KONIGSMARK, MARIA AURORA, Countess, 1666-1728; b. Sweden; daughter of a Swedish genera], and granddaughter of a field-marshal in the Swedish service of the name of Wrangel. She was mother of Maurice of Saxony (marshal Saxe), and an ances tress of Mme. Dudevant (George Sand). She was celebrated for her charms both of per son and mind. Previous to 1694 much of her time was passed at the courts of Stockholm, Hanover, and Brunswick, receiving a thorough education for that period, and becoming an accomplished linguist. She was the author of a number of unpublished poetical and dramatic pieces, among them verses upon Charles XII. of Sweden. In 1694, as countess of she went, in consequence of some financial difficulty with her bankers' at Hamburg, to the court of Augustus Lelector of Saxony, surnamed the strong, hoping for his intervention in her favor. She found the licentious monarch living in areater luxury and magnificence than any sovereign of Europe,excepting Louis XIV. Won by her beauty
and accomplishments, Augustus first made her his mistress, and, in 1702, amhassadress to her royal countryman, Charles XII. of Sweden, with whom she failed to make terms. not succeeding in gaining an audience. Her historian,Voltaire, however, who esteemed her "the most fatuous woman of two centuries," has recorded that " she returned with the satisfaction of that she was the only person feared by the king of Sweden." Her life was ended at Queillinburg, a town of Prussia, at the foot of the Hartz moun tains, in the province of Saxony, on the river Bode. She was buried in the church which contains the graves of emperor Henry I. and his wife Matilda and the abbesses of the convent of St. Wipertus. „.