Page:A cyclopaedia of female biography.djvu/766

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744
UGA. ULR. VAL.

detestation. The tyrant not succeeding with the husband, took the wife apart, not doubting, from her situation at the time, that the threat of torture would make her divulge the secret; bat she instantly bit off her tongue, and spat it in the tyrant's face, to show him that no pain could make her violate her pledge of secrecy.




UGALDE, DELPHINE,

Is a native of Larne, In the Valley of Montmorenci, near Paris, the date of her birth being 1829; her father De Beauce, is, or was, a music seller, and her mother was the daughter of De Porro, a musical composer and teacher. She first came into notice in 1840 at one of the sacred concerts got up by a distinguished amateur, the Prince of Moscow, son of Marshal Ney. Her voice at that time was a pure contralto, and she sung the compositions of Marcello and Handel with great effect. In 1846, she married Senor Uvalde, and went to Madrid, where she sung in the court concerts with great success. Assured by practice that her voice possessed every quality that could be desired for the execution of the most complex fioriture, she accepted in 1848 an engagement to perform at the Opera Comique in Paris, where she made her débût in Auber's "Domino Noir." In this, as in several other characters subsequently performed, she enchanted the Parisians, and created a prodigious furore. In 1851, she was in England as prima donna of Her Majesty's Theatre, and obtained an unanimous verdict of our musical critics in her favour. She is described as "rather under the middle height, easy and graceful in her deportment, and intelligent and energetic in her acting, with a face full of varied expression."

ULRICA, ELEONORA,

Second daughter of Charles the Eleventh of Sweden, was born in 1688, and governed the kingdom during the absence of her brother, Charles the Twelfth; after his death she was proclaimed queen in 1719. The following year she resigned the crown to her husband, Frederic of Hesse-Cassel, with whom she shared the honours of royalty; but such was the ascendancy of the nobles, that they obliged their sovereigns to acknowledge their right to the throne as the unbiassed election of the people. Ulrica, by a wise administration, contributed to restore peace and prosperity to the nation, and was greatly beloved and respected. She died in 1741. Her mother, the wife of Charles the Eleventh, also bore the name of Ulrica, and died in consequence of the chagrin which her husband's brutal treatment had occasioned.




VALENTINE,

Of Milan, daughter of John Galeas, Duke of Milan, and of Isabelle, the youngest of the ten children of John the Second of France, married, in 1389, Louis, Duke of Orleans, brother of Charles the Sixth of France. She was a beautiful and accomplished woman, and appears, in the midst of that disastrous epoch in French history, like an angel of goodness and beauty. The first few years that