Page:A cyclopaedia of female biography.djvu/89

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sultan, was, with several of her companions, put into a vessel about to sail for Constantinople. But, preferring death to dishonour, the heroic maiden contrived, in the dead of night, to convey fire to the powder-room, and perished, amidst the wreck of the vessel, with the victims of her desperation.

ARNAULD, MARIE ANGELIQUE,

Sister of Robert, Antoine, and Henri Arnauld, was abbess of the Port-Royal convent, and distinguished herself by the reformation and sanctity she introduced there, and also at the convent of Maubuisson, where she presided five years. She returned to Port-Royal, and died in 1661, aged seventy. Her mother and six of her sisters passed the evening of their life in her convent. She was early distinguished for her capacity and virtues. While at Maubuisson, she became acquainted with St. Francis de Sales, bishop of Geneva, who continued through his whole life to correspond with her. She displayed peculiar skill and sagacity in the changes she introduced into the convents under her control. Careful to exact nothing of the nuns of which she had not set the example, she found, in the respect and emulation she Inspired, an engine to which constraint is powerless. Self-denial, humility, and charity, were among the most prominent of her virtues.

ARNAULD, CATHARINE AGNES,

Was chosen, while yet in her noviciate, by her elder sister, Marie Angelique, to be the mistress of the novices at the convent of Port-Royal. During the five years that Marie Angelique passed in the abbey at Maubuisson, Catharine was entrusted with the government of Port-Royal, and appointed coadjutrix with her sister, who was desirous of resigning it wholly to her management. Agnes, respected and beloved by the nuns instructed them no less by her example, than by her eloquent discourses. She was equally celebrated for her talents and her piety. She was the author of two small treatises entitled "Le Chapelet Secret du Saint Sacrament," and "L'Image de la Réligeuse, parfaite et imparfaite." The former was censured by some members of the Sorbonne, and it was suppressed.

Catharine Agnes Arnauld died February 19th., 1671, at the age of seventy-seven.

ARNIM, BETTINA VON,

Best known to us by her letter published as the "Correspondence of Goethe with a Child," Is considered by the Germans one of their most gifted female writers. The very remarkable intercourse between the great "poetical Artist" and the "Child," is of a character which could never have happened but In Germany, where Philosophy is half-sister to Romance, and Romance appears half the time in the garb of Philosophy.

Bettina Brentano, grand-daughter of Sophia de la Roche, was born at Frankfort on the Maine, about the year 1701. Her father. General Brentano, died of wounds received in the Prussian service; his wife did not long survive him, and their children, of whom Bettina was the youngest, were left orphans at an early age. There were two sons: Clement Brentano became celebrated in Germany for his work.