and these two letters were followed by several others. In April, 1142, Heloise having heard a report of Abelard's death, wrote to demand his body, that it might be buried at the Paraclete, according to a wish that he had himself expressed in writing. He was buried in a chapel built by his order, and for more than twenty years, Heloise went every night to weep over his tomb. She❘ died May 17th, 1164, aged sixty-three, and was placed in the same tomb. In 1497, from religious motives, the tomb was opened, and the bones of Abelard and Heloise were removed. In 1800, by order of Lucien Bonaparte, these hallowed remains were carried to the Museum of French Monuments. And in 1815, when this Museum was destroyed, the tomb was taken to Père-le-Chaise, where it still remains. In reviewing this melancholy story, where genius was dethroned by passion, we cannot but consider the noble-hearted, though erring Heloise, a victim to the vanity of the selfish Abelard. He does not pretend to have loved her passionately; he formed the plan of a cold-blooded seduction, merely for a passing amusement. Perhaps he considered the affair a study of mental philosophy, and watched to analyze the manifestations of the tender passion in the young, warm heart of the innocent, beautiful, gifted pupil confided to his instruction. He had no tenderness or truth of love in his soul. Heloise, on the contrary, was affected with the most devoted, the most unselfish affection. It needs only to compare their letters to see this those of Abelard, cold, hard, calculating. The ill-regulated, but ardent and sincere effusions of Heloise, have been too frequetly quoted to need a repetition here. The very arrangement of their correspondence marks the difference. He divides and subdivides his letters; he answers methodically, and by chapters; he addresses them "To the Spouse of Christ"-"Heloissæ dilectissima sorori suæ in Christo - Abailardus ;" "To his dear sister in Christ-Abelard." The tone of Heloise is thus: "Domino suo-imò patri; conjugi suo, imo fratei; Ancilla sua imo filia; ipsius uxor, imo soror." Heloissa, Epist. 4. And after their separation, the better-tempered soul of Heloise rises wonderfully above that of her master. He abandoned his intellectual weapons, and sank into a mere monk; his admirers, who could not comprehend the metamorphosis, clustered around him; they forced some sparks of former animation to appear. Arnold of Brescia persuaded him to encounter St. Bernard in a logical duel. Time and place were chosen. The king, the counts of Champagne and Nerus, bishops, ecclesiastics of highest rank, a concourse of celebrities, crowded to the arena. St. Bernard came with repugnance; dreaded the powerful eloquence that had so often disarmed him; he was saved by the pusillanimity of his rival. Abelard was mute. After this signal defeat, there is nothing more to relate of him; he died, in inglorious repose, in the abbey of Clury. In the mean time, Heloise had taken the veil, not from a vocation, but to gratify the caprice of her husband, in a very different career. As Abelard subsided into a sluggish monk, she rose into something superior to a mere formalized recluse. She sought means of improving the minds and morals of all within her influence. She founded a great college of theology, Greek and Hebrew. She delivered lectures on these subjects with such success, as to arouse a spirit of study and investigation through an extended sphere; crowds flocked to hear her; and similar institutions, for the advancement of learning, grew up around her. Heloise was declared by the pope, head of her order. HERODIAS, DAUGHTER of Aristobulus and Berenice, sister to king Agrippa, and grand-daughter to Herod the Great, married first her uncle, Herod Philip, by whom she had Salome. She left Herod Philip to marry his brother, Herod Antipas, tetrarch of Galilee, and it was for censuring this incestuous marriage that Antipas ordered John the Baptist to be imprisoned. Some time after, Herodias suggested to her daughter Salome to ask, as a reward for her dancing, the head of John the Baptist, who was accordingly beheaded. Herodias, mortified to see her husband tetrarch only, while her brother Agrippa was king, persuaded Antipas to visit Rome, and endeavour to obtain the royal title. But Agrippa sent word to the emperor, that Antipas had arms for seventy thousand men in his arsenals; and Antipas, unable to deny the charge, was banished to Lyons. Caligula was willing to pardon Herodias, as the sister of Agrippa; but she chose rather to accompany her husband, than to owe anything to her brother's fortune. The time or the manner of her death is not known; but she has left the ineffaceable memory of her sin and Herod's crime as a warning to the world, to beware of placing a man in office who sets at defiance the laws of God, or who is united to a wicked woman. HILDA, ST., PRINCESS of Scotland, was learned in Scripture, and composed many religious works. She opposed strenuously the tonsure of the priests, probably supposing it a heathenish custom. She built the convent of St. Fare, of which she became abbess, and died there in 685. HILDEGARDIS, A FAMOUS abbess of the order of St. Benedict, at Spanheim, in Germany, whose prophecies are supposed to relate to the reformation, and the destruction of the Roman see; they had great influence at the time of the reformation. She lived in 1146. The books in which these prophecies are contained, appear to have been written by a zealous, godly, and understanding woman, shocked at the crimes which she saw prevailing around her. She also wrote a poem on medicine, and a book of Latin poems. Her good works and her piety were long remembered. HILTRUDIS, DAUGHTER of Charles Martel, was born in the year 728. After the death of her father, when she saw that her brothers, Pepin and Carlman, treated the rest of the family with great cruelty, she fled to her aunt, the duchess of Bavaria. Her cousin Odillo, enchanted with her courage and beauty, married her, and made her duchess of Bavaria. Five years afterwards, Odillo declared war against the Franks, but fell, badly wounded, a prisoner into the hands of his enemies. Hiltrudis disguised herself as a knight, and followed her husband to the court of her brothers, where she arrived just in time to assist at the baptism of Charlemagne, whom she presented with costly jewels. She was recognised by her brothers, and, reconciled to them, obtained the liberty of her husband. She died in the year 759, and was buried in Osterhofer, by the side of Odillo. HROSWITHA, (HELENA V. ROSSEN,) a nun of the Benedictine order, was born in Saxony, and died at Gandershein, in 984. She is known as a religious poetess through her "Comædia Sacræ VI.," edited by Schurzfleisch. These plays were written by her to suppress the reading of Terence, then a very popular author among the literary clergy of the age. She also composed a poetic narrative of the deeds performed by Otho the Great, to whom she was related, and a number of elegies. She wrote in Latin altogether. Her works were printed in Nuremberg, in 1501. HYPASIA, A MOST beautiful, learned, and virtuous lady of antiquity, was the daughter of Theon, who governed the Platonic school at Alexandria, in Egypt, where she was born and educated in the latter part of the fourth century. Theon was famous for his extensive knowledge and learning, but principally for being the father of Hypasia, whom, on account of her extraordinary genius, he educated not only in all the qualifications belonging to her sex, but likewise in the most abstruse sciences. She made astonishing progress in every branch of learning. Socrates, the ecclesiastical historian, a witness of undoubted veracity, at least when he speaks in favour of a heathen philosopher, tells us that Hypasia "arrived at such a pitch of learning, as very far to exceed all the philosophers of her time:" to which Nicephorus adds, "Or those of other times." Philostorgius, a third historian of the same stamp, affirms that she surpassed her father in astronomy; and Suidas, who mentions two books of her writing, one "On the Astronomical Canon of Diophantus," and another "On the Conics of Apollonius," avers that she understood all other parts of philosophy. She succeeded her father in the government of the Alexandrian school, teaching out of the chair where Ammonius, Hierocles, and many other celebrated philosophers had taught; and this at a time when men of immense learning abounded at Alexandria, and in other parts of the Roman em pire. Her fame was so extensive, and her worth so universally acknowledged, that she had a crowded auditory, One cannot represent to himself without pleasure the flower of all the youth in Europe, Asia, and Africa, sitting at the feet of a very beautiful woman, for such we are assured Hypasia was, all eagerly imbibing instruction from her mouth, and many doubtless love from her eyes; yet Suidas, who speaks of her marriage to Isidorus, relates at the same time that she died a maid. Her scholars were as eminent as they were nu- Never was a woman more caressed by the pub- "On account of the confidence and authority," says Socrates, "which she had acquired by her learning, she sometimes came to the judges with singular modesty. Nor was she anything abashed to appear thus among a crowd of men; for all persons, by reason of her extraordinary discretion, did at the same time both reverence and admire her." This is also confirmed by other writers, and Damascus and Suidas relate, that the governors and magistrates of Alexandria regularly visited and paid their court to her; and, when Nicepolus wished to pay the princess Eudocia the highest compliment, he called her "another Hypasia." While Hypasia thus reigned the brightest ornament of Alexandria, Orestes was governor of the same place, under the emperor Theodosius, and Cyril bishop or patriarch. Orestes admired Hypasia, and as a wise governor, frequently consulted her. This created an intimacy between them highly displeasing to Cyril, who had a great aversion to Orestes, and who disapproved of Hypasia, as she was a heathen. The life of Orestes nearly fell a sacrifice to the fury of a Christian mob, supposed to have been incited by Cyril on account of this intimacy; and, afterwards, it being reported that Hypasia prevented a reconciliation between Cyril and Orestes, some men, headed by one Peter, a lecturer, entered into a conspiracy against her, waylaid her, and dragged her to the church called Casais, where, stripping her naked, they killed her with tiles, tore her to pieces, and carrying her limbs to a place called Cinaron, there burnt them to ashes. This happened in March, about the year 415; in the tenth year of Honorius' and the sixth of Theodosius' consulship. The weak and trifling emperor was roused from his usual indifference by such an awful crime, and threatened the assassins of this incomparable woman with a merited punishment; but at the entreaties of his friends, whom Orestes had corrupted, was induced to suffer them to escape, by which means, it is added, he drew vengeance on himself and family. There are few recorded crimes of wicked men so utterly fiendlike as the unprovoked murder of the lovely, learned, and virtuous Hypasia. I. ICASIA, SPOUSE of Theophilus, emperor of Constantinople, in 829. He having assembled the most beautiful young women of the empire, for the purpose of choosing a wife, fixed upon Icasia, and gave orders for her coronation; but on her answering some questions he proposed to her, in a manner at once learned and acute, he changed his mind. Icasia, therefore, retired to a monastery, where she composed many works. The emperor had the same taste, probably, for foolish, flippant women, as characterized Charles II., king of England. INGEBORGE, or INGELBURGA, WIFE of Philip Augustus, king of France, was born in 1175, and was the daughter of Waldemar, king of Denmark, and of his wife Sophia, a Russian princess. In 1193, she was selected, from motives of policy, by Philip Augustus, then a widower of twenty-eight, as his wife. She is represented as very beautiful and discreet, but the king, almost from the first interview, conceived a strong aversion to her, and on a frivolous pretext of Ingeborge's just discovered relationship to his first wife, he assembled the nobles of the kingdom at Compiégne, November 5th, 1193, who declared the marriage null and void. Ingeborge was present on this occasion, but having no counsellor, and not understanding the language, knew nothing of the business that the nobles were transacting, till she was informed of their decision by her interpreter, when she burst into tears, and appealed to Rome. She was taken to an abbey, where she was kept in confinement, and almost without the necessaries of life. The pope, urged by the king of Denmark as well as by Ingeborge, refused to sanction the divorce; but Philip Augustus imprisoned the legates, and married Agnes, daughter of Berthod, duke of Merania, a descendant of the emperor Charlemagne. Ingeborge appealed in vain to pope Celestine III.; but, on his death, he was succeeded by Innocent III., who immediately took very severe measures, and in 1199 Philip Augustus was excommunicated, and his kingdom declared under an inderdict. All the churches were closed, no baptisms, marriages, or burials were allowed to be performed, the dying were refused the benefit of the priest's services, and all the religious duties were suspended. In those days of superstition, this terrible sentence fell with tenfold weight on the people; and moved by their distress, after having resisted the papal authority for eight months, Philip at length sent Agnes to the royal castle of St. Leger, and allowed Ingeborge to return to him. But she still complained, and justly, that she had only exchanged one prison for another, and was treated with no respect. Meanwhile there was a solemn assembly held at Soissons to give a final judgment on the demand the king made for a legal separation. The king was surrounded by a crowd of lawyers, who vied with each other in urging the justice of his claim. Ingeborge was alone and defenceless; after waiting a few moments for her advocate, the judges were about to pronounce their decision, when a young and unknown lawyer came forward and argued her cause so eloquently, that the judges dared not utter the wished-for sentence. The king, leaving the assembly, went to the abbey where Ingeborge had taken refuge, and taking her behind him, on horseback, left the city without any of his usual train. When this was told to Agnes de Merania, it affected her so deeply that she died a few days after. Philip Augustus, still more irritated against his queen, confined her in the tower of the castle of Etampes, where no one was allowed to converse with her without his permission; her food was insufficient and coarse, her clothes hung about her in rags, and the servants who attended her were so brutal, that they were accused of wishing to cause her death by their ill-treatment. Philip endeavoured to induce his wife to take the veil, but in vain; and in 1213, after a separation of twenty years, he allowed her to reside under the same roof with him, where the sweetness of her temper, the goodness and purity of her soul, at length conquered his aversion. After the death of Philip, in 1223, Ingeborge was treated with the greatest respect by his successor; while she devoted herself chiefly to her religious duties. She died in 1236. INGONDE, or INGUNDIS, DAUGHTER of Siegbert I., king of Austrasia, or Lorraine, and of his wife, the famous Brunehaut, was married about 570, to Brunechilde, or Ermenegild, second son of Leovigild, one of the Gothic kings of Spain. She was received with great pomp and tenderness by her husband and his grandmother Gosuinda. But the old queen had an aversion to Catholicism, and attempted, at first by persuasions and afterwards by threats to convert Ingonde to Arianism, and to have her re| baptized, but Ingonde resolutely refused to consent. Gosuinda, enraged at her firmness, seized her by the hair, threw her down, stamped upon her, and had her plunged by force into the baptistry. Ingonde, however, at length, by her patience and piety, converted her husband to her own faith, which, when his father heard of it, made him so furious, that he had his son taken prisoner and beheaded. Ingonde fled, but was captured and taken to Sicily, where she died, about 585. She was venerated as a martyr. INGRIDA, A NUN of the convent of St. Brigitta, in Wadstena, Sweden, who lived in 1498, wrote an epistle to her lover, which is considered the most elegant and correct specimen of the Swedish language of that period, and indeed superior to any that appeared for a long time after. This composition, full of eloquence and genuine passion, in which the sentiments of love and mystical devotion are intermingled, places Ingrida by the side of the more celebrated Heloise. IRENE, EMPRESS of Constantinople, was an Athenian orphan, distinguished only by her accomplishments, when, in 769, at the age of seventeen, she was married to Leo IV., emperor of Constantinople. She was banished by her husband on account of her attachment to image worship, of which the Greek church disapproved. On the death of Leo, in 780, she returned to Constantinople, and was associated in the government with her son, Constantine VI., then only ten years of age. Artful and cruel, Irene deposed her son, in 797, and caused his eyes to be put out, and then reigned alone. On this occasion, she entered Constantinople in state, with a splendid retinue. She made Charlemagne, then emperor of the West, a proposal of marriage, in order to preserve her Italian dominions from his grasp, and the marriage treaty was actually concluded, when Nicephorus, chancellor of the empire, conspired against her, seized her in her bed, and banished her to a nunnery in the island of Lesbos. She was here so reduced, as to be forced to earn a scanty subsistence by her distaff, and died the same year, 802. During her reign, she had submitted to be tributary to the Saracens. She governed under the direction of two ambitious eunuchs, who were perpetually plotting against each other. IRGE, A JAPANESE princess, born 858, whose writings are said still to be in great repute in Japan. ISABELLA, OF ARRAGON, daughter of Alphonso, duke of Calabria, married, in 1480, John Galeazzo Sforza, duke of Milan, who, yet in his minority, was under the protection of his uncle, Louis Sforza. When Isabella arrived at Milan, her beauty inspired the protector with a passion for her that proved fatal to her happiness. The lovers having been married only by proxy, Louis contrived to keep them apart, while he attempted to supplant the bridegroom. But Isabella repulsed him with disdain, and exhorted her husband to throw off the yoke of his uncle, and assert his rights. The protector, artful and politic, attempted, by negotiation, to annul the marriage, in his own favour; but Alphonso threatened to arm Europe in his son-in-law's cause, and Louis was at length obliged to restore to his nephew his betrothed bride. His love for Isabella was now turned to hatred; and he endeavoured in every way to embitter her life. He married Alphonsina, daughter of the duke of Ferrara, woman as haughty and ambitious as Isabella. Compelled to reside under the same roof with her rival, and to see her station and privileges usurped, Isabella found her position so insupportable, that she wrote to her father and grandfather, Ferdinand, king of Naples, protesting that if no means for her deliverance were devised, she would escape from her sufferings by relinquishing her life. These princes, however, could not redress her grievances; and, in the mean time, her husband died of a slow poison, recommending his wife and children to his cousin, Charles VIII., of France, who was passing through Pavia. Hardly had Galeazzo expired, than the party of Louis, saluting him duke, ordered the bells to be set ringing. During this indecent and insulting display of joy, Isabella immured herself and her children, thus deprived at once of their father and their inheritance, in a dark chamber. The French having taken Milan, Isabella fled to Naples; but that city was at length compelled to surrender to the invaders. Isabella's only son was carried captive to France, where it was intended to compel him to become a monk, and where he died by a fall from his horse. Louis Sforza was also taken prisoner and carried to France, where he died. Isabella retired to a town in Naples, which had been assigned to her as a dower, and where she still maintained an air of state and grandeur. Her daughter, Bona Sforza, married Sigismund, king of Poland. Some time previous to her death, Isabella made a journey of devotion to Rome, where she walked to the Vatican, attended by a train of ladies, dressed in bridal ornaments. Her reputation in her youth was unblemished, but in her later years, she gave occasion for censure, by admitting the attentions of Prosper Colonna. She died Feb. 11th, 1524. ISABELLA, OF CASTILE, the celebrated queen of Spain, daughter of John II., was born in 1451, and married, in 1469, Ferdinand V., king of Arragon. After the death of her brother, Henry IV., in 1474, she ascended the throne of Castile, to the exclusion of her elder sister, Joanna, who had the rightful claim to the crown. During the lifetime of her brother, Isabella had gained the favour of the estates of the kingdom to such a degree that the majority, on his death, declared for her. From the others, the victorious arms of her husband extorted acquiescence, in the battle of Toro, in 1476. After the kingdoms of Arragon and Castile were thus united, Ferdinand and Isabella assumed the royal title of Spain. With the graces and charms of her sex, Isabella united the courage of a hero, and the sagacity of a statesman and legislator. She was always present at the transaction of state affairs, and her name was placed beside that of her husband in public ordinances. The conquest of Granada, after which the Moors were entirely expelled from Spain, and the discovery of America, were, in a great degree, her work. In all her undertakings, the wise cardinal Ximenes was her assistant. She has been accused of severity, pride, and unbounded ambition; but these faults sometimes promoted the welfare of the kingdom, as well as her virtues and talents. A spirit like hers was necessary to humble the haughtiness of the nobles without exciting their hostility, to conquer Granada without letting loose the hordes of Africa on Europe, and to restrain the vices of her subjects, who had become corrupt by reason of the bad administration of the laws. By the introduction of a strict ceremonial, which subsists till the present day at the Spanish court, she succeeded in checking the haughtiness of the numerous nobles about the person of the king, and in depriving them of their pernicious influence over him. Private war fare, which had formerly prevailed to the destruction of public tranquillity, she checked, and introduced a vigorous administration of justice. In 1492, pope Alexander VI. confirmed to the royal pair the title of Catholic king, already conferred on them by Innocent VIII. The zeal for the Roman Catholic religion, which procured them this title, gave rise to the Inquisition, which was introduced into Spain in 1480, at the suggestion of their confessor, Torquemada. Isabella died in 1504, having extorted from her husband (of whom she was very jealous) an oath that he would never marry again. ISABELLA OF FRANCE, YOUNGEST child of Louis VIII. and Blanche of Castile, was born in 1224. She was early celebrated for her beauty, learning, and piety. She refused every offer of marriage, even the son of the emperor Ferdinand, and declared her intention to devote herself wholly to religion. The pope, at her mother's request, wrote to dissuade her from doing this; but her answer to his letter was so full of humility, piety, and reason, that both he and Blanche were obliged to yield. She founded the monastery of Longchamp about 1260, though she never withdrew entirely from the world, or joined any religious order. Towards the end of her life she observed the most rigorous silence, to expiate for the idle words she had spoken in her youth. She died, February 12th, 1269, at the age of forty-five. For several ages, it was believed that miracles were performed at her tomb. ISABELLA, DAUGHTER of Philip the Fair, king of France, was born in 1295. She married, in 1308, Edward, afterwards Edward II. of England. She was very beautiful; but her licentiousness disgraced her, and embittered the last years of her husband's life. By her intrigues she induced his abdication and the accession of their son Edward III., then a boy. She sought to secure the sovereign power in her hands, and those of her infamous favourite, Roger Mortimer. She did not effect this till after the wicked murder of her husband, the deposed Edward II., which was attributed to her instigations. Soon afterwards her son, Edward III., joined with his indignant barons in an attack on Nottingham castle, where she and Mortimer had taken up their abode. The crafty queen was overcome; her paramour seized and executed; and she confined for the remainder of her life, twentyeight years, at Castle Rising. She died in 1858, aged sixty-three years. "Since the days of the fair and false Elfrida of Saxon celebrity, no queen of England has left so dark a stain on the annals of female royalty as the consort of Edward II., Isabella of France," says Miss Strickland. SABELLA OF VALOIS, WAS the daughter of Charles VI. of France, and Isabella of Bavaria. She was born in the Louvre palace at Paris, November 9th, 1387. In |
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