enings, as
surprising as they were delightful. This physical and intellectual
indolence presented later in life a piquant contrast to her
then"--according to Mdme. de Motteville--"somewhat too passionate
temperament." She was of good height, and altogether of an admirable
form. It is evident also, from the authentic portraits of her still
extant, that she had that kind of attraction so much prized during the
seventeenth century, and which, with beautiful hands, had made the
reputation of Anne of Austria. In speech, we are told, she was very
gentle. Her gestures, with the expression of her countenance, and the
sound of her voice, produced the most perfect music. But her peculiar
charm consisted in a graceful ease--a languor, as all her contemporaries
expressed it--which would quickly change to the highest degree of
animation when stirred by emotion, but which usually gave her an air of
indolence and aristocratic _nonchalance_, sometimes mistaken for
_ennui_, sometimes for disdain.

Crediting the unvarying testimony of these and other of her
contemporaries, the daughter of Bourbon-Conde must have been at least as
beautiful as her mother--endowed, indeed, with almost every attribute
and feature of female loveliness.

"Beauty," remarks a philosophic panegyrist of physical perfection,
"extends its prestige to posterity itself, and attaches a charm for
centuries to the name alone of the privileged creatures upon whom it has
pleased heaven to bestow it." Beauty has also its epochs. It does not
belong to all men and to all ages to enjoy it in its exquisite
perfection. As there are fashions which spoil it, so there are periods
which affect its sentiment. For instance, it belonged to the eighteenth
century to invent _pretty_ women--charming dolls--all powder, patches,
and perfume, affecting the attractions which they did not possess under
their vast hoops and great furbelows. Let us venture to say that the
foundation of true beauty, as of true virtue, as of true genius, is
strength. Shed over this strength the vivifying rays of elegance, grace,
delicacy, and you have beauty. Its perfect type is the Venus of
Milo,[3] or again, that pure and mysterious apparition, goddess or
mortal, which is called Psyche, or the Venus of Naples.[4] Beauty is
certainly to be seen in the Venus de' Medici, but in that type we feel
that it is declining, or about to decline. Look at, not the women of
Titian, but the virgins of Raphael and Leonardo: t