The chief authority for the administration of Maupeou is the compte rendu in his own justification presented by him to Louis XVI. in 1789, which included a dossier of his speeches and edicts, and is preserved in the Bibliothèque nationale. These documents, in the hands of his former secretary, C. F. Lebrun, duc de Plaisance, formed the basis of the judicial system of France as established under the consulate (cf. C. F. Lebrun, Opinions, rapports et choix d’écrits politiques, published posthumously in 1829). See further Maupeouana (6 vols., Paris, 1775), which contains the pamphlets directed against him; Journal hist. de la révolution opérée . . . par M. de Maupeou (7 vols., 1775); the official correspondence of Mercy-Argenteau, the letters of Mme d’Épinay; and Jules Flammermont, Le Chancelier Maupeou et les parlements (1883).
MAUPERTUIS, PIERRE LOUIS MOREAU DE (1698–1759), French mathematician and astronomer, was born at St Malo on the 17th of July 1698. When twenty years of age he entered the army, becoming lieutenant in a regiment of cavalry, and employing his leisure on mathematical studies. After five years he quitted the army and was admitted in 1723 a member of the Academy of Sciences. In 1728 he visited London, and was elected a fellow of the Royal Society. In 1736 he acted as chief of the expedition sent by Louis XV. into Lapland to measure the length of a degree of the meridian (see Earth, Figure of), and on his return home he became a member of almost all the scientific societies of Europe. In 1740 Maupertuis went to Berlin on the invitation of the king of Prussia, and took part in the battle of Mollwitz, where he was taken prisoner by the Austrians. On his release he returned to Berlin, and thence to Paris, where he was elected director of the Academy of Sciences in 1742, and in the following year was admitted into the Academy. Returning to Berlin in 1744, at the desire of Frederick II., he was chosen president of the Royal Academy of Sciences in 1746. Finding his health declining, he repaired in 1757 to the south of France, but went in 1758 to Basel, where he died on the 27th of July 1759. Maupertuis was unquestionably a man of considerable ability as a mathematician, but his restless, gloomy disposition involved him in constant quarrels, of which his controversies with König and Voltaire during the latter part of his life furnish examples.
The following are his most important works: Sur la figure de la terre (Paris, 1738); Discours sur la parallaxe de la lune (Paris, 1741); Discours sur la figure des astres (Paris, 1742); Éléments de la géographie (Paris, 1742); Lettre sur la comète de 1742 (Paris, 1742); Astronomie nautique (Paris, 1745 and 1746); Vénus physique (Paris, 1745); Essai de cosmologie (Amsterdam, 1750). His Œuvres were published in 1752 at Dresden and in 1756 at Lyons.
MAU RANIPUR, a town of British India in Jahnsi district, in the United Provinces. Pop. (1901), 17,231. It contains a large community of wealthy merchants and bankers. A special variety of red cotton cloth, known as kharua, is manufactured and exported to all parts of India. Trees line many of the streets, and handsome temples ornament the town.
MAUREL, ABDIAS (d. 1705), Camisard leader, became a cavalry officer in the French army and gained distinction in Italy; here he served under Marshal Catinat, and on this account he himself is sometimes known as Catinat. In 1702, when the revolt in the Cévennes broke out, he became one of the Camisard leaders, and in this capacity his name was soon known and feared. He refused to accept the peace made by Jean Cavalier in 1704, and after passing a few weeks in Switzerland he returned to France and became one of the chiefs of those Camisards who were still in arms. He was deeply concerned in a plot to capture some French towns, a scheme which, it was hoped, would be helped by England and Holland. But it failed; Maurel was betrayed, and with three other leaders of the movement was burned to death at Nîmes on the 22nd of April 1705. He was a man of great physical strength; but he was very cruel, and boasted he had killed 200 Roman Catholics with his own hands.
MAUREL, VICTOR (1848–), French singer, was born at Marseilles, and educated in music at the Paris Conservatoire. He made his début in opera at Paris in 1868, and in London in 1873, and from that time onwards his admirable acting and vocal method established his reputation as one of the finest of operatic baritones. He created the leading part in Verdi’s Otello, and was equally fine in Wagnerian and Italian opera.
MAURENBRECHER, KARL PETER WILHELM (1838–1892), German historian, was born at Bonn on the 21st of December, 1838, and studied in Berlin and Munich under Ranke and Von Sybel, being especially influenced by the latter historian. After doing some research work at Simancas in Spain, he became professor of history at the university of Dorpat in 1867; and was then in turn professor at Königsberg, Bonn and Leipzig. He died at Leipzig on the 6th of November, 1892.
Many of Maurenbrecher’s works are concerned with the Reformation, among them being England im Reformationszeitalter (Düsseldorf, 1866); Karl V. und die deutschen Protestanten (Düsseldorf, 1865); Studien und Skizzen zur Geschichte der Reformationszeit (Leipzig, 1874); and the incomplete Geschichte der Katholischen Reformation (Nördlingen, 1880). He also wrote Don Karlos (Berlin, 1876); Gründung des deutschen Reiches 1859–1871 (Leipzig, 1892, and again 1902); and Geschichte der deutschen Königswahlen (Leipzig, 1889). See G. Wolf, Wilhelm Maurenbrecher (Berlin, 1893).
MAUREPAS, JEAN FRÉDÉRIC PHÉLYPEAUX, Comte de (1701–1781), French statesman, was born on the 9th of July 1701 at Versailles, being the son of Jérôme de Pontchartrain, secretary of state for the marine and the royal household. Maurepas succeeded to his father’s charge at fourteen, and began his functions in the royal household at seventeen, while in 1725 he undertook the actual administration of the navy. Although essentially light and frivolous in character, Maurepas was seriously interested in scientific matters, and he used the best brains of France to apply science to questions of navigation and of naval construction. He was disgraced in 1749, and exiled from Paris for an epigram against Madame de Pompadour. On the accession of Louis XVI., twenty-five years later, he became a minister of state and Louis XVI.’s chief adviser. He gave Turgot the direction of finance, placed Lamoignon-Malesherbes over the royal household and made Vergennes minister for foreign affairs. At the outset of his new career he showed his weakness by recalling to their functions, in deference to popular clamour, the members of the old parlement ousted by Maupeou, thus reconstituting the most dangerous enemy of the royal power. This step, and his intervention on behalf of the American states, helped to pave the way for the French revolution. Jealous of his personal ascendancy over Louis XVI., he intrigued against Turgot, whose disgrace in 1776 was followed after six months of disorder by the appointment of Necker. In 1781 Maurepas deserted Necker as he had done Turgot, and he died at Versailles on the 21st of November 1781.
Maurepas is credited with contributions to the collection of facetiae known as the Étrennes de la Saint Jean (2nd ed., 1742). Four volumes of Mémoires de Maurepas, purporting to be collected by his secretary and edited by J. L. G. Soulavie in 1792, must be regarded as apocryphal. Some of his letters were published in 1896 by the Soc. de l’hist. de Paris. His éloge in the Academy of Sciences was pronounced by Condorcet.
MAURER, GEORG LUDWIG VON (1790–1872), German statesman and historian, son of a Protestant pastor, was born at Erpolzheim, near Dürkheim, in the Rhenish Palatinate, on the 2nd of November 1790. Educated at Heidelberg, he went in 1812 to reside in Paris, where he entered upon a systematic study of the ancient legal institutions of the Germans. Returning to Germany in 1814, he received an appointment under the Bavarian government, and afterwards filled several important official positions. In 1824 he published at Heidelberg his Geschichte des altgermanischen und namentlich altbayrischen öffentlich-mündlichen Gerichtsverfahrens, which obtained the first prize of the academy of Munich, and in 1826 he became professor in the university of Munich. In 1829 he returned to official life, and was soon offered an important post. In 1832, when Otto (Otho), son of Louis I., king of Bavaria, was chosen to fill the throne of Greece, a council of regency was nominated during his minority, and Maurer was appointed a member. He applied himself energetically to the task of creating institutions adapted to the requirements of a modern civilized community; but grave difficulties soon arose and Maurer was recalled in 1834, when he returned to Munich. This loss was a serious one for Greece. Maurer was the ablest, most energetic and most liberal-minded member of the council, and it was through his enlightened
