master-general, Congress, in June 1778, ordered an investigation; but before this inquiry had proceeded far, Congress granted him $1,000,000 to settle all claims against the office during his administration. In February 1779 he resigned his commission as major-general. During the war his eloquence was repeatedly of assistance to Congress in recruiting soldiers. He was a delegate in Congress in 1782–1784, and from November 1783 to November 1784 was president, in which office he received Washington’s resignation of the command of the army and made a congratulatory address. In 1785–1788 he was speaker of the Pennsylvania general assembly (then consisting of only one house); he was a member of the Federal Constitutional Convention of 1787, and president of the state supreme executive council (or chief executive officer of the state) in 1788–1790. He was president of the Pennsylvania Constitutional Convention of 1789–1790; was the first governor of the state, from 1790 to 1799, after the adoption of the new state constitution; and during the Whisky Insurrection assumed personal command of the Pennsylvania militia. Towards the close of his last term as governor he was elected a member of the state assembly, but died during the first session, at Lancaster, on the 20th of January 1800.
See William Rawle, “Sketch of the Life of Thomas Mifflin,” in Memoirs of the Historical Society of Pennsylvania (vol. 2, part 2, Philadelphia, 1830); and J. H. Merrill, Memoranda relating to the Mifflin Family (Philadelphia, 1890).
MIGNARD, PIERRE (1610–1695), called—to distinguish him from his brother Nicholas—Le Romain, French painter,
was born at Troyes in 1610, and came of a family of artists. In 1630 he left the studio of Simon Vouet for Italy, where he spent twenty-two years, and made a reputation which brought him a summons to Paris. Successful with his portrait of the king, and in favour with the court, Mignard pitted himself against Le Brun, declined to enter the Academy of which he was the
head, and made himself the centre of opposition to its authority. The history of this struggle is most important, because it was identical, as long as it lasted, with that between the old gilds of France and the new body which Colbert, for political reasons,
was determined to support. Shut out, in spite of the deserved
success of his decorations of the cupola of Val de Grace (1664),
from any great share in those public works the control of which
was the attribute of the new Academy, Mignard was chiefly
active in portraiture. Turenne, Moliére, Bossuet, Maintenon
(Louvre), La Valliére, Sévigné, Montespan, Descartes (Castle
Howard), all the beauties and celebrities of his day, sat to him.
His readiness and skill, his happy instinct for grace of arrangement,
atoned for want of originality and real power. With
the death of Le Brun (1690) the situation changed; Mignard
deserted his allies, and succeeded to all the posts held by his
opponent. These late honours he did not long enjoy; in 1695
he died whilst about to commence work on the cupola of the
Invalides. His best compositions have been engraved by
Audran, Edelinck, Masson, Poilly and others.
MIGNE, JACQUES PAUL (1800–1875), French priest and publisher, was born at St Flour, Cantal, on the 25th of October 1800. He studied theology at Orleans, was ordained priest in 1824 and placed in charge of the parish of Puiseaux, in the diocese of Orleans. In 1833 he went to Paris, and started L’Univers religieux, which afterwards became Louis Veuillot’s ultramontane organ. On severing his connexion with the paper three years later, he opened at Petit Montrouge, near Paris, the great publishing house which brought out in rapid succession
numerous religious works at popular prices. The best known of these are: Scripturae sacrae cursus completus, and Theologiae cursus (each in 28 vols., 1840–1845); Collection des auteurs sacrés (100 vols., 1846–1848); Encyclopédie théologique (171 vols.,
1844–1866); Patrologiae cursus completus, Latin series in 221 vols. (1844–1855; 2nd edition, 1878 seq.); Greek series, first
published in Latin (85 vols., 1856–1861); with Greek text and
Latin translation (165 vols., 1857–1866). Unfortunately these
editions, brought out in great haste and often edited by superficial
scholars, do not come up to the requirements of modern
criticism. By far the most noteworthy is the Patrology,
which was superintended by the learned Benedictine J. B. Pitra.
Its vast scope leaves it still unique and valuable, where other
editions of special works do not exist. The indices in 3 vols.
are arranged so that one may easily find any reference in the
patristic writings. In February 1868 a great fire destroyed
the whole of Migne’s printing premises, but he established
a new house in Paris, which was purchased in 1876 by the
publishers Garnier Frères, who still own all the works brought
out by Migne. He died in Paris on the 25th of October 1875.
For a more complete account of Migne’s life, see the article in the Catholic Encyclopedia (New York, 1906 seq.).
MIGNET, FRANÇOIS AUGUSTE ALEXIS (1796–1884), French historian, was born at Aix in Provence on the 8th of
May 1796, and died at Paris on the 24th of March 1884. His father, a Vendean by birth, was an ordinary locksmith, who
enthusiastically accepted the principles of the French Revolution
and roused in his son the same love for liberal ideas. Francois
had brilliant successes when studying at Avignon in the lycée
where he was afterwards professor (1815); he returned to Aix
to study law, and in 1818 was called to the bar, where his eloquence
would have ensured his success had he not preferred
the career of an historian. His abilities were shown in an
Éloge de Charles VII., which was crowned by the Académie
de Nîmes in 1820, and a memoir on Les Institutions de Saint
Louis, which in 1821 was crowned by the Académie des Inscriptions
et Belles Lettres. He then went to Paris, where he was
soon joined by his friend and compatriot, Adolphe Thiers, the
future president of the French republic. He was introduced
by J. A. Manuel, formerly a member of the Convention, to the
Liberal paper, Courrier français, where he became a member
of the staff which carried on a fierce pen-and-ink warfare against
the Restoration. He acquired his knowledge of the men and
intrigues of the Napoleonic epoch from Talleyrand. He wrote
a Histoire de la révolution française (1824) in support of the
Liberal cause. It was an enlarged sketch, prepared in four
months, in which more stress was laid on fundamental theories
than on the facts, which are more rigidly linked together than
their historical sequence warrants. In 1830 he founded the
National with Thiers and Armand Carrel, and signed the journalists’
protest against the Ordonnances de juillet, but he refused
to accept his share of the spoil after his party had won. He
was satisfied with the modest position of director of the archives
at the Foreign Office, where he stayed till the revolution of 1848,
when he was dismissed, and retired permanently into private
life. He had been elected a member of the Académie des
Sciences Morales et Politiques, re-established in 1832, and
in 1837 was made the permanent secretary; he was also elected
a member of the Académie Française in 1836, and sought no
further honours. He was well known in fashionable circles,
where his witty. conversation and his pleasant manners made
him a favourite. The greater part of his time was, however,
given to study and to his academic duties. Eulogies on his
deceased fellow-members, the Academy reports on its work and
on the prizes awarded by it, which it was part of Mignet’s
duty as secretary to draw up, were literary fragments thoroughly
appreciated by connoisseurs. They were collected in Mignet’s
Notices et portraits. He worked slowly when in his study, and
willingly lingered over research. With the exception of his
description of the French Revolution, which was chiefly a political
manifesto, all his early works refer to the middle ages—De
La féodalité, des institutions de Saint Louis et de l’influence de la
législation de ce prince (1822); La Germanie au viiiᵉ et au ixᵉ siècle, sa conversion au christianisme, et son introduction dans la société civilisée de l’Europe occidentale (1834); Essai sur la formation territoriale et politique de la France depuis la fin du xiᵉ siècle jusqu’à la fin du xvᵉ (1836); all of these are rough sketches showing only the outlines of the subject. His most noted works are devoted to modern history. For a long time he had been taken up with a history of the Reformation, but only one part of it, dealing with the Reformation at Geneva, has been published. His Histoire de Marie Stuart (2 vols., 1851)
