Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/381

Rh a captain of the guards to dispatch Concini in 1517. The day after his burial, his body was torn out of his grave by the mob, who used it in the most ignominious manner.

Leonora received the news of her husband's catastrophe in a manner which shewed them to be more united by interest than affection. She did not shed a tear, and her first care was to secure her jewels; for which purpose she put them into the netting of her bed, and causing herself to be undressed, got in it; but the provost's men, who went into her chamber to search for them, made her get up, and found them. After which, she said to those who guarded her, "Well, they have killed my husband, does not that satisfy them? Let me be permitted to leave the kingdom." When she was told they had hung up his body, she seemed somewhat moved, but without weeping; and, presently after, said, that he was a very presumptuous insolent man, and that to get rid of him, she had determined to retire into Italy that spring, and had prepared every thing for her journey; behaving with great confidence, as if she apprehended no danger. But she was carried to the Bastile, and afterwards committed to the Conciergerie, or prison of the parliament, by which court she was tried, and condemned to be beheaded and burnt to ashes, which sentence she underwent with great constancy.

It was pretended, that both she and her husband had not only judaized, but likewise practised magic arts, which at that time, as well as astrology, were mightily in vogue in France. But on her being questioned by counsellor Courtin concerning the kind of sorcery she had used, to influence the will of Mary de Medicis, she answered,