her life, she was as full of
vanity as if she were but twenty-five years of age; that she had the
same desire to please, and that she wore her mourning garb in so
charming a manner, that "the order of nature seemed changed, since age
and beauty could be found united." Ten years before, in 1647, at the age
of thirty-five, when Mazarin gave a comedy in the Italian style, that
is, an opera, there was in the evening a grand ball, and the Duchess de
Montbazon was present, adorned with pearls, with a red feather on her
head, and so dazzling in her appearance that the whole company was
completely charmed. We can imagine what she was in 1643, at the age of
thirty-one.

Of the two conditions of perfect beauty--strength and grace, Madame
de Montbazon possessed the first in the highest degree. She was tall
and majestic, and she had all the charms of embonpoint. Her throat
reminded one of the fulness, in this particular, of the antique
statues--exceeding them, perhaps, somewhat. What struck the beholder
most were her eyes and hair of intense blackness, upon a skin of the
most dazzling white. Her defect was a nose somewhat too prominent, with
a mouth so large as to give her face an appearance of severity. It will
be seen that she was the very opposite of Madame de Longueville. The
latter was tall, but not to excess. The richness of her form did not
diminish its delicacy. A moderate embonpoint exhibited, in full and
exquisite measure, the beauty of the female form. Her eyes were of the
softest blue; her hair of the most beautiful blonde. She had the most
majestic air, and yet her peculiar characteristic was grace. To these
were added the great difference of manners and tone. Madame de
Longueville was, in her deportment, dignity, politeness, modesty,
sweetness itself, with a languor and nonchalance which formed not her
least charm. Her words were few, as well as her gestures; the inflexions
of her voice were a perfect music.[1] The excess, into which she never
fell, might have been a sort of fastidiousness. Everything in her was
wit, sentiment, charm. Madame de Montbazon, on the contrary, was free of
speech, bold and easy in her tone, full of stateliness and pride.

[1] Villefore, p. 32.

The Duchess was, nevertheless, a very attractive creature when she
desired to be so, and such we must conceive her to have been if we would
take account of the admiration she excited, and not exactly like the
person which Cousin represents her