Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/794

780 written a satire on romances, forbore to make it public, out of respect to Mademoiselle Scudery. The prince of Paderborn, bishop of Munster, made her a present of his works, together with a medal. Christina, Queen of Sweden, corresponded with her, settled a pension on her, and sent her her picture. Cardinal Mazarine left her an annuity by his will; and Lewis XIV. in 1683, at the solicitation of Madame de Maintenon, settled also a pension on her, which was always punctually paid. Neither did he stop there; but appointed a special audience to receive her acknowledgments, and paid her many fine complements.

An odd accident befel this lady on a journey with her brother. At the inn they were to lodge at, they after supper fell into discourse on the romance of Cyrus, which they were then writing, and particularly how Prince Mazard should be disposed of. After a pretty warm debate, it was agreed he should be assassinated. Some merchants in the next room, overhearing their discourse, and concluding that these strangers were contriving the death of some prince, whom they concealed under that name, went and gave information to the governor; upon which they were imprisoned; and it was not without a great deal of expence and difficulty that they recovered their liberty.

She held a correspondence with all the learned, and her house at Paris was a kind of little court, where numbers used constantly to assemble.

Her works were very numerous. M. Costar says, she composed eighty volumes out of her own head. As to her real merits, Voltaire says, "she is now better known by some agreeable verses which she left, than by the enormous romances of Clelia and of Cyrus." It