dissolation of his engagement, as the Lady de Rohan had declared herself a Protestant, and married the widow of the Duke of Guise. The Lady de la Garnache, or the Duchess de Londonnois, as she was sometimes called, maintained herself dexterously in her estate during the civil wan.
ROHAN, MARIE ELEONORE DE,
Celebrated for her piety and talents, was the daughter of Hercule de Rohan-Guémeni, Duke de Montbazon. She was born in 1628, and educated in a convent. Of high birth and fortune, beautiful and accomplished, Eleonore, at the age of eighteen, notwithstanding the tears of her father, and the entreaties of her friends, resolved to enter a convent. She became a member of the Benedictine order at Montargis, and was soon after named Abbess La Trinity de Caen. This dignity she wished to decline but was compelled to accept it. She fulfilled all the duties .of this office with gentleness, propriety, and wisdom. She gave singular proof of her mild firmness in maintaining the rights and privileges of the abbey.
Her health obliged her to remove to Malnone, near Paris; and in 1669 she was solicited to take upon herself also the government of another community. In the intervals of her duties, she applied herself to study. She composed a paraphrase on the Proverbs, called "Morale de Solomon;" "A Discourse on Wisdom," and several other tracts. To the modesty and gentleness of her own sex, she united the wisdom and learning of the other. She died in 1681.
ROLAND, MARIE JEANNE,
Wife of the celebrated patriot of that name, was born at Paris, in 1754. Her father, M. Philipon, was an engraver of much talent, her mother was a woman of an uncommonly elevated character. The little Manon, as Madame Roland was called when a child, shewed her peculiarly ardent and enthusiastic temperament very early. Happily for her, she was surrounded from her youth by those pure and religious influences which, notwithstanding the scepticism of the age, still linger in the humble homes of the bourgeoise. Naturally reserved, though animated and eager, she required constant occupation; she never remembered having learned io read; by the time she was four, all the trouble of her education was over; it was only necessary to keep her well supplied with books. Flowers were the only thing that could make her voluntarily give up her reading. But her mother, to prepare her for her future duties, often required her to leave her studies, and assist her in all the household occupations. Dancing, music, drawing, geography, and even Latin, she acquired readily; and rising at five in the morning, she stole, half-dressed, to her studies. As to books, none came amiss to her. She devoured alike, the Bible, romances, "Lives of the Saints," or "Memoirs of Mademoiselle de Montpensier."
But Plutarch was her chief delight; at the age of nine she carried it to church with her secretly; and from that time she dated her first republican feelings and opinions. When she was about eleven, she became very religious; and at the time of her first communion, always a ceremony of necessity and importance in the Roman Catholic church, she was so carried away by her religious emo-
