Page:A Biographical Dictionary of the Celebrated Women of Every Age and Country (1804).djvu/744

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BIOGRAPHICAL DICTIONARY

injured, she became so languid and weak, and was in so dangerous a condition, that the physicians declared nothing but a change of air could possibly save her life. Upon which account she was, with the utmost difficulty, prevailed upon to exchange her abbey for that of Malnoue, near Paris. When the day arrived for her departure, nothing could equal her affliction in separating from her sisterhood, whom she affectionately loved; she embraced them all with great tenderness, bedewing them with her tears, and was so overcome as to be unable to speak. She was so renowned for her virtues and holy life, that they sent attestations of it to Rome; upon which, the pope declared publicly his intention of canonizing this young abbess. In 1669 the religious of the Benedictines de Notre Dame de Consolation du Chausse-Midi intreated Madame de Rohan to take upon her the government of their convent, to which she consented, but did not neglect, by that means, the management of her own abbey de Malnoue.

She composed, under the title of Morale de Solomon, a paraphrase on the Proverbs; a discourse on Wisdom, and many other tracts; and such are the productions of Madame de Rohan, that it was said "The royal blood had found in her a royal soul." In short, she united modesty and amiable manners, to wisdom, solidity, and learning. She died, sincerely lamented, in the year 1681, in the convent du Chausse-Midi.

This life is extracted from Mrs. Thicknesse's Lives of French Ladies, to which in other places I have been so much obliged.

ROLAND