Page:Catholic Encyclopedia, volume 10.djvu/608

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MONTYON


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MOORE


he was empowered to best ow fcofTs on the nobles of the province who bound themselves in return to guard the abbey in time of war. In IMS'.) KiiiR Louis XI founded the Order of St. Michael, and licld the first chapter of its knights in the "salle des chevaliers." It is said that the cockle shell, horn, anil stall, which became the recognized insignia of a pilgrim from the thirteenth century onwards, take their origin from Mont-St-Midiel. The staff was used to test the path across tlie treacherous quicksand; the horn served to summon aid .should tide or fog surprise the pilgrim; while the cockle shell was fixed in the hat .is a souvenir to show that the pilgrim had accomplished his journey in safety. The abbey bore as its arms a cockle shell and fleurs-de-lis with the significant motto "Tremor immensi Oceani".

HuTNES. Histoire g^ndrale du Monl-St-Michel (Rouen, 1872- 73) : BEArHEP.\lRE, Curieu&es recherches sur le Mont-St-M. (Rouen, 1873); Gout, UHistoire et r Architecture Frani^aUe au M.-Sl-M. (Paris, 1899); Cohroyer, Description de V Abbaye du M.-St-M. (Paris, 1877); Idem, L' Architecture Ramane (Paris, 1888). tr. ARtisTSOHo, Gothic Architecture (London, 1893); Brin, St. Michel et le M.-St-M. dans Vhistoire et la litt^rature (Paris, 1880) ; BoTTiLLET, La Normandie monumentale et pittoresque, Le M.-St-M. (Paris, 1896) ; de Potiche, La Baie du M.-St-M. et ses approches (Paris, 1S91); Dubouchet, L' Abbaye du M.-St-M. (Paris, 1895); Feval, Les merneilles du M.-St-M. (Paris, s. d.); GiRARD, Histoire du M.-St-M. comme prison d'Etat (Paris, 1849); David, Les Grands Abbayes d' Occident (Paris, 1907), 359-378.

G. Roger Hddleston.

Montyon, Antoine-Jean-Baptiste-Rgbert Au- GET, Baron de, famous French philanthropist; b. at Paris, 23 December, 1733; d. there 29 December, 1820. He was the son of a wealthy official of the Exchequer. As soon as he had completed his educa- tion, young Montyon was made king's advocate at the court of Le Chatelet (Paris) where his inflexible integrity won for him the surname of "Grenadier of the Bar." In 1758 he entered the Great Council and in 1760 was appointed master of the petitions. In 1767 he became intendant of Auvergne, where his liberality to the poor endeared him to the people. It is said that he yearly spent as much as twenty thou- sand francs of his private income to give work and help to needy families. On his refusal to install the new magistrates appointed by Maupeou after the suppression of the Parliaments, he was transferred to the intendance of Provence and then to La Rochelle. In 1775, through the influence of the due de Pen- thievre, he was recalled to Paris and appointed coun- cillor of State. Amidst the cares of public life, he had found time for the study of economics and belles- lettres. The French Academy awarded a distinction tohis"Eloge de Michel de I'Hopital" (Paris, 1777). The following year he published "Recherches et con- siderations sur la population de la France." Mont- yon's great concern, however, was philanthropy, which he delighted to practice in an anonymous way. In order to foster emulation for the good among his countrjTnen, he founded a number of prizes to be awarded by the French Academy, the Academy of Science, or the Academy of Medicine.

At the beginning of the French Revolution, he thought it was his duty to share the fortunes of the princes of the House of Bourbon, and he left the country. He travelled in Switzerland and Germany, but spent the greater part of his exile in London; during his stay in that city, he gave each year ten thousand francs to relieve the French refugees, and the French soldiers who were prisoners in Eng- land; the same amount was sent to the poor of Au- vergne. Montyon returned to France in 1815 at the time of the second restoration and henceforth de- voted all his time to the work that had made his name famous. He re-established the prizes which he had founded before the Revolution and which had been abolished l>y the National Convention. The best, known of the.se prizes are "le prix de vertu", to re- ward a virtuous act done by a poor Frenchman, and


"the prize to be bestowed on the author of the work most useful to morals. These prizes are to be awarded by the French Academy. Montyon also distributed large sums of money among the bureaus of charities in Paris. His will, in which are expressed sentiments of the deepest piety, bequeathed the bulk of his prop- erty to the hospitals and homes of his native city.

Lacretelle, Discours sur M. de Monlijon in lt,;ucil de' I' Aca- demic (1820-29); Chazet, Vie de M. de .Montyon (Paris, 1829); Wailly, Eloge de M. de Montyon (Paris, 182B).

Pierre Marioue.

Moor, Hugh, Venerable. See Morton, Rob- ert, Venerable.

Moore, Arthur, Count, b. at Liverpool, 1849; d. at Mooresfort, Tipperary, Ireland, 1904, was the son of Charles Moore, M.P. for Tipperary. Educated at Ushaw, he afterwards travelled in Spain, and in 1874 was elected M.P. for the Borough of Clonmel. In Parliament he was a follower of Mr. Butt, and strongly advocated land reform, better treatment of cliildren in workhouses, universitj' education for Irish Catholics, and Home Rule; and he specially interested himself in providing Catholic chaplains for the navy. In 1877 he married a daughter of an English baronet. Sir Charles Clifford, and the same year re- ceived the title of Count from the pope. During the Gladstone Parliament of 1880-85 Count Moore was usually on the side of Parnell. He favoured land purchase as the best settlement of the Irish land question; he advocated the providing of suitable cottages for Irish labourers, and better treatment of Irish emigrants on board ship; he always voted for Home Rule, and vehemently denounced coercion. But he had no faith in violent agitation, and did not favour the full programme of the Land League or that of the National League; and he voted for the second reading of Gladstone's Land Bill though Par- nell and his friends abstained from voting. Count Moore would only follow where his convictions led, and he was too independent to be blindly obedient to Mr. Parnell: when the Redistribution Act of 1885 disfranchised Clonmel, he was left without a seat in Parliament. He had therefore no share in the stirring scenes which followed the general election of 1885. But he was not content to lead a life of ease and in- activity, believing that "a Catholic layman should be up and doing and not merely telling his beads in a corner". Blessed with ample wealth he was a gener- ous contributor to schools, churches, convents, and hospitals ; a militant but not an aggressive Catholic he was always ready to do battle for Catholic truth, and in speeches, lectures, and newspaper articles often did splendid service for the advancement of Catholic interests. He spared no effort to secure that Catholic sailors should not be left without religious instruc- tion during life, or without a priest at the hour of death; and so valuable was his work in this matter that the Irish Bishops, at their meeting at Maynooth in 1903, thanked him by special resolution. He sup- ported the Catholic Truth Society and attended its meetings; he desired to have a branch of the Benedic- tine Order in Ireland, and would have helped to en- dow it. He established and generously endowed the Cistercian Abbey at Roscrea. Always ready to help others he did not forget his own personal sanctity. He attended Mass every day, spent hours before the tabernacle in his own private oratory, fasted rigor- ously, made frequent retreats; and he went, year after year, to Lourdes and to the Holy Land, not as a mere sight-seeing traveller but as a pilgrim and a penitent. At home he w;is the kindest and the most indulgent of landlords, and no beggar went unrelieved from his door. When he died, his body, clot lied in the Fran- ciscan h.abit, was interred near the high altar in the church of the Cistercians at Roscreii.

Barry, Life of Count Arthur Moore (Dulilin, 1905).

E. A. D'Alton.