 

 terms, and since that period the u Figaro " has been 

 more a republican than a monarchical sheet. 



Marshall, William Calder, a British sculptor, born in 

 Edinburgh, in 1813; died in London, June 16, 1894. 

 He was educated in Edinburgh, and studied art there 

 before going to London, where he had Chantrey and 

 Bailey for masters, and in 1836 to Rome. He began 

 to exhibit in 1835, and in 1839 he settled, in London. 

 He designed a national memorial to the Duke of 

 Wellington, and executed statues of Clarendon and 

 Lord Somers for the Parliament building, reliefs for 

 St. Paul's Cathedral, and numerous statues erected by 

 public subscription notably, one of Sir Robert Peel 

 in Manchester, one of Jenner in Kensington, one of 

 Crompton the inventor, and one of the seventh Earl 

 of Derby. His is the allegorical group of " Agricul- 

 ture" in Prince Albert's memorial in Hyde Park. 

 For the Art Union he produced " The Broken Pitch- 

 er" (1842); "Rebecca," "First Whisper of Love" 

 (1845) ; and " Dancing Girl reposing." One of his 

 best known works is " Sabrina." He was elected a 

 Royal Academician in 1852. 



Maspch, Sacher, an Austrian novelist, born in Lem- 

 berg, in 1833 ; died in Lindhek, Hesse, April 22, 1894. 

 He studied in Prague and Griitz, and became a pro- 

 fessor. Soon he devoted himself altogether to litera- 

 ture. He depicted the tragedies and comedies of 

 everyday life, specifically in Jewish families. His 

 numerous novels were translated into French and 

 attained considerable popularity. 



Mercier, Honors, a Canadian statesman, born in Iber- 

 ville, Quebec, Oct. 15, 1840 ; died in Montreal, Oct. 

 30, 1894. He was educated at the Jesuit college in 

 Montreal, and became editor of the " Journal," in St. 

 Hyacinthe. Studying law in that town, he was ad- 

 mitted to practice in 1867, and rose rapidly in his 

 profession. In 1872 he was elected as a Liberal to 

 the Quebec House of Assembly from Rouville. and 

 sat only two years. In 1879 he was returned once 

 more, and was appointed Solicitor General in the 

 Joly Cabinet, which lasted only five months. For 

 the next four years he vigorously seconded Joly in 

 his attacks on the Conservative party, and when Joly 

 retired, in 1883, he continued his invectives against 

 misgovernment and corruption with only a handful 

 of supporters. Popular favor and Clerical sympathy 

 he at last, adroitly and not very scrupulously, at- 

 tracted to his side by representing the hanging of 

 Louis Kiel in 1885 as a judicial murder and an out- 

 rage put upon French Canadians by the Conserva- 

 tive Government at Ottawa to please the Ontario 

 Orangemen, to which the Quebec Liberals had tame- 

 ly submitted. Abandoning both the name and. the 

 platform of the Liberal party, he headed a coalition 



