which were not published, and were lost by her son, the Abbé de la Fayette. She understood Latin, which she learned in a very short time. Her works are written in an easy and elegant style, which was, at that time unequalled.
FEDELE, CASSANDRA,
Of Venice, born 1465. This noted lady was well acquainted with Greek, Latin, and with history. Julius the Second, Leo the Tenth, Louis the Thirteenth, and Ferdinand of Arragon, invited her to their courts; but her own republic would not allow her departure. Her death, which happened in 1558, was commemorated by the tributary praises of the literati of that day. Poliziano eulogizes her in the highest terms. There remain some letters and Latin orations of her composition.
FEDOROWNA, MARIA,
Empress of the unfortunate Paul of Russia, and mother of the Emperors Alexander and Nicholas, was born Princess of Wurtemburg, in 1759. Selected by Catharine the Second as bride for the heir to the throne, her early married life was one of mortification and insignificance. The capricious temper and ill-regulated character of Paul, vented themselves frequently in harsh measures towards this exemplary woman. Her sons, however, unceasingly manifested towards her the affection and duty her devotion to their childhood had so well merited. After the death of Paul, in 1801, she was released from the trammels in which her youth had been spent. From that epoch till the day of her death, she was occupied in attention to the poor and suffering. The number of magnificent institutions for the benefit of the unfortunate and afflicted, which the founded and directed, is really wonderful. She was the first person to introduce into Russia an attempt to instruct the deaf and dumb, employing for that purpose a pupil of the Abbé Sicard. She died in 1828.
FELICITAS,
An illustrious Roman lady, who lived in 162, during the persecution carried on against the christians by the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, was a devout Christian. She had also brought up her seven sons in the same faith. They were seized, and Felicitas was threatened with her own death and that of all her family, if she did not give up her religion; but she was inflexible, and the sons also remaining stedfast, they all suffered cruel deaths, the mother being executed last
FELLER, HENRIETTA,
A native of Lausanne, Switzerland. Her family was one of the most respectable in the place, and her education and accomplishments such as to entitle her to hold a prominent position in a society where literature and the refinements of social intercourse are greatly valued. She married M. Feller, one of the magistrates of that city, a man highly esteemed, whose independent circumstances surrounded her with all the elegances of life.
Madame Feller had been educated in the Protestant faith, and considered herself a Christian, though she had never made personal piety a subject of much thought. Nevertheless, like most mothers.
