Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/539

Rh was more complaisant; but Mde. de Lamballe was soon supplanted by Madame de Polignac.

In 1777 the emperor Joseph, brother to the queen, visited France, under the name of count Falkenstein.—It was supposed he came in the hope of gaining pecuniary assistance to carry on his wars, and that the queen furthered this view as much as possible, but without success. From the tenderness she shewed towards him, a suspicion stole into the minds of the French, that he kept up a correspondence with him, detrimental to the welfare of the state; but no other proof of it has appeared.

The circumstances which led to their conceiving so bitter a hate towards her, the limits of this work do not allow us to state progressively. Heedless extravagance and dissipation seem to have been the source; faults certainly both foolish and unfeeling! but the sufferings she underwent, still fresh in the memory of every one, more than expiated them. A long confinement, a series of alarms and agitation, the violent death of a husband who tenderly loved her, and whom she seems to have loved, the mournful prospect for her children, and her own sad fate, must entitle her to the commiseration of every feeling mind. Memoirs of M. de Lamballe, &c.

one of the most beautiful and wisest persons of her time. She excelled not only in eloquence, but in philosophy and theology, and was author of many works, amongst which are, 1, De la Condition de la Fragilité Humaine; 2, De la Veritable Religion. There are