_Montijo_ (Donna Maria-Frances Portocarrero, Countess of), a grandee of Spain: she deserves a distinguished rank among the literati of Spain. Her claims to celebrity are not only supported by her translation of the _Christian Instructions on the Sacrament of Marriage_, by M. Le Tourneux, but by her great love for good literature, and by her efforts to render the taste for it more common. Her amiable and benevolent character made her house a favourite resort for many virtuous and enlightened ecclesiastics: among these may be distinguished Don Antonio de Palafox, bishop of Cuença, and brother-in-law to the Countess; Don Antonio de Tabira, bishop of Salamanca; Don Joseph de Jeregui, preceptor to the Infants of Spain; Don Juan Antonio Rodrigalvarez, archdeacon of Cuença; Don Juaquin Ivarra, and Don Antonio de Posada, canon of St. Isidore at Madrid. All these ecclesiastics, and the Countess herself, were the victims of the calumnies of fanatical priests and monks, who were the partisans of the Jesuits and of their maxims on discipline and morals; they were accused of Jansenism. The hatred of their enemies was so great, that Don Balthazar Calvo, Canon of St. Isidore, and Fray Antonio de Guerrero, a Dominican, declared in the pulpit, that there existed in one of the first houses in the capital a conventicle of Jansenists, protected by a lady of distinction: they took care to speak of her in such a manner that the person could not be mistaken. The nuncio of the Court of Rome informed the Pope of all these circumstances, and his Holiness immediately addressed letters of thanks to these two preachers and some other individuals, for the zeal they had shown in defending the faith. These letters were, in a manner, the signal for a denunciation against all persons suspected of Jansenism, and did not fail to produce that effect. Besides the suspicion of Jansenism, the Countess of Montijo was accused of holding a religious and literary correspondence with Monsignor Henri Gregoire, then bishop of Blois, and one of the most Catholic and learned men in France, a Member of the Institute, and author of several works, one of which was a _Letter to the Inquisitor-general of Spain_, in which he invites him to propose the suppression of the Inquisition of which he is the head. The accusers supposed Monsignor Gregoire to be the head of the Jansenists in France; but they concealed the fact that this bishop had several times exposed himself to death to give the victims of the revolution the last spiritual aid, and to maintain the Catholic religion when Robespierre endeavoured to destroy it. The accusers, who dwelt upon the mention which had been made of the Countess in the national council of France, held by the bishops who had taken the oaths, and of which Monsignor Gregoire was a member. The inquisitors received secret informations of this affair; but no facts or heretical propositions were proved, and they had not courage to issue the orders for an arrest.