ced to
the ambition of her uncles.

Of the two daughters of Constance by Guy de Thouars, the eldest, Alice,
became Duchess of Bretagne, and married the Count de Dreux, of the royal
blood of France. The sovereignty of Bretagne was transmitted through her
descendants in an uninterrupted line, till, by the marriage of the
celebrated Anne de Bretagne with Charles VIII. of France, her dominions
were forever united with the French monarchy.

In considering the real history of Constance, three things must strike
us as chiefly remarkable.

First, that she is not accused of any vice, or any act of injustice or
violence; and this praise, though poor and negative, should have its due
weight, considering the scanty records that remain of her troubled life,
and the period at which she lived--a period in which crimes of the
darkest dye were familiar occurrences. Her father, Conan, was considered
as a gentle and amiable prince--"gentle even to feebleness;" yet we are
told that on one occasion he acted over again the tragedy of Ugolino and
Ruggiero, when he shut up the Count de Dol, with his two sons and his
nephew, in a dungeon, and deliberately starved them to death; an event
recorded without any particular comment by the old chroniclers of
Bretagne. It also appears that, during those intervals when Constance
administered the government of her states with some degree of
independence, the country prospered under her sway, and that she
possessed at all times the love of her people and the respect of her
nobles.

Secondly, no imputation whatever has been cast on the honor of Constance
as a wife and as a woman. The old historians, who have treated in a very
unceremonious style the levities of her great-grandmother Matilda, her
grandmother Bertha, her godmother Constance, and her mother-in-law
Elinor, treat the name and memory of our Lady Constance with uniform
respect.

Her third marriage, with Guy de Thouars, has been censured as impolitic,
but has also been defended; it can hardly, considering her age, and the
circumstances in which she was placed, be a just subject of reproach.
During her hated union with Randal de Blondeville, and the years passed
in a species of widowhood, she conducted herself with propriety: at
least I can find no reason to judge otherwise.

Lastly, we are struck by the fearless, determined spirit, amounting at
times to rashness, which Constance displayed on several occasions, when
left to the free exercis