and in 1549–50 conducted the war in the Boulonnais, negotiating the treaty for the surrender of Boulogne on the 24th of March 1550. In 1551 his barony was erected into a duchy. Soon afterwards his armies found employment in the north-east in connexion with the seizure of Metz, Toul and Verdun by the French king. His attempt to relieve St Quentin resulted in his defeat and captivity (Aug. 10, 1557), and he did not regain his liberty until the peace of Cateau-Cambrésis in 1559. Supplanted in the interval by the Guises, he was treated with coldness by the new king, Francis II., and compelled to give up his mastership of the royal household—his son, however, being appointed marshal by way of indemnity. On the accession of Charles IX. in 1560 he resumed his offices and dignities, and, uniting with his former enemies, the Guises, played an important part in the Huguenot war of 1562. Though the arms of his party were victorious at Dreux, he himself fell into the hands of the enemy, and was not liberated until the treaty of Amboise (March 19, 1563). In 1567 he again triumphed at St Denis, but received the death-blow of which he died at Paris, on the 15th of March, 1567.
See F. Decrue, Anne de Montmorency (Paris, 1885), and Anne, duc de Montmorency (Paris, 1889).
MONTMORENCY, MATHIEU JEAN FÉLICITÉ DE MONT-MORENCY-LAVAL, Duc de (1766–1826), French politician, was born in Paris on the 10th of July 1766. He served with his father, the vicomte de Laval, in America, and returned to France imbued with democratic opinions. Mathieu de Montmorency was governor of Compiègne when he was returned as deputy to
the states-general in 1789, where he joined the Third Estate
and sat on the left of the Assembly. He moved the abolition
of armorial bearings on the 19th of June 1790. The dissolution
of the Constituent Assembly in September 1791 set him free to
join Lückner’s army on the frontier early in the next year.
After the revolution of the 10th of August he abandoned his
revolutionary principles; and he took no part in politics under
the empire. At the Restoration he was promoted maréchal de
camp, and accompanied Louis XVIII. to Ghent during the
Hundred Days. At the second restoration he was made a peer
of France, and two years later received the title of viscount.
He adopted strong reactionary and ultramontane views, and
became minister of foreign affairs under Villèle in 1821. He
recommended armed intervention in Spain at the Congress of
Verona in October 1822, but he resigned in December, being
compensated by the title of duke and the cross of the Legion of
Honour in the next year. He was elected to the French Academy
in 1825, though he appears to have had small qualifications for
the honour, and in the next year became tutor to the six-year-old
Henri, duke of Bordeaux (afterwards known as the comte de
Chambord). He died two months after receiving this last
appointment, on the 24th of March 1826.
See Vétillard, Notice sur la vie de M. le duc Mathieu de Montmorency (Le Mans, 1826), and, for his curious relations with Mme de Staël, P. Gautier, Mathieu de Montmorency et Mme de Staël, d’aprės les lettres inédites de M. de Montmorency à Mme Necker de Saussure (1908).
MONTMORENCY, a town of northern France in the department of Seine-et-Oise, 212 m. from the right bank of the Seine and 11 m. N. of Paris by rail. Pop. (1906), 5723. In the middle ages it was the seat of the family of Montmorency. There is a church built for the most part in the 16th century by Anne de Montmorency. The town is a well-known resort of Parisians. To the north-east lies the fine forest of Montmorency. Bleaching and dyeing and the manufacture of lime plaster, bricks and tiles are carried on. About a mile south-west lies Enghien-les-Bains (pop. 4925), the waters of which are used in cases of catarrh and skin disease.
MONTMORILLON, a town of western France, capital of an
arrondissement in the department of Vienne, on the Gartempe,
34 m. E.S.E. of Poitiers by rail. Pop. (1906), 3924. The
ecclesiastical seminary occupies a building of the 12th century,
formerly an Augustinian convent. The convent church is
Romanesque in style and there is a curious two-storied chapel
of octagonal form, of the same period. The church of Notre-Dame
is a combination of Romanesque and Gothic, dating from the 12th and 13th centuries.
MONTMORIN DE SAINT HÉEREM, ARMAND MARC, Comte de (1745–1792), French statesman, belonged to a cadet branch of a noble family of Auvergne. He was gentleman-in-waiting to Louis XVI. when dauphin, and was subsequently appointed ambassador at Madrid. From Madrid he was suddenly summoned to the governorship of Brittany, and in 1787 was appointed by the king to succeed Vergennes in the ministry of foreign affairs. Montmorin was a devoted admirer of Necker, whose influence at the court he was mainly instrumental in
maintaining He retired when Necker was dismissed on the
12th of July 1789, but on Necker’s recall after the taking of the Bastille again resumed his office, which he continued to hold till October 1791. Mirabeau (q.v.) had approached him so early as December 1788, with a plan for the policy to be pursued by the court towards the new states general; but Montmorin, offended by Mirabeau’s attacks on Necker and by his Histoire
secrète de la cour de Berlin, refused to see him. With the progress of the Revolution, however, this attitude was changed. The comte de la Marck was exerting himself to bring Mirabeau into touch with the court (see Mirabeau), and for this purpose it was important to secure the assistance of Montmorin. The convenience of an understanding between the two men was obvious; and they were soon on the closest terms. While Montmorin continued minister in name, Mirabeau became so in fact. Montmorin did not dare to come to a decision without consulting his masterful friend, but on the other hand neither Mirabeau nor La Marck were under any illusions as to the broken character of the reed on which they had perforce to lean. Mirabeau complained bitterly that Montmorin was “slack” (flasque) and a “poltroon” (gavache). On the other hand, La Marck thought that Montmorin’s feebleness was occasionally useful in restraining Mirabeau’s impetuosity. The death of Mirabeau in April 1791 was a severe blow to Montmorin, the difficulty of whose position was enormously increased after the flight of the royal family to Varennes, to which he was not privy. He was forced to resign office, but still continued to advise Louis, and was one of the inner circle of the king’s friends, called by the revolutionists “the Austrian Committee.” In June 1792 his papers were seized at the foreign office, without anything incriminating being discovered; in July he was denounced, and after the 10th of August was proscribed. He took refuge in the house of a washerwoman, but was discovered, haled before the Legislative Assembly, and imprisoned in the Abbaye, where he perished in the September massacres. His relative, Louis Victor Henri, marquis de Montmorin de Saint Hérem, head of the elder branch, also perished in the massacre.
See A. Bardoux, Pauline de Montmorin, comtesse de Beaumont: Études sur la fin du XVIIIième siècle (Paris, 1884), for a defence of Montmorin’s policy; F. Masson, Le Département des affaires étrangères pendant la révolution, 1787–1804, ch. ii. (Paris, 1877); A. de Bacourt, Correspondance entre Mirabeau et le comte de La Marck, 1789–1791 (3 vols., Paris, 1851), contains many letters of Montmorin; “Correspondence of the Comte de Moustier with the Comte de Montmorin,” in the Amer. Hist. Rev., vol. viii. (1902–1903).
MONTORO, a town of southern Spain, in the province of Cordova, 27 m. E. by N of the city of Cordova, on the Madrid-Cordova railway. Pop. (1900), 14,581. Montoro was the Epora of the Romans, and became an important Moorish fortress in the middle ages, but it has been largely modernized. It stands on a rocky peninsula on the south bank of the Guadalquivir, here crossed by a fine bridge of four arches dating from the 16th century. Oil is largely manufactured, and there is considerable trade in timber, agricultural produce and livestock.
MONTPELIER, a city, the capital of Vermont, U.S.A., and the county-seat of Washington county, on the Winooski river, 40 m. (by rail) E.S.E. of Burlington. Pop. (1900), 6266 (952 foreign-born); (1910), 7856. Montpelier is served by the Central Vermont and the Montpelier & Wells River railways. Barre granite is mined extensively in the vicinity, and the city manufactures marble and granite products, flour, lumber, saddlery
