university at Saumur, which had a distinguished history until its suppression by Louis XIV. in 1683. In 1598 he published work on which he had long been engaged, entitled De L’institution, usage et doctrine du saint sacrement de l’eucharistie en l’église ancienne, containing about 5000 citations from the scriptures, fathers and schoolmen. Jacques Davy Du Perron, bishop of Evreux, afterwards cardinal and archbishop of Sens, accused him of misquoting at least 500, and a public disputation was held at Fontainebleau on the 4th of May 1600. Decision was awarded to Du Perron on nine points presented, when the disputation was interrupted by the illness of Mornay. His last years were saddened by the loss of his only son in 1605 and of his devoted wife in 1606, and were marked only by perfecting the Huguenot organization. He was chosen a deputy in 1618 to represent the French Protestants at the synod of Dort, and though prohibited from attending by Louis XIII., he contributed materially to its deliberations by written communications. He was deprived of the governorship of Saumur at the time of the Huguenot insurrection in 1621, and died in retirement on his estate of La Forét-sur-Sevre on the 11th of November 1623.
His principal works, in addition to De L’institution, usage et doctrine du saint sacrement de l’eucharistie en l’église ancienne (La Rochelle, 1598), mentioned above, are Excellent discours de la vie et de la mort (London, 1577), a bridal present to Charlotte Arbaleste; Traité de l’église où l’on traite des principales questions qui ont été mues sur ce point en nostre temps (London, 1578); Traité de la verité de la religion chrétienne contre les athées, épicuriens, payens, juifs, mahométans et autres infidèles (Antwerp, 1581); Le mystère d’iniquité, c’est à dire, l’histoire de la papauté (Geneva, 1611). Two volumes of Mémoires, from 1572 to 1589, appeared at La Forêt (1624–1625), and a continuation in 2 vols. at Amsterdam (1652); a more complete but very inaccurate edition (Mémoires, correspondances, et vie) in 12 vols. was published at Paris in 1624–1625.
See the life of Mornay written by his wife for the instruction of their son, Mémoires de Mme Duplessis-Mornay, vol. i. in the ed. of Mémoires et correspondances de Duplessis-Mornay (Paris, 1824–1825); E. and E. Haag, La France protestante, article “Mornay”; J. Ambert, Du Plessis-Mornay (Paris, 1847); E. Stähelin, Der Übertritt K. Heinrichs IV. von Frankreich zur katholischen Kirche (Basel, 1856); Weiss, Du Plessis Mornay comme théologien (Strassburg, 1867). There is a good article “Du Plessis-Mornay” by T. Schott in Hauck’s Realencyklopädie, and another by Grube in Kirchenlexikon.
MORNING, properly the dawn of day, sunrise, but extended to the whole early part of the day, from the dawn to midday. “Morning” (M. Eng. morwening) was formed on the analogy of “evening,” from “morn,” in M. Eng. morwen, and originally meant the coming of the sunrise, as “evening,” the coming of the close of the day (O. Eng. æfnung, from æfen, eve). The O. Eng. morgen represents the common Teutonic word for the dawn; the ultimate source has been assigned to the root, seen in “murk,” “murky,” meaning to be dark, or, with more probability, to the root mergh, to twinkle, shine (cf. Lith. mirga), and further to the root mar, as in Gr. μαρμαίρειν, to shine (cf. Lat. marmor, marble). The M. Eng. morwen dropped the n and became morwe, “morrow,” which properly means “morning,” but was soon used of the day following the present.
The “morning-star” (Ger. Morgenstern) was a military weapon of the middle ages, consisting of a mace or club with a ball head studded with spikes; the spiked ball was sometimes swung loose from the head of the mace by a chain. The weapon was also known as a “holy water sprinkler.” The “morning-gift,” earlier “moryeve,” Ger. Morgengabe, was the present given to a bride by her husband on the morning after the marriage. The custom is probably connected with the origin of the term “morganatic marriage” (see Morganatic).
MORNY, CHARLES AUGUSTE LOUIS JOSEPH, Duc de
(1811–1865), French statesman, was the natural son of Hortense Beauharnais (wife of Louis Bonaparte, and queen of Holland)
and Charles Joseph, comte de Flahaut (q.v.), and therefore half-brother
of Napoleon III. He was born in Paris on the 21st of
October 1811, and his birth was duly registered in a certificate
which made him the legitimate son of Auguste Jean Hyacinthe
Demorny, described as a landowner of St. Domingo. M.
Demorny was in fact an officer in the Prussian army and a
native of St Domingo, though he owned no land there or elsewhere.
After a brilliant school and college career he received
a commission in the army, and next year entered the staff college
and became lieutenant. The comte de Morny, as he was called
by a polite fiction, served in Algeria in 1834–35 as aide-de-camp
to General Camille Alphonse Trezel, whose life he saved under
the walls of Constantine. When he returned to Paris in 1838
he secured a solid position in the business world by the establishment
of a great beetroot-sugar industry at Clermont in Auvergne,
and by writing a pamphlet Sur la question des sucres in 1838.
In these and other lucrative speculations he was helped by the
beautiful and wealthy wife of the Belgian ambassador, Charles
Joseph, comte Lehon, until there were few great commercial
enterprises in Paris in which he had not an interest. Although
he sat as deputy for Clermont-Ferrand from 1842 onwards he
took at first no important part in party politics, but he was
heard with respect on industrial and financial questions. He
supported the government of Louis Philippe, because revolution
threatened his commercial interests, but before the catastrophe
of 1848, by which he was temporarily ruined, he meditated
conversion to the legitimist cause represented by the comte de
Chambord. His attitude was expressed by the mot with which
he is said to have replied to a lady who asked what he would do
if the Chamber were “swept out.” “Range myself on the side
of the broom handle,” was his answer. Presently he was
admitted to the intimate circle of Louis Napoleon, and he helped
to engineer the coup d’état of the 2nd of December 1851 on the
morrow of which he received the ministry of the interior. After
six months of office, during which he had shown commendable
moderation and tact to his political opponents, he resigned his
portfolio, ostensibly because he disapproved of the confiscation
of the Orleans property but really because Napoleon, influenced
by Morny’s rivals, resented his pretensions to a foremost place
in the government and his desire to insist on his claims as a
member of the Bonaparte family. He now resumed his financial
speculations, and when in 1854 he became president of the Corps
Législatif, a position which he filled with consummate dignity
and tact for the rest of his life, he used his official rank to assist
his schemes.
Politics and high finance with Morny went hand in hand. In 1856 he was sent as special envoy to the Coronation of Alexander II. of Russia; he executed his mission with prodigal splendour, and brought home a wife, Princess Sophie Troubetzkoi, who by her Connexions greatly strengthened his social position. In 1862 Morny, whose power was at its culminating point, was created a duke. It is said that he aspired to the throne of Mexico, and that the French expedition sent to place Maximilian on the throne was prompted by Napoleon’s desire to thwart this ambition. In any case, in spite of occasional dissensions, Morny’s influence with the emperor remained very great, and the liberal traditions which he had retained enabled him to serve the imperial cause by his influence with the leaders of the opposition, the most conspicuous of whom, Émile Ollivier, was detached from his colleagues by his efforts. But while he was laying the foundations of the “Liberal Empire” his health, undermined by a ceaseless round of political and financial business, of gaiety and dissipation, was giving way, and was further injured by indulgence in quack medicines. The emperor and the empress visited him just before his death in Paris on the 10th of March 1865.
Morny’s valuable collection of pictures was sold after his death. In spite of his undoubted wit and social gifts Morny failed to secure the distinction he desired as a dramatist, and none of his pieces which appeared under the pseudonym of M. de St Rémy—Sur la grande route; Monsieur Choufleury restera chez lui, and the Finesses du mari among others—met with any considerable success on the stage.
The figure of the duc de Morny is familiar to the general reader in the duc de Mora of Le Nabab of Alphonse Daudet, who had been one of his secretaries. See F. Loliée, Le Duc de Morny et la société du second empire (1909). Earlier accounts are by H. Castille, M. de Morny (1859), and Arthur de la Guéronnière, Études et portraits
