MOURET (SILVERE), born 1834, son of Mouret, the hatter, and Ursule Macquart, his wife.  After the death of his father, Silvere went to live with his grandmother Adelaide Fouque.  Though poorly educated, he was fond of reading, and his lonely life with this old half-imbecile woman increased his own tendency to visionary dreamings.  “He was predisposed to Utopian ideas by certain hereditary influences; his grandmother’s nervous disorders became in him a chronic enthusiasm, striving after everything that was grandiose and impossible.”  His Uncle Antoine Macquart, who hoped through him to annoy the Rougons, encouraged him in his Republican views, and after the Coup d’Etat he joined the insurrection which then arose.  Miette Chantegreil, a young girl to whom he was tenderly devoted, accompanied him, but was shot in the attack by regular troops.  He was taken prisoner, and having been brought back to Plassans, was executed there.  La Fortune des Rougon.

MOUSSEAU (ABBE), a priest at Plassans.  La Conquete de Plassans.

MOURGUE, a peasant of Poujols, who, armed with a fork, had taken part in the insurrectionary rising against the Coup d’Etat.  He was made prisoner, and was led to Plassans, tied by the arm to Silvere Mouret, who had also been arrested.  He was shot at the same time as Silvere by Rengade, the gendarme.  La Fortune des Rougon.

MOUTON, a cat which belonged to the Quenus, and was a favourite of little Pauline.  Le Ventre de Paris.

MUCHE, the name by which Louise Mehudin’s son was known in the market.  He was befriended by Florent, who taught him to read and write.  Le Ventre de Paris.

MUFFAT (MAMAN), wife of General Muffat de Beuville, who was created Comte by Napoleon I. She was an insufferable old woman, who was always hand-in-glove with the priests, and had an authoritative manner, which bent every one to her will.  Her daughter-in-law, Comtesse Sabine, was entirely under her dominion, and was forced by her to lead an almost cloistered existence.  Nana.

MUFFAT DE BEUVILLE (COMTE), son of the preceding and of General Muffat de Beuville.  Brought up in the strictest manner by his mother, his life was one of cold and severe propriety, and being regarded with favour at the Court, he was appointed Chamberlain to the Empress.  He married Sabine de Chouard, by whom he had one daughter, Estelle.  For seventeen years of married life his career was a pattern of all the virtues, until a chance meeting with Nana led to an infatuation amounting to mania.  Everything was sacrificed to her, and no degradation to his self-respect seemed too high a price to pay for her favour.  Disgusted for a time by her liaison with Fontan, he left her, and turned for amusement to Rose Mignon, but the infatuation for Nana reasserted itself, and he recovered her good graces by inducing Bordenave to give her a part which she greatly desired in La Petite Duchesse, a play by Fauchery.  He spent