MoMAHOH
505
McMAHON
eral Achard. His military career in Algeria lasted
twenty years (1834 to 1854), and he there gained ex-
oeptioniu distinction in the assault on Constantine.
In the Crimean War he led the attack on The Malakoff
(8 Sept., 1855); in the Italian War he effected the
decisive movement of the victory of Magenta (4 June,
1859), and was created a marshal and Due de Magenta
on the field of battle. On 1 September, 1864, he was
appointed Governor-General ot Algeria, and in that
position became involved in a controversjr with Arch-
oishop (afterwards Cardinal) Lavigene which attracted
much attention at the time. Mkr Lavigerie, then Arch-
bishop of Algiers, having just fotmded the Soci^td des
Missionnaires d'Algers, had collected more than a
thousand Ajnab chudren in his orphanages, to save
them from typhus fever and starvation. MacMahon
protested publicly against a letter dated 6 April, 1868,
m which the archbishop, announcing his intention of
founding a nursery of Arab Christians, concluded with
the declaration: " France must either let the Gospel be
given to this people or drive them into the desert, away
from the civilfzed world." In a letter dated 26 April,
1868. MacMahon accused Lavigerie of wishing to push
the Arabs back into the desert. Lavigerie explained
that his meaning had been misunderstood, and refused
the coadiutorship of Lyons, which the emperor, to
satisfy MacMahon, offered him. The incident was
closed by a letter from Marshal Xicl, the minister of
war (28 May, 1868).
At the beginning of the Franco-German War Mac- Mahon 's advance guard was beaten at Wissembourg (4 Au^st, 1870), and his own corps was outnumbered at Reischoffen (6 August, 1870); he commanded the retreat on Chalons, and then, obeying the orders of Palikas, the minister of war, led the army to Sedan, where he was wounded, and where Napoleon III was obliged to capitulate (1 September). On 28 May, 1871, MacMahon completed the victory of the Ver- sailles Army over the Paris Commune^ and effected the entry ot the regular troops into Pans. His splen- did military career won general admiration. " A per- fect military officer" (officier de guerre complet), Samt- Amaud called him; and Thiers, the "chevalier sans peur et sans reproche" (the fearless, blameless knight). Upon the fall of Thiers in the session of 24 May, 1873, the National Assembly elected MacMahon president by a majority of 390 to 2, the Left abstaining from voting. In his message of 26 May he promisedf to be "energetically and resolutely Conservative" (iTter- giquemerU et riaolilmerU canservateur) , and to be "the sentinel on guard over the integrity of the sovereign power of the Assembly'*. These expressions define the spirit in which he exercised his omce as president. Being determined to devote himself loyally to "the integrity of the sovereign power of the Assembly", he refused to associate lumself with any projects looking to the restoration of the Comte de Chambord and the White Flag.
The Assembly having (9 November, 1873) fixed his term of office at seven years, he declared in a speech delivered 4 February, 1874, tnat he would know how to make the legally established order of things respected for seven years. Preferring to remain above party, he rather assisted at than took part in the proceedings which, in January and February, 1875, led up to the passage of the fundamental laws finally establishing the Republic as the le^l government of France. And yet MacMahon writes m his still unpublished memoirs: " By family tradition, and by the sentiments towards the royal house which were instilled in me by my early education, I could not be anything but a Legitunist." He felt some repugnance, too, in forming^ in 1876, the Dufaure and the Jules Simon cabinets, m which the Republican element was represented.^ When the epis- copal charges of the Bishops of Poitiers, Ntmes, and Nevers, recommending the ease of the oaptive Pope Pius IX to the sympathy of the French Govemn\ent,
were met by a resolution in the Chamber, proposed by
the Left, that the Government be requestea "to re-
press Ultramontane manifestations" (4 May^ 1877),
AfacMahon, twelve days later, asked Jules Simon to
resign, summoned to power a Conservative ministry
under the Due de Broglie, persuaded the Senate to
dissolve the Chamber, and travelled through the coun-
try to assure the success of the Conservatives in the
elections, protesting at the same time that he did not
wish to overturn the Republic. However, the elec-
tions of 14 October resulted in a majority of 120 for
the Left; the de Broglie ministry resigned 19 Novem-
ber, and the president formed a Left cabinet under
Dufaure. He retained his office until 1878, so as to
allow the Exposition Universelle to take place in polit-
ical peace, and then, the senatorial elections of 5 Jan-
uary, 1879, having brought another victory to the
Left, MacMahon found a pretext to resign (30 Janu-
ary, 1879), and Jules Gr^vy succeeded him.
This soldier was not made for politics. " I have re- mained a soldier", he says in his memoirs, "and I can conscientiouslv say that I have not only served one government after another loyally, but, when they fell, have regretted all of them with the single exception oi niy own. ' ' In his voluntary retirement he earned with liim the esteem of all parties: Jules Simon, who did not love him, and whom he did not love, afterwards culled him "a great captain^ a great citizen, and a righteous man " (un grand capitaine, un grand citoyen et un homnie de bien). Ilis presidency may be summed up in two words: on the one hand, he allowed the Republic to establish itself; on the other hand, so far as his lawful prerogatives permitted, he retarded the poUtical advance of parties hostile to the Church, convinced that the triumph of Radicalism would be to the detriment of France. The last fourteen years of his life were passed in retirement, quite removed from political interests. In 1893 he was buried, with national honours, in the crypt of the Invalides.
Laforoe, Histoire compUie de MacMahon (3 vols., Paris, 1898); Chkrot, Figures de Soldata (Lille, 1900): Lebrun, Souvenirs des Guerres de Crimee el d'ltalie (Paris, 1890); Ban- NARD, Le cardinal Lavigerie. I (Paris, 1896), 234-264; Daudbt, Souvenirs de la prrsidmce de MacMahon (Paris, 1880); Hano- TAUX, Hiatoxre de la France eontemporaine, II, III, IV (Paris, 1904-1908): Dk MAKckRU, UassembUe Nationale de 1871, 11 (Pariis, 1007); Idem, Le seize Mai et la fin du Septennat (Paris, 1900); Idem, Hist, de la R/Tfublique de 1876 h 1879 (2 vols., Paris, 1908 and 1910).
Georges Goyau.
McMahon, Martin Thomas, soldier, jurist; b. at Laprairie, Canada, 21 March, 1838; d. in New York. 21 April, 1906. His parents took him to the Unitea Stateis when he was three weeks old and eventually settled in New York. He attended St. John's College, Fordham, where he was graduated in 1855. To study law he went to Buffalo, thence as a special agent on the post-office to the Pacific coast and was admitted to the oar at Sacramento, Cal., in 1861 . When the Civil War broke out he raised the first company of cavalry of the Pacific coast, but resigned its captaincy when he found it would not go to the front and went east to Wash- ington where he was appointed an aide-de-camp to G^eral McClellan. He served with the Army of the Potomac all through the war, and at its close had at- tained the rank of brevet Major-Greneral of Volun- teers. For bravery at the battle of White Oak Swamp he received the medal of honour from Congress. In 1866 he resigned from the army and was appointed corporation counsel of New York City (1866-67) and then was sent as Minister to Paraguay ( 1 868-69) . On his return he practised law until 1881, he was made Receiver of Taxes, U. S. Marshal, State Assemblyman and Senator. In 1896 he was elected Judge of the Court of General Sessions which office he held at this death.
His brothers, John Eugene, and James Power, were also lawyers and soldiers and both hftVl^^ ^^^^sissikss^
