hardware and wood-working machinery. The principal building is the state house, crowned by a statue of Agriculture by Larkin G. Mead. The state house was first occupied in 1836. It was almost completely destroyed by fire in 1857, and was subsequently rebuilt and enlarged. Other prominent features of the city are the United States government building, the county court house, the Montpelier seminary and the Wood art gallery, a collection consisting principally of paintings by Thomas Waterman Wood (1823–1903), a native of Montpelier. The township of Montpelier, named from the city in France, was granted to a company of sixty proprietors in 1780. The first permanent settlement was made in 1787; and the township was organized in 1791 under a charter of 1781, replaced by another in 1804. In 1805 it was selected as the capital of the state, and in 1808 the legislature met here for the first time. At first the township was a part of Orange county, but in 1810 Washington county was created, and in 1811 Montpelier became the seat of government of the new county. In 1849 East Montpelier was set apart as a separate township, and in 1894 the township of Montpelier was chartered as a city.
MONTPELLIER, a town of southern France, capital of the
department of Hérault, about 7 m. from the Mediterranean, and
31 m. S.W. of Nîmes on the Paris-Lyon railway between that
town and Cette. Pop. (1906), 65,983. Montpellier, the seat of a
university and the principal place of lower Languedoc, is situated
in a fruitful plain less than a mile from the right bank of the
small river Lez. Composed for the most part of narrow winding
streets, the town has at the same time several spacious thoroughfares
and some fine squares and promenades, notably the much-frequented
Place de la Comédie, the Esplanade and the Peyrou.
The last terminates in a terrace commanding a magnificent
view of the coasts of the Mediterranean, and of the Pyrenees
and Alps. On the terrace is situated the reservoir of the town,
the water being brought from a distance of about 8 m. by an
aqueduct. In the centre of the square is an equestrian statue
of Louis XIV., while opposite the entrance is the Porte de
Peyrou, a triumphal arch erected at the end of the 17th century to
commemorate the achievements of Louis XIV. The Boulevard
Henri IV. to the north leads past the botanical garden, founded
in 1593 and thus the oldest in France, the medical college, and
the cathedral; to the east the Rue Nationale leads to the palace
of justice, the prefecture, and the citadel. The cathedral
(14th century), which until 1536 was the church of a Benedictine
monastery, suffered severely during the religious wars, and
about the middle of the 19th century the choir and one of the
four towers at the angles of the nave were rebuilt in the style
of the 13th century. The monastery, after being converted
into the bishop's palace, has since 1795 been occupied by the
famous medical school. A gallery devoted to the portraits of
professors since 1239 contains one of Rabelais. Close to the
medical school is the Tour des Pins, the chief relic of the medieval
fortifications. The museum (Musée Fabre) contains rich collections
of Italian, Flemish, Dutch and modern French paintings
and of French sculptures. Its nucleus was the collection given
to it by the painter F. X. P. Fabre (1766–1837), born at Montpellier.
The principal public buildings are the palace of justice—a
modern structure, the theatre and the prefecture, also modern.
Montpellier possesses old houses of the 15th and 16th centuries.
The Lez is canalized so as to connect Montpellier with the canal
du Midi and with the sea at Palavas. The town has a considerable
trade in wine, brandy, fruit and silk. The principal industrial
establishment is a manufactory for candles and soap.
There are also tanneries, distilleries and manufactories of cotton
and woollen goods, chemicals, casks, hosiery and chocolate.
The town is the centre of an académie (educational division)
and has long been renowned as a seat of learning. Montpellier
university comprises faculties of medicine, law, science and
letters, and a higher school of pharmacy. Montpellier is also
the seat of a bishop and a prefect, of courts of appeal and
assizes, tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a chamber of
commerce, a board of trade arbitration, and headquarters of
the XVI. army corps.
Montpellier first rose into importance after the destruction of Maguelonne by Charles Martel in 737. In the 10th century it consisted of two portions, Montpellier and Montpelliéret, held from the bishops of Maguelonne by the family of Guilhem. The Guilhems were succeeded, through marriage, by the house of Aragon, a member of which in 1349 sold his rights to Philip of Valois, Montpelliéret having already in 1292 been ceded to the Crown by the bishops. In 1141 Montpellier acquired a charter afterwards materially extended, and the same century saw the rise of its school of medicine. Several of the ablest teachers of that school were members of an important Jewish colony established in the town. It had a school of law in 1160, and a university was founded by Pope Nicholas IV. towards the close of the 13th century. Louis IX. granted to Montpellier the right of free trade with the whole of the kingdom, a privilege which greatly increased its prosperity. The importance of the town was enhanced when the bishopric of Maguelonne was transferred thither in 1536. During the wars of religion the town was a stronghold of the Protestants, who captured it in 1567. It strenuously supported the duke of Rohan in his revolts and in 1622 only succumbed to Louis XIII. after a siege of eight months. In 1628 the duke was defeated there and the walls of the town razed, the royal citadel built in 1624 being, however, spared. Louis XIII. made Montpellier the seat of one of the généralités of Languedoc, and the states of that province met there during the 17th and 18th centuries.
See A. C. Germain, Histoire du commerce de Montpellier antérieurement à l’ouverture du port de Cette (2 vols., Montpellier, 1861), and Histoire de la commune de Montpellier (3 vols., Montpellier, 1851); Aigrefeuille, Histoire de la ville de Montpellier (4 vols., Montpellier, 1875–1882).
MONTPENSIER, COUNTS AND DUKES OF. The French
lordship of Montpensier (department of Puy-de-Dôme), which
became a countship in the 14th century, was sold in 1384 by
Bernard and Robert de Ventadour to John, duke of Berry, whose
daughter Marie brought the countship to her husband, John I.,
duke of Bourbon, in 1400. The countship was subsequently held
by Louis de Bourbon, younger son of Duke John, and by his
descendants up to Charles de Bourbon-Montpensier, the famous
constable, who became duke of Bourbon by his marriage with
his cousin, Suzanne de Bourbon, in 1505. Confiscated by King
Francis I., the countship was restored in 1538 to Louise de
Bourbon, sister of the constable, and widow of the prince de
La Roche-sur-Yon, and to her son Louis (1513–1582), and 'was
erected into a duchy in the peerage of France (duché-pairie)
in 1539. Marie, daughter and heiress of Henri de Bourbon,
duke of Montpensier, brought the duchy to her husband Gaston,
duke of Orleans, brother of Louis XIII., whom she married in
1626, and their daughter and heiress (see below), known as
“La Grande Mademoiselle,” was duchess of Montpensier. The
title subsequently remained in the Orleans family, and was
borne in particular by Antoine Philippe (1775–1807), son of
Philippe “Égalité,” and Antoine Marie Philippe Louis (1824–1890),
son of King Louis Philippe and father-in-law of King
Alphonso XII. of Spain.
MONTPENSIER, ANNE MARIE LOUISE D’ORLÉANS,
Duchesse de (1627–1693), French memoir-writer, was born at
the Louvre on the 29th of May 1627. Her father was Gaston of
Orleans, “Monsieur,” the brother of Louis XIII. Her mother
was Marie de Bourbon, heiress of the Montpensier family.
Being thus of the blood-royal of France on both sides, and heiress
to immense property, she appeared to be very early destined to a
splendid marriage. It was perhaps the greatest misfortune of
her life that “la grande mademoiselle” was encouraged to look
forward to the throne of France as the result of a marriage with
Louis XIV., who was, however, eleven years her junior. Ill-luck,
or her own wilfulness, frustrated numerous plans for marrying
her to persons of exalted station, including even Charles II.
of England, then prince of Wales. She was just of age when the
Fronde broke out, and, attributing as she did her disappointments
to Mazarin, she sympathized with it not a little. In the new or
second Fronde she not only took nominal command of one of the
