de Rome. His first great popular successes were the “David” and “Gloria Victis,” which was shown and received the medal of honour of the Salon. The bronze was subsequently placed in the Square Montholon. “The Genius of the Arts” (1877), a relief, is in the Tuileries, in substitution for Barye’s “Napoleon III.”; a similar work for the tomb of Michelet (1879) is in the cemetery of Père la Chaise; and in the same year Mercié produced the statue of Arago with accompanying reliefs, now erected at Perpignan. In 1882 he repeated his great patriotic success of 1874 with a group “Quand Même!” replicas of which have been set up at Belfort and in the garden of the Tuileries. “Le Souvenir” (1885), a marble statue for the tomb of Mme Charles Ferry, is one of his most beautiful works. “Regret,” for the tomb of Cabanel, was produced in 1892, along with “William Tell,” now at Lausanne. Mercié also designed the monuments to “Meissonier” (1895), erected in the Jardin de l’Infante in the Louvre, and “Faidherbe” (1896) at Lille, a statue of “Thiers” set up at St Germain-en-Laye, the monument to “Baudry” at Père-la-Chaise, and that of “Louis-Philippe and Queen Amélie” for their tomb at Dreux. His stone group of “Justice” is at the Hôtel de Ville, Paris. Numerous other statues, portrait busts, and medallions came from the sculptor’s hand, which gained him a medal of honour at the Paris Exhibition of 1878 and the grand prix at that of 1889. Among the paintings exhibited by the artist are a “Venus,” to which was awarded a medal in 1883, “Leda” (1884), and “Michaelangelo studying Anatomy” (1885)—his most dramatic work in this medium. Mercié was appointed professor of drawing and sculpture at the École des Beaux Arts, and was elected a member of the Académie Française in 1891, after being awarded the biennial prize of the institute of £800 in 1887.
MERCIER, HONORÉ (1840–1894), Canadian lawyer and
statesman, was the son of Jean Baptiste Mercier, farmer, and
of Marie Kimener, his wife. He was born in the village of
St Athanase d’Iberville on the 15th of October 1840. The
family came from France, and settled in the district of Montmagny,
and later removed to Iberville. Mercier entered the
Jesuit College of St Mary, Montreal, at the age of fourteen,
and throughout his life retained a warm friendship for the
society. He married, firstly in 1866 Leopoldine Boivin, and
secondly in 1871 Virginie St Denis. On the completion of his
course at St Mary’s he studied law in the office of Laframboise
and Papineau, in St Hyacinthe, and was admitted to the bar of
the province in April 1865. At the age of twenty-two he became
the editor of the Conservative Courrier de St Hyacinthe, and
in this journal supported the policy of the Sicotte administration,
which then represented the interests of Quebec, under the Act
of Union (1840); but when Sicotte accepted a seat on the bench
Mercier joined the Opposition, and contributed largely to the
defeat of the Ministerial candidate. In 1864 he vigorously
opposed the scheme of confederation, on the ground that it
would prove fatal to the distinctive position held by the French
Canadians. He resumed the editorship of the Courrier in 1866;
but after a few months retired from journalism, and for the
next five years devoted all his energy to his profession. At the
commencement of the year 1871 the national party was organized
in Quebec, and Mercier supported the candidates of the party
on the platform. In August 1872 he was elected as a member of
the House of Commons for the county of Rouville, and proved
a vigorous opponent of Sir John A. Macdonald on the question
of separate schools for New Brunswick. He was a candidate
at the general elections in 1874; but retired on the eve of the
contest in favour of another candidate of his own party. Mercier
entered the arena of provincial politics in May 1879 as solicitor-general
in the Joly government, representing the county of
St Hyacinthe; and on the defeat of the ministry in October
he passed, with his leader, into opposition. On the retirement
of M. Joly from the leadership of the Liberal party in Quebec
in 1883 Mercier was chosen as his successor. Towards the close
of 1885 the French-Canadian mind was greatly agitated over the
execution of Louis Riel, leader of the north-west rebellion, and
in consequence of the attitude of Mercier on this question the
Liberal minority in the Legislative Assembly, which had been
reduced to fifteen, rapidly gained strength, until at the general
elections held in October 1886 the province was carried in the
Liberal interest. In January 1887 Mercier was sworn in as
premier and attorney-general, and from this moment he exercised
an extraordinary influence in the province. He succeeded
in passing without opposition the Jesuit Estates Act, a measure
to compensate the order for the loss of property confiscated by
the Crown. This act came before the Federal House for disallowance,
but, was carried on division. When Mercier appealed to
the electorate in 1890, his policy was endorsed, and he was able
to give effect to many important measures. Early in 1891 he
negotiated a loan in Europe for the province, and whilst on a
visit to Rome he was created a count of the Roman Empire by
Leo XIII., who three years previously had conferred upon him
the rank of a commander of the order of St Gregory the Great.
Of commanding presence, firm, decisive, courteous in manner,
convincing in argument, and deeply attached to his native
province, he had all the qualities of a popular leader. For a few
years he was the idol of the people of Quebec, and French Canada
loomed large in the public eye; but towards the end of 1891
serious charges were preferred against his ministry, on the ground
that subsidies voted for railways had been diverted to political
use, and he was dismissed by the lieutenant-governor. At the
subsequent elections held in March 1892 he was returned for
the county of Bonaventure, but his party was hopelessly
defeated. On the formation of a new government he was
brought to trial, and declared not guilty; his health, however,
gave way, and he never regained his former influence.
See Biographie, discours, conférences, &c., de l’Hon. Honoré Mercier, by J.-O. Pelland (Montreal, 1893). (A. G. D.)
MERCIER, LOUIS SEBASTIEN (1740–1814), French dramatist
and miscellaneous writer, was born in Paris on the 6th of
June 1740. He began his literary career by writing heroic
epistles, but early came to the conclusion that Boileau and
Racine had ruined the French language, and that the true poet
was he who wrote in prose. The most important of his miscellaneous
works are L’ An 2440 (1770); L’Essai sur l’art dramatique
(1773); Néologie (1801); Le Tableau de Paris (1781–1788); Le
nouveau Paris (1799); Histoire de France (1802) and Satire
contre Racine et Boileau (1808). He decried French tragedy as
a caricature of antique and foreign customs in bombastic verse,
and advocated the comédie larmoyante as understood by Diderot.
To the philosophers he was entirely hostile. He denied that
modern science had made any real advance; he even carried his
conservatism so far as to maintain that the earth was a circular
flat plain around which revolved the sun. Mercier wrote some
sixty dramas, among which may be mentioned Jean Hennuyer
(1772); La Destruction de la ligue (1782); Jennéval (1769); Le
Juge (1774); Natalie (1775) and La Brouette du vinaigrier (1775).
In politics he was a Moderate, and as a member of the Convention
he voted against the death penalty for Louis XVI. During
the Terror he was imprisoned, but was released after the fall of
Robespierre. He died in Paris on the 25th of April 1814.
See Léon Bechard, Sebastien Mercier, sa vie, son œuvre (Paris, 1903); R. Doumic in the Revue des deux mondes (15th July 1903).
MERCK, JOHANN HEINRICH (1741–1791), German author and critic, was born at Darmstadt on the 11th of April 1741, a few days after the death of his father, a chemist. He studied law at Giessen, and in 1767 was given an appointment in the paymaster’s department at Darmstadt, and a year later himself became paymaster. For a number of years he exercised considerable influence upon the literary movement in Germany; he helped to found the Frankfurter gelehrte Anzeigen in 1772, and was one of the chief contributors to Nicolai’s Allgemeine Bibliothek. In 1782 he accompanied the Landgravine Karoline of Hesse-Darmstadt to St Petersburg, and on his return was a guest of the duke Charles Augustus of Weimar in the Wartburg. Unfortunate speculations brought him into pecuniary embarrassment in 1788, and although friends, notably Goethe, were ready to come to his assistance, his losses—combined with the death of five of his children—so preyed upon his mind that he committed
