MONTE CARLO (4), a great gambling centre in Monaco, 1 m.  NE. of the capital; visited by 400,000 persons annually.  The Casino is held by a company, and stands on ground leased from the prince.

MONTEFIORE, SIR MOSES, a philanthropic Jewish banker, born in Leghorn; a friend to the emancipation not only of the oppressed among his own race, but of the slave in all lands; lived to a great age (1784-1885).

MONTEGUT, EMILE, French critic, born at Limoges; is noted for books of travel, studies in French and English literature, and for translations of Shakespeare, Macaulay’s “History,” and Emerson’s “Essays.”

MONTENEGRO (236), a Balkan State, less than half the size of Wales, lying in a wild mountainous region between Herzegovina and Albania, and touching the Adriatic Sea with its SW. corner only.  The climate is severe in winter, mild in summer.  The soil is sterile, but is industriously tilled, and patches of arable land on the mountain sides and in the valleys yield maize, oats, potatoes, and tobacco.  Cattle and sheep are reared in large numbers; vines and mulberries are cultivated round the lake, whose waters abound in fish.  Cattle, hides, and cheese are the exports.  The Montenegrins are a primitive people; the men hunt and fight, the women work.  They are mostly of the Greek Church, and noted for their morality.  The government is patriarchal, with a prince at the head.  Education and road-making have recently advanced.  The towns are mere villages.  Cetinje (1) is the capital; Antivari and Dulcigno, the Adriatic ports.

MONTESPAN, MARQUISE DE, mistress of Louis XIV.; a woman noted for her wit and beauty; bore the king eight children; was supplanted by MADAME DE MAINTENON (q. v.); passed her last days in religious retirement (1641-1707).

MONTESQUIEU, BARON DE, illustrious French publicist, born in the Chateau La Brede, near Bordeaux; his greatest work, and an able, “Esprit des Lois,” though rated in “Sartor” as at best the work of “a clever infant spelling letters from a hieroglyphic prophetic book, the lexicon of which lies in eternity, in heaven”; was author of an able work “On the Causes of the Grandeur of the Romans and their Declension” (1689-1755).

MONTEVIDEO (215), on the N. shore of the Rio de la Plata, 130 m.  E. of Buenos Ayres; is the capital of Uruguay; a well-built town, with a cathedral, university, school of arts, and museum.  The chief industries are beef-salting and shipping, though there is practically no harbour.  Nearly half the population are foreigners.

MONTEZ, LOLA, an adventuress of Spanish descent, born at Limerick; contracted no end of marriages, which were broken off one after another; took to the stage; took to lecturing, and ended in trying to reclaim fallen women (1818-1861).

MONTEZUMA II., the last of the Mexican emperors; submitted to Cortez when he landed; died in 1520 of a wound he received as he pled with his subjects to submit to the conqueror, aggravated by grief over the failure of his efforts in bringing about a reconciliation.