MELTON MOWBRAY, a market town in the Melton parliamentary division of Leicestershire, England, pleasantly situated in a fertile vale, at the confluence of the Wreake and the Eye. Pop. of urban district (1901), 7454. It is 105 m. N.N.W. from London by the Midland railway, and is served by a joint branch of the London & North Western and Great Northern railways. The church of St Mary, a fine cruciform structure, Early English and later, with a lofty and richly ornamented central tower, was enlarged in the reign of Elizabeth. Melton is the centre of a celebrated hunting district, in connexion with which there are large stables in the town. It is known for its pork pies, and has a trade in Stilton cheese. There are breweries and tanneries and an important cattle market. There are blast furnaces in the neighbouring parish of Asfordby for the smelting of the abundant supply of iron ore in the district. During the Civil War Melton was in February 1644 the scene of a defeat of the parliamentary forces by the royalists. It is the birthplace of John Henley the orator (1692–1759).
MELUN, a town of northern France, capital of the department of Seine-et-Marne, situated north of the forest of Fortainebleau, 28 m. S.S.E. of Paris by rail. Pop. (1906), 11,219. The town is divided into three parts by the Seine. The principal portion lies on the slope of a hill on the right bank; on the left bank is the most modern quarter, while the old Roman town occupies an island in the river. On the island stands the Romanesque church of Notre-Dame (11th and 12th centuries), formerly part of a nunnery, the site of which is occupied by a prison. The other public buildings are on the right bank of the river. Of these, the most striking is the church of St Aspais, an irregularly shaped structure of the 15th and 16th centuries, on the apse of which may be seen a modern medallion in bronze, the work of the sculptor H. Chapu, representing Joan of Arc as the liberator of Melun. The hôtel-de-ville (1847)—in the construction of which an old mansion and turret have been utilized—and the tower of St Bartholomew of the 16th and 18th centuries are also of interest. In the courtyard of the former there is a monument to Jacques Amyot, the translator of Plutarch, who was born at Melun in 1513. Among the rich estates in the neighbourhood the most remarkable is the magnificent château of Vaux-le-Vicomte, which belonged to Nicholas Fouquet, intendant of finances under Louis XIV. Melun is a market for grain and farm produce, and its industries include brewing, tanning, distilling, sawing and the manufacture of agricultural implements, clogs, fur garments, lime, cement and plaster.
In Caesar’s Gallic wars Melun (Melodunum) was taken by his lieutenant Labienus, in order to facilitate the attack of Lutetia by the right bank of the Seine. It was pillaged by the Normans, and afterwards became the favourite residence of the first kings of the race of Capet; Robert and Philip I. both died here. In 1359 Melun was given up by Jeanne of Navarre to her brother, Charles the Bad, but was retaken by the dauphin Charles and Bertrand Duguesclin. In 1420 it made an heroic defence against Henry V. of England and his ally the duke of Burgundy. Ten years later the people of Melun, with the help of Joan of Arc, drove out the English. It was occupied by the League in 1589, and retaken by Henry IV. in the following year.
MÉLUSINE, the tutelary fairy of the house of Lusignan, was the eldest daughter of the fairy Pressine, to avenge whose wrongs she shut up her father in a mountain in Northumberland. For this she was condemned to be metamorphosed every Saturday into a woman-serpent—that is, to be a serpent from the hips downwards. She might, however, be eventually saved from this punishment if she could find a husband who would never see her on a Saturday. Such a husband was found in Raymond, nephew of the count of Poitiers, who became rich and powerful through the machinations of his wife. She built the castle of Lusignan and many other of the family fortresses. When at length her husband gave way to his curiosity, and saw her taking the bath of purification on a Saturday she flew from the castle in the form of a serpent. Thenceforward the death of a member of the house of Lusignan was heralded by the cries of the fairy serpent. “Pousser des cris de Mélusine” is still a popular saying.
This history is related at length, with the adventures of Mélusine’s numerous progeny, by Jean d’Arras, in his Chronique de la princesse, written in 1387 at the desire of John, duke of Berry, for the amusement of the duke and of his sister Marie of France, duchess of Bar. It is one of the most charming of the old prose romances in manner and style, and is natural in spite of the free use of the marvellous. An attempt has been made by Jules Baudot in Les Princesses Yolande et les ducs de Bar (Paris, 1900) to make it a roman à clé and to identify the personages. Mélusine, Mellusine or Merlusine is, however, simply the spirit of the fountain of Lusignan, and the local Poitevin myth is attached to the origin of the noble house. The etymology of the word has been variously and fancifully given. Some writers have supposed Merlusine to be a corruption of mère Lucine (mater Lucina), the deity invoked in child-birth. She has been identified with Mélisende, widow of a king of Jerusalem, and with Mervant, wife of Geoffroi de Lusignan.
The Mélusine of Jean d’Arras was printed by Adam Steinschaber at Geneva in 1478, and was reprinted many times in the 15th and 16th centuries. It has been translated into Spanish, English, German and Flemish. Modern editions are by J. C. Brunet (Paris, 1854), and by E. Lecesne for the Academy of Arras (Arras, 1888). The English translation was edited from a unique MS. in the British Museum by A. K. Donald for the E.E.T.S. (1895). The tale was versified in the 14th century by a poet called Couldrette, whose poem was published in 1854 by Francisque Michel. See further J. C. Dunlop, Hist. of Fiction, ii. 491-493 (new ed., 1888); S. Baring-Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, pp. 470 seq. (new ed., 1881); and J. C. Brunet, Manuel du libraire (vol. iii., 1862, s.v. Jean d’Arras).
MELVILLE, ANDREW (1545–1622), Scottish scholar, theologian and religious reformer, was the youngest son of Richard Melville (brother to Melville of Dysart), proprietor of Baldovy near Montrose, at which place Andrew was born on the 1st of August 1545. His father fell at the battle of Pinkie (1547), fighting in the van of the Scottish army, and, his wife having died soon after, the orphan was cared for by his eldest brother Richard (1522–1575). At an early age Melville began to show a taste for learning, and his brother did everything in his power to give him the best education. The rudiments of Latin he obtained at the grammar school of Montrose, after leaving which he learned Greek for two years under Pierre de Marsilliers, a Frenchman whom John Erskine of Dun had induced to settle at Montrose; and such was Melville’s proficiency that on going to the university of St Andrews he excited the astonishment of the professors by using the Greek text of Aristotle, which no one else there understood. On completing his course, Melville left St Andrews with the reputation of “the best poet, philosopher, and Grecian of any young master in the land.” He then, in 1564, being nineteen years of age, set out for France to perfect his education at the university of Paris. He there applied himself to Oriental languages, but also attended the last course of lectures delivered by Turnebus in the Greek chair, as well as those of Peter Ramus, whose philosophical method and plan of teaching he afterwards introduced into the universities of Scotland. From Paris he proceeded to Poitiers (1566) to study civil law, and though only twenty-one he was apparently at once made a regent in the college of St Marceon. After a residence of three years, however, political troubles compelled him to leave France, and he went to Geneva, where he was welcomed by Theodore, Beza, at whose instigation he was appointed to the chair of humanity in the academy of Geneva. In addition to his teaching, however, he also applied himself to studies in Oriental literature, and in particular acquired from Cornelius Bertram, one of his brother professors, a knowledge of Syriac. While he resided at Geneva the massacre of St Bartholomew in 1572 drove an immense number of Protestant refugees to that city, including several of the most distinguished French men of letters of the time. Among these were several men learned in civil law and political science, and their society increased Melville’s knowledge of the world and enlarged his ideas of civil and ecclesiastical liberty. In 1574 Melville returned to Scotland, and almost immediately received the appointment of principal of Glasgow University, which had fallen into an almost ruinous state, the college having been shut and the students dispersed. Melville,
