whose great inhumanity to her she bore with Christian resignation, and which she opposed with a gentleness and moderation that gradually gained his affection and confidence.
She rendered moderation and temperance fashionable, not only at court, but throughout the city of Rennes, where she resided; and when the duke, desirous of profiting by this economy, proposed laying impost upon the people, the duchess persuaded him against it. She used all her influence over her husband for the good of the public, and the advancement of religion.
When Peter was seized with his last illness, his disorder, not being understood by the physicians, was ascribed to magic, and it was proposed to seek a necromancer to counteract the spell under which he suffered but the good sense of the duchess led her to reject this expedient. Her husband died October, 1467. His successor treated her with indignity, and her father wished her to marry the prince of Savoy, in order to obtain a protector. But the duchess determined to devote herself to the memory of her husband, and when M. d'Amboise attempted to force her to yield to his wishes, she took refuge in the convent des Trots Maries, near Vannes, where she assumed the Carmelite habit. She died October 4th., 1485.
AMELIA MARIA FREDERICA AUGUSTA,
Duchess and princess of Saxony, was born in 1794. Her father, prince Maximilian, was the youngest son of the Elector Frederic Christian. His eldest brother, Frederic Augustus, Elector, and afterwards king of Saxony, ruled this country sixty-four years, from 1763 to 1827. His reign Was one of much vicissitude, as it embraced the period of Napoleon's career. An allusion to the political events of that day is not foreign to the present subject, as the literary abilities and consequent fame of the Princess Amelia could never have been developed under the old order of things in a contracted German court; neither could she have acquired that knowledge of life essential to the exercise of her dramatic talent: born fifty years sooner, she would have ranked merely among the serene highnesses of whom "to live and die" forms all the history. Fortunately for Amelia, the storms that were to clear the political atmosphere began before her birth: from the age of twelve till that of twenty-three she saw her family suffering exile; then enjoying return and sovereignty; her uncle prisoner—again triumphant. During this period her opportunities for observation, her suggestions for thought, her mental education, were most various and extensive. Scenes and characters were studied fresh from life—"not obtained through books." In 1827, her uncle, king Frederic Augustus, died, and was succeeded by his brother Anthony—a rather jolly old person, but exceedingly fond of his' niece Amelia. She possessed much influence over him, and exercised it in a way that gained her great favour with high and low. In 1830, a revolution changed the government from a despotism to a limited monarchy. Anthony died in 1836, when the brother of Amelia became sovereign. Under her uncle's reign it would have scarcely been possible for her to appear as the authoress of acted dramas; but her brother had been brought up under a new order of things, and considered it no derogation for a scion of royalty to extend the influence of virtue and elevated morality by the aid of an art
