_Margaret Maultasch_ (Vol. iv., p. 56.).--Your correspondent who
inquires where he can meet with the particulars of the life of Margaret,
surnamed _Maultasch_, Countess of Tyrol, will find them in the
Supplement of the _Biographie Universelle_, vol. lxxiii. p. 136.
The great heiress in question, though a monster of ugliness, was twice
married: first to John Henry, son of Wenceslaus, King of Bohemia (1331),
from whom she procured a divorce on the plea of his incapacity; and,
secondly (1341), to Louis of Bavaria, eldest son of the Emperor Louis
IV., by whom she had a son, Mainard, who died without issue during his
mother's lifetime.
I know not upon what authority rest the imputed irregularities of her
life, but her biographer, in the article above mentioned, casts no such
slur upon her character. Nor can I discover that the armorial bearings
of the town of Halle, in Tyrol, have any such significant meaning as has
been hinted at. They are to be found in Matthew Merian's _Topographia
Provinciarum Austriacarum_, printed at Frankfort on the Maine in 1649,
engraved on the view of Halle, at p. 139., and appear to be _a cask or
barrel, supported by two lions_. There is _no_ statue of Margaret
Maultasch among those which surround the mausoleum of Emperor
_Maximilian_ (not _Matthias_) in the Franciscan church at Inspruck; but
her ludicrously hideous features may be found amongst the historical
portraits engraved in the magnificent work descriptive of the Museum of
Versailles, published a few years ago at Paris, under the auspices of
King Louis Philippe.