Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/380

366

and disciple of Gio. Maria Galli, commonly called Bibiena. Abecedario Pittorica.

princess loving her tenderly, took her into France in 1606, when she went thither to be married to Henry IV. she was made her bedchamber-woman, and governed her just as she pleased. Extremely ugly, but possessed of a great deal of wit and artifice, she married Concino Concini, afterwards marshal d'Ancre, who was also a native of Florence, and came into France with Mary de Medicis. He was at first only gentleman in ordinary to that princess, but afterwards, by means of his wife, raised himself to great honours. They agreed in fomenting the discord between the king and queen, and their artifices were the causes of the domestic jars which embittered the life of Henry. After the death of that prince, they found it still more easy to govern their mistress; and were so puffed up with pride, that Leonora would not allow the princes, princesses, and greatest lords of the kingdom, to come into their chamber, or suffer any one to look at her, saying, "that people frightened her when they stared upon her, and that they might bewitch her by looking in her face." Soon after the death of Henry IV. their power and arrogance grew more and more excessive, till Lewis XIII. missioned