Friedrich Bernard Christian Maassen
United Sees of Macerata and Tolentino
Vicariate Apostolic of Mackenzie
Marie-Edmé-Patrice-Maurice de MacMahon
Joseph-Anna-Marie de Moyria de Mailla
François-Pierre-Gonthier Maine de Biran
Françoise, Marquise de Maintenon
Joseph-Marie, Comte de Maistre
Marcellinus of Civezza, O.F.M.
Margaret of the Blessed Sacrament
Prefecture Apostolic of Mariana Islands
Congregation of the Missionaries of Mariannhill
Sts. Maris, Martha, Audifax, and Abachum
Lucius Perpetuus Aurelianus Marius Maximus
Vicariate Apostolic of Marquesas Islands
Moral and Canonical Aspect of Marriage
Diocese of Marseilles (Massilia)
Vicariate Apostolic of the Marshall Islands
Diocese of Marsico Nuovo and Potenza
Luigi Ferdinando, Count de Marsigli
Missionaries of the Company of Mary
Servants of Mary (Order of Servites)
Society of Mary (Marist Fathers)
St. Mary Frances of the Five Wounds of Jesus
Richard Angelus a S. Francisco Mason
Devises and Bequests for Masses (United States)
Feast of the Maternity of the Blessed Virgin Mary
Marcus Aurelius Valerius Maximianus
Caius Julius Verus Maximinus Thrax
Prefecture Apostolic of Mayotte, Nossi-Bé, and Comoro
Charles Joseph Eugene de Mazenod
Abbey and Congregation of Melk
Vicariate Apostolic of Méndez and Gualaquiza
Francisco Sarmiento de Mendoza
Corporal and Spiritual Works of Mercy
Sisters of Mercy of St. Borromeo
Frédéric-François-Xavier Ghislain de Mérode
Delegation Apostolic of Mesopotamia, Kurdistan, and Armenia
Metal-Work in the Service of the Church
Prince Klemens Lothar Wenzel von Metternich
Francis, Joseph, and Paul Mezger
Military Orders of St. Michael
Giovanni Francesco Pico della Mirandola
Congregation of the Sisters of Misericorde
Prefecture Apostolic of Misocco and Calanca
Congregation of Priests of the Mission
Congregation of Missionaries of St. Charles Borromeo
Missionaries of St. Francis de Sales of Annecy
Missionary Society of St. Paul the Apostle
Mission Indians (of California)
Catholic Indian Missions of Canada
Catholic Indian Missions of the United States
François-Napoléon-Marie Moigno
Diocese of Molfetta, Terlizzi, and Giovinazzo
Jean-Baptiste Poquelin Molière
Principality and Diocese of Monaco
Canonical Erection of a Monastery
Monophysites and Monophysitism
Monothelitism and Monothelites
Montagnais Indians (Chippewayans)
Charles-Forbes-René, Comte de Montalembert
Marquis de Louis-Joseph Montcalm-Gozon
Diocese of Monterey and Los Angeles
Charles-Louis de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu
Anne, First Duke of Montmorency
Alexis-François Artaud de Montor
Antoine-Jean-Baptiste-Robert Auget, Baron de Montyon
Dioceses of Mostar and Markana-Trebinje
Feast of the Most Pure Heart of Mary
Toribio de Benavente Motolinia
Congregations of Mount Calvary
Feast of Our Lady of Mount Carmel
Karl Ernst, Freiherr von Moy de Sons
Johann Chrysostomus Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart
St. Clair Augustine Mulholland
Baron Eligius Franz Joseph von Münch-Bellinghausen
Archdiocese of Munich-Freising
Inventor; b. at Vidalon-lez-Annonay, Department of Ardèche, France, 26 August, 1740; d. at Balaruc-les-Bains, Department of Hérault, France, 26 June, 1810. His father was a prosperous paper-manufacturer, who brought up nine children, presenting to them an example of high virtue, honesty, economy, and piety; Joseph was educated at the local college in a very unsatisfactory manner. He set up an independent establishment with his brother Augustine in order to exercise the inventive faculties that were held in check by his economical father. His numerous ideas and projects and his simplicity of character exposed him to financial losses, and eventually brought upon him an unjust temporary imprisonment.
He improved the manufacture of paper, invented a method of stereotyping, and constructed an air-pump for rarefying the air in the moulds. Numerous objects of everyday life occupied his inventive genius. His most important work, however, was in connexion with hydraulics and aeronautics. He interested his brother Etienne in these so-called chimerical projects. They invented the hydraulic ram, which uses the energy from a copious flow of water under a small head in order to force a small portion of that water to a considerable height. Observations on the behaviour of a sheet hung over a fire led them to attempt a number of experiments with balloons made of taffetas and filled with heated air. On 5 June, 1783, a successful exhibition took place before the Estates of Vivarais, assembled at Annonay. A globe, 110 feet in circumference and weighing about 500 pounds, was filled with air half as heavy as the atmosphere. This balloon rose to a height of 6600 feet and came down very gently at a distance of a mile and a half. This attempt naturally excited enormous interest throughout the civilized world. Joseph left to his brother the honour and duty of reporting to the Academy of Sciences at Paris and of repeating experiments at the expense of the Government. Balloons were constructed that carried with them a furnace for the purpose of keeping the air heated and therefore light, and two courageous physicists, Biot and Guy-Lussac made a successful ascent. At Lyons, Joseph and six others went up in a a balloon 126 feet high and 102 feet feet in diameter. On 20 August, 1783, the brothers were placed by acclamation on the list of correspondents of the Academy, "as scientists to whom we are indebted for a new art that will make an epoch in the history of human science". Etienne received the decoration of Saint-Michel for himself, and letters of nobility for his father. Joseph obtained a pension, and 40,000 livres for the construction of an experimental dirigible balloon. This he was unable to realize.
He was noted for extraordinary bodily strength and for courageous philanthropy. During the stormy days of the Revolution he offered and ensured protection and asylum to many proscribed persons, who were often not known to him even by name. "Siding with no faction, he submitted to the political laws unless they were in opposition to the laws of humanity, and awaited with confidence the return of order". His business having been ruined, he went to Paris, where the new Government welcomed and rewarded him. He was called to the consulting bureau of arts and manufactures, was named demonstrator of the Conservatory of Arts and Trades, was received at the Institute, 1807, as the successor of Coulomb, and was made a Knight of the Legion of Honour.
Apart from a few memoirs in "Journal des Mines" and "Journal de l'Ecole Polytechnique", he published very little, viz.: "Discours sur l'aérostat" (with his brother Etienne), Paris, 1783; "Voyageurs aériens" (with Etienne), Paris, 1784; "Mémoires sur la machine aérostatique", Paris, 1784; "Notes sur le bélier hydraulique, Paris, 1803.
DELAMBRE, notice in Mémoires de l'Institut, Sciences math. et phys., 1810 (Paris, 1811); WISE, System of Aeronautics (Philadelphia, 1850).
WILLIAM FOX