is well worth reading; the author made liberal use of some important unpublished documents, taken for the greater part from the archives of Simancas. He devoted some volumes to a history of Spain, which had a well-deserved success—Charles Quint, son abdication, son séjour, et sa mort au monastère de Yuste (1845); Antonio Perez et Philippe II. (1845); and Histoire de la rivalité de François I. et de Charles Quint (1875). At the same time he had been commissioned to publish the diplomatic acts relating to the War of the Spanish Succession for the Collection des documents inédits; only four volumes of these Négociations were published (1835–1842), and they do not go further than the peace of Nijmwegen; but the introduction is celebrated, and Mignet reprinted it in his Mélanges historiques.
See the eulogy of Mignet by Victor Duruy, delivered on entering the Académie Française on the 18th of June 1885, and the notice by Jules Simon, read before the Académie des Sciences Morales et Politiques on the 7th of November 1885.
MIGNON, ABRAHAM (1640–1697), Dutch painter, was born at Frankfort. His father, a merchant, placed him under the
still-life painter Jacob Merrel, by whom he was taken to Holland
about 1660. He then worked under de Heem at Utrecht,
where in 1675 he married the daughter of the painter Cornelis
Willaerts. Sibylle Merian (1647–1717), daughter of the engraver
Matthew Merian, became his pupil and achieved distinction
as a flower painter. He died at. Wetzlar. Mignon devoted
himself almost exclusively to flowers, fruit, birds and other
“still life,” though at times he also attempted portraiture. His
flower pieces are marked by careful finish and delicate handling.
His favourite scheme was to introduce red or White roses in
the centre of the canvas and to set the whole group of flowers
against a dark background. Nowhere can his work be seen
to better advantage than at the Dresden Gallery, which contains
fifteen of his paintings, twelve of which are signed. Six of
his pictures are at the Louvre, four at the Hermitage, and
other examples are to be found at the museums of Amsterdam,
The Hague, Rotterdam, Brussels, Munich, Karlsruhe, Brunswick,
Cassel, Schwerin, Copenhagen and Turin.
MIGNONETTE, or Mignonnette (i.e. “little darling”),
the name given to a popular garden flower, the Reseda odorata
of botanists, a “fragrant weed,” as Cowper calls it, highly
esteemed for its delicate but delicious perfume. The mignonette
is generally regarded as being of annual duration, and is a
plant of diffuse decumbent twiggy habit, scarcely reaching
a foot in height, clothed with bluntish lanceolate entire or
three-lobed leaves, and bearing longish spikes—technically
racemes—of rather insignificant flowers at the ends of the
numerous branches and branchlets. The plant thus naturally
assumes the form of a low dense mass of soft green foliage
studded over freely with the racemes of flowers, the latter
unobtrusive and likely to be overlooked until their diffused
fragrance compels attention. It is probably a native of North
Africa and was sent to England from Paris in 1742; and ten
years later it appears to have been sent from Leiden to Philip
Miller at Chelsea. Though originally a slender and rather
straggling plant, there are now some improved garden varieties
in which the growth is more compact and vigorous, and the
inflorescence bolder, though the odour is perhaps less penetrating.
The small six-petalled flowers are somewhat curious
in structure: the two upper petals are larger, concave, and
furnished at the back with a tuft of club-shaped filaments,
which gives them the appearance of being deeply incised,
while the two lowest petals are much smaller and undivided;
the most conspicuous part consists of the anthers, which are
numerous and of a brownish red, giving the tone of colour
to the inflorescence. In the varieties named Golden Queen
and Golden Machet the anthers have a decided tint of orange-yellow,
which imparts a brighter golden hue to the plants
when in blossom. A handsome proliferous or double-flowered
variety has also been obtained, which is a very useful decorative
plant, though only to be propagated by cuttings; the double
white flowers grow in large massive panicles (proliferous
racemes), and are equally fragrant with those of the ordinary
forms.
What is called tree mignonette in gardens is due to the skill of the cultivator. Though practically a British annual, as already noted, since it flowers abundantly the first season, and is utterly destroyed by the autumnal frosts, and though recorded as being annual in its native habitat by Desfontaines in the Flora Atlantica, the mignonette, like many other plants treated in England as annuals, will continue to grow on if kept in a suitable temperature. Moreover, the life of certain plants of this semi-annual character may be prolonged into a second season if their flowering and seeding are persistently prevented. In applying these facts to the production of tree mignonette, the gardener grows on the young plants under glass, and prevents their flowering by nipping off the blooming tips of the shoots, so that they continue their vegetative growth into the second season. The young plants are at first supported in an erect position, the laterals being removed so as to secure clean upright stems, and then at the height of one or two feet or more, as may be desired, a head of branches is encouraged to develop itself. In this way very large plants can be produced.
For ordinary purposes, however, other plans are adopted. In the open borders of the flower garden mignonette is usually sown in spring, and in great part takes care of itself; but being a favourite either for window or balcony culture, and on account of its fragrance a welcome inmate of town conservatories, it is also very extensively grown as a pot plant, and for market purposes with this object it is sown in pots in the autumn, and thinned out to give the plants requisite space, since it does not transplant well, and it is thereafter specially grown in pits protected from frosts, and marketed when just arriving at the blooming stage. In this way hundreds of thousands of pots of blooming mignonette are raised and disposed of year by year.
In classifying the odours given off by plants Rimmel ranks the mignonette in the class of which he makes the violet the type; and Fée adopts the same view, referring it to his class of “iosmoids” along with the violet and wallflower.
The genus Reseda contains about fifty species, natives of Europe and West Asia. R. luteola, commonly called dyer’s-weed and weld, yields a valuable yellow dye. R. alba is a fine biennial about 2 ft. high, with erect spikes of whitish flowers.
MIGNONS, LES. In a general sense the French word mignon means “favourite,” but the people of Paris used it in a special sense to designate the favourites of Henry III. of France, frivolous and fashionable young men, to whom public malignity attributed dissolute morals. According to the contemporary chronicler Pierre de l’Estoile, they made themselves “exceedingly odious, as much by their foolish and haughty demeanour, as by their effeminate and immodest dress, but above all by
the immense gifts the king made to them.” The Guises appear to have stirred up the ill will of the Parisians against them. From 1576 the mignons were attacked by popular opinion,
and historians accredited without proof the scandalous stories
of the time. The best known of the mignons were the dukes
of Toyeuse and of Epernon.
MIGNOT, CLAUDINE FRANÇOISE [commonly called Marie] (c. 1617–1711), French adventuress, was born near Grenoble, at Meylan. At the age of sixteen she attracted the notice of the secretary of Pierre des Portes d’Amblérieux, treasurer of the province of Dauphiny, and Amblérieux promised to promote their marriage. He married the girl himself, however, and left her his fortune. His will was disputed by his family,
and Claudine went to Paris in 1653 to secure its fulfilment. She sought the protection of Francois de l’Hôpital, marshal of France, then a man of seventy-five. He married her within a week of their first meeting, and after seven years of marriage
died leaving her part of his estate. By a third and morganatic
marriage in 1672 with John Casimir, ex-king of Poland, a few
weeks before his death, she received a third fortune. Immediately
on her marriage with Amblérieux she had begun to
educate herself, and her wealth and talents assured her a welcome
in Paris. She retired in her old age to a Carmelite convent
in the city, where she died on the 30th of November 1711.
Her history, very much modified, was the subject of a play by Bayard and Paul Duport, Marie Mignot (1829).
MIGRATION. Under this title will be considered movements of men with intention of changing their residence or domicile. Such migration (Lat. migrare) may be either external—that is, from one country to another, including emigration from mother country to colony; or it may be internal—that is, within
