Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/473

Rh of the motives which induced her to pursue that kind of life; all we can learn is, that she served at the siege of Perpignan before she was sixteen years of age, where she took the name of Captain Loys, There is some reason to conclude, however, that she either followed her father or her lover to the field; but the ill success of the besiegers obliged them to abandon the place, which determined the beautiful Lyonnoise to return home and pursue her studies. Nor was she inattentive to her future interest; but endeavoured to preserve an establishment which might enable her to enjoy tranquillity and affluence the rest of her life: for soon after she married Ennemond Perrin, a rich merchant, who held a considerable traffic in cordage, and who possessed a very large estate near Lyons, where he had a house nobly furnished, and gardens which were very spacious and magnificent.

There she collected a large library of the very best authors, and her house was the constant rendezvous of persons of distinction, and men of letters, who live in or near Lyons. It was an academy where every one found something which might either amuse or instruct. The charms of wit, conversation, music (vocal and instrumental) and poetry, were all employed by the muse who presided there, and who was excellent herself in all. Her cabinet was copiously supplied with books in the vulgar tongue, in Latin, Italian, and Spanish; and it formed a part of the amusement of her house to read the best authors in each

It is with regret I recite what a French writer says farther; speaking of this extraordinary woman; "Gallantry," says he, "was not excluded from this agreeable place of study and science. The lovely Louisa was not wailing there should be any thing wanting to plete