Robespierre; a violent tumult ensued, but Marat and his friends were subdued, and himself impeached and prosecuted; in a few days, being brought to trial, he was acquitted. The triumph of his party was now unbounded, and they soon gained such an ascendancy over their enemies, that they murdered or banished all that attempted to obstruct the progress of their nefarious projects; till at length their leader Marat fell a victim to the enthusiastic rage of a female, Charlotte Cordé, who had travelled from Caen, in Normandy, with a determination of rescuing, as she hoped, her country from the hands of barbarians, by the assassination of one of the chief among them. He died unpitied by every human being who was not of the atrocious faction which he led, having, for some weeks, acted the most savage parts, and been the means of involving many of the most virtuous characters in France in almost indiscriminate slaughter. Previously to joining in revolutionary politics, he was known as an author, and published a work "On Man, or Principles of the reciprocal Influence of the Soul and Body," in two volumes, 12mo: also some tracts on Electricity and Light, in which he attacked the Newtonian System. These works had been forgot long before he began to make a figure in the political world; but it is remarkable that his death occasioned a fresh demand for them. They are now, however, again sunk into oblivion, and his name is never mentioned but with contempt and horror. 1

MARATTI (CARLO), one of the most admired painters of the Italian school, was born in 1625, at Camerino in the march of Ancona. When quite a child he is said to have pressed out the juices of flowers, which he used for colours in drawing on the walls of his father's house. This propensity most probably induced his parents to send him to Rome at eleven years old; where, by his manner of copying the designs of Raphael in the Vatican, he obtained the favour of Andrea Sacchi, and became his pupil. From the grace and beauty of his ideas he was generally employed in painting Madonnas and female saints; on which account he was, by Salvator Rosa, satirically called Carluccio della Madonna. He was far from being ashamed of this name, and in the inscription placed by himself on his monument (nine years before his death), he calls it

1 Biog. Moderne.-Dict. Hist.-Rees's Cyclopædia.

gloriosum cognomen, and professes his particular devotion to the Virgin Mary. The pope, Clement XI. gave him a pension, and the title of Cavaliero di Cristo; and he was appointed painter in ordinary to Louis XIV. He died at Rome, loaded with honours, in 1713, at the advanced age of eighty-eight.. Extreme modesty and gentleness were the characteristics of his disposition; and his admiration of the great models he had studied was such, that not content with having contributed to preserve the works of Raphael and the Caraccis in the Farnese gallery, he erected monuments to them in the Pantheon, at his own expence. Several plates are extant, etched by him in aquafortis, in which he has displayed abundant taste and genius.

Of this artist Mr. Fuseli says, that although " he enjoyed in his life the reputation of one of the first painters of Europe, his talent seldom rose above mediocrity; he delighted in easel-pictures or altar-pieces, though not unacquainted with fresco. He is celebrated for the lovely, modest, and yet dignified air of his Madonnas, the grace of his angels, the devout character of his saints, and their festive dresses. His best pictures are in the style of Sacchi: those of his second manner are more elaborate, more anxiously studied, but, with less freedom, have less grandeur. The masses of his draperies are too much intersected, shew the naked too little, and sometimes make his figures appear too heavy or too short. He certainly aimed at fixing his principal light to the most important spot of his picture; but, being unacquainted with the nature and the gradations of shade, involved its general tone in a certain mistiness, which was carried to excess by his pupils, and became a characteristic mark of his school. He studied in his youth the style and works of Raphael with the most sedulous attention, and strove to imitate him at every period of his practice; but it does not appear that he ever discriminated his principles of design or composition, notwithstanding the subsequent minute and laborious employment of restoring his frescoes.

"The churches and palaces of Rome, filled with the pictures of Maratti, bear witness of his popularity; but, perhaps, no work of his can impress us with a more advantageous opinion of his powers, than the Bathsheba viewed by David; a work, of which it is easier to feel than to describe the charms, which has no rival, and seems to preclude all hope of equal success in any future repetition

of the subject." Maratti had a daughter, Maria Maratti, whom he instructed himself in the art; her portrait, executed by herself, in a painting attitude, is in the gallery Corsini at Rome. 1

MARCA (PETER DE), one of the greatest ornaments of the Gallican church, but a man of great inconsistency of character, was born in 1594, at Gant, in Bearn, of a very ancient family in that principality. He went through his course of philosophy among the Jesuits, and then studied the law for three years; after which he was received a counsellor in 1615, in the supreme council at Pau. In 1621 he was made president of the parliament of Bearn; and going to Paris in 1639, about the affairs of his province, was made a counsellor of state. In 1640 he published "The History of Bearn," which confirmed the good opinion that was conceived of his knowledge and parts. He was thought, therefore, a very proper person to undertake a delicate and important subject, which offered itself about that time. The court of France was then at variance with the court of Rome, and the book which Peter de Puy published, concerning the liberties of the Gallican church, greatly alarmed the partisans of the court of Rome; some of whom endeavoured to persuade the world that they were the preliminaries of a schism contrived by cardinal Richelieu; as if his eminency had it in his head to erect a patriarchate in that kingdom, in order to render the Gallican church independent of the pope. A French divine, M. Hersent (see HERSENT), who took the name of Optatus Gallus, addressed a book to the clergy upon the subject; and insinuated that the cardinal had brought over to his party a great personage, who was ready to defend this conduct of the cardinal; and this great personage was Peter de Marca. But an insinuation of this nature tending to make the cardinal odious, as it occasioned a rumour that he aspired to the patriarchate, the king laid his commands on de Marca to refute Hersent's work, and at the same time to preserve the liberties of the Gallican church on the one hand, and to make it appear on the other that those liberties did not in the least diminish the reverence due to the holy see. He accepted of this commission, and executed it by his book "De Concordia sacerdotii & imperii,

1 Argenville, vol. I.-Pilkington by Fuseli.-Sir J. Reynolds's Works; see Index.

sive, de libertatibus ecclesiæ Gallica," which he published in 1641. He declared in his preface, that he did not enter upon the discussion of right, but confined himself to the settling of facts: that is, he only attempted to shew what deference the Western churches had always paid to the bishop of Rome on the one side; and on the other, what rights and privileges the Gallican church had always possessed. But though he had collected an infinite number of testimonies in favour of the pope's power, the work was of too liberal a cast not to give offence: perhaps even the very attempt to throw the subject open to discussion was not very agreeable; and accordingly, the court of Rome made a great many difficulties in dispatching the bulls which were demanded in favour of de Marca, who had, in the end of 1641, been presented to the bishopric of Conserans. That court gave him to understand that it was necessary he should soften some things he had advanced; and caused his book to pass a very strict examination. After the death of Urban VIII. cardinal Bichi warmly solicited Iunocent X. to grant the bulls in favour of the bishop of Conserans; but the assessor of the holy office recalled the remembrance of the complaints which had been made against his book "De Concordia," which occasioned this pope to order the examination of it anew. De Marca, despairing of success unless he gave satisfaction to the court of Rome, published a book in 1646, in which he explained the design of his "De Concordia," &c. submitted himself to the censure of the apostolic see, and shewed that kings were not the authors, but the guardians of the canon laws. "I own," says he, "that I favoured the side of my prince too much, and acted the part of a president rather than that of a bishop. I renounce my errors, and promise for the future to be a strenuous advocate for the authority of the holy see." Accordingly. in 1647, he wrote a book entitled "De singulari primatu Petri," in which he proved that St. Peter was the only head of the church; and this he sent to the pope, who was so pleased with it, that he immediately granted his bulls, and he was made bishop of Conserans in 1648. This conduct of de Marca has been noticed by lord Bolingbroke, in his posthumous works, with becoming indignation. He calls him "a timeserving priest, interested, and a great flatterer, if ever there was one;" and adds, that, "when he could not get his bulls dispatched, he made no scruple to explain away

all that he had said in favour of the state, and to limit the papal power."

In 1644, de Marca was sent into Catalonia, to perform the office of visitor-general, and counsellor of the viceroy, which he executed to the year 1651, and so gained the affections of the Catalonians, that in 1647, when he was dangerously ill, they put up public prayers, and vows for his recovery. The city of Barcelona, in particular, made a vow to our lady of Montserrat, and sent thither in their name twelve capuchins and twelve nuns, who performed their journey with their hair hanging loose, and bare-footed. De Marca was persuaded, or rather seemed to be persuaded, that his recovery was entirely owing to so many vows and prayers; and would not leave Catalonia without going to pay his devotions at Montserrat, in the beginning of 1651, and there wrote a small treatise, "De origine & progressu cultus beatæ Mariæ Virginis in Monteserato," which he left in the archives of the monastery; so little did he really possess of that liberality and firmness of mind which is above vulgar prejudice and superstition. In August of the same year, he went to take possession of his bishopric; and the year after was nominated to the archbishopric of Toulouse, but did not take possession till 1655. In 1656 he assisted at the general assembly of the French clergy, and appeared in opposition to the Jansenists, that he might wipe off all suspicion of his not being an adherent of the court of Rome, for he knew that his being suspected of Jansenism had for a long time retarded the bull which was necessary to establish him in the archbishopric of Toulouse. He was made a minister of state in 1658, and went to Toulouse in 1659. In the following year he went to Roussillon, there to determine the marches with the commissaries of the king of Spain. In these conferences he had occasion to display his learning, as they involved points of criticism respecting the language of Pomponius Mela and Strabo. It was said in the Pyrenean treaty, that the limits of France and Spain were the same with those which anciently separated the Gauls from Spain. This obliged them to examine whereabouts, according to the ancient geographers, the Gauls terminated here; and de Marca's knowledge was of great use at this juncture. He took a journey to Paris the same year, and obtained the appointment of archbishop of Paris; but died there June 29, 1662, the very day that the bulls for his promo