Rovelli. In 1826 he became music-director at Stuttgart. As a composer for the violin Molique was commonly compared with Spohr. He also wrote some charming songs. He died at Cannstadt in 1869.
MOLKO (1500–1532), a Marano kabbalist, who proclaimed the advent of the Messiah. He was associated with David Reubeni, who also made Messianic claims. Molko, after a chequered career, was condemned to death by the ecclesiastical court at Mantua. He was offered his life by the emperor Charles V. if he would return to Christianity, in which he had been educated. He refused, and died at the stake. (I. A.)
MÖLLENDORF, RICHARD JOACHIM HEINRICH VON
(1724–1816), Prussian soldier, began his career as a page of
Frederick the Great in 1740. The outbreak of the Silesian wars
gave him his first opportunity of seeing active service, and the
end of the second war saw him a captain. In the Seven Years’
War his brilliant conduct at the churchyard of Leuthen (1757)
and at Hochkirch won him his majority. In 1760 his exertions
retrieved the almost lost battle of Torgau, and the last success
of the great king was won by the brigades of Prince Wied and
Möllendorf (now major-general) at the Burkersdorf heights.
Seventeen years later, as lieutenant-general, he won at Brix one
of the few successes of the Bavarian Succession (or “Potato”)
War. In the years of peace he occupied considerable posts,
being made governor of Berlin in 1783. Promoted general of infantry
in 1787, and general field marshal in 1793, he commanded
the Prussian army on the Rhine in 1794. In the disastrous
campaign of Jena (1806) Möllendorf played a considerable
part, though he did not actually command a corps. He was
present with the king at Auerstädt, falling into the hands of
the French in the débâcle which followed. After his release
he passed the remainder of his life in retirement. He died
in 1816.
MOLLIEN, NICOLAS FRANÇOIS, Count (1758–1850), French financier, was born at Paris on the 28th of February 1758. The son of a merchant, he early showed ability, and entered the ministry of finance, where he rose rapidly; in 1784, at the time of the renewal of the arrangements with the farmers-general of the taxes, he was practically chief in that department and made terms advantageous to the national exchequer. Under Calonne he improved the returns from the farmers-general; and he was largely instrumental in bringing about the erection of the octroi walls of Paris in place of the insufficient wooden barriers. He, however, advocated an abolition of some of the restrictions on imports, as came about in the famous Anglo-French commercial treaty of 1786, to the conclusion of which he contributed in no small measure. The events of the French Revolution threatened at times to overwhelm Mollien. In 1794 he was brought before the revolutionary tribunal of Evreux as a suspect, and narrowly escaped the fate that befell many of the former farmers-general. He retired to England, where he observed the financial measures adopted at the crisis of 1796–1797. After the coup d'état of Brumaire (November 1799) he re-entered the ministry of finance, then under Gaudin, who entrusted to him important duties as director of the new caisse d'amortissement. Napoleon, hearing of his abilities, frequently consulted him on financial matters, and after the Proclamation of the Empire (May 1804) made him a councillor of state. The severe financial crisis of December 1805 to January 1806 served to reveal once more his sound sense. Napoleon, returning in haste not long after Austerlitz, dismissed Bargé-Marbois from the ministry of the treasury and confided to Mollien those important duties. He soon succeeded in freeing the treasury from the interference of great banking houses. In other respects, however, he did something towards curbing Napoleon’s desire for a precise regulation of the money market. The conversations between them on this subject, as reported in Mollien’s Memoirs, are of high interest, and show that the ministry had a far truer judgment on financial matters than the emperor, who often twitted him with being an idéologue. In 1808 Mollien was awarded the title of count. He soon came to see the impossibility of the measures termed collectively “the continental system”; but his warnings on that subject were of no avail. After the first abdication of the emperor (April 11, 1814), Mollien retired into private life, but took up his ministerial duties at the appeal of Napoleon during the Hundred Days (1815), after which he again retired. Louis XVIII. wished to bring him back to office, but he resisted these appeals. Nominated a peer in 1819, he took some part in connexion with the annual budgets. He lived to see the election of Louis Napoleon as president of the Second Republic, and died in April 1850, with the exception of Pasquier, the last surviving minister of Napoleon I.
See Mollien’s Mémoires d'un ministre du trésor public 1780–1815, 4 vols. (Paris 1845; new ed., Paris, 3 vols., 1898); A. G. P. Barante, Études historiques et biographiques; Salvandy, Notice sur Mollien; also M. M. C. Gaudin (duc de Gaëte), Notice historique sur les finances de la France 1800–1814 (Paris, 1818). (J. Hl. R.)
MOLLUSCA, one of the great “phyla,” or sub-kingdoms,
of the animal pedigree or kingdom. The shell-bearing forms
belonging to this group which were known to Linnaeus were
placed by him (in 1748) in the third order of his class Vermes
under the name “Testacea,” whilst the Echinoderms, Hydroids
and Annelids, with the naked Mollusca, formed his second order
termed “Zoophyta.” Ten years later he replaced the name
“Zoophyta” by “Mollusca,” which was thus in the first instance
applied, not to the Mollusca at present so termed, but to a group
consisting chiefly of other organisms. Gradually, however, the
term Mollusca became used to include those Mollusca formerly
placed among the “Testacea,” as well as the naked Mollusca.
It is important to observe that the term μαλακια, of which Mollusca is merely a latinized form, was used by Aristotle to indicate a group consisting of the cuttle-fishes only.
As now classified, the Mollusca consist of the following subdivisions:—
Grade A.—Isopleura.
Class I.—Amphineura (see Chiton).
Grade B.—Prorhipidoglossomorpha.
Class II.—Gastropoda (q.v.).
Class III.—Scaphopoda (q.v.).
Class IV.—Lamellibranchia (q.v.).
Grade C.—Siphonopoda.
Class V.—Cephalopoda (q.v.).
History of Classification.—The definite erection of the Mollusca into the position of one of the great primary groups of the animal kingdom is due to George Cuvier (1788–1800), who largely occupied himself with the dissection of representatives of this type.¹[1] An independent anatomical investigation of the Mollusca had been carried on by the remarkable Neapolitan naturalist Poli (1791), whose researches² were not published until after his death (1817), and were followed by the beautiful works of another Neapolitan zoologist, the illustrious Delle Chiaje.³
The embranchement or sub-kingdom Mollusca, as defined by Cuvier, included the following classes of shellfish: (1) the cuttles or poulps, under the name Cephalopoda; (2) the snails, whelks and slugs, both terrestrial and marine, under the name Gastropoda; (3) the sea-butterflies or winged-snails, under the name Pteropoda; (4) the clams, mussels and oysters, under the name Acephala; (5) the lamp-shells, under the name Brachiopoda; (6) the sea-squirts or ascidians, under the name Nuda; and (7) the barnacles and sea-acorns, under the name Cirrhopoda.
The main limitations of the sub-kingdom or phylum Mollusca, as laid down by Cuvier, and the chief divisions thus recognized within its limits by him, hold good to the present day. At the same time, three of the classes considered by him as Mollusca have been one by one removed from that association in consequence of improved knowledge, and one additional class, incorporated since his day with the Mollusca with general approval, has, after more than forty years, been again detached and assigned an independent position owing to newly acquired knowledge.
The first of Cuvier’s classes to be removed from the Mollusca was that of the Cirrhopoda. Their affinities with the lower Crustacea were recognized by Cuvier and his contemporaries, but it was one of the brilliant discoveries of that remarkable and too-little-honoured naturalist, J. Vaughan Thompson, of Cork, which decided their position as Crustacea. The metamorphoses of the Cirrhopoda were described and figured by him in 1830 in a very complete manner, and the legitimate conclusion as to their affinities was formulated by him.⁴ Thus it is to Thompson (1830), and not to Burmeister (1834), as erroneously stated by Keferstein, that the merit of this
discovery belongs. The next class to be removed from Cuvier’s- ↑ These figures refer to the Bibliography at the end of the article.
