Page:A cyclopaedia of female biography.djvu/240

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218
CRA. CRK.

of a large and popular seminary for young ladies in Cincinnati, Ohio.

CRAON, PRINCESS DE,

Is author of several novels and tales that have been admired with a certain class—the exclusives of Parisian readers. The most popular of her works are "Le Siége d'Orleans;" "Une Soirée en Famille;" and "Thomas Morus."

CRAVEN, ELIZABETH, LADY,

Margravine of Anspach, youngest daughter of the Earl of Berkeley, was born in 1750, and married, in 1767, William, last Earl of Craven, by whom she had seven children. But in consequence of his ill-treatment, they were separated in 1781. After this. Lady Craven lived successively at the courts of Versailles, Madrid, Lisbon, Vienna, Berlin, Constantinople, Warsaw, St. Petersburgh, Rome, Florence, Naples, and Anspach, where she became acquainted with the margrave Christian Frederick Charles Alexander, a nephew of Frederick the Great. On this tour, in 1787, she was persuaded to descend into the grotto of Antiparos, which no woman had ever before visited. Lord Craven died at Lisbon in 1791, and his widow soon after married the margrave, who surrendered his estates to the King of Prussia for a pension, and came to reside in England with his wife. He died in 1806. The account of Lady Craven's travels through the Crimea to Constantinople was first published, in a series of letters, in 1789. Besides these, she has written poems, plays, romances, and her own memoirs, entitled "Memoirs of the Margravine of Anspach, formerly Lady Craven, &c." London, 1825. These are interesting on account of her intercourse with Catharine II., Joseph II.. and other princes.

CRAWFORD, ANNE,

A celebrated English actress, both in comedy and tragedy; but better remembered by her maiden name of Barry. She was born at Bath in 1734, and died in 1801.

CREGUY, VICTOIRE D'HOULAY, MARQUISE DE,

A distinguished French lady, was born in 1699, and died in 1804. She has left several volumes of souvenirs, which form a sort of panorama of the eighteenth century. Allied by birth to the highest nobility, and inspired by nature with a taste for literary society, she was acquainted with most of the celebrated characters of all descriptions that flourished during that lapse of time. As a girl, being presented to Louis XIV., when, according to the etiquette of the court, she advanced to kiss the king's hand, the gallant monarch prevented the action by rendering this homage to herself; a fact only worth recording because the very same circumstance occurred on a presentation to Napoleon eighty years afterwards.

A family of the name of Grèguy, but whose ancestor had been an upholsterer in the time of Louis XII., claimed to belong to the great de Creguy race. "There was some similarity in the pursuits of our ancestors," said Madame de Crèguy, "c'est que les uns gagnaient des batailles, tandis que les autres faisaient des sieges."