Page:A cyclopaedia of female biography.djvu/114

 her own danger, to England, to sell her jewels for the use of the queen and her chidren [sic]. On her return she was imprisoned and condemned, on the charge of "being a conspirator, and of having worn mourning in London for the death of the tyrant." She was guilotined on the 6th. of November, 1793. She wept much when going to the scaffold.

BARTON, ELIZABETH, fanatic, who lived in the reign of Henry the Eighth. She was generally called the Holy Maid of Kent, and was originally a servant at Allington; but was taught by designing persons to throw her face and limbs into contortions, to 'pretend to prophetical powers, and to denounce divine vengeance upon heretics. Venturing, however, to aim her predictions against the king, by announcing that if he should proceed in his attempt to obtain a divorce from Catharine of Arragon, and marry another woman, he would not be king seven months after; she was apprehended and tried, together with her accomplices, for high treason and executed at Tyburn, in 1534.

John Fisher, bishop of Rochester, a man of great learning and piety, was so deceived by her pretended sanctity and visions, as to become implicated with her, and to suffer, the following year, the same fate.

BASINE, OR BASIN, the wife of Basin, king of Thuringia. Childeric, king of France, driven from his dominions by his people, sought an asylum with the king of Thuringia; and during his residence at that court, Basine conceived a strong attachment for him. Childeric was at length restored to his kingdom; and a short time after, he beheld with surprise the queen of Thuringia present herself before him. "Had I known a more valiant hero than yourself," said she to Childeric, "I should have fled over the seas to his arms." Childeric received her gladly, and married her. She became the mother, in 467, of the great Clovis, the first Christian king of France.

BASSEPORTE, MADELEINE FRANCES, lady, celebrated for her talent in painting plants and animals, especially birds, in water-colours. She was born in 1701, and received instructions from the celebrated Robert. In 1732, she succeeded Obriette, the painter of natural history in the royal gardens, with a salary of one hundred pistoles a year. She died in 1780. Madame Basseporte also produced some good engravings.

BASSI, LAURA MARIA CATHERINE, marriage Veratti, a learned Italian lady, was born at Bologna, in 1711. She was placed in that happy mediocrity of condition equally removed from poverty and riches, where neither the sordid cares of living, nor the futile toys of grandeur, absorb the leisure for intellectual improvement The first person who noticed Laura's extraordinary talents, was priest Don Lorenzo Stregani, who visited familiarly at the house. He amused himself with teaching the little girl Latin and French. He did not confine himself to what is usual,