A Cyclopaedia of Female Biography/Belleville, Jane de
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BELLEVILLE, JANE DE.
Wife of Oliver the Third, Lord of Clisson. Philip de Valois King of France, having caused her husband to be beheaded, in 1343, on unauthenticated suspicion of correspondence with England. Jane sent her son, a boy of twelve, secretly to London, for safety, sold her jewels, armed three vessels, and attacked all the French she met. She made descents on Normandy, took the castles, and the most beautiful woman in Europe might be seen, with a sword in one hand, and a flambeau in the other, enforcing and commanding acts of the greatest cruelty.