her daughter's conversion to
more reasonable views of mundane existence. The commencement of her
noviciate was no longer thought of, and her visits to the Carmelites
became sufficiently rare. But it was only a deferment of that calm
vocation, it being Anne de Bourbon's destiny to embrace it at the close
of her feverish political career.

[2] Brought to the scaffold by Richelieu in 1632.

This era of her entrance into the great world was probably the happiest,
the most joyous of the fair Bourbon's life. Lofty distinction of birth,
great personal beauty, and rare mental fascination, contributed to place
her in the very foremost rank of the Court circle--in the "height of
company"--conspicuous amongst lovely dames and distinguished men of the
time. Her peerless loveliness at once meeting with universal
recognition, "la belle Conde" was toasted with acclamation by courtiers,
young and old--at Chantilly, at Liancourt, at the Louvre, and at the
Hotel de Rambouillet. Contemporaries of either sex have rendered
unanimous testimony to the varied and exceptional character of her
attractions, and we will let a woman's pen add to Petitot's pencilling
some of those delicate traits which neither the burin nor even the vivid
tints of the enamel have the power to convey.

"Her beauty," says Mdme. de Motteville, "consisted more in the
brilliance of her complexion"--("it had the blush of the pearl," writes
another contemporary)--"than in perfection of feature. Her eyes were not
large, but bright, and finely cut, and of a blue so lovely it resembled
that of the turquoise. The poets could only apply the trite comparison
of lilies and roses to the carnation which mantled on her cheek, whilst
her fair, silken, luxuriant tresses, and the peculiar limpidity of her
glance, added to many other charms, made her more like an angel--so far
as our imperfect nature allows of our imagining such a being--than a
mere woman." Somewhat later, the smallpox, in robbing her of the bloom
of her beauty, still left her all its brilliancy, to repeat the remark
of that eminent connoisseur of female loveliness, Cardinal de Retz.

To sum up the general opinion of her contemporaries: Mdlle. de Bourbon
rather charmed by the very peculiar style of her countenance than by its
linear regularity. One of her greatest fascinations lay in an
indescribable languor, both of mind and manner--"a languor interrupted
at intervals," says De Retz, "by a sort of luminous awak