Page:A cyclopaedia of female biography.djvu/222

 if possible, to tell them of the Saviour; she collected a school, translated the Scripture Catechism, and administered both medicine and advice to the sick, besides teaching her own children and attending to household duties. In the evening, whenever she could be out, she might often be found with several native women collected around her, to whom she was imparting religious knowledge.

Mrs. Comstock's faith was strong that ere long Arracan would, as a country, acknowledge God as its ruler, and in this expectation, she laboured until death came to lead her away to her infinite reward. She died of a disease peculiar to the climate, on the 28th, of April, 1843, leaving four children, two of whom had previously been sent to America for instruction; the other two soon followed her to the grave. Nothing could exceed the sorrow expressed by the natives for her loss. More than two thousand came on the day after her death to share their grief with her afflicted husband, who survived her loss but for a few months.  CONSTANCE, of Conan, Duke of Brittany, wife of Geoffrey Plantagenet, son of Henry the Second, King of England. She was contracted to him while they were both in the cradle, and, by her right, Grcoffrey became Duke of Brittany. By him she had two children, Eleanor, called the Maid of Brittany, and Arthur, who was born after the death of his father. She afterwards married Ralph Blundeville, Earl of Chester, who suspected her of an intrigue with John of England, his most bitter enemy. He obtained a divorce, and Constance married Guy, brother of the Viscount de Thouars. She had by him a daughter Alix, whom the Bretons, on the refusal of John to set free her elder sister, elected for their sovereign. The King of France and Richard Cœur de Lion, King of England, both claimed Brittany as a fief. Constance, to keep It in her own name, fomented divisions between the two sovereigns. On the death of Richard, it was found that he had left the kingdom to his brother John, instead of his nephew Arthur, to whom it rightfully belonged. Constance resented this injustice, and being a woman of judgment and courage, might have reinstated her son in his rights, if she had not died before she had opportunity of asserting his claims. Her death occurred in 1202.  CONTARINI, GABRIELLO CATTERINA, Agolfio. No exact date of her birth is to be procured; that she lived towards the end of the fifteenth century is indubitable. She possessed a very fertile vein of poetic fancy. Her poetry manifests natural felicity in composing, as well as considerable erudition. She was distinguished for her pleasing manners and solid virtues. Her works are, "Life of St. Francesco," a poem; "Life of St. Waldo," a poem; five odes, seven canzonets, and some occasional poems.  CONTAT, LOUISE, ( marriage, Madame de Pamy, but known on the stage by her maiden name,) was born at Paris, in 1760, made her début as Atahde, in Bajazet, at the Theatre Français, in 1776, but afterwards devoted her brilliant endowments entirely to comedy. She possessed 