See the French official _Campagne de l'armée de réserve_, vol. ii., by C. de Cugnac. FOOTNOTES: [1] A third column was sent out to the extreme right (3000 under O'Reilly). This destroyed a small French detachment on the extreme left, but took little or no part in the main battle. [2] The Austrians, too, fighting in "linear" formation had few reserves. About one-third only of the imperial forces in Italy was actually engaged in the battle. MAREOTIS (Arabic _Mariut_), the most westerly of the lakes in the Delta of Egypt. On the narrow strip of land separating the lake from the Mediterranean the city of Alexandria is built. (See EGYPT; and ALEXANDRIA.) MARE'S-TAIL, in botany, the popular name for an aquatic herb known botanically as _Hippuris vulgaris_ (natural order Haloragaceae). It grows on margins of lakes, ponds and similar localities, and has a submerged stout creeping rootstock from which spring many-jointed cylindrical stems bearing numerous narrow leaves close-set in whorls. The minute greenish flowers are borne in the leaf-axils. Like many fresh-water plants it has a wide distribution, occurring in arctic and temperate regions in the northern hemisphere and reappearing in antarctic South America. MARET, HUGUES-BERNARD, DUC DE BASSANO (1763-1839), French statesman and publicist, was born at Dijon. After receiving a sound education, he entered the legal profession and became advocate at the King's Council at Paris. The ideas of the French Revolution profoundly influenced him, and wholly altered his career. The interest aroused by the debates of the first National Assembly suggested to him the idea of publishing them, conjointly with Méjean, in the _Bulletin de l'Assemblée_. The publicist Charles Joseph Panckoucke (1736-1798), owner of the _Mercure de France_ and publisher of the famous _Encyclopédie_ (1781), persuaded him to merge this in a larger paper, the _Moniteur universel_, which gained a wide repute for correctness and impartiality. He was a member of the moderate club, the Feuillants; but after the overthrow of the monarchy on the 10th of August 1792 he accepted an office in the ministry of foreign affairs, where he sometimes exercised a steadying influence. On the withdrawal of the British legation from Paris Maret went on a mission to London, where he had a favourable interview with Pitt on the 2nd of December 1792. All hope of an accommodation was, however, in vain. After the execution of Louis XVI. (Jan. 21, 1793), the chief French diplomatic agent, Chauvelin, was ordered to leave England, while the French Convention declared war (Feb. 1, 1793). These events precluded the possibility of success attending a second mission of Maret to London in January. After a space, in which he held no diplomatic post, he became ambassador of the French Republic at Naples; but, while repairing thither with De Sémonville he was captured by the Austrians