Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/474

460  the general satisfaction of her visitors; but she preferred men of rank and letters to those who were possessed of both birth and fortune." One cannot but lament that she should thus have sullied such exalted taste and genius.

The distinguished manner in which Louisa lived at Lyons excited the jealousy of the ladies of that city. They overlooked her fine sense and accomplishments, and considered her only as a tradesman's wife; from whence they suspected that the assemblies held at her house were more owing to her beauty than to her uncommon talents. But what increased this resentment was her writings, which, treating of love, they considered as so many lures to induce the men to attach themselves to her; but Louisa, in return, levelled part of her works at the Lyonnoise ladies, censuring them for the frivolous manner in which they employed their time, instead of improving themselves in knowledge and the polite arts.

Many poets have endeavoured to appropriate her ingenious fiction of Love and Folly to themselves; but the invention, which is its principal merit, seems due only to La Belle Cordiere. La Fontaine most probably took the idea of his fable, entitled, L’Amour et la Folie, and Erasmus, his Praise of Folly, from this writer. The other pieces which compose this lady's collection, are some elegies and sonnets, which are held in high estimation by the French. Mrs. Thicknesse.

LALA