Page:A cyclopaedia of female biography.djvu/123

 BELLEVILLE, JANE DE. of Oliver the Third, Lord of Clisson. Philip de Valois King of France, having caused her husband to be beheaded, in 1343, on unauthenticated suspicion of correspondence with England. Jane sent her son, a boy of twelve, secretly to London, for safety, sold her jewels, armed three vessels, and attacked all the French she met. She made descents on Normandy, took the castles, and the most beautiful woman in Europe might be seen, with a sword in one hand, and a flambeau in the other, enforcing and commanding acts of the greatest cruelty.  BELLINI, GUISEPA, COUNTESS, born at Novara in 1776, of one of the most noble families of Italy. She was endowed with a good understanding and great benevolence of character, which a strong sentiment of piety guided and maintained. She was married in the bloom of youth to the Count Marco Bellini, whose character and disposition entirely assimilated with hers. Crowned with all worldly advantages, they were doomed to the affliction of losing their only son. This blow was sensibly felt by the bereaved parents, who thenceforth, unable to enjoy the pleasures of society and idle diversions, resolved to seek alleviation by devoting themselves to works of beneficent utility. Already extremely opulent, a large accession of fortune enabled them to mature an idea they had planned for the public benefit; when, in 1831, death removed from the poor their friend and benefactor, the Count Bellini.

The widowed countess, remembering her husband's maxim that "the best way of assisting the poor population was by giving them the abilities to maintain themselves," took counsel with the most intelligent and experienced of her fellow-citizens, and, with the assistance of able and practical heads, planned and founded a gratuitous school for arts and trades, for the benefit of the children of both sexes of the Novarese poor. This foundation she endowed with the sum of 100,000 francs. The good work was regularly established by royal permission, and concurrence of the municipal authorities, February 9th., 1838.

The countess Bellini died in 1837.  BELLOC, LOUISE SWANTON, in Paris, where she is favourably known for her zeal in promoting female education. She is one of that class of literary women, now, as we trust, fast increasing in France, who believing in God and his revealed Word, are devoting their time and talents to the great work of popular instruction. As the basis of this, female education is indispensable, and those who, with pious hearts and delicate hands, toil in this portion of the vineyard of truth, deserve a high place among the philanthropists of our era.

Madame Belloc is happy in having an ally—Adelaide Montgolfier, daughter of the celebrated æronaut; their good works are so interwoven, that we cannot well separate their names in this sketch. One of their plans for the moral benefit of society was the establishment of a "choice circulating library, designed to counterbalance, as much as possible, the bad effects produced by the numerous reading rooms, which pace in all heads, and spread everywhere