carried gallantly,
majestically, gracefully; her mien noble; her smile most expressive; her
figure long, round, slender, easy, perfectly-shaped; her walk that of a
goddess upon the clouds: with such qualifications she pleased supremely.
Grace accompanied her every step, and shone through her manners and her
most ordinary conversation. An air always simple and natural, often
naive, but seasoned with wit-this with the ease peculiar to her, charmed
all who approached her, and communicated itself to them. She wished to
please even the most useless and the most ordinary persons, and yet
without making an effort to do so. You were tempted to believe her
wholly and solely devoted to those with whom she found herself. Her
gaiety--young, quick, and active--animated all; and her nymph-like
lightness carried her everywhere, like a whirlwind which fills several
places at once, and gives them movement and life. She was the ornament
of all diversions, the life and soul of all pleasure, and at balls
ravished everybody by the justness and perfection of her dancing. She
could be amused by playing for small sums but liked high gambling better,
and was an excellent, good-tempered, and bold gamester.

She spared nothing, not even her health, to gain Madame de Maintenon, and
through her the King. Her suppleness towards them was without example,
and never for a moment was at fault. She accompanied it with all the
discretion that her knowledge of them, acquired by study and experience,
had given her, and could measure their dispositions to an inch. In this
way she had acquired a familiarity with them such as none of the King's
children, not even the bastards, had approached.

In public, serious, measured, with the King, and in timid decorum with
Madame de Maintenon, whom she never addressed except as my aunt, thus
prettily confounding friendship and rank. In private, prattling,
skipping, flying around them, now perched upon the sides of their arm-
chairs, now playing upon their knees, she clasped them round the neck,
embraced them, kissed them, caressed them, rumpled them, tickled them
under the chin, tormented them, rummaged their tables, their papers,
their letters, broke open the seals, and read the contents in spite of
opposition, if she saw that her waggeries were likely to be received in
good part. When the King was with his ministers, when he received
couriers, when the most important affairs were under discussion, she was