FEIIILLANS, CONGREGATION OF, a reform of the Cistercian order, remarkable as forming part of the great religious movement in the Roman Catholic church during the 16th c., contemporary with and probably stimulated by the progress of the reformation. The author of this reform was Jean de la Barriere, abbot of the Cistercian monastery of Feuillans, who, painfully struck by the relaxation of its discipline, laid down for him self a new and much more austere course of life, in which he soon found many imita tors and associates among the brethren of his order. The rule thus reformed was, after considerable opposition from the advocates of the old rule, approved, with certain modifications, by pope Sixtus V. ; the reformed congregation, however, being still left subject to the authority of the abbot of Citeaux; and a convent was founded for them by Henry III. in the Rue St. Honore. Paris. The subjection to the abbot of Citeaux was removed by Clement VIII. in 1595; and Urban VII., in 1630, separated the con gregation into two branches, one for France, and the other for Italy, each under a dis tinct general. The rules of both these branches were subsequently modified about the middle of the same century.
The celebrated revolutionary club of the Feuillants took its name from this order, the convent of which, in the rue St. Honore, was the place of meeting for the members
of the club. It was founded in 1790 by Lafayette, Sieyes, La Rocbefoucauld, and others holding moderate opinions. The club was at first called the " Company of 1789," and was intended to support the constitution against the ultra party. It reckoned among its members individuals of all classes, who took the constitution of England as their model. This opposition served, however, only to accelerate the revolutionary movement. On the 27th Jan., 1791, on count Clermont Tonnerrc being elected president of the club, a popular insurrection broke out against it; and, on the 28th Mar., the assembly in the cloister was forcibly dispersed by a raging mob.
Milli/LEA, a genus of plants of the natural order cucurbitaces, named in honor of Louis Feuillee, a French botanist and traveler in Chili. The species are generally. half-shrubby climbers, natives of the warm parts of America. The seeds, at least of some of them, as F. cordifolia and F. trilobata, contain a great quantity of a hitter fixed oil, which is obtained by expression, and is used for lamps. It has also a high reputation in the West Indies and Brazil as a cure for serpent bites, and an anti dote to some kinds of vegetable poisons.