Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/172

158 children, and soon began to inflict on herself voluntary penances.

Her father promised her in marriage to a Frenchman. Easter-day, 1630, was appointed for the nuptials; to avoid which, she fled, in the habit of a hermit, but was stopped at Blazon, a village of Hainault, on suspicion of her sex. The minister of that place rescued her from an officer of horse. He observed something extraordinary in her, and mentioned her to the archbishop of Cambray, who persuaded her to give up the idea of living as a hermit, and sent her home. But fresh proposals of matrimony being made to her, she ran away a second time; and going to the archbishop, obtained a licence to set up a small society in the country, with some other maidens of her taste and temper. The Jesuits, however, opposing; it, the licence was soon retracted, and Antoinette obliged to withdraw into the country of Liege, whence she returned to Lisle, and passed many years away in a private and recluse way of life, in devotion and great simplicity; so that when her patrimonial estate fell to her, she resolved at first to renounce it; but changing her mind, as she was satisfied with a few conveniences, spent little, and bestowed no charities, her wealth daily increased.

Her resolution to remain single, without embracing a conventual life, exposed her to the addresses of many lovers, either of herself or her fortune. Upon this, she had recourse to the provost, who sent two men to guard her house. Soon after the nephew of the minister of St. Andrew's, near Lisle, also fell in love with her; and as her house was in the neighbourhood, made frequent attempts to force an entrance. She threatened to quit her