moothly that I may die
tranquilly; and in great public affairs it is difficult, indeed, to
preserve one's conscience spotless.

I was born at Heidelberg (1652), in the seventh month. I am
unquestionably very ugly; I have no features; my eyes are small, my nose
is short and thick, my lips long and flat. These do not constitute much
of a physiognomy. I have great hanging cheeks and a large face; my
stature is short and stout; my body and my thighs, too, are short, and,
upon the whole, I am truly a very ugly little object. If I had not a
good heart, no one could endure me. To know whether my eyes give tokens
of my possessing wit, they must be examined with a microscope, or it will
be difficult to judge. Hands more ugly than mine are not perhaps to be
found on the whole globe. The King has often told me so, and has made me
laugh at it heartily; for, not being able to flatter even myself that I
possessed any one thing which could be called pretty, I resolved to be
the first to laugh at my own ugliness; this has succeeded as well as I
could have wished, and I must confess that I have seldom been at a loss
for something to laugh at. I am naturally somewhat melancholy; when
anything happens to afflict me, my left side swells up as if it were
filled with water. I am not good at lying in bed; as soon as I awake
I must get up. I seldom breakfast, and then only on bread and butter.
I take neither chocolate, nor coffee, nor tea, not being able to endure
those foreign drugs. I am German in all my habits, and like nothing in
eating or drinking which is not conformable to our old customs. I eat no
soup but such as I can take with milk, wine, or beer. I cannot bear
broth; whenever I eat anything of which it forms a part, I fall sick
instantly, my body swells, and I am tormented with colics. When I take
broth alone, I am compelled to vomit, even to blood, and nothing can
restore the tone to my stomach but ham and sausages.

I never had anything like French manners, and I never could assume them,
because I always considered it an honour to be born a German, and always
cherished the maxims of my own country, which are seldom in favor here.
In my youth I loved swords and guns much better than toys. I wished to
be a boy, and this desire nearly cost me my life; for, having heard that
Marie Germain had become a boy by dint of jumping, I took such terrible
jumps that it is a miracle I did not, on a hundred occasions, break my
neck. I was very