Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/742

728 chuse to leave Madeleine, her mother, whom she tenderly loved. They wrote many elegant pieces of poetry, and were complimented by many authors, in different languages. They died the same day, of the plague, in 1587.

father left her a handsome fortune; but at eighteen years of age she turned recluse, in the parish of St. Oportune, 1403. Those were called recluses, whether maids or widows, who built themselves a little chamber, adjoining to the wall of some church. The ceremony of their seclusion was performed with great pomp: the church was hung with tapestry; the bishop celebrated mass pontifically, preached, and afterwards went himself to seal the door of the little chamber, after having copiously sprinkled it with holy water: there remained nothing but a little window, from whence the pious solitary heard the offices of the church, and received the necessaries of life. Agnes du Rochier died at the age of ninety-eight.

The errors of a well-meaning mind must be looked upon with indulgence; but self-infliction, however heroically borne, can lay no just claim to the praise of that heroic fortitude, which supports with patience great and unavoidable evils—and which it is intended to imitate.

ROHAN,