Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/37

Rh the horrors of faction, for a time, appears to be justly attributed to Alexandra.

princess receiving a careful education in the magnificent court of her father, and possessing the natural qualifications of beauty, good-nature, wit, and a fondness for poetry, in which consisted great part of the literature of that age, was much extolled for those advantages; and, independent of allying himself with Thibaut, whom he had found a powerful enemy, and thus detaching him from the interest of the English, already too potent in France, Louis the VIIth, on the death of his second wife, in 1160, saw none equal to Alice in personal charms and character; and accordingly demanded her of her father, who, with his family and nobles, repaired immediately to the court of France, where, soon after, the nuptials were celebrated with great magnificence; and, to cement the union more strongly, two daughters of the king by his first wife, were married also to the two elder sons of the count.

Four years afterwards, in 1165, she had a son, afterwards Philip-Augustus, to the great joy of Lewis, and the nation in general. Tenderly beloved by her husband, whose ill health rendered him unequal to the duties of his station, Alice not only assisted him in conducting the affairs of the nation, but superintended, with affectionate zeal, the education of her son, who afterwards became one of the greatest of the French monarchs. Lewis died in 1180, having appointed Alice to