spirits was gone; and when, in 1865, the presidentship of the Academy was offered to him he declined the honour. He died of acute pneumonia on the 25th of April 1870. His works are distinguished by powerful intellectual and imaginative qualities, but most of them are marred by harsh and dull colouring, by metallic hardness of surface and texture, and by frequent touches of the theatrical in the action and attitudes of the figures. His fame rests most securely on his two greatest works at Westminster.
A memoir of Maclise, by his friend W. J. O’Driscoll, was published in 1871.
MACLURE, WILLIAM (1763–1840), American geologist, was
born at Ayr in Scotland in 1763. After a brief visit to New
York in 1782 he began active life as a partner in a London firm
of American merchants. In 1796 business affairs took him
to Virginia, U.S.A., which he thereafter made his home. In
1803 he visited France as one of the commissioners appointed
to settle the claims of American citizens on the French government;
and during the few years then spent in Europe he applied
himself with enthusiasm to the study of geology. On his return
home in 1807 he commenced the self-imposed task of making a
geological survey of the United States. Almost every state in the
Union was traversed and mapped by him, the Alleghany Mountains
being crossed and recrossed some fifty times. The results
of his unaided labours were submitted to the American Philosophical
Society in a memoir entitled Observations on the Geology
of the United States explanatory of a Geological Map, and published
in the Society’s Transactions (vol. iv. 1809, p. 91) together
with the first geological map of that country. This antedates
William Smith’s geological map of England by six years. In
1817 Maclure brought before the same society a revised edition
of his map, and his great geological memoir was issued separately,
with some additional matter, under the title Observations
on the Geology of the United States of America. Subsequent
survey has corroborated the general accuracy of Maclure’s observations.
In 1819 he visited Spain, and attempted, unsuccessfully,
to establish an agricultural college near the city of Alicante.
Returning to America in 1824, he settled for some years at New
Harmony, Indiana, and sought to develop his scheme of the
agricultural college. Failing health ultimately constrained him
to relinquish the attempt, and to seek (in 1827) a more congenial
climate in Mexico. There, at San Angel, he died on the
23rd of March 1840.
See S. G. Morton, “Memoir of William Maclure,” Amer. Journ. Sci., vol. xlvii. (1844), p. 1.
MacMAHON, MARIE EDMÉ PATRICE MAURICE DE, duke
of Magenta (1808–1893), French marshal and president of the
French republic, was born on the 13th of July 1808 at the château
of Sully, near Autun. He was descended from an Irish family
which went into exile with James II. Educated at the military
school of St Cyr, in 1827 he entered the army, and soon saw
active service in the first French campaign in Algeria, where
his ability and bravery became conspicuous. Being recalled
to France, he gained renewed distinction in the expedition to
Antwerp in 1832. He became captain in 1833, and in that
year returned to Algeria. He led daring cavalry raids across
plains infested with Bedouin, and especially distinguished
himself at the siege of Constantine in 1837. From then until
1855 he was almost constantly in Algeria, and rose to the rank
of general of division. During the Crimean War MacMahon was
given the command of a division, and in September 1855 he
successfully conducted the assault upon the Malakoff works,
which led to the fall of Sebastopol. After his return to France
honours were showered upon him, and he was made a senator.
Desiring a more active life, however, and declining the highest
command in France, he was once more sent out, at his own
request, to Algeria, where he completely defeated the Kabyles.
After his return to France he voted as a senator against the
unconstitutional law for general safety, which was brought
forward in consequence of Orsini’s abortive attempt on the
emperor’s life. MacMahon greatly distinguished himself in the
Italian campaign of 1859. Partly by good luck and partly by
his boldness and sagacity in pushing forward without orders at
a critical moment at the battle of Magenta, he enabled the
French to secure the victory. For his brilliant services MacMahon
received his marshal’s baton and was created duke of
Magenta. In 1861 he represented France at the coronation of
William I. of Prussia, and in 1864 he was nominated governor-general
of Algeria. MacMahon’s action in this capacity formed
the least successful episode of his career. Although he did
institute some reforms in the colonies, complaints were so
numerous that twice in the early part of 1870 he sent in his
resignation to the emperor. When the ill-fated Ollivier cabinet
was formed the emperor abandoned his Algerian schemes and
MacMahon was recalled.
War being declared between France and Prussia in July 1870, MacMahon was appointed to the command of the Alsace army detachment (see Franco-German War). On the 6th of August MacMahon fought the battle of Wörth (q.v.). His courage was always conspicuous on the field, but the two-to-one numerical superiority of the Germans triumphed. MacMahon was compelled to fall back upon Saverne, and thence to Toul. Though he suffered further losses in the course of his retreat, his movements were so ably conducted that the emperor confided to him the supreme command of the new levies which he was mustering at Châlons, and he was directed to effect a junction with Bazaine. This operation he undertook against his will. He had an army of 120,000 men, with 324 guns; but large numbers of the troops were disorganized and demoralized. Early on the 1st of September the decisive battle of Sedan began. MacMahon was dangerously wounded in the thigh, whereupon General Ducrot, and soon afterwards General de Wimpffen, took command. MacMahon shared the captivity of his comrades, and resided at Wiesbaden until the conclusion of peace.
In March 1871 MacMahon was appointed by Thiers commander-in-chief of the army of Versailles; and in that capacity he suppressed the Communist insurrection, and successfully conducted the second siege of Paris. In the following December he was invited to become a candidate for Paris in the elections to the National Assembly, but declined nomination. On the resignation of Thiers as president of the Republic, on the 24th of May 1873, MacMahon was elected to the vacant office by an almost unanimous vote, being supported by 390 members out of 392. The duc de Broglie was empowered to form a Conservative administration, but the president also took an early opportunity of showing that he intended to uphold the sovereignty of the National Assembly. On the 5th of November 1873 General Changarnier presented a motion in the Assembly to confirm MacMahon’s powers for a period of ten years, and to provide for a commission of thirty to draw up a form of constitutional law. The president consented, but in a message to the Assembly he declared in favour of a confirmation of his own powers for seven years, and expressed his determination to use all his influence in the maintenance of Conservative principles. After prolonged debates the Septennate was adopted on the 19th of November by 378 votes to 310. There was no coup d’état in favour of “Henri V.,” as had been expected, and the president resolved to abide by “existing institutions.” One of his earliest acts was to receive the finding of the court-martial upon his old comrade in arms, Marshal Bazaine, whose death sentence he commuted to one of twenty years’ imprisonment in a fortress. Though MacMahon’s life as president of the Republic was of the simplest possible character, his term of office was marked by many brilliant displays, while his wife was a leader in all works of charity and benevolence.
The president was very popular in the rural districts of France, through which he made a successful tour shortly after the declaration of the Septennate. But in Paris and other large cities his policy soon caused great dissatisfaction, the Republican party especially being alienated by press prosecutions and the attempted suppression of Republican ideas. Matters were at a comparative deadlock in the National Assembly, until the accession of some Orleanists to the Moderate Republican party
