his return to Florence received orders to proceed to Corsica, which, after its evacuation by the British, was in a state of anarchy. In Corsica he allied himself with Joseph Bonaparte, and after pacifying the island returned to Italy. Recalled by their Dectory in 1798 because of his refusal to foment insurrection in Italy, he Spent some time in retirement, but he was in the diplomatic service in Holland at the revolution of 18. Brumaire (Nov. 9, 1799). Under the consulate he was secretary-general at the ministry of war, and a member of the council of state, and was sent on a second mission (1801–1802) for the pacification of Corsica. In 1806 he joined Joseph Bonaparte in Naples as minister of the interior, afterwards following him to Spain as Comptroller of the household, but he returned to France in the retreat of 1813. Next year he was created comte de Mélito, and during the Hundred Days he served as Commissary extraordinary with the XII. Army division. He took no part in politics after Waterloo, where his son-in-law, General J. B. Jamin, was killed, and his own son mortally wounded. He visited Joseph Bonaparte in America in 1825, and then spent some years in Germany with his daughter, whose second husband, General von Fleischmann, represented the king of Württemberg in Paris in 1831. He was admitted in 1835 to the French Academy on the merits of his translations of Herodotus (Paris, 1822) and Diodorus (Paris, 1835–1838). He died in Paris on the 5th of January 1841.
Miot de Mélito had kept a diary which, arranged for publication by his son-in-law, General von Fleischmann, covers the years from 1788 to 1815, and is of interest for the history of the Bonaparte family and of Joseph’s dominion in Spain. Published in France in 1858, it was translated into English by Mrs C. Hoey and J. Lillie (2 vols., 1881); and also into German (Stuttgart, 1866–1867). See Albert Gaudin, Les Arrêtés Miot (Ajaccio, 1896).
MIQUEL, JOHANN VON (1829–1901), German statesman,
was born at Neuenhaus, Hanover, on the 19th of February
1829, being descended from a French family which had emigrated
during the Revolution. He learnt law at the universities of
Heidelberg and Göttingen. Studying the writings of Karl
Marx he became a convert to an extreme revolutionary,
socialistic and atheistic creed; but though he entered into correspondence
with Marx, with the object of starting a revolutionary
movement, he does not appear to have taken any overt part in the
events of 1848–1849. Further study of political economy soon
enabled him to pass out of this phase, and in 1850 he settled
down to practise as an advocate at Göttingen. He acquired
repute as an able lawyer and a rising politician, and especially
for his knowledge of financial questions. He was one of the
founders of the German Nationalverein, and in 1864 he was
elected a member of the Hanoverian parliament as a Liberal
and an opponent of the government. He accepted the annexation
of Hanover by Prussia without regret, and was one of the
Hanoverians whose parliamentary abilities at once won a commanding
position in the Prussian parliament, which he entered
in 1867. For some reason—perhaps because Bismarck did not
entirely trust him—he did not at this time attain quite so influential
a position as might have been anticipated; nevertheless he
was chairman of the parliamentary committee which in 1876
drafted the new rules of legal procedure, and he found scope for
his great administrative abilities in the post of burgomaster of
Osnabrück. He held this position from 1865 to 1870, and again
from 1876 to 1879, being in the meantime (1870–1873) a director
of the Discontogesellschaft. In 1879 he was elected burgomaster
of Frankfort-on-Main, where he gained a great reputation for the
energy with which he dealt with social questions, especially that of
the housing of the poor. Probably owing to his early study of
socialism, he was very ready to support the new state socialism
of Bismarck. He was the chief agent in the reorganization
of the National Liberal party in 1887, in which year he entered
the imperial Reichstag. After Bismarck’s fall in 1890 he was
chosen Prussian minister of finance, and held this post for ten
years. He distinguished himself by his reform of the Prussian
system of taxation, the one really successful measure of the new
reign in internal affairs. An attempt, however, to reform the
system of imperial finance in 1893–1894 failed, and much injured
his reputation. Miquel had entirely given up his Liberalism,
and aimed at practical measures for improving the condition
of the people irrespective of the party programmes; yet some
of his measures—such as that for taxing “Waarenhäuser”
(stores)—were of a very injudicious nature. He professed to aim
at a union of parties on the basis of the satisfaction of material
interests, a policy to which the name of Sammlung was given;
but his enemies accused him of constantly intriguing against
the three chancellors under whom he served, and of himself
attempting to secure the first place in the state. The sympathy
which he expressed for the Agrarians increased his unpopularity
among Liberals and industrials; but he pointed out that the state,
which for half a century had done everything to help manufactures,
might now attempt to support the failing industry of
agriculture. In June 1901 the rejection of the canal bill led
to a crisis, and he was obliged to send in his resignation. His
health was already failing, and he died on the 8th of September
of the same year at his house in Frankfort.
MIQUELETS (Miqueletes or Migueletes) were irregular
local troops in Catalonia who derived their name, it is said, from
Miguel or Miquelot de Prats, a Catalan mercenary captain in the
service of Cesare Borgia. They enjoyed a certain prominence in
the minor wars of Spain during the 17th and 18th centuries,
and in peace seem to have plundered travellers. In the War
of the Spanish Succession (q.v.) the Miquelets continued the
struggle against the French claimant until long after the peace.
During the Peninsular War they were exceedingly successful in
harassing the French invaders in the mountains of Catalonia.
Sometimes they even attempted operations in large bodies,
as in the operations round Gerona in 1808 and 1809. They
were maintained by the several parishes, not by the central
or the provincial governments, and as they had to turn out for
duty on sound of the village alarm-bell (somaten) they are
frequently called somatenes.
MIRABEAU, ANDRÉ BONIFACE LOUIS RIQUETI, Vicomte de
(1754–1792), brother of the orator Mirabeau, was one of the
reactionary leaders at the opening of the French Revolution.
Sent to the army in Malta in 1776 he spent part of his two years
there in prison for insulting a religious procession. During the
War of American Independence he was in several sea-fights
with the English, and was at the taking of Yorktown in 1781.
In the following year he had two narrow escapes from drowning.
In 1789, with his debts paid up by his father, he was elected
by the noblesse of Limoges a deputy to the States General.
He was a violent Conservative and opposed everything that
threatened the old régime. His drunkenness produced a
corpulency which brought him the nickname Mirabeau Tonneau
(“Barrel Mirabeau”); but he was not lacking in some of that
insight which marked his brother. He shared fully in the
eccentric family pride; and boasted of his brother’s genius
even when bitterly opposing him. He emigrated about 1790,
and raised a legion which was to bear his name; but his insolence
alienated the German princes, and his command was taken
from him. He died in August 1792—of apoplexy or from a
duel—in Freiburg im Breisgau. He wrote some verse as well
as various pamphlets.
See Joseph Sarrazin, Mirabeau Tonneau, ein Condottiere aus der Revolutionszeit (Leipzig, 1893); and La Révolution française, vols. xxi. and xxiv.; Eugène Berger, Le Vicomte de Mirabeau (Mirabeau Tonneau), 1754–1792 (1904); and for a list of contemporary pamphlets, &c., M. Tourneux, Bibliographie de la ville de Paris . . ., vol. iv. (1906).
MIRABEAU, HONORÉ GABRIEL RIQUETI, Comte de (1749–1791), French statesman, was born at Bignon, near Nemours, on the 9th of March 1749. The family of Riquet, or Riqueti, originally of the little town of Digne, won wealth as merchants at Marseilles, and in 1570 Jean Riqueti bought the château and seigniory of Mirabeau, which had belonged to the great Provençal family of Barras. In 1685 Honoré Riqueti obtained the title of marquis de Mirabeau. His son Jean Antoine served with distinction through all the later campaigns of the reign of Louis XIV., and especially distinguished himself in 1705 at the battle of Cassano, where he was so severely wounded in
