their dangerous power was extensively employed in influencing the
politics of Europe, and consequently had a large share in framing her
own destiny. A portrait in the possession of the late Duke de Luynes[1]
represents her as having an admirable figure, a charming expression of
countenance, large and well-opened blue eyes, chesnut-tinted fair hair
in great abundance, a well-formed neck, with the loveliest bust
possible, and throughout her entire person a piquant blending of
delicacy, grace, vivacity, and passion. The following summary of her
character by the clever, caustic, but little scrupulous De Retz, graphic
as it is, and based on a certain amount of truth, must not be
unhesitatingly accepted, it being over-coloured by wilful
exaggeration:--"I have never seen anyone else," says he, "in whom
vivacity so far usurped the place of judgment. It very often inspired
her with such brilliant sallies that they flashed like lightning, and so
sensible withal, that they might not have been disowned by the greatest
men of any age. The manifestation of this faculty was not confined to
particular occasions. Had she lived in times when politics were
non-existent, she would not have rested content with the idea only that
they ought to have been rife. If the Prior of the Carthusians had
pleased her, she would have become a sincere recluse. M. de Luynes
initiated her into politics, the Duke of Buckingham and the Earl of
Holland corresponded with her upon them, and Chateauneuf amused her with
them. She gave herself up to their pursuit because she abandoned
herself, without reserve, to everything which pleased the individual
whom she loved, and simply because it was indispensable that she should
love somebody. It was not even difficult to give her a lover by setting
an eligible suitor to pay her court with an ostensible political motive;
but as soon as she accepted him, she loved him solely and faithfully,
and she owned to Mdme. de Rhodes and myself that, through caprice, she
said, she had never really loved those whom she esteemed the most, with
the exception of the unfortunate George Villiers, Duke of Buckingham.
Devotion to the passion which in her might be called eternal, although
she might change the object of it, did not prevent even a fly from
causing her mental abstraction; but she always recovered from it with a
renewed exuberance which made such phases rather agreeable than
otherwise. No one ever took less heed about danger, an