persons in Florence. She died there January 29th. 1824, aged seventy-two.
Her name and her misfortunes have been transmitted to posterity in the works and the autobiography of Alfieri. This famous poet called her mia donna, and confessed that to her he owed his inspiration. Without the friendship of the countess of Albany, he has said that he never should have achieved anything excellent: "Senza laquella mon aurei mai fatta nulla di buono." The sketch of his first meeting with her is full of sentiment and genuine poetry. Their love for each other was true, delicate, and faithful; and their ashes now repose under a common monument, in the church of Santa Croce, at Florence, between the tombs of Machiavelli and Michael Angelo.
ALBEDYHL,
Baroness d', a Swedish writer, authoress of Geñon, an epic poem, published at Upsala, in 1814, has been called the Swedish Sévigne, from the elegance of her epistolary style.
ALBERETTI, VERDONI THERESE,
Of Verona, Italy. This lady, eminently distinguished for her graces and accomplishments, is the authoress of poems that are admired alike for delicacy of thought and expression. The Abbé Giuseppe Barbresi, well known in Italy for his success in works of elegant literature, has inserted some of the poems of this admired authoress in the collection of his own works.
ALBRET, CHARLOTTE D',
Duchess de Valentinois, sister of John D'Albret, king of Navarre, and wife of Caesar Borgia, son of Pope Alexander the Sixth, whose misfortunes she shared, without reproaching him for his vices, was pious, sensible, and witty, and had much genius for poetry. She died in 1514.
ALBRET, JEANNE D',
Daughter of Henry d'Albret, king of Navarre, and his wife, the illustrious Margaret of Navarre, sister of Francis the First of France, ranks high among women distinguished for their great qualities. In 1539, when Jeanne was only eleven, she was married, against her own and her parents' wishes, to the duke of Cleves, by her uncle Francis, who feared lest her father should give her in marriage to Philip, son of the emperor of Germany, Charles the Fifth. The nuptials were never completed, and were soon declared null and void by the pope, through the intercession of the king of Navarre.
In October, 1548, Jeanne was" again married, at Moulins, to Antoine de Bourbon, duke de Vendome, to whom she bore two sons, who died in their infancy. Her third son, afterwards Henry the Fourth of France, was born at Pau, in Navarre, December 15th. 1553. The king of Navarre, from some whimsical ideas respecting the future character of the child, had promised his daughter to show her his will, which she was anxious to see, if, during the pangs of childbirth, she would sing a Bearnaise song. This Jeanne promised to do, and she performed her engagement, singing, in the language of Bearn, a song commencing—
"Notre Dame du bout du pont, aidez moi en cette heure."
