Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/501

Rh, or perhaps her own inclination, she fled to Germany in 1572, abjured the Roman religion there, and married the prince of Orange. Two other daughters persevered in the monastic life, to which they were devoted, and one married the son of the duke de Nevers, Female Worthies.

succeeded to the throne of France A. D. 1515, on the demise of Louis XII. his great uncle, and with whom expired the elder branch of the house of Orleans. Immediately on his accession, he raised Angoulesme into a duchy, from motives of filial affection. Louisa had been in person eminently beautiful, and even then the hand of time had scarcely been able to diminish the splendour of her charms, while the gifts of nature had been carefully improved and embellished by the acquisitions of art. Born with strong talents, and a mind active, vigorous, penetrating, and decisive, she aimed at the acquisition of power, and braved unappalled the most furious storms of adversity. But, unhappily for the nation, her virtues were greatly overbalanced by her vices; her passions were strong and impetuous, and to their gratification she sacrificed all that a woman should hold dear in life: vain, avaricious, intriguing, and jealous, implacable in her resentments, impatient of controul, and insatiate in her avarice, she thwarted the best concerted projects of her son, and occasioned the greatest distress to the nation. When Francis on his Italian expedition left his mother regent of the kingdom, and after his return from it, when his duchy of Milan was threatened to be invaded by the pope, and Lau-