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senté la justice de vos prétentions: il a fait mille difficultés, et m'a dit que le roi seul pouvait les résoudre. J'intéresserai Madame de Montespan, mais il faut un moment favorable, et qui sait s'il se présentera? S'il ne s'offre point, je chargerai notre ami de votre affaire, et il parlera au roi; je compte beaucoup sur lui.

AU ROI.

Sire, La reine n'est pas à plaindre: elle a vécu, elle est morte comme une sainte: c'est une grande consolation que l'assurance de son salut. Vous avez, Sire, dans le ciel, une amie qui demandera à Dieu le pardon de vos péchés et les grâces des justes. Que votre majesté se nourrisse de ces sentimens: Madame la dauphine se porte mieux. Soyez, Sire, aussi bon chrétien que vous êtes grand roi.

A MADAME DE LA MAISON-FORT.

Il ne vous est pas mauvais de vous trouver dans des troubles d'esprit: vous en serez plus humble, et vous sentirez par votre expérience, que nous ne trouvons nulle ressource en nous, quelque esprit que nous ayons. Vous ne serez jamais contente, ma chère fille, que lorsque vous aimerez Dieu de tout votre cœur: ce que je ne dis pas, par rapport à la profession où vous vous étes engagée. Salomon vous a dit il y a longtemps, qu'après avoir cherché, trouvé et goûté de tous les plaisirs, il confessait que tout n'est que vanité et affliction d'esprit, hors aimer Dieu et le servir. Que ne puis-je vous donner toute mon expérience! Que ne puis-je vous faire voir l'ennui qui dévore les grands, et la peine qu'ils ont à remplir leurs journées! Ne voyez-vous pas que je meurs de tristesse dans une fortune qu'on aurait eu peine à imaginer, et qu'il n'y a que le secours de Dieu qui m'empêche d'y succomber? J'ai été jeune et jolie, j'ai goûté des plaisirs, j'ai été aimée partout; dans un âge un peu avancé, j'ai passé des années dans le commerce de l'esprit, je suis venue à la faveur; et je vous proteste, ma chère fille, que tous les états laissent un-vide affreux, une inquiétude, une lassitude, une envie de connaître autre chose, parce qu'en tout cela rien ne satisfait entièrement. On n'est en repos que lorsqu'on s'est donné à Dieu, mais avec cette volonté déterminée dont je vous parle quelquefois: alors on sent qu'il n'y a plus rien à chercher, qu'on est arrivé à ce qui seul est bon sur la terre: on a des chagrins, mais on a aussi une solide consolation, et la paix au fond du cœur au milieu des plus grandes peines.

MALEGUZZI-VALERI, VERONICA,

A LEARNED lady, born at Reggio. She supported in public, in a very satisfactory manner, two theses on the liberal arts, which have been publighed; besides "Innocence Recognised," a drama. She died, 1690, in the convent of Modena, where she had retired.

MALEPIERRA, OLYMPIA,

A VENETIAN lady of noble birth, who wrote poems of some merit, published at Naples, and died in 1559.

MALESCOTTE, MARGHERITA, Or Sienna, has left some poems in the collection of Bergalli. She enjoyed considerable reputation among the learned of her day, and died in 1720.

MALIBRAN, MARIA FELICITE, DAUGHTER of a singer and composer of music of some celebrity, of the name of Garcia, was born at Paris, March 24th, 1808. When scarcely five, she commenced her musical education at Naples, under the best masters. She sang in public, for the first time, in 1824, and so successfully as to give promise of attaining a very high order of excellence in her art. In 1825, she accompanied her father to England, when a sudden indisposition of Madame Pasta led to her performance, at a short otice, of the part of Rosina, in the Barber of Seville. The highly satisfactory manner in which she acquitted herself, secured to her an engagement for the season in London; and she sang afterwards in Manchester, York, and Liverpool. Her father, having been induced to come to the United States, brought his daughter with him, as the prima donna of his operatic corps. Here her success was unbounded, and she qualified herself by the most assiduous study, for competing, on her return to Europe, with the most celebrated singers of the time.

In March, 1826, she married, at New York, a French merchant of the name of Malibran, of more than double her own age, but who was thought very wealthy. Soon after the marriage, he became a bankrupt; and the cold and selfish reliance he placed on her musical powers, as a means of re-establishing his ruined fortunes, so offended the feelings of his wife, that she left him, and went to France in September, 1827.

After two years of a most brilliant career in Paris and the departments, she accompanied Lablache on a professional tour through Italy. Her winters were afterwards passed in Paris, and her summers in excursions in different directions. In 1835, the French court pronounced her marriage with M. Malibran to have been ab initio null and void, not having been contracted before an authority regarded as competent by the French law. In 1836, she married M. de Bériot, the celebrated violinist, and went with him to Brussels to reside. In consequence of an injury received by a fall from a horse a few weeks after her marriage, her health began to decline; and, having gone to England during the summer, she was suddenly attacked by a nervous fever, after singing at a musical festival at Manchester, contrary to the advice of her physicians. Her enfeebled constitution was unable to resist the progress of the disease, and she died, September 23d, 1836, at the age of twenty-eight.

MANLEY, MRS.,

THE author of "The Atalantis," was the daughter of Sir Roger Manley, and born in Guernsey, of which her father was governor. She became an orphan early, and was deceived into a false marriage by a relation of the same name, to whose

care Sir Roger had bequeathed her. He brought her to London, but soon deserted her, and she passed three years in solitude. Then the duchess of Cleveland, mistress of Charles II., took her under her protection; but, being a very fickle woman, she grew tired of Mrs. Manley in a few months, who returned again to her solitary mode of life.

Her first tragedy, called "The Royal Mischief," was acted in 1696, and brought her great applause and admiration, which proved fatal to her virtue. She then wrote "The New Atalantis," in which she spoke freely of many exalted persons; several of the characters in the book being only satires on those who brought about the revolution which placed William and Mary on the throne of Great Britain.

To shield the printer and publisher of these volumes, against whom a warrant was issued, Mrs. Manley voluntarily presented herself before the court of King's-bench as the unassisted author of the "Atalantis." She was confined for a short time, but afterwards admitted to bail, and finally discharged. She lived for some time after in high reputation as a wit, and in great gayety. She wrote several dramas, and was also employed in writing for Queen Anne's ministry, under the direction, it is supposed, of Dean Swift. She died, July 11th, 1724.

MANSON, MARIE FRANÇAISE CLAIRISSE,

REMARKABLE from the manner in which she became implicated with murderers and robbers in a criminal trial, was born in 1785, at Rhodes, a manufacturing town in the south of France. She was the daughter of President Enjalran, and the wife of Antoine Manson, an officer, whom she had married in obedience to her father, but from whom she was separated. She is represented as a woman of amiable disposition, somewhat enthusiastic and independent in character, but of fair reputation.

M. Fauldes was a highly esteemed and wealthy inhabitant of Rhodes, who dealt in money transactions with all the rich and respectable inhabitants of the place; among them were the brothers Jausion and Bastide Grammont, who were his relations and daily visitors, and deeply in his debt. Fualdes, having sold his real estate with the intention of removing from Rhodes, insisted upon settling his affairs with the Grammonts. On the morning of the 19th of March, 1817, they had some altercation about it, and a meeting for the evening of the same day was agreed upon, to conclude the business. With this view, Fualdes set out at eight o'clock P. M., to proceed to the place of meeting. In the Rue des Hebdomadiers, he was set upon by several men, who at a concerted signal were joined by numerous others. He was dragged into a suspicious house, belonging to one Bancal, where, after having been forced to sign several bills of exchange, he was murdered in the most revolting manner. The children of Bancal, a woman in masculine attire, and another covered with a veil, witnessed the whole scene in an adjoining room. The dead body was packed like a

bale of merchandise, carried through the streets, and thrown into the river near the town, where it was found the next morning. The officers of justice immediately began a search; traces of murder were discovered in the house of Bancal, whose little daughter had already betrayed some circumstances of importance. The brothers Grammont, Bancal, and several others, were arrested and thrown into prison, where Bancal committed suicide.

On the trial, witnesses were wanted; but Madame Manson, having spoken in conversation of circumstances connected with the deed which led to the suspicion that she had witnessed it, was examined, and confessed to her father and the prefect, that on the evening of the 19th she had been in disguise in the street when the attack was made, and had taken refuge in the first house open, which proved to be Bancal's. She was forced into a closet, and a scream of horror, accompanied by a fainting fit, betrayed her presence to the murderers. One of them was about to kill her, but was prevented by the rest; they then swore her to silence upon the dead body. As soon as the report of this confession was spread through the town, Madame Manson received several letters threatening her life, and that of her little daughter. Overwhelmed with terror when she appeared at court and beheld the murderers, she fainted; and, on being questioned, recalled her confession, and denied having been in the house of Bancal. The murderers were convicted, but appealed to a higher court. Madame Manson was arrested for giving false evidence. On the second trial, upon being spoken to by Bastide in an insulting manner, she confessed her duplicity, and gave a true account of the transaction. Bastide and his accomplices were condemned to death. Madame Manson wrote her memoirs while in prison. In Paris four thousand copies were sold in a few hours; and it went through seven editions in the course of the year. The whole trial was full of dramatic interest, and attracted so much attention that Madame Manson was offered a hundred and twenty thousand francs to come to Paris to gratify the curiosity of the Parisian world.

MANZONI, GIUSTI FRANCESCA.

THIS erudite lady was as highly esteemed for her virtue and prudence as for her extraordinary intellect and the fertility of her imagination. Her death, which happened in 1743, was universally lamented. She was a member of the academy of the Filodossi of Milan. The subjoined is a list of her works:-"An Epistle in Verse to the Empress Maria Theresa;" "Ester," a tragedy; "Abigalle," a sacred drama; "Debora," an oratorio: "Gedeone," an oratorio; "Sagrifizio d'Abramo;" "Translation of Ovid's Tristitia."

MARA, GERTRUDE ELIZABETH, DAUGHTER of Mr. Schmäling, city musician in Cassel, was born about 1749. When she was seven, she played very well on the violin, and when she was fourteen, she appeared as a singer. Frederic the Great of Prussia, notwithstanding his preju

dice against German performers, invited her to Potsdam, in 1770, and gave her an appointment immediately. In 1774, she married Mara, a violoncello player, a very extravagant man, and he involved her so much in debt, that, in 1786, Frederic withdrew her appointment from her, and she went to Vienna, Paris, and London, where she was received with great enthusiasm. In 1808 she went to Russia, and while at Moscow she married Florio, her companion since her separation from Mara. By the burning of Moscow she lost most of her property. She passed the latter part of her life, which was very long, at Reval, where she lied, in 1833. She possessed extraordinary compass of voice, extending with great ease over three octaves.

MARATTI, ZAPPI FAUSTINA,

OF Rome. Her poems appear to have contributed to the improvement of style which took place in the Italian poetry when she wrote. They are filled with the tender affection of a devoted wife and mother. She was the daughter of the famous painter Maratti. She died in 1740.

MARGARET, DUCHESS OF PARMA,

WAs the natural daughter of Charles V. of Germany and Margaret of Gest. She was born in 1522, and married, first, Alexander de Medici, and afterwards Octavio Farnese, duke of Parma and Piacenza. Her half-brother, Philip II. of Spain, appointed her, in 1559, to the government of the Netherlands, where she endeavoured to restore tranquillity; and she might have succeeded, if the duke of Alva had not been sent with such great power that nothing was left to her but the title. Indignant at this, Margaret returned to her husband in Italy, and died at Ortona, 1586. She left one son, Alexander Farnese, duke of Parma.

MARGARET OF FRANCE,

QUEEN of Navarre, daughter of Henry II. of France and Catharine de Medicis, was born in 1552. Brantôme says, "If ever there was a perfect beauty born, it was the queen of Navarre, who eclipsed the women who were thought charming in her absence." She walked extremely well, and was considered the most graceful dancer in Europe. She gave early proofs of genius, and was a brilliant assemblage of talents and faults, of virtues and vices. This may, in a great measure, be attributed to her education in the most polished, yet most corrupt court in Europe. Margaret was demanded in marriage, both by the emperor of Germany and the king of Portugal; but, in 1572, she was married to Henry, prince of Bearn, afterwards Henry IV. of France. Nothing could equal the magnificence of this marriage; which was succeeded by the horrors of the massacre of St. Bartholomew. Though Margaret was a strict Roman Catholic, she was not entrusted with the secrets of that horrible day. She was alarmed with suspicions, which her mother would not explain to her, and terrified by a gentleman, who, covered with wounds, and pursued by four

archers, burst into her chamber before she had risen in the morning. She saved his life, and by her prayers and tears, obtained from her mother grace for two of her husband's suite. Henry himself escaped the fate prepared for him, and Margaret refused to suffer her marriage to be cancelled.

In 1573, when the Polish ambassadors came to create her brother, the duke of Anjou, king of that country, Margaret, as a daughter of France, received them. The bishop of Cracow made his harangue in Latin, which she answered so eloquently, that they heard her with astonishment. She accompanied the duke d'Anjou as far as Blamont, and during this journey she discovered a plot of her husband and her next brother, who was become duke d'Anjou, to revenge the massacre, which she revealed to her mother, on condition that no one should be executed. The princes were imprisoned; but the death of Charles IX., in 1577, set them at liberty.

The king of Navarre, continually occupied by new beauties, cared little for the reputation of his wife; yet, when he stole from the court, he commended his interests to her, in a letter he left for her. But Margaret was then confined to her apartments, and her confidants were treated with the greatest severity. Catharine, however, prevented her brother from pushing matters to extremity with her, and by her assistance she obtained a short peace. Margaret then demanded permission to retire to her husband in Guienne; but Henry III. refused to allow his sister to live with a heretic.

At length open war was commenced against the Protestants, and Margaret withdrew into the Low Countries, to prepare the people in favour of her brother, the duke d'Alençon, who meditated the conquest of them by the Spaniards. There are curious details of this journey in her memoirs. On her return, she stopped at La Fere, in Picardy, which belonged to her, where she learned that, for the sixth time, peace was made in 1577. The duke d'Alençon came to Picardy, and was delighted with the pleasures that reigned in the little court of Margaret. She soon returned to France, and lived with her husband at Pau, in Bearn, where religious toleration was almost denied her by the Protestants; and Henry showed her little kindness; yet the tenderness with which she nursed him during an illness, re-established friendship between them, from 1577 to 1580, when the war again broke out. She wished to effect another reconciliation, but could only obtain the neutrality of Nerac, where she resided.

After the war, Henry III., wishing to draw the king of Navarre, and Margaret's favourite brother, the duke d'Anjou, to court, wrote to Margaret to come to him. Discontented with the conduct of her husband, she gladly complied, and went in 1582; yet so much was her brother irritated by her affection for the duke d'Anjou, that he treated her very unkindly. Some time after, a courier, whom he had sent to Rome with important dispatches, being murdered and robbed by four cavaliers, he suspected his sister of being concerned in the plot, and publicly reproached her for her

irregularities, saying everything that was bitter and taunting. Margaret kept a profound silence, but left Paris the next morning, saying, that there never had been two princesses as unfortunate as herself and Mary of Scotland. On the journey she was stopped by an insolent captain of the guards, who obliged her to unmask, and interrogated the ladies who were with her. Her husband received her at Nerac, and resented the cruel treatment she had experienced from her brother; but her conduct, and the new intrigues in which she was constantly engaged, widened the breach between them. When her husband was excommunicated, she left him, and went to Agen, and thence from place to place, experiencing many dangers and difficulties.

Her charms made a conquest of the marquis de Carnillac, who had taken her prisoner; but though he insured her a place of refuge in the castle of Usson, she had the misery of seeing her friends cut to pieces in the plains below; and though the fortress was impregnable, it was assailed by famine, and she was forced to sell her jewels, and but for her sister-in-law, Eleanor of Austria, she must have perished. The duke d'Anjou, who would have protected her, was dead; and though, on the accession of her husband to the throne of France, in 1589, she might have returned to court, on condition of consenting to a divorce, she never would do so during the life of Gabrielle d'Estrées.

After the death of the mistress, Margaret herself solicited Clement VIII. to forward the divorce, and, in 1600, Henry was married to Marie de Medicis. Margaret, in the mean time, did some acts of kindness for the king, and was permitted to return to court after an absence of twenty-two years. She even assisted at the coronation of Marie de Medicis, where etiquette obliged her to walk after Henry's sister. She consoled herself by pleasures for the loss of honours; and though Henry IV. begged her to be more prudent, and not to turn night into day and day into night, she paid but little attention to his advice.

Margaret passed her last years in devotion, study, and pleasure. She gave the tenth of her revenues to the poor, but she did not pay her debts. The memoirs she has left, which finish at the time of her re-appearance at court, prove the elegant facility of her pen; and her poetry, some of which has been preserved, equals that of the best poets of her time. She was very fond of the society of learned men.

"Margaret," said Catharine de Medicis, "is a living proof of the injustice of the Salic law; with her talents, she might have equalled the greatest kings."

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“The last of the house of Valois," says Mezeray, "she inherited their spirit; she never gave to any one, without apologising for the smallness of the gift. She was the refuge of men of letters, had always some of them at her table, and improved so much by their conversation, that she spoke and wrote better than any woman of her time." She appears to have been good-natured and benevolent; wanting in fidelity, not in complaisance to her husband; as, at his request, she

rose early one morning, to attend to one of his
mistresses who was ill. How could Henry re-
proach her for infidelities, while living himself a
life of the most scandalous licentiousness! If
Margaret had had a more affectionate and faithful
husband, she would doubtless have been a true
and affectionate wife. This does not justify her
errors, but it accounts for them. She died in
1615, aged sixty-three.

MARGARET,

DAUGHTER of Francis I. of France, married Emmanuel Philibert, duke of Savoy, and died highly respected, September 14th, 1574, aged fifty-one.

MARGARET LOUISA OF LORRAINE, DAUGHTER of Henry, duke of Guise, married, in 1605, at the instance of Henry IV., who was in love with her, and wished to fix her at court, Francis de Bourbon, prince of Conti. They however left the court immediately on marrying. The prince died in 1617, and Louisa devoted herself to the belles-lettres. She was one of Cardinal Richelieu's enemies, and he banished her to Eu, where she died in 1531. She was suspected of having married the marshal of Bassompierre for her second husband. She wrote the amours of Henry IV., under the title of "Les Amours du Gr. Alexandre."

MARQUETS, ANNE DE,

WAS born of noble and rich parents, and was carefully instructed in belles-lettres, and in her religious duties. She became a nun in a convent of the order of St. Dominic, at Poissy, where she devoted the poetic talents for which she was distinguished, to the service of religion. Her poems show great but enlightened zeal. Ronsard, and other celebrated contemporary poets, have spoken very highly of her. She reached an advanced age, but lost her sight some time before her death, which took place in 1558. She bequeathed to Sister Marie de Fortia, a nun in the same convent, three hundred and eighty sonnets of a religious nature.

MARIA THERESA,

ARCHDUCHESS of Austria, queen of Hungary and Bohemia, and empress of Germany, born in 1717, was the eldest daughter of Charles VI. of Austria, emperor of Germany. In 1724, Charles, by his will, known as the Pragmatic Sanction, regulated the order of succession in the house of Austria, declaring that in default of male issue, his eldest daughter should be heiress of all the Austrian dominions, and her children after her. The Pragmatic Sanction was guaranteed by the diet of the empire, and by all the German princes, and by several powers of Europe, but not by the Bourbons. In 1736, Maria Theresa married Francis of Lorraine, who, in 1737, became grand-duke of Tuscany; and in 1739, Francis, with his consort, repaired to Florence.

Upon the death of Charles VI. in 1740, the ruling powers of Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, France, Spain, and Sardinia, agreed to dismember the Aus

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trian monarchy, to portions of which each laid claim. Maria Theresa, however, went immediately to Vienna, and took possession of Austria, Bohemia, and her other German states; she then repaired to Presburg, took the oaths to the constitution of Hungary, and was solemnly proclaimed queen of that kingdom in 1741. Frederic of Prussia offered the young queen his friendship on condition of her giving up to him Silesia, which

the resolutely refused, and he then invaded that province. The Elector of Bavaria, assisted by the French, also invaded Austria, and pushed his troops as far as Vienna. Maria Theresa took refuge in Presburg, where she convoked the Hungarian diet; and appearing in the midst of them with her infant son in her arms, she made a heartstirring appeal to their loyalty. The Hungarian nobles, drawing their swords, unanimously exclaimed, "Moriamur pro Rege nostro, Maria Theresa!" "We will die for our queen, Maria Theresa." And they raised an army and drove the French and Bavarians out of the hereditary states. What would have been their reflections could those brave loyal Hungarians have foreseen that, in a little over a century, a descendant of this idolized queen would trample on their rights, overthrow their constitution, massacre the nobles and patriots, and ravage and lay waste their beautiful land! Well would it be for men to keep always in mind the warning of the royal psalmist, "Put not your trust in princes."

In the mean time, Charles Albert, Elector of Bavaria, was chosen Emperor of Germany, by the diet assembled at Frankfort, under the name of Charles VII.

Frederic of Prussia soon made peace with Maria Theresa, who was obliged to surrender Silesia to him. In 1745, Charles VII. died, and Francis, Maria Theresa's husband, was elected emperor. In 1748, the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle terminated the war of the Austrian succession, and Maria Theresa was left in possession of all her hereditary dominions, except Silesia. In 1756 began the Seven Years' war between France, Austria, and Russia, on one side, and Prussia on the other. It

ended in 1763, leaving Austria and Prussia with the same boundaries as before. In 1765, Maria Theresa lost her husband, for whom she wore mourning till her death. Her son Joseph was elected emperor. She however retained the administration of the government.

The only act of her political life with which she can be reproached is her participation in the first partition of Poland; and this she did very unwillingly, only when she was told that Russia and Prussia would not regard her disapproval, and that her refusal would endanger her own dominions.

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The improvements Maria Theresa made in her dominions were many and important. She abolished torture, also the rural and personal services the peasants of Bohemia owed to their feudal superiors. She founded or enlarged in different parts of her extensive dominions several academies for the improvement of the arts and sciences; instituted numerous seminaries for the education of all ranks of people; reformed the public schools, and ordered prizes to be distributed among the students who made the greatest progress in learning, or were distinguished for propriety of behaviour, or purity of morals. She established prizes for those who excelled in different branches of manufacture, in geometry, mining, smelting metals, and even spinning. She particularly turned her attention to agriculture, which, on a medal struck by her order, was entitled the "Art which nourishes all other arts;" and founded a society of agriculture at Milan, with bounties to the peasants who obtained the best crops. She took away the pernicious rights which the convents and churches enjoyed of affording sanctuary to all criminals without distinction, and in many other ways evinced her regard for the welfare of the people. She was a pious and sincere Roman Catholic, but not a blind devotee, and could discriminate between the temporal and spiritual jurisdiction. She put a check on the power of the Inquisition, which was finally abolished during the reign of her sons. She possessed the strong affections of her Belgian subjects; and never was Lombardy so prosperous or tranquil as under her reign. The population increased from 900,000 to 1,130,000. During her forty years' reign she showed an undeviating love of justice, truth, and clemency; and her whole conduct was characterized by a regard for propriety and self-respect.

Maria Theresa was, in her youth, exceedingly beautiful; and she retained the majesty, grace, and elegance of queenly attractiveness to the close of her life. She was strictly religious, sincere in her affection for her husband, and never marred the power of her loveliness by artifice or coquetry. She used her gifts and graces not for the gratification of her own vanity, to win lovers, but as a wise sovereign to gain over refractory subjects; and she succeeded, thus showing how potent is the moral strength with which woman is endowed. This queen has been censured for what was styled "neglect of her children."

Maria Theresa was the mother of sixteen children, all born within twenty years. There is every

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