of the Faroe Islands). It has little trade, but is the principal tourist centre on this part of the coast, and the steamers from Hull and Newcastle, the Norwegian ports, Hamburg, Antwerp, &c., call here. The town fronts the broad Molde Fjord, with its long low islands, and to the east and south a splendid panorama of jagged mountains is seen, reaching 6010 ft. in Store Troldtinder of the Romsdal group. Molde is the port for the tourist route through the Romsdal.
MOLÉ, LOUIS MATHIEU, Comte (1781–1855), French statesman, was born in Paris on the 24th of January 1781. His father, a president of the parlement of Paris, who came of the family of the famous president noticed below, was guillotined during the Terror, and Count Molé’s early days were spent in Switzerland and in England with his mother, a relative of Lamoignon-Malesherbes. On his return to France he studied at the école centrale des travaux publics, and his social education was accomplished in the salon of Pauline de Beaumont, the friend of Chateaubriand and Joubert. A volume of Essais de morale et de politique introduced him to the notice of Napoleon, who attached him to the staff of the council of state. He became master of requests in 1806, and next year prefect of the Côte d’Or, councillor of state and director-general of bridges and roads in 1809, and count of the empire in the autumn of the same year. In November 1813 he became minister of justice. Although he resumed his functions as director-general during the Hundred Days, he excused himself from taking his seat in the council of state and was apparently not seriously compromised, for Louis XVIII. confirmed his appointment as director-general and made him a peer of France. Molé supported the policy of the duc de Richelieu, who in 1817 entrusted to him the direction of the ministry of marine, which he held until December 1818. From that time he belonged to the moderate opposition, and he accepted the result of the revolution of 1830 without enthusiasm. He was minister for foreign affairs in the first cabinet of Louis Philippe’s reign, and was confronted with the task of reconciling the European powers to the change of government. The real direction of foreign affairs, however, lay less in his hands than in those of Talleyrand, who had gone to London as the ambassador of the new king. After a few months of office Molé retired, and it was not until 1836 that the fall of Thiers led to his becoming prime minister of a new government, in which he held the portfolio of foreign affairs. One of his first actions was the release of the ex-ministers of Charles X., and he had to deal with the disputes with Switzerland and with the Strassburg coup of Louis Napoleon. He withdrew the French garrison from Ancona, but pursued an active policy in Mexico and in Algeria. Personal and political differences rapidly arose between Molé and his chief colleague Guizot, and led to an open rupture in March 1837 in face of the general opposition to a grant to the duc de Nemours. After some attempts to secure a new combination Molé reconstructed his ministry in April, Guizot being excluded. The general election in the autumn gave him no fresh support in the Chamber of Deputies, while he had now to face a formidable coalition between Guizot, the Left Centre under Thiers, and politicians of the Dynastic Left and the Republican Left. Molé, supported by Louis Philippe, held his ground against the general hostility until the beginning of 1839, when, after acrid discussions on the address, the chamber was dissolved. The new house showed little change in the strength of parties, but Molé resigned on the 31st of March 1839. A year later he entered the Academy, and though he continued to speak frequently he took no important share in party politics. Louis Philippe sought his help in his vain efforts to form a ministry in February 1848. After the revolution he was deputy for the Gironde to the Constituent Assembly, and in 1849 to the Legislative Assembly, where he was one of the leaders of the Right until the coup d’état on the 2nd of December 1851 drove him from public life. He died at Champlâtreux (Seine-et-Oise) on the 23rd of November 1855.
See P. Thureau-Dangin, Histoire de la monarchie de juillet (1884–1892); and Robert Cougny, Dict. des parlementaires français (1891).
MOLÉ, MATHIEU (1584–1656), French statesman, son of Edouard Molé (d. 1614), who was for a time procureur-général, was educated at the university of Orleans. Admitted conseiller in 1606, he was président aux requêtes in 1610, procureur-général in succession to Nicolas de Bellièvre in 1614, and he took part in the assembly of the Notables summoned at Rouen in 1617. He fought in vain against the setting up of special tribunals, or commissions, to try prisoners charged with political offences, and for his persistence in the case of the brothers Louis and Michel de Marillac he was suspended in 1631, and ordered to appear at Fontainebleau in his own defence. Hitherto Molé’s relations with Richelieu had been fairly good, but his inclination to the doctrines of Port Royal increased the differences between them, and it was not until after Richelieu’s death that he was able to secure the release of his friend, the abbé de St Cyran. In 1641 he was appointed first president of the parlement, with the preliminary condition that he should not permit the general assembly of the chambers except by express order of the king. After Richelieu’s death the pretensions of the parlement increased; the hereditary magistrature arrogated to itself the functions of the states-general, and in 1648 the parlement with the other sovereign courts (the cour des aides, the grand conseil, and the cour des comptes) met in one assembly and proposed for the royal sanction twenty-seven articles, which amounted in substance to a new constitution. In the long conflict between Anne of Austria and the parlement, Molé, without yielding the rights of the parlement, played a conciliatory part. In the popular tumult known as the day of the barricades (Aug. 26, 1648) he sought out Mazarin and the queen to demand the release of Pierre Broussel and his colleagues, whose seizure had been the original cause of the outbreak. Next day the parlement marched in procession to repeat Molé’s demand. On their way back they were stopped by the crowd. “Turn, traitor,” said one of the rebels to Molé, seizing him by the beard, “and unless you wish to be massacred, either bring back Broussel, or bring Mazarin as a hostage.” Many magistrates fled; the remnant, headed by the intrepid Molé, returned to the Palais Royal, where Anne of Austria was induced to release the prisoners.
Molé’s moderating counsels failed to prevent the outbreak of the first Fronde, but he negotiated the peace of Rueil in 1651, and averted a conflict between the partisans of Condé and of the Cardinal de Retz within the precincts of the Palais de Justice. He refused. honours and rewards for himself or his family, but became keeper of the seals, in which capacity he was compelled to follow the court, and he therefore retired from the presidency of the parlement. He died on the 3rd of January 1656.
The Mémoires of Molé were edited for the Société de l’histoire de France (4 vols., 1855) by Aimé Champollion-Figeac, and his life was written by Baron A. G. P. de Barante in Le Parlement et la Fronde (1859). See also the memoirs of Omer Talon and of De Retz.
MOLE. (1) A small animal of the family Talpidae (see below). (2) A mark, or stain, and particularly a dark-coloured raised spot on the human skin. This word, O. Eng. mál, appears in such forms as meil or mail, in old forms of Teutonic languages, and in mal, a sign; cf. Ger. Denkmal, a monument. It is probably cognate with Lat. maculus, spot. Its meaning of stain is seen in the corrupted form “iron-mould,” properly “iron-mole,” a stain produced on linen or cloth by rust or ink. (3) A large structure of rubble, stone or other material, used as a breakwater or pier (see Breakwater), or the space of water so enclosed, forming a harbour or anchorage. This word comes through the French from Lat. moles, a mass, large structure. The name of the “Mole of Hadrian” (moles Hadriani) is sometimes given to the mausoleum of that emperor, now the castle of St Angelo at Rome.
In zoology the name of mole (a contracted form of mould-warp, i.e. mould-caster), is properly applicable to the common mole (Talpa europaea), a small, soft-furred, burrowing mammal, with minute eyes, and broad fossorial fore-feet, belonging to the order Insectivora and the family Talpidae. In a wider sense may be included under the same term the other Old World moles, the North American star-nosed and other moles, and the
