MORNAY, Philippe de (1549-1623), Seigneur du Plessis-Marly, very generally known as Mornay Du Plessis or Du Plessis-Mornay, one of the most distinguished members of the Protestant party in France, was born at Buhy in Normandy on 5th November 1549. As a younger son he was destined for the church, and with this view was sent to the Collège de Lisieux in Paris, but in his eleventh year, along with the rest of his family, he abandoned Roman Catholicism, continuing, however, with zeal and success his studies not only in classical and general literature but also in theology. In the autumn of 1567, on the outbreak of the second religious war, he joined the army of Condé, but was prevented from taking an active part in the campaign by a fall from his horse, which broke his leg. In the following year he went abroad, and, after spending the winter at Heidelberg, travelled extensively in Italy, Germany, the Low Countries, and England, learning the languages and acquiring the friendship of many of the distinguished men of all these countries. In June 1572 he returned to France, and had begun to enter upon a diplomatic career (his earliest extant “mémoire,” laid by Coligny before Charles IX., had reference to the duty of France to support the Low Countries in their struggle for independence) when the St Bartholomew massacre, from which he escaped with difficulty, compelled him to take refuge across the Channel, There he rendered valuable services to William of Orange, and also to the duke of Alençon-Anjou, as a semi-official political agent. Returning to France at the instance of La Noue towards the end of 1573, he took part with various success in numerous military enterprises, and was made prisoner at Dormans in 1575 (10th October), but not having been recognized he got ...

MORNY, Charles Auguste Louis Joseph, Due de (1811-1865), was the natural son of Hortense Beauharnais, queen of Holland, and of the comte de Flahaut, a leading dandy of the period, and was thus brother to Napoleon III. The secret of his birth (23d October 1811) was carefully kept; he was acknowledged as son by the comte de Morny for a consideration, and was brought up by his paternal grandmother, Madame de Souza, a writer of society novels, and a woman of great wit and high breeding. As a boy of nineteen he was declared after the revolution of 1830 a hero of July, and was entered at the staff college. In 1832 he was gazetted sub-lieutenant, and served in Algeria as aide-de-camp to General Oudinot; he was present at Mascara and Constantine, and was made a chevalier of the Legion of Honour. In 1838 he returned to Paris, and began his career as dandy and speculator. In the first capacity he set the fashions both of dress and manners to the young men of Paris, and conceived the idea of the modern society journal, and in the second established a manufactory of beetroot sugar at Clermont-Ferrand. This last idea brought about his election for the department of the Puy-de-Dôme. In the chamber he voted consistently with the ministers. The republic of 1848 marked the crisis in his fortunes, and by 1851 all his speculations had failed, and all his property was sold. In desperation he determined to play a part in politics, and was the heart and soul of the coup d’état of December 1851. The success of the coup d’état was certain, owing to the fear of the extreme republicans entertained by the great majority of the nation, and all that was needed was a head for intrigue and an utter absence of scruples to shed innocent blood. Morny and St Arnaud fulfilled these requisites. ...