[1] The estates of the League in 1593 were the occasion of the famous Satire Ménippée, circulated in MS. in that year, but only printed at Tours in 1594. It was the work of a circle of men of letters who belonged to the politiques or party of the centre and ridiculed the League. The authors were Pierre Le Roy, Jean Passerat, Florent Chrestien, Nicolas Rapin and Pierre Pithou. It opened with “La vertu du catholicon,” in which a Spanish quack (the cardinal of Plaisance) vaunts the virtues of his drug “catholicon composé,” manufactured in the Escurial, while a Lorrainer rival (the cardinal of Pellevé) tries to sell a rival cure. A mock account of the estates, with harangues delivered by Mayenne and the other chiefs of the League, followed. Mayenne’s discourse is said to have been written by the jurist Pithou.
MAYENNE, a department of north-western France, three-fourths of which formerly belonged to Lower Maine and the remainder to Anjou, bounded on the N. by Manche and Orne, E. by Sarthe, S. by Maine-et-Loire and W. by Ille-et-Vilaine. Area, 2012 sq. m. Pop. (1906), 305,457. Its ancient geological formations connect it with Brittany. The surface is agreeably undulating; forests are numerous, and the beauty of the cultivated portions is enhanced by the hedgerows and lines of trees by which the farms are divided. The highest point of the department, and indeed of the whole north-west of France, is the Mont des Avaloirs (1368 ft.). Hydrographically Mayenne belongs to the basins of the Loire, the Vilaine and the Sélune, the first mentioned draining by far the larger part of the entire area. The principal stream is the Mayenne, which passes successively from north to south through Mayenne, Laval and Château-Gontier; by means of weirs and sluices it is navigable below Mayenne, but traffic is inconsiderable. The chief affluents are the Jouanne on the left, and on the right the Colmont, the Ernée and the Oudon. A small area in the east of the department drains by the Erve into the Sarthe; the Vilaine rises in the west, and in the north-west two small rivers flow into the Sélune. The climate of Mayenne is generally healthy except in the neighbourhood of the numerous marshes. The temperature is lower and the moisture of the atmosphere greater than in the neighbouring departments; the rainfall (about 32 in. annually) is above the average for France.
Agriculture and stock-raising are prosperous. A large number of horned cattle are reared, and in no other French department are so many horses found within the same area; the breed, that of Craon, is famed for its strength. Craon has also given its name to the most prized breed of pigs in western France. Mayenne produces excellent butter and poultry and a large quantity of honey. The cultivation of the vine is very limited, and the most common beverage is cider. Wheat, oats, barley and buckwheat, in the order named, are the most important crops, and a large quantity of flax and hemp is produced. Game is abundant. The timber grown is chiefly beech, oak, birch, elm and chestnut. The department produces antimony, auriferous quartz and coal. Marble, slate and other stone are quarried. There are several chalybeate springs. The industries include flour-milling, brick and tile making, brewing, cotton and wool spinning, and the production of various textile fabrics (especially ticking) for which Laval and Château-Gontier are the centres, agricultural implement making, wood and marble sawing, tanning and dyeing. The exports include agricultural produce, live-stock, stone and textiles; the chief imports are coal, brandy, wine, furniture and clothing. The department is served by the Western railway. It forms part of the circumscriptions of the IV. army corps, the académie (educational division) of Rennes, and the court of appeal of Angers. It comprises three arrondissements (Laval, Château-Gontier and Mayenne), with 27 cantons and 276 communes. Laval, the capital, is the seat of a bishopric of the province of Tours. The other principal towns are Château-Gontier and Mayenne, which are treated under separate headings. The following places are also of interest: Evron, which has a church of the 12th and 13th centuries; Jublains, with a Roman fort and other Roman remains; Lassay, with a fine château of the 14th and 16th centuries; and Ste Suzanne, which has remains of medieval ramparts and a fortress with a keep of the Romanesque period.
MAYENNE, a town of north-western France, capital of an arrondissement in the department of Mayenne, 19 m. N.N.E. of Laval by rail. Pop., town 7003, commune 10,020. Mayenne is an old feudal town, irregularly built on hills on both sides of the river Mayenne. Of the old castle overlooking the river several towers remain, one of which has retained its conical roof; the vaulted chambers and chapel are ornamented in the style of the 13th century; the building is now used as a prison. The church of Notre-Dame, beside which there is a statue of Joan of Arc, dates partly from the 12th century; the choir was rebuilt in the 19th century. In the Place de Cheverus is a statue, by David of Angers, to Cardinal Jean de Cheverus (1768-1836), who was born in Mayenne. Mayenne has a subprefecture, tribunals of first instance and of commerce, a chamber of arts and manufactures, and a board of trade-arbitration. There is a school of agriculture in the vicinity. The chief industry of the place is the manufacture of tickings, linen, handkerchiefs and calicoes.
Mayenne had its origin in the castle built here by Juhel, baron of Mayenne, the son of Geoffrey of Maine, in the beginning of the 11th century. It was taken by the English in 1424, and several times suffered capture by the opposing parties in the wars of religion and the Vendée. At the beginning of the 16th century the territory passed to the family of Guise, and in 1573 was made a duchy in favour of Charles of Mayenne, leader of the League.
MAYER, JOHANN TOBIAS (1723-1762), German astronomer, was born at Marbach, in Würtemberg, on the 17th of February 1723, and brought up at Esslingen in poor circumstances. A self-taught mathematician, he had already published two original geometrical works when, in 1746, he entered J. B. Homann’s cartographic establishment at Nuremberg. Here he introduced many improvements in map-making, and gained a scientific reputation which led (in 1751) to his election to the chair of economy and mathematics in the university of Göttingen. In 1754 he became superintendent of the observatory, where he laboured with great zeal and success until his death, on the 20th of February 1762. His first important astronomical work was a careful investigation of the libration of the moon (Kosmographische Nachrichten, Nuremberg, 1750), and his chart of the full moon (published in 1775) was unsurpassed for half a century. But his fame rests chiefly on his lunar tables, communicated in 1752, with new solar tables, to the Royal Society of Göttingen, and published in their Transactions (vol. ii.). In 1755 he submitted to the English government an amended body of MS. tables, which James Bradley compared with the Greenwich observations, and found to be sufficiently accurate to determine the moon’s place to 75″, and consequently the longitude at sea to about half a degree. An improved set was afterwards published in London (1770), as also the theory (Theoria lunae juxta systema Newtonianum, 1767) upon which the tables are based. His widow, by whom they were sent to England, received in consideration from the British government a grant of £3000. Appended to the London edition of the solar and lunar tables are two short tracts—the one on determining longitude by lunar distances, together with a description of the repeating circle (invented by Mayer in 1752), the other on a formula for atmospheric refraction, which applies a remarkably accurate correction for temperature.