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Bible Encyclopedias
Mont Cenis
1911 Encyclopedia Britannica
or A pass (6893 ft.) in Savoy (France) which forms the limit between the Cottian and Graian Alps. A carriage road was built across it between 1803 and 1810 by Napoleon, while a light railway (named after its inventor, Mr. Fell, and worked by English engine-drivers) was opened alongside the road in 1868, but was destroyed in 1871, on the opening of the tunnel. This tunnel (highest point 4249 ft.) is really 17 m. west of the pass, below the Col de Frejus. From Chambery the line runs up the Isere valley, but soon bears through that of the Arc or the Maurienne past St Jean de Maurienne to Modane (61 m. from Chambery). The tunnel is 8 m. in length, and leads to Bardonneche, some way below which, at Oulx (18 m. from Modane) the line joins the road from the Mont Genevre. Thence the valley of the Dora Riparia is followed to Turin (641 m. from Modane). The carriage road mounts the Arc valley for 16 m. from Modane to Lanslebourg, whence it is 8 m. to the hospice, a little way beyond the summit of the pass. The descent lies through the Cenis valley to Susa (37 m. from Modane) where the road joins the railway. To the south-west of the Mont Cenis is the Little Mont Cenis (7166 ft.) which leads from the summit plateau (in Italy) of the main pass to the Etache valley on the French slope and so to Bramans in the Arc valley (7 m. above Modane). This pass was crossed in 1689 by the Vaudois, and by some authors is believed to have been " Hannibal's Pass." (W. A. B. C.) Montchretien, Antoine De (15'75 or 1576-v621), French dramatist and economist, son of an apothecary at Falaise named Mauchrestien, was born about 1576. In one of his numerous duels he had the misfortune to kill his opponent. He con sequently took refuge in England, but through the influence of James I., to whom he dedicated his tragedy, L'Ecossaise} he was allowed to return to France, and established himself at Auxonne-sur-Loire, where he set up a steel foundry. In 1621 he abandoned this enterprise to serve on the Huguenot side in the civil wars. He raised troops in Maine and Lower Normandy, but was killed in a skirmish near Tourailles on the 8th of October 1621. There is no evidence that he shared the religious opinions of the party for which he fought, and in any case he belonged to the moderate party rallied round Henry IV. In 1615 he published a valuable Traite de l'economie politique, based chiefly on the works of Jean Bodin. He had the good fortune to write before the pruning processes of Vaugelas and Balzac had been applied to the language, and M. Lanson praises him as one of the best prose-writers of his time.
His dramas are Sophonisbe (1596), afterwards remodelled as La Cartaginoise; L'Ecossaise, Les Lacenes, David, Aman (in 1601); Hector (1604). As plays they have little technical merit, but they contain passages of great lyrical beauty. In L'Ecossaise Elizabeth first pardons Mary Queen of Scots, and no explanation is given of the change that leads to her execution. Aman has been compared not too unfavourably with Esther, and the hatred of Haman for Mordecai is expressed with more vigour than in Racine's play. All Montchretien's heroes face death without fear. M. Petit de Julleville finds the characteristic note of his plays in the same cult of heroism which was later to inspire the plays of Corneille. Poet, economist, ironmaster, and soldier, Montchretien represents the many-sided activity of a time before literature had become a profession, and before its province had been restricted in France to polite topics.
The tragedies were edited in 1901 by M. Petit de Julleville with notice and commentary; the Traite de l'e'conomie politique in 1889 by Th. Funck Brentano, whose estimate of Montchretien is severely criticized by W. I. Ashley in the Eng. Hist. Rev. (Oct. 1891). See also Emile Faguet, La Tragedie au XVI" te siecle, ch. xi. (1883); G. Lanson, Revue des deux mondes (Sept. 1891).
These files are public domain.
Chisholm, Hugh, General Editor. Entry for 'Mont Cenis'. 1911 Encyclopedia Britanica. https://www.studylight.org/encyclopedias/eng/bri/m/mont-cenis.html. 1910.
