in March 1792 he was elected lieutenant-colonel of one of the battalions of the Eure-et-Loire; he took part in the defence of Verdun in 1792, and it fell to his lot to bear the proposals of capitulation to the Prussian camp. The spiritless conduct of the defenders excited the wrath of the revolutionary authorities, and Marceau was fortunate in escaping arrest and finding re-employment as a captain in the regular service. Early in 1793 he became with other officers “suspect,” and was for some time imprisoned. On his release he hurried to take part in the defence of Saumur against the Vendéan royalists, and distinguished himself at the combat of Saumur (June 10, 1793) by gallantly rescuing the representative Bourbotte from the hands of the insurgents. The Convention voted him the thanks of the country, and thenceforward his rise was rapid. His conduct at Chantonnay (Sept. 5) won him the provisional rank of general of brigade. On the 17th of October he bore a great part in the victory of Cholet, and on the field of this battle began his friendship with Kléber. For the victory of Cholet Kléber was made general of division and Marceau confirmed as general of brigade. Their advice was of the greatest value to the generals in command, and the military talents of each were the complement of the other’s. Marceau, who became general of division (Nov. 10), succeeded to the chief command ad interim, and with his friend won important victories near Le Mans (Dec 12–13) and Savenay (Dec. 23). After the battle of Le Mans, Marceau rescued and protected a young Royalist lady, Angélique des Mesliers. It is often supposed that he was in love with his prisoner; but the help even of the commander-in-chief did not avail to save her from the guillotine (Jan. 22, 1794). Marceau had already retired from the war, exhausted by the fatigues of the campaign, and he and Kléber were saved from arrest and execution only by the intervention of Bourbotte. Marceau became affianced about this time to Agathe Leprêtre de Châteaugiron, but his constant military employment, his broken health, and the opposition of the comte de Châteaugiron on the one hand and of Marceau’s devoted half-sister “Emira,” wife of the Republican politician Sergent, on the other, prevented the realization of his hopes. After spending the winter of 1793–1794 in Paris he took a command in the army under Jourdan, in which Kléber also served. He took part in the various battles about Charleroi, and at the final victory of Fleurus (June 26, 1794) he had a horse shot under him. He distinguished himself again at Jülich and at Aldenhoven, and stormed the lines of Coblenz on the 23rd of October. With the Army of the Sambre and Meuse he took his share in the campaign of 1795 on the Rhine and the Lahn, distinguishing himself particularly with Kléber in the fighting about Neuwied on the 18th and 19th of October, and at Sulzbach on the 17th of December. In the campaign of 1796 the famous invasion of Germany by the armies of Jourdan and Moreau ended in disaster, and Marceau’s men covered Jourdan’s retreat over the Rhine. He fought the desperate actions on the Lahn (Sept. 16 and 18), and at Altenkirchen on the 19th received a mortal wound, of which he died on the 21st, at the early age of twenty-seven. The Austrians vied with his own countrymen in doing honour to the dead general. His body was burned, and his ashes, which at the time were placed under a pyramid designed by Kléber, were transferred in 1889 to the Pantheon at Paris.
See Maze, Le Général Marceau (1889); Parfait, Le Général Marceau (1892); and T. C. Johnson, Marceau (London, 1896).
MARCEL, ÉTIENNE (d. 1358), provost of the merchants of Paris under King John II., belonged by birth to the wealthy Parisian bourgeoisie, being the son of a clothier named Simon
Marcel and of Isabelle Barbou. He is mentioned as provost
of the Grande-Confrérie of Notre Dame in 1350, and in 1354
he succeeded Jean de Pacy as provost of the Parisian merchants.
His political career began in 1356, when John was made prisoner
after the battle of Poitiers. In conjunction with Robert le
Coq, bishop of Laon, he played a leading part in the states-general
called together by the dauphin Charles on the 17th
of October. A committee of eighty members, constituted
on their initiative, pressed their demands with such insistence
that the dauphin prorogued the states-general; but financial
straits obliged him to summon them once more on the 3rd
of February 1357, and the promulgation of a great edict of
reform was the consequence. John the Good forbade its
being put into effect, whereupon a conflict began between
Marcel and the dauphin, Marcel endeavouring to set up Charles
the Bad, king of Navarre, in opposition to him. The states-general
assembled again on the 13th of January 1358, and on
the 22nd of February the populace of Paris, led by Marcel,
invaded the palace and murdered the marshals of Champagne
and Normandy before the prince’s eyes. Thenceforward
Marcel was in open hostility to the throne. After vainly
hoping that the insurrection of the Jacquerie might turn to
his advantage, he next supported the king of Navarre, whose
armed bands infested the neighbourhood of Paris. On the
night of the 31st of July Marcel was about to open the gates
of the capital to them, but Jean Maillart prevented the execution
of this design, and killed him before the Porte Saint-Antoine.
During the following days his adherents were likewise put to
death, and the dauphin was enabled to re-enter Paris. Étienne
Marcel married first Jeanne de Dammartin, and secondly
Marguerite des Essars, who survived him.
See F. T. Perrens, Étienne Marcel et le gouvernement de la bourgeoisie au xiv e siècle (Paris, 1860); P. Frémaux, La Famille d’Étienne Marcel, in the Mémoires of the Société de l’histoire de Paris et de l’Île de France (1903), vol. xxx.; and Hon. R. D. Denman, Étienne Marcel (1898). (J. V.*)
MARCELLINUS, ST, according to the Liberian catalogue,
became bishop of Rome on the 30th of June, 296; his predecessor
was Caius or Gaius. He is not mentioned in the
Martyrologium hieronymianum, or in the Depositio episcoporum,
or in the Depositio martyrum. The Liber pontificalis, basing
itself on the Acts of St Marcellinus, the text of which is lost,
relates that during Diocletian’s persecution Marcellinus was
called upon to sacrifice, and offered incense to idols, but that,
repenting shortly afterwards, he confessed the faith of Christ
and suffered martyrdom with several companions. Other
documents speak of his defection, and it is probably this lapse
that explains the silence of the ancient liturgical calendars. In
the beginning of the 5th century Petilianus, the Donatist
bishop of Constantine, affirmed that Marcellinus and his priests
had given up the holy books to the pagans during the persecution
and offered incense to false gods. St Augustine contents
himself with denying the affair (Contra litt. Petiliani, ii. 202;
De unico baptismo, 27). The records of the pseudo-council
of Sinuessa, which were fabricated at the beginning of the
6th century, state that Marcellinus after his fall presented
himself before a council, which refused to try him on the ground
that prima sedes a nemine iudicatur. According to the Liber
pontificalis, Marcellinus was buried, on the 26th of April 304,
in the cemetery of Priscilla, on the Via Salaria, 25 days after his
martyrdom; the Liberian catalogue gives as the date the 25th
of October. The fact of the martyrdom, too, is not established
with certainty. After a considerable interregnum he was
succeeded by Marcellus, with whom he has sometimes been
confounded.
See L. Duchesne, Liber pontificalis, I. lxxiii.–lxxiv. 162–163, and II. 563. (H. De.)
MARCELLO, BENEDETTO (1686–1739), Italian musical
composer, was born in 1686, either on the 31st of July or on the 1st of August. He was of noble family (in his compositions he is frequently described as “Patrizio Veneto”), and although a pupil of Lotti and Gasparini, was intended by his father to devote himself to the law. In 1711 he was a member of the Council of Forty, and in 1730 went to Pola as Provveditore. His health having been impaired by the climate of Istria, he retired after eight years to Brescia in the capacity of Camerlengo, and died there on the 24th of July 1739.
Marcello is best remembered by his Estro poetico-armonico (Venice, 1724–1727), a musical setting for voices and strings
