HENRIETTA HENRY I. 



681 



entitled Description dc la Louis iane nouvcllemeni de- 

 couverte au sud-ouest de la Nouvelle France, avtc la 

 Carte du Pays, les Mceurs et la Maniere de P'ivre des 

 Sawvages (Paris, 1683, 12mo). He afterwards pro- 

 duced other works, containing fuller descriptions of 

 the result of his observations. 



HENRIETTA, ANNA, of England, duchess of 

 Orleans, daughter of king Charles I., was born at 

 Exeter, England, June 16, 1644, amidst the turbulent 

 scenes of the civil war. She was hardly three weeks 

 old, when her mother fled with her to France, and, 

 after the death of Charles, repaired to the convent of 

 Chaillot, and there devoted herself to the education 

 of her daughter. Henrietta united with great sweet- 

 ness of character the charms of a beautiful person. 

 Her nuptials with the brother of Louis XIV., Philip 

 of France, duke of Orleans, were celebrated in 

 March, 1661 ; and Louis XIV., to whom her hand 

 had been offered, now seemed to regret that he had 

 refused the lovely Henrietta. He did not conceal 

 his admiration for her, and the princess is said not to 

 have remained insensible to the homage of the king. 

 This circumstance, and the indiscretion with which 

 she permitted the attentions of some of the courtiers, 

 excited the jealousy of the duke of Orleans, and 

 rendered their marriage unhappy. Henrietta would 

 have suffered more from the severe and gloomy 

 character of her husband, had she not found protec- 

 tion in the king, who afterwards employed her 

 mediation in political affairs. Louis XIV. was de- 

 sirous of detaching her brother, Charles II., from 

 the triple alliance with Holland and Sweden, in order 

 to accomplish his plan of obtaining possession of a 

 part of Holland. As the common method of diplo- 

 matic transactions was not sufficient for this purpose, 

 Louis resolved to make his sister-in-law his confidant 

 in this affair, and the duchess of Orleans embraced 

 his proposals with the greater readiness, as they 

 flattered her pride, and opened a wide field for her 

 spirit of intrigue. She went, therefore, in 1670, 

 with the court, to Flanders, and, under pretence of 

 visiting her brother, passed over to Dover, where 

 Charles was awaiting her arrival. Mademoiselle de 

 Keroual, a native of Brittany (afterwards mistress of 

 Charles II., under the title of duchess of Portsmouth), 

 accompanied her. The persuasions of the sister, 

 aided by the charms of her companion, succeeded in 

 gaining Charles II., in the short space of ten days, 

 entirely to the interest of Louis. Soon after madame 

 d'Orleans' return to France, while all were eager to 

 offer their congratulations on her success, she was 

 suddenly seized with violent pains, which terminated 

 her life at St Cloud, June 29, 1670. A suspicion of 

 poison was immediately excited, and, although, on 

 an examination of the body in the presence of the 

 English ambassador, the physicians asserted the con- 

 trary, there is little doubt, that she fell, in the flower 

 of her age, a sacrifice to a base revenge. It may be 

 gathered from the facts collected by the second wife 

 of the duke of Orleans, the princess of Bavaria, and 

 from other accounts, that the chevalier de Lorraine 

 (the intimate friend of her husband) was considered 

 the contriver of this detestable crime. He was 

 then living in exile in Rome, and was desirous of 

 returning to France, and knew her to be the only 

 obstacle to his return. The circumstance that Louis 

 XIV. permitted the chevalier, two years after the 

 death of the duchess, to appear again at court, and 

 raised him to the dignity of a marshal of France, by 

 no means weakens this suspicion, since the king then 

 stood in need of the influence of the chevalier over 

 the duke of Orleans. The sweetness of her manners 

 made this unfortunate princess an object of general 

 regret, and her grace and beauty often caused her to 

 be compared with her sill more unfortunate ancestor, 



Mary Stuart. It is related that the oral confession 

 made to Louis XIV. by the mattre d 'hotel of the 

 duchess, entirely convinced the king of the guilt of 

 the chevalier de Lorraine, but that motives of policy, 

 both in regard to his brother and to England, induced 

 him to throw a veil over the whole transaction, and 

 to leave even the actual perpetrator of it unpunished. 

 Bossuet pronounced her funeral oration. 



HENRY I. of Germany, (the Fowler ; a surname 

 which, according to the account of recent writers, he 

 received from the circumstance that the messengers 

 of the German princes, sent to announce his election, 

 found him engaged in fowling) was born in the year 

 876, and was the son of Otho the Illustrious, duke of 

 Saxony, who had refused the regal dignity offered 

 him in 912. Henry, on the death of lu's father, be- 

 came duke of Saxony and Thuringia. He was 

 elected sovereign of Germany in 919, at Fritzlar. He 

 had to contend with anarchy within and enemies 

 abroad, but his prudence and activity overcame 

 these difficulties. Lorraine, which had been separa- 

 ted from Germany by the Western Franks. Henry 

 reunited to the German empire in 923, and erected 

 it into a duchy. During the disturbances in Ger- 

 many, the Hungarians had often made inroads with- 

 out meeting much resistance, and compelled the 

 payment of a yearly tribute. A general of the 

 Hungarians having been made prisoner, Henry re- 

 leased him without ransom, and, in 924, made a 

 truce of nine years with these barbarians without 

 paying tribute. During this time, he improved the 

 art of war among the Germans, exercised the troops, 

 and gave a new arrangement to the cavalry, whose 

 heavy armour had hitherto prevented it from effect- 

 ing any thing against the Hungarian light-horse. 

 One of the most useful measures which Henry 

 adopted for the defence of Northern Germany was, 

 the surrounding the cities, which for the most part 

 were nothing but a collection of log and mud huts, 

 with walls and ditches. The ninth part of the no- 

 bility and freemen were compelled to remove to 

 these cities, and those who remained without the 

 city had habitations provided for them in case of a 

 hostile invasion ; provisions were also brought in 

 from the country for their support. All public 

 meetings for the discussion of public affairs, he pro- 

 vided, should be held in these cities. These measures 

 gradually formed a third estate, to which Germany 

 and other countries are chiefly indebted for their pro- 

 gressive civilization, since in the cities originated the 

 mechanical trades, manufactures, and commerce. 

 While Henry thus provided for the internal regula- 

 tion of Germany, he attended no less to the protec- 

 tion of the frontiers. In order to prevent the invasions 

 of the Normans or Danes, he carried the war into 

 their own country, and thus extended the limits of 

 Germany over the Eyder as far as Sleswic, where Iw, 

 founded a Saxon colony, and placed a margrave, in 

 931. Different Sclavonic and Wendish tribes in the 

 Mark and in Meissen, as well as the Bohemians, 

 were compelled to submit to him ; and he founded 

 the margraviates of Meissen in 927, and North 

 Saxony, afterwards Brandenburg, in 931. At the 

 end of the nine years' truce with the Hungarians, he 

 refused the tribute. They entered Thuringia and 

 Saxony with two armies, but were completely routed 

 by Henry before Merseburg (in 933 and 934). 

 They were obliged to flee with the loss of all their 

 booty and prisoners. This success was the fruit of 

 the improvements in discipline which Henry had in- 

 troduced, and of the reputation which he had acquired 

 among the Germans, who now willingly supported 

 him. The Hungarians did not dare, for a long tim% 

 after, to repeat their incursions into Germany. After 

 these successes, Henry desired to go to Italy, in 



