Menart, Qlestin, a French prelate, was born at Flavigny, diocese of Autun, about the bcginninj; of the 15th century. He was successively treasurer to the chapel of Dijon, provost of St. Omer, counsellor to the duke Philippe de Bourgogne, and his ambassador to the kings of France, England, and Germany. The letters of pope Eugenius IV, who afterwards promoted him to the metropolitan see of Besanc^on, bear the date of Sept. 18, 1439. He made his entrance into that city Aug. 1, 1440. There was at that time no kingdom or repul)lic whose administration was more difficult than that of the Church of Besanc^on. The archbishop pretended, by virtue of ancient titles, to be temporal lord of the city; but the citizens contested these assumed rights, and reserved to themselves uniiualified freedom, which they did not hesitate to defend at all times even at the point of the sword, so that between the archbishop and his lieople there was continual war. Quentin :Menart had just taken possession of his sec as his procurator had arrested a citizen whom he accused of heresy, and caused to be condemned by the ecclesiastical judge. The citizens declared that this crime of heresy was only a pretext, and came to the archbishop's palace bringing a complaint which greatly resembled a menace. The latter was obliged to yield, blamed the conduct of his procurator, and restored liberty to the condemned her- etic. Very soon other tumults arose. On the heights of Bregille the archbishop possessed a castle, which overlooked and irritated the city of Besan(;on. A pre- text offering itself, the citizens repaired to Bregille, and entirely demolished not only the castle, but tlie adja- cent houses also, INIenart complained in his turn, but they scarcely listened to him. He then retired to his castle of Gy, with all his court, and hurled against the city a sentence of interdiction. The citizens of Besan- (;;on, however, were not superstitious enough to fear this punishment, and submitted without a mumnir to the suffering inflicted bv the resentment of the archbishop,
MENASSEH BEN-ISRAEL
79
MENCIUS
and refused to yield in order to obtain a repeal of the interdict. Menart proceeded to Rome, and invoked the authority of the pope ; the pope delegated the affair to a cardinal, who even aggravated the sentence pronounced upon the rebels. But the people carried the cause be- fore the tribunal of the emperor, and the latter sent many of his counsellors successiveh' to Besan^on — Di- dier of Montreal, Hartung of Cappel — who in their turn declared Queutin Menart accused and guilty of rebellion. At last, in April, 1450, this great lawsuit was terminated, Menart coming forth victor. The castle of Bregille was reconstructed at the expense of the citizens. Then the archbishop of Besanoon returned to his city and to his palace, where he died, Dec. 18, 1462. See Dimod, Hist, de VEglise de Besangon, vol. i; L'Abbe Eichard, Hist, des Dioc. de Besangon et de Saint-Claude, — Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, s. v. Meuasseh ben-Israel. See Manasseh bex-
ISRAEL.
Menasseh Vital. See Vital.
Mencius (or Meng), one of the two great Chinese sages (the other being Confucius), is supposed by Legge (whose statements we condense) to have been born about the year B.C. 371, one hundred years after the death of Confucius, and to have been contemporarj^ with Plato, Aristotle, Zeno, Epicurus, and Demosthenes. His name, like that of his great exemplar, was Latinized by the Jesuits from Meng-tse, as that of the earlier sage was from Koong-foo-tse, to conform to which the later wor- thy should have been called Meng-foo-ise, or Menfacius. The Chinese language is monosyllabic, and the original one hundred family names of the empire are all mono- syllables. In transferring the names Koong and IMeng into Latin or English, foreigners have fallen into the ludicrous mistake of confounding name and title, and making a single polysyllabic surname out of the two — as if the Chinese were to make Popjohn out of pope John, or Lordbut out of lord Bute !
Men often owe their greatness to their mothers. The mother of Meng is celebrated throughout China as a model of feminine wisdom in family training. The first home of her widowhood ^vas near a cemetery, and her little boy, with the instinctive imitativeness pecidiar to children, began to practice funeral ceremonies, and to per- form Liliputian burial-rites. " This will never do," said Madam Meng, " my son will grow up an undertaker," and she promptly removed to a house in the market- place. Here the boy imitated the cries, disputes, and chafferings of the buyers and sellers. " This will not answer," said the watchful mother, " he will make only a pedler or an auctioneer," and again she removed and took up her abode in the vicinity of a school. The youth forthwith took to chanting lessons in concert with the loud chorus peculiar to the Chinese school-room. " This wOl do," said the prudent dame, " my son will become a scholar," and she was not disappointed in her forecasting. Nevertheless he was, like all boys, indif- ferent and careless, and we are told that, to quicken his zeal and give him a striking lesson, his mother one day surprised and alarmed him by suddenly cutting asunder the web she was weaving. Upon his inquiring why she did it, she replied that thus, by his idleness, he was cutting asunder the web of opportunity, and destroying his prospects for life, just as she had destroyed the prod- uct of the loom. The boy was affected, and gave great- er diligence to his studies. These are all the glimpses we have of philosopher Mepg, until we meet him in public life at forty years of age. He must have spent his early years in diligent study of the classics, but how, or under what masters, we are riot informed. In his writings he saj-s, "Although I could not be a disciple of Confucius myself, I have endeavored to cultivate my character and knowledge by means of others who were." Like his master Confucius, Mencius doubtless assumed the othce of a teacher — not a teacher or professor in our Western sense, but a peripatetic advocate of morals, po-