A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Arnaude de Rocas

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ARNAUDE DE ROCAS,

One of the daughters of Chypriotes, who, after the taking of Nicosie, in 1670, was carried away by the Turks, and held in captivity. Arnaude, destined by her beauty for the seraglio of the sultan, was, with several of her companions, put into a vessel about to sail for Constantinople. But, preferring death to dishonour, the heroic maiden contrived, in the dead of night, to convey fire to the powder-room, and perished, amidst the wreck of the vessel, with the victims of her desperation.