the most despicable of
them all, and certainly the most detested.

In pleasing contrast to the fashionable and often brilliant debauchees
of the court of Charles II. may be placed the Countess de Grammont, to
whom the description of the poet Fletcher applies:

"A woman of that rare behaviour,
So qualified, that admiration
Dwells round about her; of that perfect spirit,
That admirable carriage,
That sweetness in discourse--young as the morning,
Her blushes staining his."

She moved in the profligate sphere of the English court, and later
in that of France, without for a moment having the brilliancy of her
intellect, the acuteness of her wit, or the whiteness of her character
tarnished by vulgarity of action or of word. Importuned by lovers of
high degree for alliances that were not regarded as compromising in
that gay atmosphere, and, when it was found futile to seek to entice
her into an equivocal position, as ardently sought by the beaux for
the honorable relation of wife, she held them all at arm's length.
Strong and resolute, she, like a brilliant moth, circled about the
passionate flame of the English court without singeing her wings,
neither did she seek, by an adventitious flame of responsive passion,
to draw on to haplessness any of the courtiers who sought her with
ardent protestations of affection. Though light-hearted and vivacious,
she had none of the arts of a coquette; but when the persistence of
the Comte de Grammont convinced her, in spite of the scepticism which
her surroundings created, and of his known character of frivolity,
that in him she might find a faithful and devoted husband, she allowed
her heart to hold sway of her destiny and yielded herself in marriage
to him. It had been better for her, however, if she had remained a
maid of honor than to have become, by marriage to an unprincipled man,
a wife of dishonor. The exceptional worth of character, the brilliancy
of intellect, and the steadiness of purpose which La Belle Hamilton
exhibited, did not, in the eyes of the voluptuous count, constitute
a charm sufficient to wean him from his evil courses to a life of
consistency and of uprightness. Her husband lived to an advanced age,
yet she survived him a brief while. Her brother has left us a word
picture of her at about the time of her introduction to the court of
Charles II., which, in connection with her portrait by Sir Peter Lely,
leaves no doubt of her matchless charms. He sa