Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/336

322 The assassination of the king, her brother, filled Diana with despair. She confined herself to the castle of Chinon, in Touraine, and by his death became duchess of Angoulême: yet Henry IV. asked her counsel, profited by it, and when he was established in the kingdom, recalled her to court. He pardoned her nephew, a conspirator, in consequence of the high esteem he had for the duchess.

Lewis XIII. was the seventh king Diana had seen upon the throne. After so many disastrous reigns, he could not but be dear to the people, and she in particular beheld him with a mingled sensation of fear and joy. She presided over his education, and was witness to the tumultuous commencement of his reign; but when he seemed to be finally settled, retired from court; contented at the prospect of peace for the nation, and regretting none of the amusements of which her age and infirmities deprived her, but that of the chace. She cultivated the sciences to the end of her life, and a few months only before her death, repeated the whole of a play which she had acted a part in at the age of twelve. All historians praise her piety. Her house was open to good preachers, and she wished all her people and acquaintance to come and hear them. She never had but one child, which was by her second husband, and died the same day it was born.

by connoisseurs is supposed to have reached the perfection of the art.

DICALZI,