Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 15.djvu/355

M A L M A L 333 In General Lake s campaign against Kolkar in 1805 the nawab of Maler Kotla sided with the British. After the subjugation and ilight of Holkar, the English Government succeeded to the power of the Mahrattas in the districts between the Sutlej and the Jumna ; and in 1809 its protection was formally extended to Maler Kotla, as to the other cis-Sutlej states against the formidable encroachments of Kanji t Sinh. In the campaigns of 1806, 1807, and 1808 Ranjit .Sinh had made considerable conquests across the Sutlej ; in 1808 he marched on Maler Kotla, and demanded a ransom of 10,000 from the nawab. This led to the interference of the British, who addressed an ultimatum to Ranjft Sinh, declaring the cis-Sutlej states to be under British protection. Finally the raja of Lahore submitted, and the nawab was reinstated in February 1809. MALESHERBES, CHRETIEN GUILLAUME DELAMOIGNON DE (1721-1794), minister and afterwards counsel for the defence of Louis XVI., came of a famous legal family, and was born at Paris on December G, 1721. He too was destined for the legal profession, much to the surprise of Marcel, the famous dancing master, who declared that his pupil would never be able to dance well enough to be a soldier or a lawyer, and must therefore be a priest. The young lawyer soon proved his intellectual capacity, when he was appointed president of the cour dcs aides in the parlement of Paris in 1750 on the promotion of his father to be chancellor. One of the chancellor s duties was to control the press, and this duty was entrusted to Malesherbes by his father during his eighteen years of office, and brought him into connexion with the public far more than his judicial functions. To carry it out efficiently he kept in communication with the literary leaders of Paris, and especially with Diderot, and Grimm even goes so far as to say that " without the assistance of Malesherbes the Encyclopedic would probably never have been published." Though he met with abuse from all sides, there can be no doubt that it was the eminently judicious manner in which he carried out his objectionable duties which laid the foundation of his subsequent popularity. In 1771 he was called upon to mix in politics ; the parlements of France had been dissolved, and a new method of administering justice devised by Maupeou, which was in itself commend able as tending to the better and quicker administration of justice, but pernicious as exhibiting a tendency to over- centralization, and as abolishing the hereditary " nobility of the robe," which, with all its faults, had from its nature preserved some independence, and been a check on the royal power. Malesherbes presented a strong remonstrance against the new system, and was at once "banished to his country seat at St Lucie, to be recalled, however, with the old parlement on the accession of Louis XVI., and to be made minister of the maison du roi in 1775. He only held office nine months, during which, however, he directed his attention to the police of the kingdom, which came under his department, and did much to check the odious practice of issuing lettres de cachet. On retiring from the ministry with Turgot in 1776, he betook himself entirely to a happy country and domestic life. He had always been an enthusiastic botanist ; his avenue at St Lucie was world famous ; he had written against Buffon on behalf of the botanists whom Buffon had attacked, and had been elected a member of the Acad6mie des Sciences as far back as 1750. He was now elected a member of the Acade mie Frangaisc, and everything seemed to promise a quiet and peaceful old age spent in the bosom of his family and occupied with scientific and literary pursuits, when the king in his difficulties wished for the support of his name, and summoned him back to the ministry in 1787. Again he held office but a short time, but returned to his country life this time with a feeling of insecurity and disquiet, and, as the troubles increased, retired to Switzerland, Never theless, in December 1792, in spite of the fair excuse his old age and long retirement would have given him, he voluntarily left his asylum and undertook with Tronchet and Deseze the defence of the king before the convention, and it was his painful task to break the news of his condemnation to the king. After this effort he returned once more to the country, but in December 1793 he was arrested with his daughter, bis son-in-law M. de Rosambo, and his grand children, and on April 23, 1794, he was guillotined, after having seen all whom he loved in the world executed before his eyes for their relationship to him. Malesherbes is one of the sweetest characters of the 18th century ; though no man of action, hardly a man of the world, by his charity and unfeigned goodness he became one of the most popular men in France, and it was an act of truest self-devotion in him to sacrifice himself for a king who had done little or nothing for him. With reason does his statue stand in the hall of justice at Paris, for he is the greatest representative of that noble independence which should prevent any thought of self when a counsel is pleading his client s cause, however perilous such advocacy might be. There are in print several scientific works of Malesherbes of vary ing value, of which the most interesting is his Observations sur Buffon ct Daubenton, written when he was very young, a nd pub lished with a notice by Abeille in 1798. There exist also his Memoire pour Louis XVI., his Memoire sur la libcrte de la presse, published 1809, and extracts from his remonstrances, published as (Euvrcs choisics de Malesherbes in 1809. For his life should be read the Notice historiquc of Dubois, the filogc historiquc of Gaillard, and the interesting Essai, in 2 vols., 1818, of Boissy d Anglas. There are also many elogcs on him in print, of which the best- known is that of M. Dupin, which is interestingly reviewed with much light on Malesherbes s control of the press by Sainte-Beuve in the second volume of the Causeries du Lundi. MALHERBE, FRANCOIS DE (1555-1628), poet, critic, and translator, was born at Caen in 1555. His family was of some position, though it seems not to have been able to establish to the satisfaction of heralds the claims which it made to nobility older than the 16th century. The poet was the eldest son of another Francois de Malherbe, consetiler du roi in the magistracy of Caen. He himself was elaborately educated at Caen, at Paris, at Heidelberg, and at Basel. At the age of twenty-one he entered the household of Henri d Angouleme, grand prior of France, the natural son of Henry II. He served this prince as secretary in Provence, and married there in 1581. It seems that he wrote verses at this period, but, to judge from a quotation of Tallemant des Ke aux, they must have been very bad ones. His patron died when Malherbe was on a visit in his native province, and for a time he had no particular employment, though by some servile verses he obtained a considerable gift of money from Henry III., whom he afterwards libelled. He lived partly in Provence and partly in Normandy for many years after this event ; but very little is known of his life during this period. It was in the year parting the two centuries (1600) that he presented to Marie de Medici the first of his remarkable poems. But four or five years more passed before his fortune, which had hitherto been indifferent, turned. He was presented by his countryman, the cardinal Du Perron, to Henry IV.; and, though that economical prince did not at first show any great eagerness to entertain the poet, ho was at last summoned to court and endowed after one fashion or another. His father died in 1606, and he came into his inheritance. From this time forward he lived at court, corresponding affectionately with his wife, but seeing her only twice in some twenty years. His old age was saddened by a great misfortune. His son, Marc Antoine, a young man of promise, perished in one of the frivolous but desperate duels which, common at all periods of French history, were never more frivolous or more desperate than in the 16th and the early 17th centuries. Marc Antoine de Malherbe fell in 1626. His father used his utmost

influence to have the guilty parties (for more than one were